Chapter 27

Those muscles hadn’t developed overnight. At one time, probably as a child, Efren would have felt this same burn threatening to crush him and worked through it. It would take Marcelo a little longer to accomplish the same task as it would a conditioned man, but he could do it. He would do it.

The shadows had moved more than he liked, and he’d taken another trip to the creek before completing his task, but he wore a weak yet satisfied smile as he patted the last shovelful of dirt onto the mound that marked the double grave.

“I did it,” he murmured, and tossed the bloody-handled shovel into the footwell of the wagon. It lay alone there now. He’d buried the driver’s weaponry along with those that had been confiscated from the camp in a separate, smaller hole. All that remained in the wagon were that shovel, the hay bale, the tarp, and the remains of the gag and rope that had bound him.