by Phil Hamman
Mike’s steps behind her became faster until he was next to her side.
“Can you help me walk?” he asked in a low voice.
Sandra wrapped her arms around his waist. He’d been shot on the other arm, so she was careful to place her hands where she wouldn’t touch the wound. Being propelled into this role of helper gave her something to concentrate on; she had to be the strong one now. She marveled at the connection she already felt with Mike even though they’d only known each other for a few hours. When this is all over, the first thing I’ll do is kiss Roger and then tell Mike how amazing he was. Because of Mike’s warning, she’d suppressed the impulse to run. Had she bolted it’s likely she’d have been gunned down. Sandra forced herself to mimic the way Mike carried on in spite of a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
“Are they really cops?” Dana whispered to Mike.
“I don’t know,” Mike replied in a steady voice. He likely thought all of them had a better chance of survival by facing the situation head-on rather than giving false hope and convincing themselves these men were cops. He was one to stick to the facts and deal with whatever was at hand.
Then Dana’s voice was at her side. “I hope they’re cops.” She’d heard Dana’s voice so seldom, she hardly recognized it. Dana seemed more likely to sing than talk, and the seriousness of his voice concerned her.
Mike walked with his arm around Sandra, leaning into her for support, so she was almost relieved when they were ordered to sit down.
“And don’t try anything,” the Boss snarled. “There’s a guy around the corner.”
But his words were less than convincing. There was no corner. There was nothing ahead but more trees, more ridges, and more river. Again, Sandra wanted to ask questions but was afraid of being shot. Mike, however, wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
“Are you Mr. Jensen?” The Boss didn’t answer. “Well, do you know Mr. Jensen?” Mike’s voice was strong and confident. Sandra didn’t know who Mr. Jensen was but wondered if it was a ploy by Mike to see if the men were really cops. Again she prayed that the Boss would respond by saying he knew Mr. Jensen, and then they’d all know this whole disaster was at least legitimate and the men were cops. Then a horrible thought made her nearly vomit. Did Mike feel this was his last chance? Was he thinking it didn’t matter if he was shot again because the guy was going to finish him off anyway, and he may as well give it a try?
The Boss thought for a moment then answered, “No, I don’t know him.” Then he turned and walked back toward his partner but remained within eyeshot of the group.
Mike slowly kneeled, then lay down but kept hold of Sandra’s hand so tightly it hurt her. She wished she could absorb some of his pain; by nature she was drawn to those with needs or afflictions. She kept her focus on Mike and stayed alert. She rubbed the top of Mike’s hand, and her heart sank. Even decades later, she’d marvel at the courage he was able to muster in the face of each successive terror they would encounter throughout the night to come.
Chapter 18
Mike lay motionless on the cold, dirty path. There was only enough light in the night sky to make out the vaguest of shapes. Crumpled leaves clung to his bloody coat, and a heavy fog grew thicker around them. “What do you think they will do?” she asked, certain that Mike’s instincts were telling him more than hers.
“I don’t know,” he replied slowly.
“Try and rest,” Dana urged Mike. Sandra wasn’t sure if she could see or feel the hopelessness on Dana’s face. His voice was steady but...
“Sandra,” Mike said, pausing slightly between each word but maintaining a strong front, “I can’t feel my arm or move it. Will you put it on my stomach?”
Without hesitation Sandra gingerly lifted his arm, supporting the underside with her hands, and softly placed it on his stomach, which she could feel rising and settling in uneven gasps. The steady beat of approaching footsteps silenced the three teens. Sandra lifted her head and met the gaze of the man the others called the Boss.
“Get up. Keep walking,” he bellowed.
Mike struggled to his feet with the help of Sandra and Dana.
They walked a short ways down the trail and already Mike had asked twice when the ambulance was coming. Sandra cringed every time Mike spoke, afraid it would provoke the Boss again.
“What are your names?” the Boss asked.
Each, in turn, stated their name. But it seemed to be a desperate diversion on his part. The trail was leading them further into the woods, and there had been no man around the corner. Sandra began to wonder if they should fight back somehow. If they were being led to their death, what could it hurt? Her natural inclination was to relate to people, animals, anything that lived and breathed. If her questions bothered the Boss, well, it was looking more and more like it was just a matter of time before he lost patience with all of them. None of this felt official. It didn’t feel right. Sandra mustered up her courage, then spoke.
“Where are we going?” It was a simple question. Non-threatening. And she’d kept her voice steady, not accusing. She allowed herself to breathe again. The Boss didn’t answer. She tried again. “Where is Roger? Will I be able to see these guys after you take us in?” She glanced behind her. The gun was pointing straight at her back, yet the Boss remained silent and hadn’t told her to shut up, so she pushed a little more. “Will they ride up with me when we go to jail? Will Roger ride up front or is he hurt?” If he’s a cop, he should have answered those questions!
The Boss snorted. “Absolutely not. That one”—he waved at Mike with the gun—“will be in the prison hospital. You’ll think it’s heaven compared to where these two are going,” he told Mike.
“How long will we get?” Sandra wanted to keep him talking. It felt right. Maybe the Boss was actually warming up to them. She wondered if Mike sensed the same thing or if his thoughts were clouded by pain.
“Five to ten years,” he answered after a short pause, a pause that seemed out of place, as if he were searching for an answer rather than responding with something a policeman should know.
“I bet they get ten years, right, J.R.?” the Boss said to the heavy man.
“Yep, ten years,” sneered J.R.
“They can’t do that! It’s our first bust.” Sandra almost spun around but caught herself. Before the words were out of her mouth, she imagined Roger behind bars for years while they longed for each other’s touch. Then she imagined herself behind bars, too. Alone.
The Boss was closer now, and although Sandra couldn’t see his gun she could picture it pointed right at her. “Oh yes they can,” he said. “You’re in Iowa. The law’s harder over here.”
“Iowa! How did we get in Iowa?” Mike asked. Gitchie Manitou was just inside the Iowa border, and like many people, Mike didn’t realize only a small section lay within South Dakota.
“Well, that’s where you are,” was all the Boss had to say. He seemed unsure of himself. His actions seemed less and less like that of a policeman with each passing moment. The three of them engaged the Boss in some more conversation before he ordered them to stand still right where they were.
“And don’t try anything stupid,” he added, then looked around to where two beams of light pierced the woods. “OVER HERE, HATCHET FACE!” the Boss yelled, waving a hand in the air even though it would have been impossible for anyone to see them from a distance. Sandra wondered why he didn’t have a police radio in his pocket. The beams of light swayed, stopped, swayed some more, then came to a stop. An engine quieted to an idle before a door opened somewhere in the vicinity of the two lights. “JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL ROAD!” A muffled response followed, and then the lights gradually grew brighter as a pickup approached. Sandra turned her head to avoid the glare, her arms still tight around Mike’s slumping body.
A man with a pockmarked face stepped out of the truck.
“Sir, can we sit?” Mike asked.
“Stand where you are or we’ll blow your *&%$#@! heads off!” J.R. orde
red.
Sandra saw a look of concern cross Dana’s face. She wondered if the words struck him as strange also. Wouldn’t a real policeman let him sit down? He’s injured! Maybe not, maybe the police are trained to stay in control. Confusion mingled with fear, and she breathed slowly to remain calm.
“Is the ambulance on its way?” Mike asked again. The slightest movement racked his body with shocks of pain from the #4 buckshot that had blasted through his shoulder and bicep.
“Yeah, yeah,” the Boss said. He seemed rattled by their questions though. “I need your names and ages. Do you have any identification?” The last sentence was punctuated with the tone that if they were unable to produce an ID, it wouldn’t be good.
The three men frisked Dana, and one removed a social security card from the boy’s wallet.
The heavyset assailant, J.R., grabbed the card from his partner and went over to the headlights to read it before returning it to Dana with a dissatisfied look on his face.
“How many girls are here?”
Dana and Mike both turned to Sandra and said that she was the only one. Sandra’s stomach somersaulted, though she didn’t know why. Just a reflex, perhaps. That was a weird question.
The one the other man had called Hatchet Face told the three kids to sit in a tight circle. “Stay where you are,” he added. He was thin also, but shorter than the Boss and had blond hair. He was wearing dirty jeans and a jean jacket buttoned to the top with a heavier coat over it. Then he, the Boss, and J.R. moved back toward the pickup, where they spoke in hushed voices for several minutes.
“I heard them say something about tying our feet and putting us in the truck ,” Sandra whispered.
The Boss rummaged around in the pickup before returning to the teenagers with something in his hand. “We don’t have the handcuffs with us, so we’ll use this.” He held up a roll of thin, gray wire.
His eyes locked on Sandra. Facing him now in the fuzzy glow of the headlights, she couldn’t deny the evil that sheathed his face. She weighed her options. Running was not possible under the specter of three shotguns. The next time he made her sit down, maybe there’d be a chance to slip away, dart into the trees, and take off into the night.
“Put your hands behind your back.” He took a bold step forward and Sandra did as she was told, glancing at Dana and Mike for reassurance. “This will cut the hell out of your hands.”
Sandra sensed that he took pleasure in telling her this. Would a policeman say that? She wanted to believe that the answer was yes. She was naïve and frightened, and the cunning assailants, either to control her or keep her calm, continued insisting they were police officers.
“Don’t put it on so tight.” The command rolled from her mouth, and she immediately wondered if she should have a more complacent attitude. The sharp wire had already begun slicing into her skin. Her gut instinct said to fight. Life had taught her how to stand up for herself and not wait for someone else to do it for her. The Boss didn’t answer, which felt like a small victory to her.
“Get in the pickup.” His voice sounded smaller.
“I can’t.” She forced confidence into her voice to carry the message that he should have realized she couldn’t climb into the high seat with her hands behind her back.
“Oh-oh, that’s right. Your hands,” he mumbled, then lifted Sandra off the ground and set her in the cab of the pickup. His face was close to hers now, and she let her eyes bore into his vacant black pupils. Sandra had honed her street sense over the years and was able to convey her feelings of acceptance, disappointment, or in this case, anger with just one hard look. Her confidence rattled the Boss more than she knew.
His eyes landed on a gunny sack bunched up on the floor of the truck.
“I’m gonna tie this bag over your head.”
“Why?” She kept her voice steady.
“Because you said you were cold.”
“No I didn’t. Can’t you just put up my hood?” She didn’t dare hesitate with an answer, and her voice indicated that he didn’t know what he was talking about. The Boss shook his head slightly. He was flustered.
“I-I don’t know...” His voice trailed.
Before Sandra could respond, J.R. appeared. “Leave it off her,” he said before disappearing behind the pickup.
“Look. I’m gonna try and get you off the hook and out of here before the sheriff gets here.” In the moment it had taken J.R. to interrupt them, the Boss managed to recover his thoughts.
“Will you take the wire off my hands, then?”
To her surprise, he agreed.
She turned so he could unwrap the wire. His hands seemed clumsy and inexperienced behind her. Sandra wanted to believe that his explanation made sense. She hoped that he was on her side. She’d do almost anything to avoid being sent to a place like the boarding school or another foster home. If she could avoid charges she could then visit Roger wherever he ended up. Something inside wanted to hold onto that glimmer of hope, but things weren’t adding up. She was so confused. There should have been an ambulance, normal handcuffs, police badges, and radios.
“What about Roger? Does he need an ambulance?” She was afraid of the answer she might get but wanted to know the truth.
“He was hit with a tranquilizer gun. He’ll be fine. Now don’t try anything!” he warned for the umpteenth time before locking the door and slamming it shut. He walked back to his partners, glancing back at Sandra as if to make sure she didn’t make a run for it.
Being separated from the boys made her edgy. She hadn’t realized how much safer she’d felt being with Mike and Dana and how taking care of Mike had distracted her from the terror surrounding them. Now, alone in the silent pickup, its engine off but the headlights still on, her foot met an empty can on the floorboard, and the clink of it made her jump. She took a deep breath. The Boss had returned and was climbing into the driver’s seat. Without a word, he put the truck in gear and took off down the road. Sandra turned, and in the fading light saw Dana, Mike, and Stew walking on the road, with J.R. armed and walking behind them. One of the assailants had forced Stew to get up in spite of his pain and march down the road with the other boys. All three looked over at her with such mournfulness it made her heart ache. She looked around for Roger but couldn’t find him. For whatever reason, she locked eyes with Dana as the truck rolled out of the park until the two couldn’t see each other anymore. For the rest of her life she’d wonder, if she’d known what was going to happen next, was there anything she could have said to stop it?
Chapter 19
J.R. stood guarding the boys. Soon Hatchet Face drove up in Stew’s van. He clicked the headlights of the van on bright, trapping the boys in a small curtain of light. The three teenagers stood obediently along the remote park road, squinting their eyes against the blaring light. Their shadows cast far into the grass and disappeared into the darkness. The cold night air intensified the pain searing through Stew and Mike from the buckshot wounds, yet they stood still along the barren road as they were ordered.
J.R. stepped inside the van, and after a brief conversation the perpetrators determined that they would “shoot the little hippie boy first” since he wasn’t wounded, and they didn’t want him scampering off. Both men hopped from the vehicle with shotguns in hand. The boys hardly had a chance to know what was going to happen next.
Without hesitation, J.R. raised the gun to his shoulder and took aim at Dana, then pulled the trigger. The gun cracked, and buckshot tore through Dana’s jacket, slamming his young body to the ground. Already wounded and paralyzed with the shock of seeing his brother blasted to the ground, Stew could not move. More shots rang out. Before Stew could even turn to face his attacker, he fell into the tall grass. Hatchet Face joined in, firing his weapon at Stew as well.
Mike, weakened from pain and sensing he was next, stood facing his executioners. The shotgun roared its deadly sound into the still night. The talented athlete would never compete again. The crazed J.R., not satisfied, contin
ued to pump several more shots into the fallen boys. A haze of gunpowder smoke drifted upward until it had evaporated into the night sky. When the van finally drove away, the park lay silent.
Hatchet Face drove off in Stew’s van with J.R. by his side.
“Where we gonna dump this van?” Hatchet Face asked.
Neither had a plan, so J.R. came up with what seemed to him a good solution right on the spot. “We have to go through Sioux Falls to get to the abandoned house, and our car is in Sioux Falls, so we’ll get it and leave this van on a side street somewhere.” The two were hopeful that the cops wouldn’t find the vehicle for weeks; by then the trail would be cold.
“By the time we all meet back at the abandoned house, he’ll have done away with the girl, too. Then all the evidence will be destroyed. This is what you call beating the cops at their own game,” Hatchet Face gloated.
At the same time that the two killers were driving through Sioux Falls to ditch the van before heading to the abandoned house, Sandra and the Boss were also en route to that house but took a back way to avoid the city. “I’m looking for the lake, but it’s hard to find in the dark,” he told Sandra. This confused her. Why are we going to a lake?
“I missed it!” He slapped the steering wheel and shook his head. “That was the road where you turn to go to the lake. The gas is low though. Almost empty. I know where I can fill up.”
He pulled into a wide farmyard with a rambling two-story white house, then drove around the house, past a barn and behind a building with a large red gas tank that is standard equipment on most farms due to their remote locations and large amounts of fuel required by the machinery. It was painted the same red color as the one on her grandpa’s farm years ago.
Sandra glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes with a look that demanded to know what they were doing there.
“I have a key to the gas tank, and I have permission to take gas whenever I want, any time I want. But I have to leave ten dollars.” His voice conveyed the message that he’d never be anything less than honest.
