Going Home (22 page)

I stopped the truck, and Thad strung the antenna while I kept watch. He was going to make the first call. I just wanted to stand still for a minute in the quiet. We discussed where we roughly were, and then I walked away from the truck a little. I was thinking of how much closer to home I was when I heard Thad start talking into the radio. He kept it short, just as we were supposed to. I didn’t hear the reply, as he was wearing a headset. He signed off and started to take the antenna down. I went over and helped him, and then we all loaded into the truck again.

Things were going fine until we started to pass what looked like a school, or possibly a day care. We had the windows cracked when the sounds of shouting voices came through the thin row of trees separating us from the building. The beams of several flashlights cut through the darkness and really lit up my goggles. I was forced to take them off when the bright headlights from a Jeep came to life at about my two o’clock, followed by the screaming whine of a couple of quads. These weren’t like utility machines; these where high-wheeled racers, like the old Quadzilla.

All this was happening on Thad’s side of the truck. “Go, go! Get us the fuck outta here!” he yelled.

I floored the gas, and the truck lurched forward. The ATVs were coming on fast. Cutting through the trees. The Jeep was racing parallel to us on the drive to the building. I had no idea what these guys wanted, but they were certainly coming on awful strong. That question was answered when one of the ATVs came alongside, and a rider jumped into the bed of the truck. Jess let out a scream. Thad pulled his Glock and fired through the back glass, point-blank into the man’s chest. He dropped into the bed of the truck.

The sight of one of their company getting shot didn’t deter them at all. The second ATV came up on my side. The passenger pointed a large revolver at my face; he was so close that it was like looking down a sewer pipe. Tapping the brake, I jerked the front end of the truck into the ATV. The jolt rattled the gunman, and he fired a wild shot over the roof of the truck; the muzzle blast was so big it looked for all the world like it was going to set the truck on fire. The fender caught both riders in their right legs, having come in between the wheels. The front wheel of the ATV was being pushed sideways down the road as the nose of the four-wheeler came slowly around the front of the truck. It was the large root of a pine tree that caught the tire and allowed the wheel of the truck to catch it. The tire stopped moving, but the body of the machine was being pushed by the fender, causing it and its two riders to cartwheel. I jerked the wheel to the right, and the whole rolling mess passed by in a blur.

This all happened in a matter of seconds. It seemed like it was in slow motion. I will never forget the look on their faces, or the Tap OuT shirt the driver was wearing. The first ATV wheeled around to check on his partners. The Jeep was still coming, though. At some point during all of this, I had turned on the headlights. I saw a paved road coming into view ahead. The headlights of the Jeep were flashing strobe-like through the trees in a flashing blur. As we were almost to the paved road, Thad yelled out, “Stop!” I slammed on the brakes and heard his side-by-side roar, and flame filled the truck with a brief flash. He fired both barrels at the same time, filling the Jeep’s driver’s door and window with holes.

The Jeep passed in front of us and went off the far side of the paved road. There was no sign of brake lights. The truck was filled with the smell of cordite, and I slowly became aware of the high-pitched shrieks of Jess. Thad was reloading the shotty; I tried to calm Jess down.

“Hey, hey, shut the fuck up!” I yelled. I was just a little stressed at the moment, and her caterwauling wasn’t helping any. She slapped her hands over her mouth and looked at me with wide eyes. I heard her breath being forced through her fingers.

“What the hell was that about?” Thad’s eyes were huge; sweat was pouring down his face.

“I have no idea. I guess it’s the new norm,” I replied.

I made a quick right onto the paved road and floored it again, trying to put some distance between us and whoever was back there. The wind coming over the top of the windows was the only sound in the cab, the cool air putting a chill on us as we cooled down from the adrenaline rush. Thad looked over his shoulder into the bed of the truck and gasped. “Pull over, Morgan, pull over!”

“Fuck, what now!” I was looking into the rearview mirror. “I don’t see anything!”

“In the bed; that guy is in the bed, an’ he’s movin’!” Thad was looking back through the spider webbed glass. Jess was squirming around to look out as well. I quickly stopped the truck, right in the middle of the road—not like anyone was coming. We jumped out and ran around to the bed. There was a young guy lying in there. He was clutching his chest and gasping for breath. Pink frothy blood was around his mouth, running down his cheek.

Thad and I dropped the tailgate, letting it fall this time, and pulled him out onto the ground. We laid him on the pavement; he offered no resistance. Jess came around and looked down. Her hands went to her mouth again, her all too common “oh shit” face. Lying on the road in front of us was what looked like a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old kid. His Dixie Cotton Company T-shirt was covered in blood; the cuff of his Wranglers was slit up the seam to go down over his Justin Ropers. He looked like every kid I saw back around the house.

With a feeble voice, the young man begged for our help. “Help me; (gag) help me.” He tried to spit blood out of his mouth, but he simply didn’t have enough air in his lungs to do it. A wad of pink frothy blood spilled out onto his chin.

“Oh, shit, he’s just a kid. I shot a fucking kid!” Thad had his hands on the top of his head, eyes wide and starting to panic.

“Jess, grab the trauma kit out of my pack.” She didn’t move. “Jess!” She jumped and moved closer to the bed. Reaching in, she had to throw Thad’s pack out of the way to get to mine. Her face went white as she brought her palm up to see it covered in thick, viscous blood.

“Hurry!” I yelled.

She opened my pack. “What’s it look like?” She was obviously in shock. Come to think of it, so was this kid.

“It’s the bag with the big red fuckin’ cross. Now hurry!” She dug down and came out with the pouch, using only her clean hand, the other held out in front of her as if it wasn’t hers. I ran around and grabbed my headlamp out of the bag on the floorboard of the truck and put it on as I came back around.

Kneeling down, I cut his shirt off with the EMT sheers from the kit. There was one hole, just low and left of center in his chest. I’m no medic, but the location of the hole and foam on his mouth told me he was hit in the lung. I pulled a Vaseline-coated gauze pad from the kit and some tape. Using the sheers, I cut one side of the gauze package open, slipped it out, and set it on top of the package. Then I tore open a large abdominal pad and used that to wipe the blood away from the wound; then I laid the gauze over the hole and the package on top of that. I tapped down the top, bottom, and inside edge of the dressing to his chest. I pulled a Mylar blanket out of the kit and threw it to Thad. “Here, open this up and cover him. Jess, help him.”

Thad was still standing there wide-eyed. Jess was crying. Thad caught the tightly wrapped blanket when I tossed it to him, but he didn’t move. He stood there staring down. “Come on, man, open that thing up!” I yelled. Thad finally unfolded it and knelt down beside the kid.

“You stupid ass, why’d you come after us? We weren’t bothering you!” Thad was laying the blanket out over him.

The kid was still having a hard time breathing, but he tried to talk. “That’s my aunt’s day care you robbed.” His eyes were wide, and he kept swallowing hard.

“We didn’t rob anything!” Thad shouted back. “You think we robbed that damn place. Is that why you came after us?”

“You … you didn’t break in?” He was not looking good.

“No, we didn’t. Can you feel this?” I was rubbing his hands.

“We thought … thought you broke in, so we was …” he trailed off.

“You just came out after the first people that came along and went after the wrong ones,” I said. He rolled his head to the side, looking at me. “Thad, take his feet. We’re going to roll him onto his side.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, it was all a mistake, and we shot him!” Jess was starting to freak out again.

Thad was shaking his head. “I can’t believe this. He’s gonna die, and it was a damned mistake!”

“We have to take him to get some help!” Jess yelled. She seemed frantic and couldn’t stand still.

“Where in the hell do you think we’re going to take him?” I was holding the kid’s head off the pavement. His gold rope chain was hanging out of what was left of his shirt.

Thad stood and looked down the road. “We’ll take him to Newberry. It’s just back there. Let’s pick him up!” He knelt and grabbed the kid’s feet and looked up, expecting me to stand and raise his head.

“And do what, Thad? Drive into a town where he’s the local and tell them he got shot? How are you going to explain it to them? Look at him. You really think his buddies are going to let
you
ride out of town?” There was no way in hell I was driving this kid back into town.

“What the hell you want to do then? You just gonna leave him here to die? This was an accident. It wasn’t our fault!” Thad shouted.

Jess joined in. “We can’t do this. We can’t leave him here on the side of the road.” She was still crying, snot running down her face.

“Look, I don’t want to leave him here, but this is his fault, not ours. We were simply the first people to come by, so in their mind we were guilty of a crime we didn’t commit.” I cannot believe these two.
This is not the time to completely fall the fuck apart.

“They was just looking for justice for what was done to them. They made a mistake.” Thad just wasn’t getting this.

“No, they weren’t looking for justice. They were looking for vengeance,” I replied.

It looked like I was starting to piss Thad off. He locked eyes with me, and his face was expressionless. “Same thing, Morgan; you’re splitting hairs. What we did was wrong, and he’s dying. We need to get moving.”

“All right, you guys can take him.” I stood and pulled my gear from the truck. “But look at it like this. If someone robbed your house, are you going to go outside and beat the first person you catch? Or do you want the guy that robbed your house caught and punished?” I was trying to keep a level voice in the hope he would come around.

“I’d want the guy that did it punished, but what does that have to do with this?” He was getting impatient.

“Because punishing the guy that robbed you is justice. Beating the shit outta the first person you find after it is vengeance. These guys were looking for vengeance, not justice. They made a mistake, not me, and I’m not putting my neck out on the line for his.” It looked like he was coming around. Jess, however, was another story.

“You are one coldhearted bastard! How can you be so callous?” she screamed at me. “He’s just a kid!”

“You think I’m callous? Maybe I am. Since all this started, I have had to kill three men I know of, maybe more, and been shot in the fuckin’ head, and all I want to do is go home! If that makes me callous, then so be it. I am one callous motherfucker. I haven’t taken anything from anyone.” Well, that wasn’t technically true, but then they were dead when I took it. Her whole attitude changed when I mentioned the shot-in-the-head thing. Suddenly, she just didn’t have the heart to keep up the argument.

I don’t know how much longer we would have went around about this, but our little circle jerk was interrupted by headlights coming down the road. “Look, here comes someone. If you guys want to wait and explain all this, fine. I’m outta here.”

I grabbed my pack and hefted it and was headed to the cab to get the rest of my stuff when I heard Thad yell, “Get in; let’s go!” He was headed around the other side. I threw my pack over the side of the bed and climbed in. Jess was still standing there. “You coming or not?” She finally broke out of her trance and made her way around to the passenger side and climbed in. I shut off the headlights, pulled my goggles on, and stomped on the gas as the four-wheeler gained ground. Thad watched out the back window as the ATV came to a stop where the kid was lying on the road.

“They stopped,” he said.

“Good,” I replied. Both of them were looking solemn. “Hey.” They looked over at me. I saw their green faces in the goggles. “He was alive when we left him. We did what we could.” In the glowing green gloom of the NVGs, it didn’t appear that either of them took any solace in that fact.

We rolled along in silence for a little while. No one was talking. Glancing over at my two companions, it was clear they were distraught. I felt bad for them that they were so upset by what just happened. It was just a different world now. I damn sure don’t want to leave some kid to die on the side of the road, but he and his partners instigated the whole situation, and, fortunately, they must suffer the consequences, not us.
I’m willing to work with these guys to get us all home, but if they get crazy, I’ll leave them in the blink of an eye because, after all, I’m a callous asshole.

Passing a sign, I saw we were on Parker Road. I remembered that from our map, so I hazarded a stop to check it. As I suspected, this thing runs into US 24 after changing names a couple of times. It was getting late. I just didn’t think we would reach Jess’s tonight. We were going to have to find a place to stay for what’s left of the night.

“Guys, we’re going to have to spend the night out. We’re not going to make it to your house before it gets light out, and I just don’t want to travel in the daylight if we don’t have to.” I was looking at Jess. Neither of them acknowledged my comment; they both just sat there. I took that as they didn’t care either way.

We crossed over 24 without issue. It was so late that the odds of seeing anyone were slim. I kept heading south on what was once Parker Road. I gave up trying to look at the street signs. The road made a little jog ahead; a sand track went off to the east. Stopping there, I pondered the options and decided to take the little track. Easing onto it, I let the truck idle along, watching for any sign of life and saw nothing. After about a quarter mile, the little track got pretty rough, but I pushed ahead. Trees were on both sides of us, but we entered a field that was open on the left, with a tree line on our right side. Passing the field, we came back into the trees again. Crossing a little road, we entered another stand of planted pine. In the middle was a small clearing with a strip of trees running down the center.