Protected Pt. 03

I could hear the men muttering. They were speaking softly enough, and the ears muffled their voices to the point that I could make out their words, but I had the distinct impression they liked what they saw with me leaning over the truck shooting the rifle. Smiling to myself, I dialed in a little more height and a touch back to the right, worked the bolt, and fired again. I hit the can, but I could tell from the way it moved, I was still low. I adjusted the scope a third time and then fired another round. The can was on its side, and thus was a smaller target, but I nailed it. I worked the bolt again without looking away from the scope and fired at the can again. Again the can spun as it bounced away. I wanted to empty the rifle on the other cans, but this wasn't my rifle, or cans, and it wouldn't be nice to not let the owner shoot his own gun. Forcing myself not to smile, I straightened and pulled off my hearing protection as the men removed their fingers out of their ears.

"It's pretty close now," I said. "You'll need a sighting target to really zero it in."

Colt began to chuckle, his laugh infecting the others. He pulled his pistol and handed it to me. "Let's see what you can do with that."

I took it. "I told you, I can't shoot a handgun."

"Uh-huh," he grunted.

"No really. I've only shot one maybe a dozen times in my life."

He nodded at the cans. "Give it a try."

"That's too far!" I protested. "I'll never hit them."

He held my gaze a moment. "Okay. Wait a minute." He walked out to the cans, picked one up, and brought it back, tossing it on the ground about twenty feet from the truck. "Now try."

I looked at the can. "Okay, but don't laugh at me." I put on the ears, checked the chamber, and aimed. I squeezed the trigger... and missed. "Where?" I asked.

"High and right," Goose said.

"Try again," Colt encouraged.

I tried again... with the same result. I looked at Goose. "Still high and right."

I made to hand the weapon back to Colt. "I told you I couldn't shoot a pistol."

"Try this," he said, making no effort to take the weapon from my hand. "Don't aim. Just point it, like you would your finger." He paused for a heartbeat. "Don't think about it. Just point the gun and squeeze the trigger." I looked at him, and I guess my skepticism must have been obvious since he began to snicker. "Just try it. Relax and don't think about it. Just point and squeeze."

I let my breath out slowly, popped the gun up and squeezed the trigger. I still missed.

"Actually, that was pretty close," Juice said.

"Try again," Colt said with a nod support. Keeping my eyes on the can, I brought the pistol up and fired. The can jumped, but it didn't go far. "Winged it!" Colt cheered. "One more try."

I tried again... and missed. "I think I'll take that and call it a win."

"You just need practice."

"Yeah. Lots of practice. Let me see how to do it."

With a grin, he pulled the muffs off my head, put them on, and took his weapon from my hand. He held the gun at his side, and then quickly brought it up and fired. The can flew into the air. The moment it was still, he fired a second time, and the can jumped again. And again. And again. I lost track of how many times he fired, but he only missed twice out of ten or fifteen shots.

I pulled my fingers out of my ears when the slide stayed back, indicating the weapon was empty. "Damn..." I drawled.

He smiled at me, and for the first time since that fateful day at the rig, the old Colt was back. He pulled the muffs off and handed them to Juice. "I'll let you pick them off at long range, then I'll handle any you miss."

It felt good to do something fun and to forget about what had happened, if only for a few minutes. "Maybe you can give me some pointers?"

"Love to, and you can teach me to shoot skeet. I can't hit shit with a rifle or shotgun."

"We got dust coming," Big Dick said, looking down the road.

We all turned to look. "Somebody coming to see who was doing all the shooting?" Fish suggested.

"Maybe. It's probably nobody, but we better get her inside, just in case," Colt said.

I didn't want to go inside. I wanted to see how I compared to the men with the rifle, but Colt was right. Maybe they'd drive by and then I could come out and play some more.

Colt and I walked along the side of the RV and then went inside. As soon as we were inside, Colt dropped the magazine on his weapon and began to reload from the box he'd brought and left near the chair he slept in. He wasn't rushing, but he was wasting no time feeding the bullets into the magazine. He finished and slapped it home, worked the slide to prime the weapon, then dropped the magazine and replaced the bullet, slapping it back into the gun as a truck slowed to a stop in the road. I carefully pulled back the blind so I could peek through the crack.

"Get back," he said softly, motioning me away from the window.

"Two guys in a truck," I said as I moved away and sat down, waiting for the truck to leave.

I sat, listening to the two men in the truck talking to the brothers outside as Colt stood in the stairwell, watching through a gap in the blinds. It was hard to make out the words, but the tone was conversational and pleasant. From what I could pick out, it sounded like the men were hired hands for one of the local ranchers, and they'd come to check out who was shooting. I began to relax.

"More dust coming from front," Colt said, his voice tense. "This doesn't feel right. We haven't seen another vehicle in days, now two at the same time?"

"Maybe they're coming to see who was shooting too?" I suggested, my tone hopeful. Colt was on edge and wary, and that made me uneasy.

"Maybe," he allowed. "Stay here."

"Where are you going?" I asked, my heart starting to hammer.

"Nowhere. I'm just going to check it out." He opened the door, holding his pistol out of sight beside him. "Hey! You guys want a beer?"

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COLT

The brothers looked at me an instant before Juice's head exploded and he fell away from the truck. As my brothers dove for safety, I fired into the cab of the truck from the steps of the coach. The truck roared backwards, throwing dirt everywhere as the driver tried to gain some distance. Everything forgotten except my need to avenge Packard and to protect my brothers and Willow, I stepped out of the RV and continued to fire into the cab of the truck as it raced backwards before the driver swerved around behind the RV for protection. Fish, Grace, Goose and Big Dick were closer and leap to their feet, charging after the truck with weapons drawn as I ran to help, but then there was the buzzsaw staccato of an automatic rifle.

"Shit!" I snarled as I skidded to a stop.

We were going to get cut to pieces by the full-auto and our only chance was to run. I turned and ran back the way I came, charging up the steps and threw myself into the driver's seat as my brothers returned fire, pistol shots mixed with short bursts from the machine gun.

"We have to go," I yelled as I looked around until I found and twisted the ignition key to start the engine.

"Wait! The jacks are still down and the slides are out!" Willow cried as she dashed to the wall in the kitchen that held the RV's control panel.

The big diesel coughed to life at the rear of the coach. "Hurry up!" I yelled as I repeatedly raced the engine, hoping the brothers would understand and come running as I tried to figure out how to put the coach in gear.

"Go!" she screamed as I felt the coach settle and roll off level.

The slides were still pulling in but I didn't care. I poked the button marked with D to my left as Fish, Goose, and Big Dick piled into the RV. There was another round of thudding gunfire, the interior splintering as the bullets ripped into the coach. Big Dick roared then fell to the steps as he grabbed at his leg, blood leaking between his fingers. With Goose helping pull Big Dick up the steps, Fish leaned out the door and fired wildly, trying to pin the men down as I floored the accelerator pedal. The engine revved, and I could feel the coach straining, but it didn't move.

"Parking brake!" she yelled as she rushed forward and slammed a yellow button down, but it immediately popped back up. "No air pressure!"

I put the coach in neutral and raced the engine to redline, trying to build pressure as fast as possible.

Fish and Goose leaned out and fired several shots through the door before ducking back in. "We need to go!"

"Where's Grace?" I yelled.

"Dead!"

"Slides are in!" Willow yelled as I heard and felt thumps.

I lifted my foot off the throttle, punched the button to put coach into gear, and then tromped on the accelerator as I slammed parking brake button down and held it. The bus began to move. I removed my hand from the parking brake and grabbed the wheel. It stayed down. There was another burst of fire from the automatic gun, glass and bits of wood flying as the gunman hosed down the RV. As the coach struggled for the road, lurching and heaving like a wounded animal, a man appeared outside the door, some kind of machine pistol in his hand. He was trying to trot alongside the moving coach while aiming into the narrow opening of door. Before he could open up with the machine gun, Fish shot him. With a cry of pain, the man tumbled to the ground and disappeared.

"Go!" Fish screamed over the roaring engine.

I said nothing. I'd never driven an RV before, my experience driving large vehicles limited to my drilling rig, but the coach felt sluggish, as if it were stuck in mud, but we were moving so I kept the throttle pinned to the floor, the engine howling its war cry as the coach shuddered and lurched. I finally realized I was spinning the tires, but I was afraid reduce power lest we become mired, making us an easy target. After what felt like hours, the coach finally hauled itself onto the road and began to pick up speed more quickly. We were going in the opposite direction of what I wanted, but I couldn't stop to turn around.

Ahead, a second truck heading our way was almost on top of us, and I watched in the rearviews as the truck behind us swung onto the road in pursuit.

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WILLOW

"Big Dick has been hit!" I shouted as I pulled out a drawer and grabbed a handful of kitchen towels before pressing two of them to his leg, one on each side of the wound. I was no expert in gunshot injuries, but it seemed like he was bleeding far too much, and I worried the bullet had hit a vein or artery. "Hold these!" I instructed as I began to tie two more towels together to make a tourniquet.

"Hang on!" Colt cried.

I glanced up just before the impact. The truck in front of us had stopped sideways to block the road, the passenger bailing out to fire a sustained burst of automatic gun fire into the RV as it shoulder past the truck, the bullets popping and pinging down the left side as bits of the interior splintered and exploded. The RV wasn't traveling fast, but the impact sent us all tumbling.

"Shit!" Goose yelled as Colt working the wheel to keep the coach under control as the truck spun into the brush.

After what felt like a century of the coach weaving out of control Colt finally gathered it up and floored it again, the engine roaring as we began to accelerate. I could sense there was something wrong with the coach, the vehicle shuddering and Colt was fighting to keep the RV straight, but I knew to stop was certain death and I prayed whatever was wrong with the coach wasn't fatal. There was nothing I could do to help him, so leaving Colt to wrestle with the RV, I scrambled back to Big Dick.

"How're we doing?" Colt yelled, but never looked away from the road.

"I think I broke my arm," Goose called, his voice tight with pain.

"Big Dick's been shot in the leg!" I yelled to be heard over the rattling of the coach, the bellow of the engine, and the roar of air rushing past the still open door.

"Remind me to not loan you my truck," Fish said, sitting on the steps leading out of the coach, holding to a chair as he watched the door.

I finished trying the towels together and wrapped them around Big Dick's leg and cinched it tight to hold pressure on the towels covering the wound.

"Fuck!" Big Dick growled.

"Sorry," I murmured, but I needed to stop the bleeding.

I grabbed too more towels, tied them together, and wrapped them around his leg just above the wound. I tied the ends together to form another tourniquet, and tightened it down even tighter than I had the first one. Big Dick groaned with pain, and I slipping my fingers under the twisted cloth to make sure it wasn't too tight.

Finished, I scrambled forward to Goose. His arm was hanging at an unnatural angle. "Goose's arm is broken!"

Afraid to stand in the lurching, rocking, coach, I crawled as quickly as I could to my bedroom, being careful to not cut my hands or knees on the glass shards that littered the floor. Reaching my room, I ripped the top sheet from my bed and dragged it forward with me.

"We've got company!" Colt yelled as he began weaving side to side, probably to keep our pursuers behind us.

Struggling to keep my balance as Colt fended off the trucks, I folded the sheet into a large triangle and looped it around Goose's neck and under his arm to form a sling, trying not to fall into him as the coach lurched and darted. He hissed in pain when as I tightened the sling, but as I was tying the sling around his neck, the coach suddenly slowed, and then banking hard right. I grabbed the passenger chair to stay in place, but Goose wasn't able to grab a support, and howled with pain when he fell into me. I held him as much as possible, straining to prevent him from sliding across the floor and into Colt.

"I can't stop them! Coming up on the right!" Colt yelled as he piloted the coach around a corner.

As I watched, Fish fired three shots through the open door as one of the truck passed, the Chevy knocking down a fence as it cut off the corner. A man leaned out of the passenger side and blindly fired a burst from the automatic weapon. He couldn't miss the coach and again the inside splintered and windows shattered.

"Anybody hit?" Colt asked as the pickup bounced back into the road in front of us and began to slow, trying to force the RV to stop.

"No," Fish said, still holding to the chair.

I sat Goose up and scrambled out of the way so he could use my anchor to hold himself in place as Colt crept up on the back of the truck and then floored the coach, rapidly closing the last meter or so before hitting the back of the truck with a crunch. I clung to another chair to prevent myself from flying with the impact and wasn't hurt. The driver of the pickup slammed on the brakes to try and stop the RV, but his truck was no match for the lumbering power of my coach and could only slow us slightly before he gave up and raced ahead.

The truck tried twice more to stop the RV, but each time Colton floored the throttle and, though the truck could drag our speed down, it couldn't stop us. We played cat and mouse for several miles, each time the truck slowed, Colton would drive into the back of it and push it along while sawing at the wheel, trying to spin the truck, but the driver of the truck always raced away before he lost control of his vehicle. At least the gunmen had stopped shooting at us and I silently prayed that meant the machine gun was out of ammo.

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COLT

When we reached Eagle Pass Road, the pickup turned right onto the much wider dirt and gravel road, toward the town of Eagle Pass. That was the direction I wanted to go as well, but I damn sure didn't want to follow them, so I hauled the rig to the left and headed south toward Laredo.

"Call the cops. Let's see if we can get these assholes off us," I growled as the coach picked up speed again.

"Still no cell signal," Fish said.

"Where's the sat phone?"

"Grace had it."

"Where's Willow's?"

Fish and Willow scramble about, looking for her phone, but they couldn't find it among the mounds of debris in the coach, the wild ride having dumped the contents of all the cabinets into the floor and scattered it around.

Movement in the mirror caught my eyes as the truck popped out of our dust plume, moving fast as it raced past us on the left. I jerked the wheel left to slam the coach into the pickup, but the truck was moving too fast to stop and it squeezed by before I could force it into the fence.

"Fish! Get ready," I said as the truck continued to race ahead. "They're going to try something again. Willow, get low."

A hundred yards ahead, the driver spun the truck sideways to block most of the road as the two men bailed out and ran to the side. I slammed on the brakes, the coach shuddering and shaking as it skidded to a stop.

"What now?" Fish asked as he watched through the windshield. "Do we ram it?"

I sat staring. "What do you think? If we break the RV, we're fucked against the machine gun."

"Yeah, but by the time we turn around, if we can turn around, they'll be on us anyway. I say go for it."

I licked my lips, thinking. "Big Dick, you okay back there?"

"Just do what you have to," the big man grunted against the pain.

"Do it," Goose growled.

"Okay. Everybody stay low and hang on," I said as I released the brake and started forward. There was something very wrong with the RV. The rig was pulling hard to the right and I was afraid another hard impact like the first one would fatally wound the vehicle and leave us in a firefight we couldn't win. I drove slowly until I'd closed half the distance, and then buried the throttle.

The coach began picking up speed, bearing down on the pickup like an enraged elephant as the two men began firing into the coach. I hunched over the wheel, trying to reduce my size as much as possible as the windshield spiderwebbed and bullets pinged and popped as they cut into the RV. At the last moment I swung right to clip the rear of the truck and sending it careening as the man with the machine gun slammed in another magazine and emptied the gun in a sustained burst into the side of RV as it muscled past.

I kept the throttle down as the men fired into the rear of the RV, praying they wouldn't hit something vital and disable the coach. I watched in the single unbroken rearview as the two men ran for the truck, but it didn't move as it disappeared into the distance.

"Everybody okay?" I asked as I battled to keep the coach moving straight and in the center of the road.

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WILLOW

"Fish has been shot!" I cried as I crawled forward.

Colt risked a quick look before he returned his gaze to the road. Fish was still sitting in the floor his back to Colt, bent over as blood ran down his back. "Fish?" he asked, his voice loud and full of strain.

"Don't stop," Fish gasped as I arrived at his side and helped him lay back. His hands were covered in blood as he held his stomach just below his rib cage.

"Fish? You okay, man?" Colt cried again.

I gently pulled his hand away and looked at the wound. There was blood everywhere. I had some backcountry medical knowledge, but this was far beyond anything I could deal with. "We've got to get him to a hospital!"

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COLT

I pressed the throttle harder down and the coach began picking up speed. I had no idea how long it would take to get to Laredo with the damaged RV, the closest place with a major hospital, but I knew Fish didn't have much time. I stayed in the center of the road as the speedometer crept to fifty, then finally sixty miles per hour, as I fought the wheel, trying to keep the RV from veering out of control.