The two armed bandits removed the three survivors from the car and bound their hands behind their backs. They pushed their victims face down onto the tall grass of the median. One of the highwaymen removed a long knife from the sheath strapped to his side and cut the bound man’s throat. The two women’s screams were ignored as the bandits went directly to the captured vehicle to ransack it.
“This is our chance,” said Robert. “They’re distracted. I’m going to use this ditch and go down there.”
Robert’s eyes traced the path before him. The ditch on the side of the road was designed for drainage. Its deep slope away from the road was meant to quickly take away rainwater. The ditch was low and the weeds were high. It would be a good cover to hide his movement.
Robert made it down into the shade of the limestone bluff. He was only the width of the highway from the two armed men. From the tall grass of the drainage swale, he watched them going through the car and its trunk. He could hear the bound women crying in the tall weeds of the median. Robert wanted the men to stand next to each other, away from the cover of the car, before he took the shot. Finally, one man exited the back seat and the other shut the trunk, and they stood together at the side of car. They had found nothing of value, and it made them angry. One man motioned to the other and they began to walk toward the two helpless women.
Robert pulled the trigger and fanned the shots from one torso to the other. Instantly, both men dropped to the ground. One was dead and the other lay writhing in agony. The bullets had caught him in the lower torso. He was paralyzed from his midsection down, lying on his back, partially eviscerated.
Robert walked up to him. The dying bandit looked upward at his assassin, but the sun was in his eyes. He could only see Robert’s shadowed silhouette. Robert stepped over to cast his shadow across the man’s face. He wanted the man to see him before he died.
“Why did you do that? Why did you murder them?” asked Robert, coldly.
Then, with what strength he had left in his body, the mortally wounded killer’s hand slowly went toward the rifle lying next to him. His arm inched across the hot pavement. He grunted in pain as his hand got closer to the weapon. Robert moved and the sun hit the man’s eyes again. He squinted and turned his head. Robert kicked the rifle out of the bandit’s reach and slammed the heel of his boot onto his scuttling hand. Robert could feel the bones break as the murderer screamed.
Robert looked back up to the top of the hill and waved broadly with both hands. He knew Kyle would be watching with the binoculars. He wanted them to come down the hill. They needed to move on. Robert went to the two women lying bound in the overgrown grass of the median, and cut their ligatures. The women recoiled in fear.
Robert let his rifle hang from the strap on his shoulder and held his hands up. “I’m not with them.” He pointed to the outlaws, one dead, and the other barely clinging to life. “I’m sorry. I saw the roadblock ahead, but you passed us so fast and we didn’t know who you were.” He cleared his throat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his dirty shirt. “I wish I could have signaled a warning to you.”
Kyle and Alexis approached, and stood next to Robert. They had suitcases in tow and were balancing the overloaded bike.
Robert picked up the two rifles and placed them beside the women. “Keep these. Stay off the highway if you can.”
The two women never said anything. Still in shock, they just watched the three strangers push the bike and pull the suitcases up the hill and over its crest, out of view.
The trio walked for several more hours, creeping along with even more suspicion of their surroundings. They spotted a large concrete culvert just ahead of them. A small road merged with the highway and the culvert allowed for drainage under the ramp accessing the other road. They pulled their supplies inside and spent the night in the concrete tube. That night Alexis prayed for bullets and dreamed of salvation.
Chapter Twenty
In the morning, Robert inspected the beans and rice in a plastic container that he had let soak in water overnight. It was still dark and very hard to see anything. Not having a fire would help to keep their presence concealed, but, even if they wanted a fire, there was no wood for a fire anyway. The soggy mixture had absorbed most of the water and had swollen to more than twice its volume in the time since they had gone to sleep inside the culvert. Robert ate the cold food with his fingers and watched Kyle and Alexis sleep, huddled together on the curved concrete floor. He used the plastic container to hold his uneaten food, shoving it into his pocket along with a can of tuna fish, then leaned back and waited for the morning sun to break above the horizon.
At sunrise, he nudged Kyle on the leg. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”
Kyle opened his eyes and saw the morning light. It cast a red hue at the opening of their temporary abode. He groaned loudly and woke his wife.
Robert stood up as far as he could, hunching his shoulders. He stood over Kyle and his wife, looking down at them. “We need more water,” said Robert, shaking an empty water bottle.
“Is there any close?” asked Alexis.
“Yeah, we’ll pass by a lake. We’ll stop and rest there in the shade, and filter more water. My house is not far from there. We should leave now and travel in the cool morning hours.” Robert pointed toward the road. “We can make it to my house by sunset.”
Kyle stood up quickly, almost as if he was startled. “That’s fantastic! We made it!” He bent over and wrapped his arms around his wife to help her stand up. Alexis was short enough to stand fully erect in the tunnel, but in his haste to help his wife stand, Kyle hit his head on the domed concrete as he straightened. He rubbed his head with one hand and began to drag a suitcase outside with the other. Robert pushed the bike and trailer, heavy with their bags. Alexis brought the remaining suitcases out of the culvert, and they resumed their trek.
They traveled south several miles down the highway. To their right was an off-ramp that merged onto another road. The new road turned east, into the morning sun. Robert quickened the pace.
“Can you please slow down?” pleaded Alexis.
Robert stopped and looked behind him. Kyle held the middle ground between him and Alexis. From the distance, Robert saw the sweat dripping from Alexis’s face. He drank the last of his water and waited for them to catch up.
“I have to rest,” said Alexis, breathing heavily, “and I’m so thirsty.”
Kyle handed his wife the rest of his water and she drank it all.
“That’s it for us. Unless you have some water, it’s all gone,” said Kyle.
“There’s water just up the road.” Robert pointed forward. “Look ahead of us. Do you see the top of that hill?”
Kyle and Alexis both nodded. Alexis was still panting, and both of them were sweating profusely in the direct sunlight.
“Past the crest of that hill, we’ll come to a wide valley. The stream flowing through there was dammed, which created a large lake. This road goes across of the dam. Down there we’ll find plenty of water and shade. We’ll stop to rest under the first big tree we come to, I promise.”
Robert and Kyle looked at Alexis, waiting for a response. They could not tell if she was crying. Her eyes were red, but that might have been from sweat irritating her eyes. Alexis nodded lethargically and continued onward. They paused at the top of the hill. It was just as Robert described. The road went down into a wide valley and across a dam that created a lake that they could see to the left side of the road.
“There it is,” said Robert, triumphantly, “a thousand-acre lake surrounded by thousands of acres of wilderness. A small stream that feeds the lake flows near my property. We’ll use the stream for water, and hunt down here if we have to.”