Walking in the Rain: Surviving the Fall (9 page)

Ruth said she couldn’t tell, and she looked over at me for some reason.  Advice?  Reassurance?  I wasn’t good enough at reading her expressions yet to say for sure.

“Well, we treat them a possible threat until they show different.  Ruth, you know this road pretty good, right?  Go this way to visit your family?” I asked quickly.

“Yes, this is the back way to Siloam Springs but it is nearly a straight shot.  We used to go this way to go see my folks.”

“Okay.  How far is it to the next big turn?  You know a spot where you have to slow way down to navigate the bend in the road?”

I saw Ruth glance around, getting her bearings no doubt, before she responded.

“There’s a turn coming up, just over this next hill, but it’s not that tight of an angle, though.  I think the speed limit only goes down to 35 miles per hour.  There’s another one, like what you mentioned, but that’s maybe six, seven miles further down the road.”

I weighed the options while thinking out loud.  My plan was pretty basic, of course.  I was no military genius, but this would be a bushwhacking, pure and simple.  Stan saw where I was going immediately and volunteered to help, sprained ankle and all.  Ruth wanted to protest but I quietly overrode her objections, playing the ultimate trump card.

“Ruth, Stan just wanted to make sure you and the baby get through this.  He’s worried, we are all worried, about what these men intend.  I think between the two of us, Stan and I got a look at every man visible back at that roadblock.  If any of these folks behind us were there, well, that doesn’t make them bad guys but it sure don’t smell right.

“I need Stan with me to run that Savage of his.  But relax, we aren’t planning on getting into a shootout with these guys, even if they are affiliated with those bandits we killed earlier.”

“Not planning on a shootout?”  Stan echoed, a little confused.

“He means he plans on ya’ll just executing them” Amy piped up helpfully from the back seat.  “Luke doesn’t enjoy killing people, but when he has no choice, he tries to be quick and efficient about it.  If the two of you shoot them and there’s nobody firing back, then it ain’t a shootout.”

Darn, she was right.  I would have made a terrible Old West gunfighter, I reckoned.  I didn’t go in for that whole thing about facing the other fighter in the middle of the street, waiting for him to draw first.  Screw that as a plan.  A guy could get killed acting that way.

“Amy’s correct. If we see anybody we recognize from the roadblock, we shoot them all, take their stuff, and get back on the road.  There’s no good reason for anybody from back there to be following us.  Not this far out, and not this soon after we passed through the roadblock.  But still, we will look before we shoot.”  

That seemed to seal the deal for Stan.  I wasn’t just looking for an excuse to murder and pillage.  I know my callous attitude about such things had to be of some concern to him.  I wasn’t a serial killer, I didn’t think.  Still, my go-to move these days was to permanently eliminate a perceived threat.  Even to me, that didn’t sound well balanced.  

“What about the girls?” Stan asked, “Where do they wait while we take care of this?”

“There’s a rest stop a little ways further up, maybe a mile,” Ruth suggested. 

I felt icy fear slither up my spine.   

“No, no stopping at rest stops.  No matter what, don’t go that far.  That is a really, really bad idea.  Just pull over on the shoulder if you can, maybe seventy five yards past the curve.  Ruth, keep the truck running and Amy, bail out and cover in front of us.  Use the ditch and take your rifle.”

I wanted to say more but we were out of time as Ruth rounded the curve and I noticed she had to brake to stay on the road and navigate the turn.  That was nice to know.  We were also shielded from view by a short stand of trees bordering the roadway on the left side, so hopefully our pursuers would not be able to tell what we had planned. 

Stan and I jumped out before the vehicle completely slowed and ran to opposite sides of the road.  I went right, to the outer side of the curve, while Stan headed down slightly and to the left.  The narrow two lane road had decent ditches on both sides, but I went past that dip and on up to the higher ground beyond.  I dove to my belly and shucked out of my pack, using it as a rest for the big rifle I was going to use.

When I glanced up, I couldn’t see Stan at all, which was probably a good thing.

“Stan, if you recognize anybody, go for the driver as soon as they get in range for you.  I’ll see what I can do about any passengers,” I called out, seemingly too loud now that the truck have moved ahead a bit and sat idling.  Allowing the truck to stay was a risk, but I did not want us getting separated.  Plus, if these jackasses were just pushing us into an ambush of their up ahead, I didn’t want Ruth and Amy to face that alone.

“Gotcha,” he yelled back, and then it was time to get to work.  The trailing truck suddenly came into sight, and even at this distance I could make out a distinctive red straw cowboy hat.  The last time I saw that hat, it was worn by one of the men I’d seen hanging around the roadblock out of Harrison.  Now he was standing in the bed of the modified one ton farm truck, leaning precariously against the roof of the vehicle.  I chambered a round and waited, watching the truck rumble closer to our position.

“I see one from the roadblock,” I yelled, and Stan agreed.  He would try for the driver at two hundred yards, he added.  Not a clap shot, but easily doable with his Savage hunting rifle and scope.  I would follow his lead, aiming for the three men I could see crowded into the back cargo bed of the truck. 

The CETME Sporter was the civilian version of the Spanish made, select fire military rifle that evolved into the G3 and the HK91.  Chambered in 7.62x51, or .308 Winchester, the big rifle featured a twenty round magazine and not-so-great iron sights, but I’d shot my father’s HK91 plenty of times over the last few years so the oddly placed charging handle and the gritty feeling trigger fazed me not in the least.  The rifle seemed to have been well cared for when I “inherited” it, but until I pulled the trigger I would not be able to say how far off those sights might be.

As soon as I heard the boom of Stan’s rifle, I began taking my own shots.  The CETME was a beast for recoil like I remembered, but I rode the hard thump into my shoulder and stroked the trigger once more.  I could tell the sights were off since my first shot slammed into the roof of the truck rather than my target, but the second shot seemed to cause one of the thugs to stumble back and somersault off the back of the truck.  Luck rather than skill but I’d still take it.  Then the truck started swerving from side to side, which made me think Stan’s shots had the desired effect.

In the movies, the truck would have veered out of control, and then rolled over ten times on the pavement.  Or else, continued driving straight ahead at breakneck speed until slamming into a conveniently placed bridge abutment. 

In reality, the truck coasted to a stop about seventy five yards from our position and men started trying to scramble behind the bulk of the truck body for cover.  Well, the two men still alive in the truck bed, anyway.  Given the blood spray across the inside of the bullet starred windshield, nobody in the cab was getting out under their own power.

I managed to hit one of the men on the outside of the thigh, almost at the hip, and he spun with a jerk and accidentally tumbled out of the truck on the side exposed to our fire.  He went down hard and a spray of fully automatic fire exploded from the black rifle his hands.  The rounds snapped by high and to the left of me, but still caused me to flinch.  That looked like a real M4 carbine, which might open up a whole other avenue of trouble.

Fortunately, the magazine in the carbine was exhausted and the weapon dropped to the pavement.  The wounded man lay still, either unconscious or possibly even dead from the fall.  I wasn’t hitting where I was aiming, but at least now I had an idea of how to compensate for the sights.

The last of the bandits dove off the truck bed and seemed to stagger in mid-air.  I heard the boom of the Savage and figured Stan was a pretty good deer hunter after all.  Hitting targets on the move is never easy.

“Reloading,” Stan called.

“Covering,” I replied, remembering that response from a war movie I’d seen once.  And I was, too, carefully scrutinizing the area around the truck for any movement.  I saw nothing stirring, except the ragged breathing of the sprawled form on the pavement beside the truck.  Still alive after all.

“I’m good now, Luke,” Stan said more softly now, and I nodded to myself and took a second to swap for a full magazine for my rifle.  I’d only burned through five or six rounds from the CETME but better to make the exchange now than run out later.  I safed the rifle, slung my pack, and edged closer to the road, CETME still at the ready.

“Stan, coming over,” I said loudly, wanting make sure he heard me.

“Come on.  I’ll cover the road.”

So I ran across the two lanes and zeroed in on where Stan what kneeling, rifle shouldered and peering through his scope.  I saw Stan glance my way but quickly he returned his attention to the road.

“How many were in the cab?”  I asked.

“Two of them.  Driver was a guy I didn’t see today at the roadblock, but he was there when we came in the other day.  I got both of them with headshots I think.”

“Three guys in the back.  One still alive, but not sure about the one you shot that fell on the other side.”

  “Can’t we just go?  Nobody is going to come looking for us for this, I don’t think.”  Stan asked, his voice steady but his eyes pleading.  He was not a violent man by nature and now that the immediate threat was handled, Stan wanted to get back on the road.  Sensible and I wanted to agree, but what if they were herding us to their own ambush?  When I asked that very question, Stan looked sick.

“What can we do?”

“Well, I can go ask that survivor some questions before he bleeds to death.  Then we can plan accordingly.  Wave the girls back down here, and we can let Ruth and Amy provide overwatch while we go ask our questions and load up whatever we find laying around.”

“You really think he is going to bleed to death?”

I nodded.

“Oh, I can guarantee he will after we get done with him.  Hard to heal up from a cut throat.”

Stan looked like he wanted to be sick and said,” Jesus, Luke, they have a merit badge for that?  What kind of Boy Scout does that?”

“Stan, these bandits would have killed you and you don’t want to think about what they might have done to your family.  I’m the kind of Boy Scout that wants to live to see his family, and you better be too.” 

That seemed to get through to the man and he said nothing else as we made our way down to the scene of carnage, under Amy’s watchful eye.  Ruth stood watch to the front and we let Sophia sleep as long as she wanted.  I tried not to think that this might have been us spread out in a gruesome tableau if the day’s events had turned out differently.

Tableau?  Was that the right word?  That was one of the words I learned prepping for the SAT test to build my vocabulary.  I sometimes grope around for the right word at the darnest of times.  I knew I was trying to ignore the elephant in the room, but torturing this man was not going to be fun.  Killing him in the heat of battle, not a problem.  Even cutting his throat now, as a prisoner, not so bad.

But torture?  Could I do it?

Then I looked back over my shoulder and saw Amy and Ruth.  Both were standing watch, weapons in hand, trying to look intimidating.  Amy, since she was facing me, offered up a wry little smile of encouragement.

“Stan, you tie his hands and feet.  Ask him the questions.  I’ll handle the rest” I said, drawing the old butcher knife I still carried from the makeshift cardboard scabbard on my hip.  The knife wasn’t all that sharp, even with me working the blade over with a stone a few times, but the edge was enough for what we would need to do.

Hell, I’d skin him if necessary, if that would get us the information we needed.  These people, some I’d only known for a day, meant enough to me that I would listen to the screams and endure the stares later if only my actions would be enough to keep them safe.

My daddy always said that whatever we were doing on the farm, whether it was cleaning out the pig pen or mucking out the horse stalls, beat walking in the rain.  I never understood as a child, but not long before I headed off on this cursed trip, I finally got him to explain what he meant by that expression.

“Luke, my old platoon sergeant used to say that.  It was just a throw-away line, but he would always come out with that when we bitched about some particularly nasty job.  Whatever terrible chore he needed done, from burning the honey barrels to bagging blown up chunks of your buddies after a mortar attack, he always said doing this job was better than walking in the rain.  Just a way of tricking your mind, I guess.  Whatever hard thing you have to do, just imagine that the alternative might be worse.  That’s all it means.”

Well, now I really understood, standing there on that deserted stretch of highway, doing whatever I needed to get the job done.  Better than walking in the rain.