1. So Somebody Knows What Happened To Me

I´m writing this to leave an account of who took me and what happened. I don’t expect it will save me or make my kidnappers face any kind of justice, but I do hope it will someday be found and relayed to my loved ones so they can move on from this sorry affair. I also want to keep my many years of researching El Mulato from perishing with me. Too bad I didn’t write it all down when I could have done it in peace instead of in the pitiful situation I'm in now. No use in complaining now. I have to make the most of whatever my situation allows. It has probably cost me my life.

It’s the first Tuesday in April 2009. I know this because I was brought here Sunday, which was the last day of March. I don’t know exactly where I am. I only know that they haven’t yet taken me out of El Mulato, although they must think they have fooled me into believing they hauled me a long distance from where they picked me up. They drove around in circles with me lying in the rear compartment of their Laredo wrapped in duct tape from head to toe, but they never went far on the road to Ojinaga, which is the only road out of El Mulato. I know that road like the part in my hair, and we never went far on it, and we never made it up Juarez Hill or across the arroyo bordering the old Tapacolmes hacienda headquarters.

They have said very little to me. Even when they grabbed me, only one man spoke. “Easy, easy,” he said as he gripped my hair from the back of my head, “we already have you.” Jabbing a big-barreled semiautomatic pistol into my left eye, he pushed me onto the rear floor of either a high-ridding SUV or a double-cab pickup. Someone was waiting there with a strip of tape that was immediately put over m...y eyes and mouth. It happened so fast that I was not able to see anybody’s face. I could only tell by the smell that the tape they were using was ordinary grey duct tape. They continued wrapping me with the tape until I was completely immobilized. In the process, they checked and emptied all of my pockets. Then somebody who was in the cab with me got out and started up my truck, while another person opened the driver’s side of the vehicle I was in and drove us away. I could hear my truck following at least for a short while. Nobody said anything more to me. I did not hear the kidnappers say anything even to each other. They never turned on the radio or played music on their car stereo.

The vehicle kept driving for hours, going alternatively slow and fast. I could tell that we occasionally made sharp turns. When we stopped moving, we were only a few of steps away from the house I’m now in. The driver opened the rear cabin door and yanked me up like I was a bale of alfalfa. In no more than three steps, we were in the room where I’m being kept. I was let fall on the floor. With a heavy high-heeled boot on my head to keep me facing away, the tape I was wrapped in was cut so I could free my hands and arms. “You can take off the rest after you hear the door close,” I was told. “Just make sure not to look out the window or the guard will shoot you,” I was warned. The admonition was underscored by somebody instructing the guard in a voice loud enough to ensure I heard that I was to be immediately shot if I was caught peaking out the window. I am not sure, but I believe that all of the talking was done by the same person who grabbed me at the start.

I did not dare begin peeling the tape off me until I heard the vehicle drive away. It took me a long time and a lot of trouble to get all the tape off. The sun had set by the time my eyes were free and my vision had adjusted to the darkness in the room. My only solace is that I know I'm still in the general vicinity of El Mulato. It´s a quiet area. I can't hear any vehicular or pedestrian traffic ...or, for that matter, any man-made noise outside. Even the guard, however many they may be, are silent and still. I'm in a spot that is either far away from the road or located at the bottom of the valley where the road comes to a dead end. There´s a narrow transom above the only door to the room, but the moon is so new that it reflects little light into the room.

I can tell I'm in a saddle room attached to somebody's farm house. Whose house? Exactly where? I don´t know. There are no saddles or implements of any kind here, but the smell of leather and wool from yesteryear permeate the room. The floor and plaster on the walls are made of concrete. I can smell the traditional coating of used motor oil on the floor. I'm thankful that all of the saddlery and materials that normally pile up in rooms like these have been removed. Old saddle rooms are well-known heavens for rattlesnakes, scorpions, vinagrones, and countless other creatures that bite.