As told in the previous post, the trail of the thief ended that morning in front of a high fenced, gringo laden RV park in the middle of nowhere. We were greeted by the owner, a white haired old guy with a gold chain, a billfish tournament t-shirt, and a Tecate Light in hand. He was at first a bit offended that we would presume a “bandito” would come anywhere near his compound. As he stated, he had “lots of guns and dogs” to protect himself and his tenants, and he made it clear that he was anxious for the opportunity to shoot any Mexican crook that tried to steal from him. From the way he spoke everything AR15 related and about a few snipers, he sounded like he could take on anything which came at him.

His gruff demeanor soon softened a bit, however. We told him that we’d tracked the thief down a convoluted path about a mile away, and I think it struck his Rambo nerve. All of his Soldier of Fortune magazines had always described such a thing, but to meet a couple of gringos that could actually follow a bandito through the sand truly made him happy. He took us in like we were one of his own.

His penchant for violence was a bit unnerving, but he did say he would do some digging for us and try to help us out. He sent us away as he decried Canadian and Mexican gun laws and almost broke into a Charleton Heston inspired Star Spangled Banner that boiled up from his love for the NRA and our corporate, er, I mean national, gun policy.

The curse of the lantern, and the subsequent crime that has stricken us, has had us talking much about justice lately. We are in a country where people laugh at you when you tell them you are going to file a police report. We have been told by the locals that to get something done, you have to offer a reward. Not a reward to the citizenry to motivate your neighbor to do police work. But to the police…to motivate them to do police work. Katie and Bri did go to the police station to file a report, which they scribbled on a notepad and almost certainly filed in the waste basket before the door swung closed.

So Rob and I searched for the thief ourselves, hoping to confront the criminal and keep the job in house. The militant Canadian at least talked as if he espoused a similar vigilante method, if not a more violent one. And we’ve found that we can’t really trust the police to do their job or to keep their hands out of innocent peoples’ pockets. None of these types of justice are appropriate in a modern society, but they seem to be the natural direction of drift when we humans are left to our own devices. 

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