66
You manage to find your way back to the roadster without running into the clansmen and waste no time in making a hasty escape from Eldorado. The enemy are slow to react to your getaway and you are more than ten miles from the town before you see their headlights in your driving mirror. Your speedy escape may have wrong-footed them, but they have caught up quickly. Fearing that you will not be able to outrun them, you leave the highway and hide your roadster behind a rocky ridge that runs parallel to the road. The sound of their engines grows louder as they approach, and then fades quickly as the pack roars past, oblivious to your presence. With the immediate threat now gone, you decide to remain where you are and get a few hours sleep before continuing your journey at dawn.
In the clear light of early morning you can see for miles across the rocky plain that surrounds the highway south of Eldorado. It appears empty, although you remain on the alert every second of your drive to Sonora, the next town marked on your map, for it is in this direction that the Angelinos were heading when they passed you last night. You are less than a mile from the ruins of Sonora when you are greeted by the welcome sight of Interstate 10, stretching east-to-west across your path. This is the freeway you hope will take you all the way to your rendezvous with the colony at Kent, and then on through the mountains to El Paso.
You join the freeway and enjoy the feel of a firmer, clearer road surface beneath your wheels as you begin the long drive west. Still you can see no sign of the Angelinos, and Kate voices her hope that they have decided to search Sonora, thinking you may have hidden there last night. You want to agree with her, but suddenly, in the distance, you see something that proves her wrong.
