River

"The story of Sonora is as old and as long as the Sonora River".

At least that's how the first few lines of some history books start.

After the last incident, I tried to stand away from the highways. The jeep can take it, I knew that. The state is not exactly flat, but it was pleasant enough to avoid some natural hazards as well. I had to check on the tires at least a few times, though. The past owners were not exactly kind to the car, and the tires showed signs of heavy use.

The dry desert stretched on for hours as I was driving along, and I could a few cars that have been abandoned in the highway. Not as many as in Hermosillo, but there were plenty.
During the travel, I stopped through several of the smaller towns, making quick runs for fuel and food, but I had to leave quickly and going around the cities, instead of rushing through. I wasn't gonna take my chances on finding anyone there.

However, the nearby villages alongside the Sonora River were of great use. These smaller towns, mostly run by farmers and ranchers, were far less dependent on technology, and better prepared to fend for themselves. There was, however, a lot of people in them. Most of them refugees that came from the nearby cities, many of them were young, and did not know how to work the fields or to take care of the cattle. Most of them tried to work a living in whatever they could do: Menial work, some of them were doctors, but even with their knowledge, they had to learn about herbs and actual pharmaceutical work, mixing reactives and so. And then there were the thieves and whores. People with no actual skill, and many of them from formerly wealthy families that thought that, with their names, they might have stuff.

Tough fucking luck. Many of them began to learn that, with isolation, came with its own set of laws and rules. It's not to say that they're savages, but most of the farmers and ranchers were not going to tolerate some snot-nosed kid or wise-ass bastard to be stealing, so the law of the land was the law of the gun or the noose. They learned slowly, but they learned.

I traded some of the stuff I brought with me: The extra guns, a book or two (a couple of novels and a field guide to wilderness survival I just read and remember by heart), some meds they'd need; all for some water, food (I missed red meat quite a lot), and some eggs. The I trated with, and old man named Fabian, told me that some of the towns had been taken over either by the military, or the drug cartels, and that they were having all sorts of skirmishes, and that they survived because of the isolation and the roughness of the terrain (I can't say where this town is, for their safety).

I thanked Fabian, and asked him if he knew anything about Nogales. He told me it was a bad place to go, and that if I was thinking of hoping the border, it was a lost cause.

Maybe it was, but it's better than nothing, I can only try, at this rate