VILLA AHUMADA, Mexico -- For people in Mexico's drug corridors, life is about keeping their heads down and watching their backs, especially when the sun dips below the cactus-studded horizon.
No town knows this better than Villa Ahumada, where the entire police force quit after 70 cartel hit men roared through last spring, killing the police chief, two officers and three townspeople.
Residents were left defenseless again last week when gunmen returned and kidnapped nine people, despite the soldiers manning checkpoints far outside town.
"This was a mellow town where we would walk along main street at night. But now we're too scared to even go out," said Zaida de Santiago.
For this 14-year-old, everything changed last May 17. She was dancing at a neighbor's ranch when gunfire sounded. The party's hosts turned off the lights and silenced the music. The guests stood frozen, listening to the sound of automatic weapons as the gunmen raced down gravel streets in their SUVs.
When the sun rose hours later, the party guests learned that the police chief and five others had been killed. Soon after, the rest of the 20-member force quit.
"That day will always remain burned in my mind," Santiago said.
Federal investigators say that Villa Ahumada is a key stop on one of Mexico's busiest drug-smuggling routes, where the Sinaloa cartel has been challenging the Juarez gang for control. The military mans checkpoints miles outside town, and soldiers and federal police roll through each day, but residents are largely left on their own.
Sliced by a railroad and the PanAmerican Highway heading straight to the U.S. border, the town is one of many outposts across Mexico -- many of them too small to appear on maps -- that cartels need to dominate in order to ensure passage of their U.S.-bound marijuana and cocaine. The town of 15,000 is about 80 miles south of El Paso, Texas.
"In the small towns, the narcos want to have an open sesame," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "They want to be able to pass through as they see fit, and they've got the muscle to enforce that, but it's unfortunate for the residents. This is where you've got enclaves of failure."
Cartels treat these towns as fiefdoms -- in some communities, everyone from the furniture-store owner to the barman to local officials pay a kind of tax to the gunmen, border expert Victor Clark said. The extortion not only gives gangs an extra income, it also makes clear who is boss.
"In land occupied by organized crime, society's rules are completely altered," said Clark, a lecturer at San Diego State University who has studied one such town in the Mexican state of Baja California. "This is their territory, and you pay them for protection, or they will kill you."
Villa Ahumada has been without a city police force since May, unable to find anyone brave enough to take the job. Even Mayor Fidel Chavez fled for a time to the state capital, Chihuahua City, last year. After the army and state police pledged to have more of a presence in town, he returned and put 10 residents in charge of reporting suspicious activities to the authorities.
But there was little that these unarmed citizen patrols could do when heavily armed assailants in black ski masks drove SUVs into town last week, kicking in doors and carting off nine residents in blindfolds.
They called state authorities, closed their office and fled.
The gunmen had already executed six of the hostages near a desolate ranch called El Vergel, about 30 minutes north of town, by the time soldiers arrived. The other three kidnapped men were rescued as soldiers rappelled into the desert from helicopters to chase those fleeing on foot.
By the time the shooting stopped, 14 suspected gunmen and one soldier were dead, and townspeople felt more desperate than ever.
"We want some authority here. They kill here and no one does anything," complained a frail 67-year-old woman, gripping a cane as she walked past crumbling adobe homes.
Her daughter stopped her from giving her name, warning: "They might kill our entire family if you do."
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