by Glenn Trust
Instantly, the man reversed positions, pinning Barry to the ground, sitting on his chest. His speed was astonishing, stunning and overpowering.
The man raised the knife with both hands, lifting it as high as his shoulders to plunge it straight down through the center of Barry's chest. Unable to speak, and frightened beyond anything he had ever experienced before, Barry's head moved side to side in a silent plea for mercy.
The shots sounded like two enormous claps of thunder over his head. The weight of the man on top falling forward pushed the air out of Barry's already deflated lungs. It took him a few seconds to realize that the man felt like dead weight because he was, in fact, dead. Barry dragged himself, squirming and twisting out from under the body.
The girl knelt by the unconscious trooper on the ground. Pulling a thin belt from her waist, she looped it around his arm and pulled it tight, then stood.
“Come on! Let's go!”
“But...we need to get some help.” Barry stood, still dazed. “We should wait. Help must be on the way.” He could hear a siren approaching.
“Let's go!” she said. He noticed the gun in her hand. It was the gun she used to shoot the man with the knife. The officer's holster was empty. It was his gun, and she had it pointed at Barry.
Confused, Barry looked at the barrel of the gun, then at the girl and then back at the barrel. “But...”
The girl walked briskly to Barry. “Let's go, now.” Her words were crisp and short as if giving instructions to a child. She punched the pistol's barrel into his soft, belly and smiled.
The cold steel in his gut and the girl's calm smile convinced him. Barry turned, stumbling as his foot caught on the edge of the pavement and ran panting back to the truck. He clambered into the driver's seat to find the girl already seated on the passenger side, waiting, looking for all the world like an impatient teenager for a slow, dimwitted parent to start the car.
He recovered enough to protest, “What the fuck...” The words were cut off by the shake of the girl's head, and the officer's handgun pointed directly at Barry's face from a distance of no more than three feet.
“Drive.”
“What?”
“Drive, or I'll shoot you and drive myself.” The girl smiled, her blue eyes shining at him as if she had just told him to pick up the laundry on the way home. It wasn't so much a threat as a bargaining position.
Barry understood bargaining. The gun pointed in his face made her the winner of the negotiation. He started the truck and began moving forward. Giving a sidelong glance at the two figures on the ground, he could not see the officer's face. He knew the man with the knife was dead, at least he hoped so. There was no way to tell if the officer still lived.
Ahead, another police car roared towards them, lights flashing, siren wailing. The girl motioned with the gun, pointing down the road. “Keep driving. Let's get away from here, okay.”
Barry realized that it was not a suggestion. He accelerated putting distance between them and the two cars on the side of the road. They were about three hundred yards along, picking up speed when the second police car roared by. The big, blond police officer driving turned his head in their direction as he passed.
Was it a question or scorn Barry saw in his eyes? It didn't matter. The girl had the gun. The gun was pointed at Barry. Barry was going to drive.
36. Officer Down
Sliding his car to a stop inches from Paul Sorensen's, Stan Knudsen pushed the door open and jumped from his vehicle, unholstering his pistol as he ran. At the front of Paul's car, he saw the two men. Blood smeared the ground and pavement around them. Paul bled from a deep gash in his arm.
As he ran to his friend, Knudsen reached out and pulled the knife from the clenched, dead fist of the man who had been in the Toyota. Then kneeling and holding one hand on the wound pumping blood from Paul's arm, he spoke into his portable radio.
“Fifty-one Alpha, Officer down! Officer down! Start paramedics and air ambulance. Severe bleeding, right arm, appears to be arterial, numerous other injuries.” He paused trying to calm himself before continuing.
“10-4, Fifty-one Alpha.” The dispatcher said briskly, getting it done as she acknowledged Knudsen.
“Suspect down also. Probable DOA. Gunshot. Advise county and state homicide investigations and start a separate ambulance for the suspect.”
“10-4, Fifty-one Alpha.” The dispatcher's voice remained professional but sounded unhurried at this news. “Will advise investigations and start a second ambulance.” ....
Stan stayed with his friend waiting for the ambulance. Though he denied it, he was credited with saving Paul's life by applying a tourniquet, the leather belt, to stop the flow of blood from the severed artery.
Afterward, checking the scene with the other arriving units, Knudsen could not locate Paul's sidearm which had apparently been knocked loose during his struggle with the man in the Toyota. Also missing, the second occupant of the vehicle, assumed by those at the scene to be the female Paul advised was in the Toyota as he stopped it, the girl had vanished.
Knudsen mentioned the rental van that passed him as he pulled up to the scene. The driver, a white male, appeared frightened and in a hurry to leave the area. Typical, Knudsen thought. Unable to recall any identifying information off of the rental truck other than the company logo, Stan did remember that it was towing a vehicle, some kind of smaller foreign car, possibly Japanese.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Paul had been unable to provide any details before being airlifted to Methodist Medical Center's Emergency Trauma Unit in Des Moines. Close to having bled out by the time the ambulance arrived at the scene, Paul clung to life with the assistance of the IV units started by the paramedics.
The fate of the girl abducted by the man in the Toyota was unknown, but the investigation continued.
37. An Eye for Death
Barry slowed at the interstate entrance ramp, turning to the girl with the gun. “Which way?”
“Straight.”
He did not argue. If confrontation was not in his make-up, disagreeing with a stern, hard-eyed woman with a large gun was flat out against his religion.
After ten miles or so on the county road the girl spoke. “Turn right up here.”
Scanning ahead, Barry made out a dirt road that ran off between two corn fields. The road and the fields went on for miles. They drove for what seemed like an eternity. The girl spoke again. “Left there.”
“Where?” Barry slowed the rental truck.
“There.” The girl pointed with the pistol. “Turn in there at the barbed wire fence.”
He started to make the turn, then slowed, to say, “You know, you can't back this thing with that car carrier on the back. I know. I tried once. It gets all turned around, and if we go down there it'll...”
His words were cut off by the girl motioning with the pistol for him to make the turn and the hard look on her face that said, shut the fuck up.
He pulled onto a dirt road, not much more than a trail between two barbed wire fences. Probably somebody's property lines, he thought as he leaned forward peering through the window, not wanting to bog down in the ditch at the side. They drove about a hundred yards up the dirt trail.
“Stop.”
Barry let it roll to a stop without braking and killed the ignition. The truck's engine ceased rattling. The day became silent, almost peaceful. They sat under a grove of cottonwoods, their leaves fallen and blown away by the autumn breezes.
He wondered what would happen next and turned to face the girl. She considered him curiously, her elbow resting in her lap, the gun held comfortably, pointed at his chest.
“Get out.”
Barry climbed down from the driver's seat. He thought of running. There was nowhere to run to that she couldn't catch him within a few paces, if not with her feet, then with a bullet. Besides, she followed him out of the driver's door, keeping the pistol trained on him.
There on the black dirt, under an eighty-
foot cottonwood, Barry wondered what it was like to be shot...to die. He didn't beg, although he wanted to, and he didn't wet his pants, probably because he had relieved himself just minutes before encountering the two men fighting on the road.
The old farmhouse in South Dakota that Barry was buying flashed through his mind. He wanted to live. He could be there in another three hours. The blue sky and farm fields beyond the cottonwoods and barbed wire filled him with the desire to live, not to give up, but the girl kept the gun pointed at him. There was nothing he could do, so he spoke.
“Look, I...we don't want any trouble,” Barry said, his voice cracking, the fear breaking through, despite his best effort to remain calm and reason with her.
“Well, I'm afraid you've got trouble...” She looked at him with the curiosity of a scientist studying a squirming specimen under a microscope. “What's' your name?”
“Barry. Barry Broomfield.”
“Well, Barry Broomfield, we have a problem.”
“We d-do?” His chubby face paled even more, and she laughed.
It came out as a girlish giggle, but there was nothing girlish about the pistol in her hand, pointing steadily at him. As she shook with her laughter, the muzzle of the gun waved back in forth in front of his eyes. The nine-millimeter bore appeared three feet wide. He was mesmerized by it like the eye of a cobra, dancing in front of you before it strikes the death blow.
“What is the problem?” Barry asked, apprehension showing on his face.
She sighed. “Well, Barry. I'm thinking.”
“Thinking?”
She nodded with a soft smile. “Yes, thinking.”
“What about?”
“I'm thinking I can't leave you. Not like this, not here, in the middle of nowhere, no food no water, waiting for someone to come along and help you.”
“You can't?”
“No, Barry, I can't.” She shrugged as if pondering a dilemma. “I could take you with me.” She paused as if considering the possibility.
Barry nodded. “I won't cause any trouble, I promise.” He smiled to assure her that he would be a good boy.
“Thing is,” she said with a sigh, “I can't take you with me either.”
Before his mouth could form the word to ask, why, the girl's hand raised, the pistol pointed at his head. “What I should do is shoot you. Then I don't have to worry about you.” She nodded, considering the situation. “That's what I should do.”
Her eyes bored into his over the pistol's barrel. A minute dragged into two. The gun never wavered. Her eyes stared through him as if he were invisible and she studied something on the horizon.
“I have an eye for death, Barry.” She refocused, looking into his eyes over the gun's barrel.
“An eye for...”
“For death.” Her voice said it matter-of-factly, simply considering a problem. “I try to avoid it. It gives me no pleasure and death is so...” Her head lifted, eyes looking into the sky, searching for an appropriate adjective. “Irrevocable. Isn't it? I mean, I can't take it back, can I? That's why I am careful about killing.” Her eyes returned to his. “And who I kill.” She shook her head, brow furrowed. “Or is it whom I kill.”
“What?” Barry stood open-mouthed trying to follow her words.
“Who I kill, or whom I kill. I can never keep them straight. Whom sounds so formal.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. The point is I am carful about killing.”
“But...” He wondered if he would feel the bullet when it left the gun's barrel, traveled the few feet to his head and entered his brain.
He fought to keep his knees from buckling under him where he stood, and forced himself to meet her gaze. It was true. There was death in her eyes…and something else.
She continued, “You see, I'm not really a killer. I am a survivor.” She shrugged then nodded solemnly, her eyes piercing his. “I know when it is necessary...when death is the only solution to a problem.” She shrugged. “That's my gift, an eye for death. I can see when there's no other way.”
“Way for what?” Barry swallowed trying to clear the swelling in his throat that felt like it would choke him to death if a bullet didn't plow through his brain in the next few seconds.
“Haven't you been listening?” Her brow wrinkled in surprise that he did not comprehend. “Survival.”
Barry paled, his eyes staring into the muzzle of the pistol. Speechless, he was unable to bargain or negotiate, or plead for his life.
Seconds passed. They seemed like years. Finally, she nodded and spoke. “Relax. I'm not going to kill you. Like I said, it's my gift, my eye for death. You see, some people are gifted with an eye for art, or color, or pictures, or math.” She shrugged, her mouth turned up in a self-deprecating smile. “Sounds silly, I know, but my gift is an eye for death. That's good for you...today at least. I can see that I don't have to kill you...today.” She paused, her face sober. “I would if I had to.”
“Y-you're not going to kill me?” Barry thought he might piss himself just for the hell of it now. The emotional rollercoaster upset his mental equilibrium along with his kidneys and bladder.
“No.” She said softly. “Not unless you give me a reason to.”
Barry's head shook back and forth energetically. “No reason here.” The back and forth movement emphasizing that it was completely unnecessary to kill him.
“Good.” She motioned him to the car carrier at the rear of the truck. “I would you know...kill you, that is. But damn if you don't remind me of my uncle Gerald back in Colby. He's about the only man who ever treated me decent.” She searched his eyes. “Do you treat women decent, Barry?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Alright.” She nodded, her mind made up. “Get the car unhitched.”
“Unhitched?”
“Yeah, off the car trailer thing.”
“You're taking my car?”
“Outstanding, Barry. You’re getting the picture. I am taking your car.” The curious look came over her face again. “Is that okay with you, Barry?”
His head nodded empathically while his lips soundlessly mouthed the word, yes.
She smiled. “Okay, now get moving.”
It took five minutes for him to loosen the straps holding the car's tires to the carrier. Barry backed it slowly down the little ramps at the rear. He was aware of the pistol's muzzle pointed at his face just inches away through the window.
At her direction, he stood by the car, placed his wallet and contents of his emptied pockets on the hood and then watched as she went through everything. She removed the cash from his wallet, then she fished out his credit cards and driver's license, leaving the old pictures of his children taken when they were still in school.
She scanned the driver's license. “Georgia, huh?”
He nodded.
“What are you doing all the way out here in Iowa, alone, Barry? Where's your wife, your kids?”
He stared at the ground, feeling ashamed to have to tell this woman the story, but she had the gun. “They're in Georgia.”
“Divorce?”
He nodded again.
“Uh huh, divorce is tough,” she said softly, the change in her tone causing him to look up.
“Yeah, it is.” He shrugged. “They hate me.”
“Sorry, Barry.” She smiled a real smile, as a friend might. “I really am.”
Gathering the cash and credit cards, she motioned Barry to the cottonwood overhanging the truck.
“Okay, Barry. Here's the deal.”
Barry's eyebrows narrowed in concentration. He knew deals. Deals were excellent, and right now, he would take any deal the girl offered.
“I'm gonna leave in your car,” she continued. “You're gonna stay here.”
Barry nodded.
“You're gonna sit under that tree and not move for twenty-four hours.”
Barry nodded.
“You will remember nothing about me.”
Barry nodded.
�
�If I find out you didn't do exactly what I have said, I will come back and find you. It doesn't matter where you are, where you try to hide, I will find you.”
Barry nodded.
“You should believe that I am very good at this.” She smiled. “Don't let this pretty young face fool you. Do you believe that I am good at this Barry?”
Barry nodded.
“I'm glad because if I do have to come back and find you, you know what I am going to do?”
Barry didn't nod. He didn't want to know the answer.
“I will kill you, Barry. Do you believe I will come back and kill you?”
Barry nodded.
“Good. Now go sit under the tree.”
Barry walked to the tree and heard the car's engine start behind him. He turned to rest his back against the trunk while she backed the Nissan and turned around.
With a little wave flip of her hand, like a girl off to see her friends, she smiled and drove down the dirt trail. For the first time since pulling up beside the men fighting along the road, Barry felt his body start to relax, his mind thinking of something besides the possibility of death in the next few seconds.
Somewhere a crow cawed. He looked up. The bird sat high in the tree, watching. They regarded each other for several seconds. He wondered what he looked like to a crow, high in the tree. The crow stretched its wings wide and lifted from the bare branches and circled away from the cottonwood.
He waited terrified, half expecting the car to return with the blue-eyed girl saying she had changed her mind, or her eye for death had. He closed his eyes and the image of her pointing the gun at him and pulling the trigger this time danced in front of him. His eyes popped open.
Minutes passed. The car did not return. Barry started to relax. He felt limp, like a doll, string, cloth and yarn, all floppy and dangling. He lay back in the grass under the tree.
The smell of the rich, black earth and the grass all around him filled him with the overwhelming sensation of comfortable normalness where bloody men did not fight in the dirt and guns weren't pointed at people.