I was jolted awake by the sound of a car door slamming. I had bedded down in the only chair in the motel room, with my head leaning against the slightly open widow, for just this reason. I had wanted to hear anyone who happened to be spending too much time in front of my room. That's also the reason that I had parked the Dodge I had taken in New Orleans out in the center parking section, leaving the spot in front of my room empty. I heard a rough whispered reprimand regarding the noise of the slammed door, and then heard the muffled sound of a second car door closing.

I peeked out of the small crack in the curtain, knowing that I was all but invisible in the totally darkened room, and saw the plain black sedan parked in the parking space directly in front of the door to my room. Standing at the rear of the car were two men, very similarly built and both with short military style haircuts. They looked almost like twins in plain black suits, looking around nervously. A quick survey of the parking lot showed two more men trotting out of the motel office, where I was sure they had shown the night clerk a badge and received a key to my room in exchange. A third set of twins was getting out of another black sedan, and though I would have liked to know if that was all, I was already moving.

I grabbed the little back pack which was my only luggage, and headed to the bathroom. I pushed the screen off of the already open window, and wriggled through into a ten yard wide strip of knee high weeds and grass between the back of the motel and the fence. I dropped the screen back into the room, and pulled the window closed behind me. I ran to the end of the row of motel rooms, ducked around the fence, and stopped behind a good sized oak, and peaked back toward my now vacant room just as one of the sets of twins came trotting around the far end of the building, no doubt to make sure that the successful escape that I had just executed would not be possible.

I backed away from the tree, never taking my eyes off the men behind the motel, until I reached the edge of the two lane black top which served as the main drag for Winfield, Texas. I trotted east along the road, toward the little tote the note car lot I had seen there the previous afternoon when I had got into town. I had planned on staying at the motel for at least one more day, maybe two, and then heading on into Dallas. I didn't need to be there until Monday, and staying in a big city, where there were lots of police officers and federal offices, was not a good idea by any stretch of the imagination. So I had planned on being here until tomorrow, which was Saturday, and possibly until Sunday if I wasn't nervous, and then on into Big D which was only another hundred miles or so west, but now it was time for a new plan.

I reached the car lot, and started trying doors. The sixth car I tried, a ten year old Honda Civic, was unlocked, and I was in, had the wires stripped, and the car started in about three minutes. I hated leaving the Dodge Charger that I had brought from New Orleans, but the civic would blend a little better, and any attention at all would be bad attention. I pulled out onto the blacktop, heading back east, and about ten minutes later, I was on Interstate 30, heading west toward Dallas.

© 2009 Pat Patterson