by Mic Roland
Perhaps he was going to try his flanking move from the median side. Maybe he was going for more reinforcements. Neither bode well for bystanders, but Martin was relieved he had gone the other way. The crooks yelled back and forth to each other.
Bam clang. Bam thwack. Leo silenced their yelling with some well-placed shots on the guardrail and a post.
While the crooks were busy behind their cover, Martin took that opportunity to make his way back up to Susan at the rocks, keeping a tree between himself and the thieves. He hoped their attention was more focused on the highway than the darkening woods behind them. The daylight was getting dim, but Martin could still make out the black silhouette of the big rocks against the fragments of dull slate sky that peeked through the leaves.
“Oh! Oh my God, You’re okay!” Susan grabbed him in a sudden hug. Since both were kneeling it was awkward and unstable. “Oh my God. There was SO much shooting. I thought you got shot. I didn’t know what I’d do. Oh my God you’re okay…”
For a few long moments, Martin was a deer in the headlights. His mind had been full of bad guys, movement options and sight lines. A sudden hug was unexpected. He waited for her let go, but she did not.
These things happen, he reassured himself. Sometimes women go all huggy when they are frightened. It’s normal, he told himself.
He knew Margaret would not be happy at all if she saw this. It doesn’t mean anything, he told himself as if he were telling Margaret. She’s just scared. He decided he should disengage from the hug. He started to pull back. Susan’s hair smelled faintly of vanilla and some sort of oil. Her neck and shoulder were warm too. The fact that he even noticed these things unsettled him. The warmth did make him realize how cool the evening air had become.
Martin cleared his throat, pulled down her arms and faced her. “Um. Yeah. I’m okay. But I have some bad news. We can’t get past them like I’d hoped. The fight moved up the road. Now the bad guys are pinned down behind the guardrail right where we’d have to go.”
Susan continued in a half whisper. “I was just sure you had gotten shot. I didn’t know what to do. I was going to look for you, but they kept shooting. I screamed. I know I did. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, but I was careful. As I was saying, we’ve got a problem. I think it must be Leo and David that’s got the bad guys pinned down, but they’re pinned right where we need to go. There might be somebody else helping Leo too. It sounded like something else besides their two .45s shooting back at the baddies. No way to know. Anyhow, one of the bad guys went and got help, but one of them is still trapped and can’t get out. I counted maybe three or four bad guys down there now. The thieves are up to something, but I don’t know what. Could be they’re trying to flank Leo and whoever. Could be they’re going for more help. Neither is good news for us.
“What do we do? What if they come down here?” she asked with a gasp of horror. “They could start shooting down here!”
Martin had thought about that very prospect on his way back, but Susan was getting upset. She needed reassurance, not his own worst-case imaginings. “It’s possible,” he whispered back. He decided not to mention the almost-fence-climber. “But I figure if they do, they’ll be moving up along the ridge up there, where they can still see. Maybe trying to get a shot down on the highway. Coming down here into the dark brush doesn’t seem likely. But, as long as they’re shooting at each other, there could be stray bullets flying around. I think our best course is to stay behind these big rocks and wait.”
There was just enough twilight to see the worry lines fade from Susan’s face. A wry little smile grew. He realized what he had said.
“I know, I know,” said Martin. “But this time waiting is different. It’s a safety thing. If it quiets down soon, we can try and get past them and keep going up to Woburn.” He was surprised how much her little smile lifted his own spirits.
“And what if it doesn’t settle down soon?” Her smile was gone.
“Well, it has to…eventually. Infinite ammunition only happens in the movies and bad novels. For right now, though, it’s getting cold. We’re not active and generating any body heat. No telling how long we have to wait. We’d better put on a few more layers so we don’t get too chilled.” He clicked on his little red-beam flashlight.
“I’ve got a light sweater in my pack, gloves and stocking cap. Here, use my light to get out your sweater and gloves. The red light will be easier on your eyes and won’t carry far. I’ll go cut off some pine branches for us to use as screening and to sit on.”
Martin got out his multi-tool and flipped out the little saw blade. Crouching beside a nearby young pine, he sawed at a lower branch, seemingly with no effect. Stupid little pretend saw. I could have chewed my way through with my teeth by now if… The branch broke off. Okay, maybe it wasn’t totally worthless, but still. Next time, I pack a real saw. He cut several more branches and drug them back.
Pop pop…Bam. Pop. Susan flinched with each report, but did not scream.
“They’re still at it,” Martin said softly, trying to sound matter of fact. “Wonder if they tried flanking Leo, or what. Part of me wants to know.”
“All of me doesn’t want to know,” she whispered back.
“No, I suppose not. Best to just lay low and keep out of it. But that means staying here for who knows how long and it’s getting cold. Weather’s been nice for mid-October, but still, they were calling for low 40s tonight.”
Martin ran his hand over the leaf litter beside him. The leaves are already getting clammy with dew. “We’ll lose a lot of body heat sitting on the ground. Here, quietly scrape up a good pile of these leaves to sit on with these pine branches on top. It will help insulate your…insulate you. And we shouldn’t lean against the rocks, either. They’ll pull heat out of us too.”
They gently pulled leaves into piles to sit on. Sometimes a burst of faint yelling would rise up louder than the background medley of distant honking and sirens. Susan carefully sat atop her pile of leaves. She pulled her knees up under her coat and folded her arms over them. She pulled her head down into the tall coat collar. “I just can’t believe what a whacked out day this has been,” she whispered to herself. “A totally whacked out day.”
The woods were becoming a featureless mass of darkness with irregular patches of deep blue sky overhead. The far side of the reservoir would normally be sparkling with street lights and house lights as night fell. Now, it resembled a lake in the far north of Maine.
Around the side of the boulder, Martin could see the tree trunks, leaves and ridge as black silhouettes against the glow from car lights below. A few shouts were followed by a pop, then more shouts.
Geez, thought Martin. I’d read that gun battles are usually over in seconds, or a couple minutes. This just keeps dragging on and on. I wonder if these guys know they’re doing it wrong. They need to read more gun expert blogs. Then again, if both sides were well entrenched and had lots of ammo, this might be more like World War One than the O.K. Corral. If that’s the case, this could go on all night.
Martin leaned over to Susan to whisper. “I wonder when they run out of ammo.”
She jumped slightly. “What?”
“You fell asleep?”
“Oh, I must have. Weird. I’m scared, but I am sooo tired too. Can we rest a little longer? Maybe a half hour? I’ll be good to go after that.”
“Yeah, you just rest awhile. They’re still going at it down there anyhow, so we might as well rest up.”
He realized that even when the gunfight was over, it would still not be safe to walk past the highway for awhile. The woods were so dark that he would have to use his flashlight to walk. He could use his little red light, but even that would eventually become visible from the highway. A random flashlight could easily spook a jittery armed man, whether crook or Walsh brother. No. The fight had to be completely over before it was safe to move.
“If we’re going to be h
ere awhile, we’d better wrap up in one of these.”
“What’s this?”
“One of those little mylar reflective blanket things. It’ll keep your body heat in while we wait, especially if you fall asleep again. It’ll keep the dampness off as well. Pull it up over your head too, like a hood.”
“But what about you?”
“I’ve got two. They’re small.” Martin winced at all the crinkling the cold stiffened mylar made as they each wrapped themselves. He had them stop periodically to listen. The background honking, sirens and periodic clamor from the highway were easily enough to overpower any of their crinkling noises.
Off his feet, and bundled up, Martin noticed how heavy his arms and legs felt. His feet ached. His shins ached. He welcomed the prospect of a bit of rest himself. He extended the little knife blade of his multi-tool and folded the handles back to make a fat grip. It was a laughably puny weapon: a knife at a gun fight, and a small knife at that. But it felt better to have something clutched in his fist than nothing.
A flickering orange glow mingled with the headlight glow. Whiffs of burning plastic, or rubber drifted through the woods. Martin thought he heard a couple of shots, but they were much fainter. More echo. The background of distant honking and sirens became a rhythmic pattern, like summer cicadas. He could hear Susan’s slow, deep breathing in the quieter spells.
Poor thing. Must be totally exhausted.
The shouting seemed further away. Maybe the fight has moved, but which way? If it moved south, maybe the thieves were gone from the guardrail. If so, we can press on north after our rest.
Susan gradually slumped over, leaning her shoulder against his back. She was fast asleep.
I guess she IS more tired than she is scared, Martin thought.
Martin was exhausted too. Sitting still, bundled up, felt very good. He wondered how Margaret was handling things at home. He drew some comfort in knowing that she was, most likely, okay. She would have had the house in power-outage mode long before dark. He imagined her grumbling as she lugged the generator up onto the deck, because he had not gotten around to putting wheels on it like she asked him to. She would have a toasty fire going in the wood stove and probably heated up some soup on it for supper.
Martin shook off that line of thought. It only made him feel colder and hungrier. Instead, he pondered their next move after their half hour rest was done. If the battle had moved south, he and Susan could resume their travels north. But, if the fight had migrated north it would still block their way. He rested his eyes and tried to concentrate on sound clues to which way the trouble was moving. He could feel the slow rise and fall of Susan’s breathing against his back.
* * *
Chapter 5: New dawn, new direction
Martin woke suddenly with sharp pain in his calf. Charlie horse! It was like his toes were trying to curl back the wrong way. He stood up quickly, trying to put pressure on his foot and stretch the tendons.
“What? What’s going on?” Susan slumped into the void where Martin had been sitting.
“Charlie horse,” Martin said. “Man, this hurts.”
“Oo. It’s cold.” Susan quickly pulled her blanket tightly around herself. “Hey. I slept here all night? The sun’s coming up.”
“Looks like we needed more than a half hour of rest.” Martin took a few steps back and forth. The pain had subsided to a dull ache. Then, remembering why they were still in the woods, he crouched down.
Susan’s eyes grew wide. She remembered too. “The shooting! What’s going on now? I don’t hear anything,” she whispered.
“I don’t either,” he said. “I’d better go see.”
Susan protested with her eyes, but said nothing.
“Yeah, things are quiet, but we need to know for sure before we go walking over there.” Martin flipped out the knife blade of his multi-tool.
He tried to low-run as he had the night before, but his stiff legs were not making the task easy. His progress was awkward and slow. Leaves, slippery with a heavy dew, did not help. Nearing the fence and embankment, he had the red-orange glow of sunrise behind him. It gave him great light for seeing, but he cast a long shadow in front of himself. He worried the sunrise would silhouette him, if anyone hostile was still down there.
He approached slowly, trying to minimize leaf rustle. He tried to steer his shadow. If he could see all of his shadow, he reasoned that there should be no bright silhouette for anyone else to see. He peered from beside a big oak. Through the brush he could see many cars still sitting motionless down on the dark highway.
Not a good sign, Martin thought. He moved higher on the hill than he had before, to get a better look. The highway to the south was full of motionless cars. Between the rock cliffs, cars were stopped at odd angles. A minivan with burned out hood sat in the middle. The highway was empty further north. Martin noticed that chorus of car horns and sirens was missing. A few chickadees chattered in the trees, making the morning seem like a denial of the night’s gunfight.
Is anyone still down there? he wondered. The cars looked abandoned. From the prolonged gunfire, he expected to see bodies scattered in the road. He was relieved that he saw none. He also noted that he did not see a white pickup with a pipe rack.
Looks like Leo and David made it out, he thought. Martin backed up and peered from the other side of the tree. He expected to see no one behind the guardrail. A tingle ran up his spine. Someone was still there.
The figure lay on the ground, face turned away. Had the trapped crook slept under the stars too, or was he dead? Martin stared for a couple of long minutes, looking for movement. He saw none. Thinking that he might be too far away to tell, he moved closer. Through one good hole in the foliage, Martin had a clear view. He stared for several more minutes. There was no rising and falling of the man’s back. Martin noticed one of the crook’s pant legs was dark, as was the nearby sand. Blood? Was he shot in the leg and bled out overnight? The hairs on Martin’s neck stood as he realized he might be seeing his first dead person.
Sure, he had seen his father and mother in their caskets, but something about funeral homes and caskets made them unreal, like wax sculptures on display. The man laying facedown in the roadside gravel was brutally real.
Martin peered up the road at the far guardrail for signs of the other crooks. Nothing. No sign of them on the median side, or behind any of the cars, either. He could see a few passengers in the cars beginning to stir behind fogged up windows. Perhaps the crooks were gone.
Things were clearly dangerous. His eyes studied the saplings on his way back down the hill. A young poplar looked like a perfect candidate for a hefty walking stick. Green wood had more spring, more flex. A deadwood stick was likely to break if he hit someone with it. A walking stick was a pretty scant defense tool too, but it had more reach than a three-inch blade.
He nibbled at the base of the poplar with his little knife, trying to keep the process quiet. He whittled off the few branches as he walked. Susan peeked over the rocks at the sound of his approach.
“Looks like the gunfight is over.” Martin tried to force a little cheer into his tone. “I think it’s safe to go now.” He decided not to mention the dead man.
“I kinda figured that,” she said. “It was so quiet out. What did you see? Anything?
Martin chose his words carefully to avoid both a lie and alarm. “Well, I…uh… saw a lot of cars still sitting down there, some abandoned. From the fogged up windows, I’d say some have people in them that spent the night. But no sign of Leo’s truck.”
“What about…you know…hurt people…on the road?”
Martin winced. Does a dead man count as a hurt person? It seemed not, but that was too far into the gray zone for comfort. “I didn’t see anyone hurt on the highway.” The shoulder was not technically ‘on the road’. Yet, he wondered why he felt so constrained to avoid lying to her.
“It’s a miracle then, with all that shooting. I’m glad to hear that. I started trying to pack
so we could get going, but I can’t get these mylar things to fold down anywhere as small as they were. Is there a trick to this?”
“No. There’s no trick. They just don’t. But you did pretty good. They’ll pack okay like that.”
“Man, I’m hungry,” Martin said to himself. “I bet you’re hungry too. I didn’t eat anything yesterday since breakfast.”
“Me either. Never really thought about food.”
He dug in his bag. “Afraid all I’ve got is a couple of old bagel halves and water.”
“I’ve got an oatmeal bar in my purse,” she said. The two of them gnawed on the stiff bagel, half an oatmeal bar and shared sips from his bottle. Martin turned on his phone to see if there was signal. He had no bars of signal, but his phone chimed with two incoming messages. “DD:Mon.3.45. Im OK. Going 2 Ivrson farm w/Jake. <3s 4u. L”. The other message was from Margaret. “Mon-2pm. Got yr msg. Alts working good. B careful. M”.
Martin tried to send a text, but a box flashed up saying that he needed cell service for text messaging.
“Humph. Enough to receive, but not enough to send. Still, at least I got a couple messages. They’re pretty old, but I had my phone off. This must mean part of the system is still running on backup power. Did you check your phone?”
Susan rummaged in her purse. “Rats. Mine’s dead. I should have turned it off yesterday. I didn’t think of it. Who were your messages from? Was there any news about what’s going on?”
“No news about the outage. One was from my daughter Lindsey out in Wisconsin. She’s okay and going to stay with her boyfriend’s family. The other message was from Margaret. One of my messages got through. Don’t know which one. She told me to be careful.”
