Escape from Tucson: Day 10 – Friday (early morning)

Crap! What did I get myself into?

Yesterday after I got done writing sometime around mid-day (maybe a bit later) I watered up and started towards Wilcox. Yeah, very cautiously, I was still a little spooked by the vibes I was getting yesterday just before I stopped walking for the day. Beans was kind of freaked out too, or she was picking up on my mood. I almost turned around. But I don’t have a lot of choice here…no real options on getting around Wilcox. The town is on the left and a bunch of subdivision looking areas on the right. Going through town I am stuck in between the two. I gotta get through town but I am not liking this one single bit, no sir.

The service road that runs along the tracks was on the northwest / west side of the tracks, lots of brush along both sides of the tracks. Actually there are two sets of tracks, the main line and another set of tracks that is kind of rusty. Must be for parking the repair trains. Off about a hundred yards to my left (northwest) was a huge agriculture field. It is barren right now, no idea what was planted in it before. I wonder if they will ever plant it again with the pumps needing electricity and all.

As I approached town it was no big deal walking, no one around really, easy walking. Less than an hour into it I start hear a low murmur, not a quiet one, but one that sounds like it is off in the distance. I was kind of wrong, it was a mummer but not very far away. I could smell them first, then I saw the chain link fence. It had been some big gravel yard or cement plant, something like that. It was a fairly good size area. It was laid out like a big trapezoid with the base measuring about seven hundred to eight hundred feet and it was maybe three or four hundred feet to the far side of the fenced enclosure. So maybe five acres or so I guess. But, that is not the important part…the people were. There must have been four or five hundred people in there. I saw men, women, and children of all ages. They were just there in the chain link area with a single connex box in the middle. I have no idea what the connex box was for, the doors were on the side away from me.

I found a good hiding spot and watched the area for a while. Every once in a while a group of men would come up to a gate on the far side. They would talk to some guards, I am guessing they were guards. The guards would get a group of folks out of the fenced area and send them with the men that had approached the gate. Sometimes it was just men that would be selected, sometimes what looked like entire families. When it was just men that were selected to be removed, there would be women, and sometimes kids, that would be hollering and crying, clinging onto the men. The guards would force them away from each other and off the men would go…like slaves. They were always tied together with ropes. I am thinking this is some kind of holding prison and they are being used as labor, slave labor. I never saw people being brought back to the fenced area, only taken.

I knew I couldn’t stay here, not this close, way too dangerous. And I am telling you right now…there is no way I am going to be put into something like that! The bad part…I have no gun to defend myself. I got to change that, I’m just not sure how. Not being able to defend myself against violence is the worst threat I face. One guy with a gun, even a 22cal single shot rifle could end it all in one shot and I would never have a chance. I should have packed a gun, somehow I should have had some kind of a gun with me when I traveled!

Anyways, I walked about a half mile or so closer to Wilcox and found a decent clump of brush off the tracks about two hundred feet or so. I am staying put till dark and then I am getting through Wilcox and not looking back. I gotta get out of here, way too dangerous!

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