The Devil's Highway
A True Story
Chapter One
The Rules of the Game
Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn't know their
own names, couldn't remember where they'd come from, had forgotten how long
they'd been lost. One of them wandered back up a peak. One of them was barefoot.
They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool
still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they
walked. Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear.
Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat, standing in crowns from their
scalps, old sweat because their bodies were no longer sweating. They were drunk
from having their brains baked in the pan, they were seeing God and devils, and
they were dizzy from drinking their own urine, the poisons clogging their
systems.
They were beyond rational thought. Visions of home fluttered through their
minds. Soft green bushes, waterfalls, children, music. Butterflies the size of
your hand. Leaves and beans of coffee plants burning through the morning mist as
if lit from within. Rivers. N ... read full excerpt from The Devil's Highway ebook
