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down there in Mexico? That'll be the first place they look for you, Church. My house is bound to be the second. We need to get out of the county... even the state... do you have any ideas?"
    "I have to find my mother... that's why I came back. I think she's in trouble."
    "I understand she left town a few days back... Lucy at the travel agency comes into the diner regularly. I overheard her saying your mother bought a plane ticket to Miami... do you known anyone who lives there, Church? Do you have relatives in Florida?"
    "No one... originally my mother and my aunt came from Cuba... is it possible she's trying to go back there? It'd make sense... I imagine she could hire a boat to take her to the island. It's only a short distance from Miami."
    "Miami it is then... do you have any money, Church?"
    "Money is one thing I have plenty of... but do you really want to get mixed up in all this, Tree? It could be dangerous."
    "No, Church... I want to spend the rest of my life stuck in the booming town of Guthrie waiting on tables at that thriving diner and getting pinched on the ass by all the drooling old men without any couth and even fewer teeth."
    "I just want to be sure you know what you're getting into... we could be arrested if we try entering Cuba illegally... and I don’t know of any other way to get there."
    "We ain't waiting on me, Church. Let's go."

Chapter 3
    On the day Yanielle Gutiérrez arrived at the Triple Six she felt as if she'd finally made it home.
    The owner and man of the vast ranch and enormous hacienda, a man named Rancher Ford, seemed to have taken as much of a liking to her as she had to him. Though she knew the man happened to be married to another woman she soon found herself giving over to him without a second thought.
    "He loves me as I do him. He'll take care of me."
    She sensed the love he professed might well be a lie yet she believed it anyway. Most men frightened her... even boys. They all seemed to desire the same thing and they were rough about it too. She'd rather be alone than to risk an encounter with such beasts.
    Rancher Ford seemed different. Not only was he a man of substance, he treated his workers well. She'd worked her way across Texas picking fruit and cutting asparagus before landing in Guthrie. All the other farmers acted as if they owned her. One particularly nasty old man had even tried to have his way with her until he realized she carried the asparagus knife in her back pocket and wasn’t afraid to use it.
    She left town after that. Another of her compañeros had regaled her with tales of how it took nearly a hundred stitches to put the nasty bugger back together and how his gut had been severed so badly that he'd have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.
    She felt glad. Maybe the next time a pretty girl happened his way the old coot might think twice before trying to take her against her will. He must've thought she was just another girl when in fact Yani had suffered a fate far more horrible than being raped by a man with no asshole.
    She'd survived the worst that life threw at her. Betrayal was the norm for Yani. Her family had forsaken her long ago. She expected nothing yet when Rancher Ford looked her way she found herself melting into his arms without a struggle.
    On the night they first made love and he mounted her it hurt like she was being split in two and she remembered how she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a tiny screech like a dying bird or perhaps the same song the Virgin Mother Mary might have sang when she saw her Son so cruelly nailed to the cross yet afterwards Yani clung to the man lying on top of her as if he was life itself.
    It bothered her how he must not have realized it was her first time. Shouldn’t a man know such things? Perhaps he mistook her for a puta... a whore... a girl who spread her legs for any man who paid her some small attentions. She supposed she couldn’t blame him.
    Yani didn't consider Rancher Ford a handsome man yet