by Scott Blade
She asked, “Did you at least hit the target before you gave up?”
I said, “No.”
She said, “So you gave up?”
I nodded.
She said, “At least you waited here in the spot that I left you for further instructions.”
I stayed quiet.
The guy who ran the range stepped out from an office that separated the firing range and the entrance. His name was Buckey. I never figured out if it was his real name or a nickname.
Buckey knew us, so he walked up to my mom casually and said, “Don’t be too hard on the boy.”
She said, “How long before he gave up?”
Buckey removed his baseball cap and scratched his head.
Then he said, “The boy stayed there well into the afternoon. I’d say two-thirty.”
I said, “Two fifty-five. That’s the exact time that I gave up. Two fifty-five.”
My mom said, “Thanks, Buckey.”
Then she looked at me and motioned with her hand for me to follow.
She said, “Come on.”
When we got to the car she gave me the box of Mexican food. Even though I’d let her down, she had still given me a chicken burrito and ever since, I’ve loved them.
Some days, I missed my mother, but she was dead and Jack Reacher was out there.
At that moment, I saw the shiny, red diesel truck pull into the lot. It was far off at the back corner coming in from the highway. Smoke steamed out of the stacks and lights glimmered across the shiny paint and bounced off the front windshield.
The trailer was a white, unmarked thing. The tires bounced and dipped as the truck drove from the back of the truck stop lot over the cracks and potholes, being mostly ignored for repairs.
The headlights flashed across the other parked trucks and then the gas pumps and across where I sat, blinding me for only a second until the guy drove the truck straight ahead of the other parked vehicles. The truck drove the full length ahead and stopped, then started to back into reverse. I heard the loud beeping sound as the truck backed and pulled in tight in line with the others, all silent, motors off.
The truck stopped and the headlights flicked off, but the engine remained on and the truck settled.
To my left, parked out near the grass on the far end of the back of the trucks, was a brown single cab pickup. It was old. I couldn’t tell the model or the year from this distance, but I would guess that it was from long before I was born.
The cabin light was dim, but in the darkness it was clear as it flashed on. Somebody was in that truck. The driver’s side door creaked open and then the passenger door rocked open and two large, suspicious figures stepped out. One of them took a step away from the truck and swallowed the rest of his beer and threw it to the ground, making that universal beer bottle shattering sound. The sound echoed in the stillness. The second figure went to the bed of the truck and leaned over the rim. He came out with what looked like a long, thin object—a pipe or a baseball bat.
These two were up to no good.
I stayed still and watched. I didn’t want the motion sensor light to give away my position.
The two guys closed the doors to the pickup, not slamming them, but not closing them easy either. They started to walk toward the truck that had just parked.
I watched as the driver opened his door and climbed out of the rig, like an old man taking it slowly and steadily.
I squinted my eyes and tried to focus on him. He was an old guy, looked ancient from here. He was small and rather grandfatherly looking. He stopped at the bottom of his climb and removed a trucker hat and rubbed his bald head. He turned side to side like he was stretching out long ignored muscles. He put his hat back on and shut his door.
I looked over at the two guys. They weren’t just going into the truck stop to use the restrooms, or buy more beer, or even some food so that they could sober up. They walked right toward the truck driver from behind his trailer. I watched and debated on what to do, not that I wasn’t going to help, just that I didn’t want to make a mistake. I had tried to help someone before and it got me arrested and getting arrested was becoming a pattern. I didn’t want to repeat that mistake.
Then again, what would it hurt to walk over?
I darted up into a standing position and started to walk toward them. I thought that the motion sensor lights would switch on and give me away, but at the same time, I thought that it would warn them that “hey trouble is coming.” Then maybe they would back down from their plans. After all, my mother used to tell me that the best fight is the one you don’t have. But she also taught me never to just sit on my hands and let things go bad.
The first part of my plan didn’t work at all because the motion sensor lights didn’t come on. I guessed that the owners or managers of the truck stop were cheaper than I had thought. Also, I hadn’t beat the sensors with my holding completely still. Like when I had tried to keep still for my mom with that sniper rifle so many years ago, I guess I had failed this attempt as well.
The guy with the blunt object in his hand swung it around and that was when I confirmed that it was a metal baseball bat. The end was steel and gleamed in the starlight. The guy swung it around one-handed like an ancient barbarian who was about to go into battle, only this guy didn’t look nearly as competent as an ancient barbarian warrior, not even if the guy was drunk from mead, not even if he had been suffering from the black plague at the same time.
I watched and walked in a slow movement like a tiger crouching through the brush. I had two plans of attack here. The first was to stomp around and come up fast, making plenty of noise like a man trying to scare off a snake. This plan would have worked well if the guys took my warning and gave up their own plans, allowing all four of us to go about our business and save the bloodshed. This was all contingent on the two guys being smart enough to avoid a street fight with a giant walking at them from the darkness. After all, the best fight is the one you don’t have.
But this plan wasn’t going to work because it assumed that the other two guys involved were equipped with common sense, which was required for them to realize that avoiding a fight was smarter for their own well-being. This was assuming too much and I knew it.
Two guys in an old nineteen-seventies pickup truck, waiting in darkness for a target to come along for them to rob and possibly beat to death, weren’t the brightest criminal masterminds to begin with and these two had been drinking on top of that. The second plan was going to be the right course of action and the second plan involved the element of surprise and a fast couple of elbows and punches until I was left standing.
The two guys walked up to the old man as he was using a long tire thumper to check the pressure in the front tires, his back turned to them. I was still more than fifty yards away while the two guys were less than thirty from the old man and they were picking up speed, not running or sprinting, but walking fast. I waited until they closed in a little more so that both guys were looking straight toward the old man as he faced away from them. Then I blew into a full head-on sprint and ran and ran. I was no kind of long sprinter or runner. I had never done track and field and I wasn’t much on running or jogging. But I was young and in good shape and I had good genes. I could run fifty yards without any problems and fast enough.
I tried to keep quiet as best as I could, but as I neared, the first guy turned and saw me or saw a dark blur rushing toward him.
The second guy raised the bat as he got within a few feet of the old man and the old man swiveled on his haunches and raised his hands and the thumper in a defensive position.
The first guy yelled and said, “Claude!”
I hadn’t wanted to prejudge these guys, but it was hard not to label them as rednecks or hillbillies or whatever Kansas had. However, the first guy’s voice had that redneck twang sound in it and the second guy’s name was Claude, which was an unusual name for middle-American Kansas, but seemed to fit in an inbred, redneck sort of way.
Claude stopped his sw
ing and twisted at the hip and both guys stared at me.
I reached them, but I had lost the element of surprise, so I resorted to my more basic instincts and raised my fist like I was going to throw a right at the first guy. He prepared for the strike by bending at the knees and locking his feet in the gravel. He looked like he was factoring in my momentum, an experienced fighter, but not experienced enough.
Instead of swinging my fist, I exploded from my back right foot and lunged a vicious kick right into the guy’s groin, which worked out beautifully because he had expected me to swing a punch and had voluntarily planted hits feet apart and bent his knees. He had set me up perfectly.
My boot landed right in the center of his groin and he jutted forward and hurled beer out of his mouth and grabbed at his testicles.
I stood straight up and breathed heavy from the sprint.
Claude looked at me in horror like he had seen a demon, which I imagine he might have actually believed because even when I was friendly to people, I still looked like something out of a horror novel. I wasn’t a bad-looking man, but I was far from a pretty boy. That night I had a freshly shaven head, but hadn’t had a shower or new clothes in a day or so. And the clothes that I wore were old scrubs that I’d bought at a consignment store. I purchased them because they were cheap and comfortable and I hadn’t had much time because I was catching a bus.
At that moment, I must’ve looked like an escaped mental patient with those scrubs on and charging at them straight out of the darkness. If it weren’t for my boots, I would’ve been dead on for an escaped mental patient.
Claude said, “Who…who the hell are you?”
I watched his arm. When a guy was about to swing a baseball bat at you, he still had to rear his arm back in one direction or the other.
I said, “Drop the bat and I’ll let you walk away.”
Claude said, “Walk away?”
He looked like he was thinking about it, like it was a better option than facing me, even with the bat.
The guy on the ground gasped for air trying to recover his breath. My kick had done more than send unrelenting pain from his groin to his brain. It also knocked the wind out of him.
Finally, he said, “No, Claude! Hit him!”
The old guy was old and slow, but he was no wimp apparently, because he stood up and whipped the tire thumper around and clubbed Claude right in his arm, not a powerful blow and not a strong weapon, but the action shocked Claude and he reacted.
He backhanded the baseball bat straight up and clipped the old man in the chest. The old guy fell back against the huge tire and sank to the ground holding his chest. It hadn’t been a hard hit with the bat or a hard impact into the big tire, but the guy was old. Any fall wasn’t good for a man his age.
I didn’t wait for Claude to turn back to me. I lunged forward one big step and pivoted on my right foot and jabbed him, full force, right in the solar plexus. It was a gigantic blow. I didn’t hold back. Frankly it was lucky for him that he had a mountain of fat on his upper chest because it acted as a shield or a cushion and absorbed just enough of my blow not to kill the guy, but it still was enough force and impact to send him flying off his feet and right into the side of the truck. In a way, the guy had been lucky twice because he flew right into the bottom of the open door to the cab instead of the steel on the truck. His head only hit the bottom of the driver’s seat, which was relatively soft plastic and cushion, much better than a head-on blow to the metal frame. He slumped forward and sank until he fell back to the gravel. His right arm and head slumped down until he was halfway under the truck.
He was out cold.
The first guy was standing now, but still half humped over, holding his groin with one hand.
I guess that he was expecting me to bend over and pick up the baseball bat because he had pivoted until he was behind me. I didn’t get the bat. I had no interest in it. Instead, I spun around and stared at him.
I said, “How do your nuts feel? Hurt, don’t they?”
He said nothing.
I said, “They say that the average human male will get a groin injury at least once in his life. Most of those are superficial wounds, but some aren’t. Some are more serious. Much, much more serious. I believe these kinds of wounds destroy all chances of a guy every producing offspring.”
The guy’s face started to turn red with worry.
I said, “This kind of groin wound can cause permanent sperm destruction.”
He breathed heavy.
I said, “Not reduction, but destruction. Meaning that you’ll never have kids.”
Anger flashed across his face, but it wasn’t the only expression. I saw fear in his eyes and not the kind of fear of a man who was scared for his life, but the kind of a worried man, worried for his sperm count and future generations of little redneck kids.
I asked, “You got a wife?”
He stared at me with cold hatred.
I asked, “Did you want kids?”
He said nothing.
I said, “Maybe I should visit her. I could help you out.”
The guy let go of his groin and sprung at me. He swung his left fist. I swiped the attempt away and nailed him in the throat with a right elbow—two fast movements. One swiped his punch and the second was an elbow to the throat, but not a fatal blow, just hard enough to put him on his back. Thank you and good night.
He writhed around on his back like a turtle that couldn’t get back up.
I walked over to the old guy and helped him up.
I said, “Are you okay?”
He said, “Yeah. Thank you, son.”
I stayed quiet.
The guy said, “Goddamn hooligans.”
Which wasn’t what I would’ve called them, but I guess that it worked as good as any slang for them.
I asked, “You got a cell phone?”
He said, “Yeah. It’s in the console, in the cup holder.”
I walked over to the door and stepped around Claude. He was breathing heavy, almost like a snore. He was probably dreaming like a kid, but when he woke up, he was definitely going to have a splitting headache. No doubt about it.
I jacked myself up onto the door frame so I could get a better look in and I saw the cell phone in the cup holder next to an empty coffee cup. I reached in and grabbed it and slipped back out.
The old guy said, “Son, why’re you wearing scrubs? Did you just get out of the hospital or something?”
I said, “No. Just comfortable.”
He shrugged and took the phone from me.
I said, “Better call 911. Get these two behind bars and let the cops sort them out.”
The old guy said, “Yeah. Right.”
He dialed the numbers and waited and got the cops on the phone. He told them what had happened. I reached my hand up before he finished and he lifted the phone away from his ear.
He asked, “What?”
I said, “Leave me out of it.”
He nodded and told them that he took them down.
After another forty seconds, he said, “No. No. I don’t need an ambulance.”
Then he looked down at the two guys and said, “But you better send one anyway. I think these two hooligans will need one.”
He hung the phone up and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans.
He said, “My name is Grant Curtis. Grant is fine.”
And he stuck his hand out for me to shake, which wasn’t a pleasantry that I was used to. It took me off guard for about a half a second. Then I grabbed his hand and shook it.
I said, “Cameron.”
He said, “Thank you, Cameron. Thank you for helping me. You probably saved my life.”
I said, “I wouldn’t say that. But you’re welcome.”
He said, “Now what?”
I said, “I guess you gotta wait here for the cops.”
He said, “I could, but they told me to lock my truck and wait inside the truck stop. You know in case these two guys get back up or ma
ybe they aren’t alone.”
I said, “That’s good advice.”
He asked, “Will you wait with me?”
I thought about it for a moment and then I shrugged and said, “Sure. Let’s wait inside.”
He nodded.
I said, “Better lock the door first.”
He dug into the left pocket of his jeans and came out with a simple key ring—three keys only. The first was for the truck, the second was probably for the trailer, and the third might’ve been to his house, wherever that was.
He asked, “Can you do it for me? You’re bigger and younger.”
I nodded and took the keys and slammed the door from the ground and then I hopped up on the rig again and locked it. I tugged the handle twice to make sure that it was shut and locked properly. I hopped back down to the ground and handed him his keys back.
We turned and walked back to the truck stop.
Grant said, “Thanks again. I owe you big time.”
I said, “Just buy me a cup of coffee and we’ll call it even.”
He said, “No. I have to do more than that.”
I asked, “Which way are you headed? I could use a ride.”
He said, “Colorado. Is that where you need to go?”
I said, “Sounds good to me.”
He said, “Can I say something else without offending you?”
I said, “Of course.”
He said, “Your clothes suck. You gotta let me buy you some new ones.”
I said, “Where? Here?”
He said, “Truck stop clothes are better than scrubs. You look like you woke up in the morgue and escaped.”
I shrugged.
He said, “And maybe you should take a shower here too. While I’m with the cops, because they’ll take my statement and it’ll give plenty of time for you to get cleaned up and wear some new clothes.”
I shrugged.
And twenty-four hours later, I was in Hope, Colorado.
Chapter 3
THE POLICE OFFICER stood, staring at me like she had seen a reincarnation of a distant memory. From the look in her eyes, it was a fond memory, which was lucky for me.
I said, “No. Cameron’s my name.”
She looked confused. A glimmer of mistrust appeared back in her eyes like she had realized that she had made a mistake and let her guard down in front of a murder suspect and a cop killer at that.