The Independents (31 page)

Since there was no chance of winning a gunfight out here, the only oth
er choice was to get behind the attackers
.
He needed to come up with something because t
hey were pushing him further away from the roadblock.
The problem with
a
flanking
move
was the open terrain
and the fact that he wasn’t
sure how
wide their line was
. More gunfire coming from the roadblock reminded him of the urgency in helping the trapped men there.

Todd and
Jake
were
very
scare
d and almost
out of ammo.
Jake
h
ad been dozing in his truck while
Todd
was
on guard when
the fi
rst shots
had been fired
. Initially, both men
believed it was either a random, wandering soul lost in
the
desert or perhaps another raiding party.
They both
had taken cover
behind their trucks and returned fire.

Things had gotten a little more serious when automatic fire had started pinging off of the pavement around them. This wasn’t some wanderer with a hunting rifle, this was serious. Todd had served in Iraq, but hadn’t seen much combat.
Jake
had planned to go into the A
rmy
the very next year before the world had
all fallen apart. 

At first, they had
n’t
been overly concerned because they knew help would be coming from town. As soon as a bunch of men from Meraton showed up, the people shooting at them would probably fade away into the desert night
. T
hey
’d
be able to brag and tell stories at Pete’s for months to come
, maybe even impressing a couple of the local girls with exaggerated tales of bravery in the line of fire
. When no help from the town had arrived,
all thoughts of glory quickly vanished and
both men began to get worried.

Still, the people shooting at them had seemed more intent on harassing
,
than actually killing them. Sporadic spits of bullets would zip through the air now and then, but nothing
concentrated or sustained. The two
would shoo
t back at the muzzles flashes and moving
shadows
,
trying to hold the attackers at bay. This
volleying
back and forth had been going on for over ten minutes
,
when they had heard shooting
north of their position
.

Everything got quiet after that, but they could hear and sometimes see movement around them. Todd warned
Jake
, “Hey man, something ain’t right here. Let’s get under one truck together. You take the west and I’ll take the east. I think they’re going to try and rush us.”

Todd’s instinct had saved their lives. No sooner than the two men had crawled behind the rear wheels of
Jake
’s old Ford, than several men popped up and began spraying heavy fire at the vehicles. The steel wheels provided them some protection
,
and after the initial shock of the assault, both men started sending rounds back at their assailants. The rushing attackers made it to within about twenty feet of the trucks when they finally broke off the attack. Todd’s AR15 was cutting into them and three were lying on the ground moaning or already dead.
While
Jake
’s pump action shotgun was slower to shoot, its buckshot proved deadly as well.

Jake
was wounded in
that
first wave, taking a bullet to his upper thigh and another to his foot. When Todd had a moment to check on his friend,
Jake
groaned that he was okay, and could still shoot.

Both men reloaded the few rounds they had left and waited for their attackers to hit them
a
second time.
Both said a silent prayer that help from town would arrive soon.

Bishop
cut to his right while there was still scattered cover
around. He guessed that the Columbians
had been concentrated close to the truck in some sort of ambush configuration, so heading right back toward the road was his best bet. With any luck, he could find somewhere to hide and the line of pursuers would pass right by him.

He could see the occasional head pop up through the night vision and knew his hunters were still a few hundred
meters
behind him. They were taking their time, checking each clump of vegetation that had taken hold on the arid desert floor
, probably expecting him to be hiding in one of them
.

As Bishop moved toward the road, he
realized
he wasn’t going to make it. The line of
hunters
spread out behind him was to
o
wide and as the scrub
thinned
out, their speed over ground
was increasing
. Bishop went prone to take cover behind a small mound of dirt less than one foot high. He banged his elbow hard on exposed
rock, which
surprised him
,
and he barely kept from letting out a yelp. As he looked at the source of his pain, he saw the top portion of a very large formation of sandstone barely peeking above the
otherwise featureless desert floor. Right beside him was a burrow, probably the home of a
jackrabbit
that had been dug underneath the sandstone
ledge
.
If I almost missed that, there’s a good chance they won’t see it either.

Bishop started frantically digging
around
the rabbit hole as fast as he could. His goal was to dig a ledge underneath the outcropping of rock
-
big enough to hide
in
. The soil was a mixture of crumbled stone and hard pa
cked sand. Even though he was wearing gloves, the effort hurt
his hands. He pulled his knife from his vest and used it to pry,
dig,
and scrape away the resisting earth.  Every so often, he would raise his rifle to peer at his pursuers and see how close they were. It took a few minutes, but Bishop eventually dug out a small area underneath the big rock. He squeezed his body into the opening, using his feet to push out more earth and soil. In the dark, he couldn’t tell how much of his body was exposed, or if any of the freshly dug soil was different enough in color to indicate that someone had been
distributing
the area. There just wasn’t enough time to do everything right.

Bishop slowly moved his arm out and tried to pull back as much of the loose dirt as possible back onto his body. He
had a fleeting thought, hoping
there weren’t any scorpions upset about his intrusion into their domain.
When he heard the first footfall not far away, h
e became
still and silent and held his breath hoping they wo
uldn’t discover his position. If
they did, he was a dead man as there was no way he could get his weapon into
a
firing position or even move.
If they find me, I’ve done them a favor – I’m already mostly buried.

A boot landed a few inches in front of Bishop’s face, quickly f
ollowed by its twin as a man
stepped down from the small ridge of rock. The pair of boots stayed right there for what seemed like an eternity, the owner’s weight shifting from one foot to the other.

In a few moments, Bishop could see a second set of boots a few feet away. He heard whispers in Spanish, but couldn’t make out what they were saying to each other. The man standing right in front of Bishop’s face turned slightly and Bishop could hear him fumbling with clothing. A stream of urine started splattering on the desert floor right in front of Bishop, some of the offensive liquid splashing onto his face and hat.

After relieving himself, the hunter fumbled again with his clot
hing before trotting
off into the desert night
,
trying to catch up with his friends.

Bishop waited for several minutes making sure there wasn’t a follow on group of Colombians. Another round of gunfire from the now distant roadblock motivated him to move out of his hid
e
and head toward the stranded Meraton men.

Estebon was pacing around the park service trucks about 300 yards away from the roadbloc
k. The c
aptain was getting a briefing from a runner who had just returned from the roadblock. After quietly whispering new instructions, the runner had disappeared to deliver the latest orders. Estebon looked at his watch and made a decision – they would remain engaged for another ten minutes
,
and then he would honk the horn of one of the trucks three times to sound recall. This plan wasn’t working
,
and he was sure everyone in Meraton was now awake,
armed,
and waiting on them to come into town.
Sometimes you get the
jaguar
, and sometimes the
jaguar
gets you.

Bishop was moving as rapidly as he dared, darting between lumps of cactus
and
small mounds of earth.
He
repeated the same actions -
move, scan,
listen,
and move again,
as he ate up the distance to the besieged men at the roadblock. There hadn’t been any firing for a few minutes and that was normally a bad sign. Either the
two guards
were dead, or the attackers were regrouping for another attempt.

Estebon’s c
aptain
had changed his tactics. He
ordered the runner to gather everyone on the same side and rush t
he defenders, rather than continuing
to come at them from different directions. Casualties had made the enveloping attack no longer a possibility.

As all of the Columbian’s assembled
on the south side of the road,
Jake
lost co
nsciousness and Todd didn’t realize
it. Luck would have it that
Jake
was watching the south.

All of the attackers rose up at once, some 50 yards away from the two trucks. The remaining s
ix men moved rapidly toward their objective
and were surprised that no one had started shooting at them as they got closer. After
watching four of their comrade
s fall,
the lack of bullets whizzing past
provided much needed
motivation,
and
their pace quickened
. It was the scratch of a noise
less than twenty feet away that
alerted
Todd. He
realized
what was happening and spun his rifle around, firing blindly at the approaching men.
The attackers, a little confused by where the defender was hiding, began firing around the two trucks.

Bishop was less than 25 meters away, looking at the roadblock through his night vision when he saw the Colombians rise up. He had started to move
toward the
trapped men but paused, realizing they might think he was one of the attackers. Bishop didn’t have time to communicate with the defenders
and shouldered his rifle.

Todd took a round in his should
er
and his arm would no longer respond
.
Bullets were tearing into the truck above him an
d sparks flew off of the wheel where he had taken cover
. He was blinded by bits of blacktop flying into his eyes
as
a stream of rounds flew
past
his face.
He was trying to move his rifle to the other hand, but the low clearance under the truck hindered
the
attempt. Movement from behind drew his attention
, and he recognized a figure
suddenly go prone on the roadway,
looking
like he was
peering
underneath the truck. He
started to yell
,
“I give up, don’t shoot,” but the man
,
staring right at him
,
didn’t move. A
nother man
sat
down n
ext to the first and then toppled
over. A third screamed
close by
before landing
face first on the pavement.

It took Todd a moment to realize someone was killing these men. After a few more seconds, he could see the legs of the remaining attackers running off into the desert.