Authors: Sharon Woods Hopkins
The two men she’d spotted earlier were no longer at
the rear of the substation. Rhetta feared they must already be inside the chain
link fencing. Probably well on their way to disabling the transformer or destroying
it, like they’d done to the other substations.
She sucked in a deep breath to free her mind from
the fear worming into her brain. Ignoring the little voice that kept telling
her to get the hell out of there, she regrouped mentally. The time had come, and
she and Woody were the only ones left to stop the attack. Now that Woody was
down, it was up to her.
Nearing the front of the substation, she ducked
under the orange beam of light and surveyed the fence. It was intact. No sign
of the terrorists.
Crouching again, holding the rifle across her arms,
she rounded the corner and stiffened. Two men in black pants and hooded
sweatshirts were hunkered over, busying themselves at the fence. Their bolt
cutters had succeeded in freeing a man-sized hole in the chain link. One man
began easing himself through. Rhetta stood and took aim.
“Hold it right there, assholes!” she screamed.
Instantly, one man inside sprinted off along the fence. The other turned and
fired at her, the bullet zinging close enough to her that she yelped. She
raised the weapon, tried to aim, then fired. Missed. She fired again. Missed
again. “Crap,” she yelled and fired once more. This time the man dropped. Pain
ripped through her shoulder. Woody had warned her about the recoil. The
vibrating pain shot down her arm and back up to her neck, like the devil was
tuning her arm with a hot wire.
Where’s the other one?
He’d run, but where was he?
Then she spotted him. He had stepped away from the
fence and was taking aim at her. Her heart thudded. Without dropping the rifle,
she threw herself to the ground, her recoil-bruised shoulder absorbing the
brunt of her fall.
“Oww, dammit,” she cried, rolling on to her back.
Something whizzed past her head and slammed into a nearby tree. Bark flew and
she heard another
pfft
. Then another. He was shooting at her with a
silenced weapon.
Rhetta swung the rifle up and fired. She missed. The
dark figure quit shooting. Maybe she knocked the gun out of his hand.
A
miracle
. Then she saw him sprinting for the rear of the substation. Rhetta
fired again. There was only a click.
Empty
.
Damn
.
Using the rifle to hoist herself up, she struck out
gimping painfully, determined to stop him from reaching his ride. Her foot
glanced off the automatic weapon he’d thrown down. She snatched it up, pointed
it at him, and fired. Empty.
Of course it was. He’d tossed it. No miracles.
In spite of limping, she closed in on him. She still
had Woody’s rifle. She formed a quick plan—threaten to shoot him if he didn’t
surrender. Before she could shout at him to put his hands up, he stretched out
his arm and pointed a device toward his ride. The SUV motor turned over.
Remote
start.
Damn
. He snatched the door open and turned toward her. In
frustration she screamed, “Stop, you son of a bitch!” He didn’t.
The man’s hoodie had slipped back, baring his head.
Illuminated briefly by the SUV’s interior light, the clear image of his swarthy
face, thin mustache, and black hair seared into her brain.
Placing two fingers at his temple, he paused long
enough to salute her before jumping behind the wheel. He barreled straight at
her. Pivoting on her injured foot, she managed to hop sideways with barely a
millimeter between the wheels and her feet.
Rhetta threw the rifle at the side of the dark green
SUV as it passed within inches of her feet. The weapon bounced off the car and
clattered to the ground. She limped over and retrieved it.
“Crap, crap, crap,” she groused as she hobbled to
check the man she’d shot. She stopped at the gaping hole in the fence and
peered at her fallen quarry. He hadn’t moved. Maybe she’d killed him. Then she
heard him moan. He made no attempt to rise, but stayed on the ground, on his
side, moaning. Changing direction, she made her way back to Woody, who had not
changed positions since she left him earlier.
“I let one get away, Woody. I’m a terrible shot.”
She set the rifle down. “You said to conserve my rounds, and it took me three
to get one guy. I clearly missed the last one. Damn. Damn. Damn.” With each
“damn” she pummeled her thighs with clenched fists.
Although the summer night air was sultry, Rhetta’s
teeth began to chatter. She dropped to her knees alongside Woody. In spite of
his pain, Woody tried to grin. “Hey, you got one at least, and you’re all
right. And the substation is still running.” He held up his hand in a high
five. “We stopped them. No more cascading power failure.” Rhetta took a second
before she met his palm with her own. Woody lay back. “Now, how we gonna get
out of here?”
A high-pitched rising and falling wail pierced the
dark silence.
“The police. Thank God,” Rhetta came out of her
chilled daze and stood. “I’ll go meet them. They’ll call an ambulance.” With
her ankle throbbing mightily, she shuffled down the driveway to the road. Her
shoulder still vibrated from the recoil.
Two enormous screaming fire trucks followed by a
volunteer firefighter driving a pickup with a cab crowned in flashing lights
caromed by without slowing down. Rhetta waved her good arm to the parade of
trucks and cars behind the emergency vehicles. No one noticed her. Every one of
them was heading to the same place, to the flames shooting a hundred feet in
the air from a stack of round hay bales about a quarter of a mile away.
Oh, crap!
Cami.
No one noticed Rhetta as she shuffled to the edge of
the onlookers, mesmerized by the fire gobbling the farmer’s entire reserve of
winter hay. And her beautiful car.
Two more fire trucks screamed past, slowing just
enough to make the sharp turn into the burning field.
“Well, ain’t this somethin’,” muttered a Lookey Lou
as he pulled off a beat up ball cap and ran his gnarled hand through what was
left of his thinning white hair. “Guess Ralph’ll hafta buy hay fer his cattle
after this.” He spit a long stream of tobacco. Two men and a woman turned to
locate the origin of the foul torrent. In unison, they stepped sideways, giving
the old man a wide berth.
“Surely he has insurance,” answered a middle-aged
woman clad in gray sweat pants and a black T-shirt. The woman stepped over the
nasty wad to stand upwind of the projectile spitter.
“Seems someone parked a car by them bales and caught
it all afire,” said Lou. “Wonder who the damn fool was that done that?”
That would be me
. Rhetta shifted trying to find a
comfortable position. In addition to her ankle pain and her throbbing shoulder,
her oversized sneakers were rubbing blisters on her feet.
She wasn’t about to let these good folks know the
damn fool was inches away.
Do they still lynch people out in the country?
They might if they knew she’d just burned up Ralph’s hay.
Another siren powered down as a Scott County Sheriff’s
patrol car eased past the onlookers. It parked crossways, blocking the road,
effectively stopping any advance the crowd might make toward the flames. Two
deputies leapt out of the car and began dispersing the crowd.
“All right everyone, time to go home,” the taller of
the two uniforms said as he wove through the crowd, waving his hands as though
shooing away pesky dogs.
“The show’s over, folks,” the rotund second deputy
chimed in. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and marched forward.
“Naw, it’s a long way from over,” said Lou and
contorted his mouth to launch again. The crowd parted.
The wad landed a few feet from the sweatpants-clad
woman, who protested loudly and stepped to the other side of the crowd, out of
harm’s way.
After several minutes of prodding by the officers,
the crowd began thinning. Groups of two and three ambled down the road,
probably toward their respective homes.
“You suppose them hooligans from up Scott City set
the fire?” The old man didn’t ask anyone in particular. He looked around as
though expecting someone to chime in. No one apparently knew which hooligans in
particular the old guy was referring to. The question hung unanswered.
Rhetta remained transfixed, staring at the burned
out hulk that was once her beloved Camaro. The adrenaline sustaining her at the
substation had drained away. Fatigue and sorrow closed in.
“Ma’am?” asked the rotund lawman who walked up to
her. Most of the crowd, including Lookey Lou had melted away. “Ma’am?” he
repeated. “You need to leave now. It’s all over.”
The deputy had exaggerated a bit in saying it was
all over. Did he think she couldn’t see the flames still licking the sky?
Rhetta shook her head, mostly to clear away the images of her burning car. And
to revive. “I, uh, don’t have a ride, Deputy. Besides, I need to report we shot
three people.”
Scott County’s version of a chubby Barney Fife
snapped to attention. “You shot three people?” His eyes grew wide. “Where?”
She pointed to the substation. He snatched her
wrist, said, “Come with me,” and began tugging her toward the taller officer.
“This woman says she shot three people,” said the
panting officer as he skidded to a stop in front of his fellow deputy.
“That so?” The stick-thin deputy parked both hands
on his narrow hips and tilted his head. He took a hard gander at Rhetta.
She could only imagine what he saw.
A disheveled crazy woman.
“Who are you, and who did you shoot?” The tall
skinny officer nodded to his partner, who fumbled at a button on his shirt
pocket. Finally succeeding in freeing the pocket flap, the stocky deputy
withdrew a small spiral notebook from it.
“My name is Rhetta McCarter, and I only shot one.
Back there,” she said and pointed behind her. “At the substation.”
“I thought you said you shot three people,” the
round deputy said. Rhetta thought he sounded disappointed that there might only
be a single casualty.
“No, sir, I said,
we
shot three people.
I
only shot one. Woody shot the other two, after they shot at him. He shot them
in self-defense, and to save the substation. Please call an ambulance. My
friend is hurt.”
The two officers glanced at each other. The tall one
slapped his shoulder, activating his radio. “This is Carson. I need back up
here at the fire. Code 28.”
Rhetta presumed Code 28 meant, “Crazy person standing
in front of us.”
“Dammit, Carson, you’re supposed to give ’em your
badge number, not your name.” The deputy shook his head.
Rhetta thought how lucky she was to be dealing with
Deputy Dawg and Barney Fife.
“I need to see some ID,” Carson asked her, ignoring
his partner’s comment.
Rhetta shook her head. The last time she saw her
driver’s license it was in the hands of an officer at the traffic stop where
she’d driven off. Her purse containing the rest of her identification lay
incinerated inside her car.
Choosing not to mention the traffic stop, she said,
“I did have ID.” She pointed to Cami. “It burned up in that car.”
“That was your car?”
She nodded. The shifting wind blew smoldering
spirals toward them. The smoke stung her eyes, and the acrid smell of the death
of her car seared her nostrils. Using the back of her hand, she wiped her damp
cheek.
Carson tilted his head and spoke to his shoulder
again. “Carson. I mean Badge 257. I have a suspect in custody for the arson at
Ralph Fornfelt’s.”
Staring at her, he continued, “Mrs. McCarter, you’ll
have to come with us. You’re under arrest for arson.” He whipped out a well-worn
laminated page the size of a playing card and chanted the Miranda rights.
Rhetta stared at her wrists secured snugly in the
handcuffs.
After reading her rights and only stumbling over a
few of the words, Carson had directed her to hold her hands out in front of
her. Fumbling at first, he eventually managed to get the handcuffs untangled
and snapped them on her wrists. He led her to the patrol car and invited her to
sit in the caged-in back seat. With her securely locked inside the car, both
deputies left.
She’d begged them to call an ambulance for Woody.
Surely, they would’ve done that? Although from the cops’ expressions, she
figured they thought she’d escaped from Crazyville. She couldn’t tell how much
they believed her. When she started telling them her theory about what had
happened to the other power substations, their eyes glazed over.
Carson had called for backup. She remembered that
much. Yet Rhetta hadn’t seen any other patrol cars arrive. Maybe they went
directly to the substation. If Carson had any sense, he’d have directed them
there to get Woody and check the three bodies.
One by one, the fire trucks and volunteers left, yet
the two deputies still had not returned.
Where had the cops gone? They’d been away at least
twenty minutes.
Holding her hands up, Rhetta inspected the heavy
steel handcuffs circling her small wrists. Could she get them off? Probably
not. Twisting around to locate Carson, whom she’d decided was Deputy Dawg,
while his sidekick was Barney Fife, she spotted them galloping toward the car.
Definitely moving faster than when they’d left.
Carson leapt behind the wheel and fired up the grey
Dodge patrol car as his chubby buddy piled into the passenger seat and slammed
the door. Spinning the car around, Carson turned on the siren and burned rubber
speeding to the substation.
“Holy moley, lady, you weren’t lyin’,” said Barney
Fife, wheezing. “There’s three guys been shot plus a guy down with a broken leg
over at the substation.” It took less than a minute for them to slide over the
small hill and scream into the substation’s driveway.
An orange and white ambulance pulled out as they
entered.
Thank God. They must be taking Woody to the hospital.
Rhetta counted at least six vehicles wedged into the
short substation driveway. Most were police cars, and one van emblazoned with
SCOTT COUNTY AMBULANCE. Once again, Dawg and Fife scrambled out of their patrol
car leaving her in back and disappeared into the crowd of law officers.
As she peered into the clutch of cops looking for
her captors, one tall highway patrol officer left the others to stride over to
her prison on wheels. The two sheriff’s deputies scurried to catch up.
Rhetta sighed with relief when she recognized
Sergeant Quentin Meade.
Carson opened her door so Meade could speak to her.
“Mrs. McCarter,” he said, touching the brim of his
hat as he greeted her. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, it looks like you’re in
a shit load of trouble.”