Within an hour, we were cowering in the corn again. I was getting mighty sick of corn. I hated the green leaves that sliced at you, I hated the stalks that tried to trip you on every step, I hated its denseness that allowed no air to circulate. I just plain hated corn. But it was our only safe haven.
Shots had rung out up ahead on the road. We didn’t bother to debate or take a vote about whether to go investigate or take cover. We sprinted ten feet into the only cover for miles around. And again we started the waiting game. We knelt, and Brit spoke softly. “How many bullets do we have?”
She evidently was worried again. I couldn’t blame her given what we had just heard. I dug the gun out of my pocket.
“Ten in the gun. Another box of twenty in the backpack. Hopefully we don’t need any, right?”
Her eyes showed uncertainty. “Maybe we should dig out some extras and put them in our pockets. So they’re handier, just in case.” She gave me a wanton look, eyes open wide. I agreed and opened the pack. I dug deep down to retrieve the box from the bottom where it had sank to yesterday. I felt nothing. Nothing but granola bars and an extra bag of chips. She stared at me.
“What?” Her voice was quiet, but scared. I shook my head and thought back.
“Damn it. I took them out and set them on top of the trashcan outside of the store. When I got rid of the trash from the pack. I must have left them there.” My stomach sank. Were we really reduced to ten shots?
She looked more scared. “It’s my fault. We should have never stopped at that store. We should have kept going.” Brit began to whimper again.
I quickly caught her focus. “Nope. My fault. I was careless. Really.” She stopped whimpering. “We’ll be okay. Haven’t used any yet. Probably won’t need to shoot at all I bet.” She nodded at that idea. “And we needed the food, Brit. So it was a good idea we stopped. All your idea.” That perked her spirits back up. I looked around. “Let’s give this ten more minutes to play out. If it’s quiet for ten minutes, we’ll sneak back on the road and keep moving. If we hear anything we’ll stay put.” She agreed instantly.
More shots rang out just a few minutes later followed by screams, awful screams. Someone was dying, dying on the road up ahead. The road we needed to travel. Brit sat back on her knees and started to cry. I felt like doing the same. We had to stay put, for a while at least. I looked at my watch, 12:14. It was going to be another long day out here.
At 3 o’clock, we finally agreed it was safe to go back to the road. We hadn’t heard much since just after 1 o’clock. Every time I suggested we try, Brit frantically grabbed at me and begged for another ten minutes. After six episodes, she finally nodded her agreement. We slid carefully back to the side of the road and slowly moved forward. For the amount of commotion we had heard, there was nothing discernibly wrong ahead. Slowly we picked up the pace. About a half-mile down the road we came to a small crossroad where a dirt road dissected 170th. There we found death.
About ten yards in the dirt to the east lay three people. Two men and one small child. They were dead, that was obvious. I told Brit not to look. The men appeared to be about my age. They were dirty and covered in blood. They lay face down in the dust. Between them lay the child, a girl, perhaps my daughter’s age. She was laying on her back with a single gunshot wound through the forehead. If it weren’t for the obvious wound, she almost could be sleeping it appeared. But she was dead, they were all dead.
Brit stood next to me eyes riveted upon the close by death. She sniffed several times as she squinted at the scene that made no sense. I couldn’t tell what had happened, I only knew the results of the altercation.
I looked for any further blood on the road. Any sign that someone else may have been wounded and tried to move along. I found none. Whatever had happened was over. Trouble had moved on. I took the pistol from my pocket and held it in my right hand. I reached back and took Brit’s small right hand with my left. This time she accepted my grasp without any reluctance. We moved slowly, silently away from the somber scene. One neither of us would ever forget.
I could feel Brit’s hand shaking as we slowly moved ahead. I needed to say something, anything that may comfort the trembling teen. But my mind was as blank as a painter’s bare canvas. Nothing I could say could begin to explain what may have happened back there.
Finally her quiet voice filled the emptiness. “She didn’t have to suffer, did she?”
I followed her thinking. I squeezed her hand a little tighter, watching the road in front of us carefully. “No. Death would have been instantaneous for her. She never suffered a bit once she was shot. She was gone from this world before her body hit the dirt.” I wasn’t sure that helped. But it was all I had for her.
“Good.” Brit either nodded or shook. I couldn’t tell. “Good. I’m glad she didn’t have to suffer.”
We walked on quietly. We saw no one on the road now. Maybe the gunshots had scared everyone else away. Maybe Brit and I were the only people stupid enough to keep going with death all around. We kept moving. Within another hour, we were back on Highway 35, just as we had been promised.
“Okay, another mile or two, and we’ll be up to 280th.” I looked at the somber teen next to me on the road. “Can you make it another hour?” She nodded. “Want anything to eat?”
She shook her head. “I just want to get there. That’s all now. I just want to get there. I want this to be over.”
I patted her right shoulder and smiled at her. “Me too. Me too.”
We walked forward down the home stretch. At 6:15 that evening we stood at the crossroads of Highway 35 and 280th Avenue, just south of Frederic. Brit paced back and forth from side to side across 35. She looked confused.
“You said to the left, right?” She gave me a puzzled look. “Left, correct?” She looked left, which was west. Then she spun and looked east.
She screwed up her mouth and looked left, west, again. “It doesn’t look right. Neither way looks right. There should be a purple house on the corner. I know that for a fact.”
I looked west. There were three houses a ways down the road. I then looked east, only two in sight. None were purple.
“Do any of those houses look familiar to you, Brit? Like it might be your grandma’s house?”
She shook me off. “No. Their driveway is lined by trees. Big tall pine trees. Lots of them.” She looked east again. I could see panic setting in.
“Okay. Let’s head west a ways then. Maybe something will look familiar when we get further down the road. When we come to the next crossroad, that’s a mile. If you don’t see anything you recognize, we’ll turn around and go back to the east.” She nodded a tiny bit but unconvincingly. I looked straight at her. “No big deal. We’ll find the place, Brit. We will.”
We headed west. In twenty minutes we could see the crossroad to the west. This direction was a bust. Nothing even close, according to Brit. Slowly, we turned and trudged back to the east. I tried to keep Brit’s spirits up, but to be honest I wasn’t feeling too up myself. We mostly walked in silence.
Storm clouds gathered in the western sky. They had been trying to all afternoon. We either needed to find Grandma’s house or we needed to find shelter from the storm and the rain it would bring. Being cold and tired sleeping outdoors is one thing. Being cold and tired and wet and sleeping outdoors was a path I wanted to avoid. Needed to avoid. I kept my thoughts to myself as we started down the east road.
Within thirty minutes, we stopped in the middle of the road. Brit was doing circles looking at everything. She shook her head constantly. We were lost. We were lost, and nightfall was coming. And a storm. I wanted to scream at her, shake her, make her understand the gravity of this situation. But none of that would have helped. She was lost and the whole world knew it.
“Are you sure it was 280th?” I finally had to say something, anything to get her back on task.
She looked at me scared, actually frightened. “No, I’m not sure. I was never sure. It was Jake who thought i
t was 280th. I just knew it was south of Frederic. One of the last roads before the main highway turns a little east. This is what he thought I meant.” She brought her right hand to her forehead and squeezed. “But I don’t know.” She screamed her last sentence. Not really at me but at the world that seemed to be watching her suffer. Tears started again. I moved close to her against my better judgment.
“Brit,” I started calmly, hands held up in front of my chest. A sign of peace, and protection in case she lashed out at me. “We need to call it a day. Night is coming and rain will be here any minute. It’s going to get too dark to see anything real soon. So we need to find shelter.”
Her head and shoulders drooped. She was defeated. “I’m such an idiot. I’m so stupid. Just like my dad says. I’m just a stupid little girl. That’s all I’ll ever be.”
I grabbed her hand and started back down the road. I could set her straight later, right now we needed to find somewhere to get in from the rain. I walked quicker than we had before, dragging Brit behind. “Come on. You’re not stupid. We’re just a little lost. We’ll figure it out in the morning. I’m sure we will.” I felt the first drops of rain, now I could smell it coming. We hustled more.
“That’s what you said this morning. And all I did today was get us lost and lose your ammo.” She was sinking, but I didn’t have time to deal with it this moment. We made tracks for the closest farmhouse.
As we started up the driveway a man came outside and greeted us. “I saw you go past, now you’re back. Better get inside before the rain starts.” He seemed nice enough, friendly at least. He was maybe 50, tall – probably 6-4 – clean shaved and was offering shelter. I saw a small boy standing in the doorway waiting his father’s return. I encouraged Brit along. I told her it looked safe. She reluctantly agreed. We made it to the porch just as the downpour began. Maybe our luck was changing.
Inside, the house was neat and warm. Several kerosene lamps lit the interior. The boy opened the door for us, and we sprinted in from the water falling in buckets from the sky. This was the first good thing to happen to us recently, with the exception of the store being opened.
The man shook my hand. “Hi, I’m John. This is Trevor.” He pointed at his son. Maybe ten years old. Trevor smiled and stood next to his father.
“I’m Bill and this is Brit.”
John smiled at both of us. All was good. I could just feel it. I took off my pack and looked for a place to lay it down. John watched me.
“Why don’t you just put that on the chair by the front door. That way you’ll know where it is in the morning.”
I grinned. John was quite the host. I walked back to the front hall and placed the pack on the chair. I thought for a moment. This was the right thing to do, right? This wasn’t a problem, right? I shook my head.
Walking back into the dining room I watched as John and Brit made their way into the kitchen. He had mentioned something about making dinner and thought Brit might want to help. I guess John would learn quickly about the moody teen. I should warn him, I thought briefly. Nah, he had a son. He knew kids.
Trevor disappeared past me and into the living room. He called out from the void. “Does Brit like to play games? I’ve got checkers and chess. Maybe she’ll like battleship. That’s my favorite.”
I laughed to myself. “I’m not sure she’s much on games, Trevor.” I started for the kitchen. “I’ll go ask her if she’d like to join you.” He seemed like a nice kid. Maybe, just maybe after days and days of being on guard I could finally relax here. The thought of it sent a warm feeling through me.
Standing in the doorway of the kitchen I saw John, at his gas stove warming up something in a saucepan. In another larger kettle I could see he had some water boiling. Sensing my presence he turned and smiled.
“I thought we’d have some spaghetti for dinner. Sound good?” I nodded. It sounded great. “Bill, I’ve poured you a glass of brandy. It’s over on the counter by Brit. Help yourself.” John went back to stirring his sauce, whistling some tune as he did.
I stood by Brit and smelled the oaky flavor of the liquor. Truth be told, I wasn’t much of a drinker. But after the last few days on the road, it held a certain appeal I had to admit. I took a sip and choked. John laughed out loud.
“Oh, this is some pretty stiff stuff, John.” He looked at me with his medium blue eyes and smiled.
“I like it to have a little bite. I don’t remember where I got this last batch. I have several friends down south that make it for me. It’s their own special blend.”
He went back to stirring his sauce and I took another, more careful, sip. I glanced at Brit. She sat quietly on a stool about as far away from John as she could. I remembered Trevor’s request.
“Say, Brit,” I started. “Trevor has a game set up in the living room if you are interested. Might be fun.” She gave me a look I hadn’t seen before. A look of serious concern. Her right index finger moved back and forth across her lips as she glanced back and forth between John and myself. Finally, she rose.
“Sure.” Her response was short and quiet. She stared at me harshly and nodded her head towards the kitchen door. I looked away and shook my head before looking back at her with a puzzled expression. She repeated the gesture. She left her stool, went to the dining room doorway and repeated it one more time. I shrugged and followed. What could she possibly want now?
I followed her to the far corner of dining room. “What?” I asked quietly. She grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled my head towards the floor.
Cautiously, quietly she whispered in my right ear. “We need to get out of here. Something’s not right.” I shook my head.
“You always think something’s wrong. You need to relax. We’re fine.” She shook her head and looked deep into my eyes.
“No, this guys all wrong. Something tells me this is a bad place. We need to get out of here. Now.” She lightly pushed me away and stared as if she expected me to do something. Just what, I had no idea.
I looked towards the living room. “You go hang out with Trevor for a little bit. I’ll try to feel John out, alone. Did he touch you or something?” She shook her head.
“No, just the way he looked at me. And asked how old I was. And if I liked boys or men.” Her eyes gave me a telling look. Alarm bells rang inside my head.
“Let me work on it. If this place is wrong, we’re out of here. But I’d really like to have supper first.” I smiled but got nothing in return. Something about John spooked Brit badly.
Brit went to search for Trevor and I stepped for the kitchen. A thought struck me and I stopped in place. Turning for the entryway, I retrieved the gun from my backpack. I looked at the cold black weapon and closed my eyes. Did I really need to resort to this? Is this what I have become? A man that brandishes a gun every time it even smelled like trouble. Carefully I placed the gun in my right front pocket. I looked down and shook my head. What had I become?
Chapter 29