Then the Subaru station wagon ahead of me with a DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS bumper sticker moves ahead a few feet and stops.

More waiting.

I lower the driver’s-side window, stick my head out, get drenched.

All I see ahead of me are the line of cars and the red taillights.

Another five minutes slip by.

Another five miles lost.

I roll up the window, lean over to the passenger’s seat, take out my atlas and a road map of this part of Texas that I got from a service station an hour ago. There’s got to be another way out of here. With my four-wheel drive I could scoot across the grass median, get on the highway heading northeast, find a state road that will at least get me headed in the right direction.

Somebody hammers at my window.

I yelp in surprise, drop the maps, thrust my hand into my open leather bag, and grab my revolver.

CHAPTER 44

A HISPANIC male, thin mustache, black hair flattened down by the rain, eyes wide with fear or terror, wearing a soaked checked shirt and blue jeans, slams both hands again on my window.

“Por favor!” he yells. “Please! Mi familia! My family! They’re drowning!”

I roll down the window, keeping the other hand with the revolver hidden. “What?”

He points down at the length of stalled cars. “Mi familia! They are in my car! Por favor! Help me rescue them! Your Jeep! Please!”

My first thought is brutally honest and real. Sucks to be you, I immediately think, because I need to get moving to rescue my Tom and Denise. A few hours ago I almost murdered an innocent Tennessee police officer, up close and personal. It wouldn’t take much to abandon this terrified father and husband.

Then, just as quickly, I’m ashamed of what just went through my mind, and a calmer voice makes an appearance: Help this guy out right now, you can get the traffic moving, it’ll be faster than trying to puzzle out the maps to find an alternate route.

I shout, “Get in!” and I toss the maps in the back, along with my revolver, now in my leather bag. He runs past the front of my Wrangler, gets into the passenger’s side, soaking everything, and he says, “Hurry! ¡Rápido! ¡Rápido! Please!”

I put the Jeep into reverse, slam it into first, start driving down the side of the road, half of the Wrangler on pavement, the other half on the muddy median. Up ahead two pickup trucks have pulled over and I roll up, and there are a couple of men there, in cowboy hats and long yellow rain slickers, and they wave me on, past torn-up grass and dirt where it looks like a vehicle has skidded off the highway.

As I slow down, my passenger jumps out and I put the Jeep into park, step out.

The rain’s heavier.

I take in the scene in one long, hard glance.

To the right is a plain concrete bridge, two-lane, spanning what was probably a trickling stream, but not today. It’s a roaring, racing river, with torrents and whitecaps and sprays of spume, and down the muddy grass embankment, there are a line of people, holding hands, trying to get to an overturned red Chevrolet in the rapids.