Worth Saving

by G. L. Snodgrass

  It felt so wrong having her there with me. Every part of my being was yelling to myself to keep her away from danger. I kept trying to think of ways to get her to leave. Some task or important duty that would ensure her safety. I knew she’d kill me if she knew I was thinking this way, or worse, never talk to me again but I couldn’t stop my mind from trying to come up with something.

  She spent a moment familiarizing herself with the eye pieces and then several minutes staring at their camp. “I see six men,” She lowered the glasses and looked at me. “That means there are four men out hunting us.”

  “Yeah, maybe they’re working in shifts? Do you see the big guy with the black beard?" I said.

  She brought the glasses back up and her mouth formed a hard strait line as she clenched her jaw. “Yes, he’s standing next to the wagon. Is that Big Jake?”

  “Yes, he’s the one we need to get rid of. I honestly believe the others will leave us alone if we get rid of him. The problem is that he’s always surrounded. I can’t get in close enough take a shot and get away.” I didn’t tell her that I was thinking about forgetting the ‘get away’ part of things.

  She put the binoculars down and looked at me with a strange expression. I swear she knew what I was thinking about. She didn’t say anything. She was probably marshaling her arguments, and would roll them out at the right time. “We could take the other men out one at a time, you know, keep doing what you’ve already been doing. Until only he’s left”

  I looked at her dumbfounded. “When did you get so blood thirsty?” I Asked.

  “When they shot Jenny,” She said without a moment’s hesitation before turning back to scan the park, her expression hard and focused.

  I let the matter drop and joined her. There had to be some way to get him alone.

  .o0o.

  We spent the night taking turns watching the camp. I laid on the bell tower’s floor with my pack for a pillow and tried to sleep. I punched my pack and turned over but it wouldn’t come. I kept flashing back to the night we watched for the tongue less man in the gas station and I knew Claire was thinking about it also. The tension built between us, and of course that got me to thinking about what it felt like to wake up with her next to me like earlier the other morning.

  I was desperate to change the vivid images racing through my mind, anything to divert my attention. So of course I started thinking about what would happen in the morning, would I get killed, captured?, what happens if Claire is killed or captured? How do we get this scumbag Big Jake away from his gang? Needless to say, none of these thoughts were very sleep inducing. I flopped onto my other side without any change in results.

  Giving up I sat up and leaned against the wall. Claire was startled and raised an eyebrow before asking me what was wrong.

  I shook my head and said, “We have to come up with a plan, I’ve got some ideas.”

  She nodded her head and I told her what I thought we should do.

  .o0o.

  The sun rose slowly and the camp started to stir. I fixed a dry breakfast of beef jerky and biscuits for both of us and washed it down with bottled water. We took turns sneaking downstairs to find a corner to relieve ourselves before we returned to focus on the group of men standing around their campfire.

  We watched the men finish their breakfast. They gathered around Big Jake who was waiving his hands around and pointing back into the city. Obviously, he was trying to urge his men to be more diligent and succeed in finding what he wanted. God I hated that man. The raw S on my chest burned every time I saw him.

  The men stood there and listened then gathered their weapons and supplies before heading towards the city. Claire and I ducked down behind the wall when the men walked by the Cathedral. I peeked over the edge and saw four men walking up the street towards the Mall area. Turning back to the park we watched three more men start walking towards the river.

  “That means three left,” Claire said.

  We watched for another hour, hoping the two bodyguards would leave also but no such luck. I was starting to worry, there was a danger of the other men coming back for lunch or something. We needed to do this now.

  “Come on,” I said. I didn’t look to see if Claire followed, but ran down the stairs to the front door. She was close behind as I stuck my head out and looked around. Everything appeared to be quite.

  “Okay, just like we talked about,” I said, trying to hide the concern in my voice. We’d decided the only way this would work was to lure them into the city. I could never get close enough as long as they stayed in the Park.

  Claire slipped through the door, her head sweeping back and forth as she got her bearings. She turned back to me and smiled before reaching up and kissing me goodbye. Her wide eyes and flushed cheeks told me how excited she was. My heart fell from my chest as she walked away. That jean clad, perfect butt naturally swaying from side to side, the blond ponytail bouncing with each step.

  “Please God, Please, Please …” I said to myself as I started running to my task. I found the store we’d talked about and began laying the snares. I’d made four of them when I heard Claire’s whistle. A quick glance out the window was in time to see her run into the department store across the street. Now it was my turn.

  I stepped outside and waited. It wasn’t long before the three remaining men turned the corner. Jake stood between them. He still didn’t have a gun; I think it was some kind of weird pride thing with him. Telling the world that he could control these hard men with the force of his personality; it must really have pissed him off that it didn’t work on me.

  All of us froze in place and stared at each other, their surprised faces registering shock. The two other men lifted their guns towards me. That was all the notice I needed. I turned and dove through a broken window, my back muscles tensed up waiting for the impact of a bullet.

  Either I was faster than I thought, or they were holding their fire for some reason. I bounced up and started to head towards the back of the store. I was out the back and across the street when I heard one of the men scream behind me. The deadfall had worked. I’d set it up at the back door of the store so that a trip wire brought an eight foot high rack of shelves full of cans of paint down onto my pursuers.

  Only the little man exited the building, I watched for a second but no one else followed. Deciding it was long enough, I knocked over a display rack of coats hoping that’d draw his attention. The man twisted towards the sound and fired his gun. The idiot couldn’t see what he was shooting at. I guess I’d made him a little nervous.

  The man slowly entered the store. His gun leading the way swinging back and forth trying to cover the entire space at the same time. I hid behind a display of shirts on the far side of the room and watched him start to search, peaking behind every possible hiding place. I waited until he was halfway across the store and exactly where I wanted him.

  An explosion engulfed the room as I jumped from the shirts to behind a big wooden case full of socks, reverberating from the walls. The smell of cordite filled my nose making me want to sneeze. I pinched my nostrils trying to hold it back but it forced its way out and sounded almost as loud as the gun shot.

  The little guy laughed and stepped off the linoleum floor onto the carpeted display area where his foot came in contact with a thin wire. He didn’t even feel it, but enough force was applied to release a waited trash can I’d loaded with thirty cans of paint. The three hundred pounds of paint fell through the false acoustical tile ceiling pulling the wire rope around his feet, tugging them into them into the air and up to the ceiling. In the blink of an eye the man went from standing there. The big powerful man with a big ugly black pistol ready to kill anyone who got in his way, to looking like a trussed up roasted chicken hanging in a New York deli window.

  “I’ll kill you! Let me down now. You little F…ker, get me down.”

  He was waving his pistol around like a maniac and screaming his head off. The movement started him swinging back and forth but it
didn’t stop him trying to get free. He pulled his gun back up and aimed for the wire hanging from the hook in the cement ceiling. He tried to steady his aim, fired and proceeded to shoot himself in the foot.

  I laughed when he screamed. It was probably wrong of me but I didn’t care. He’d put a hole two inches from the point of his boot and bright red blood was already dripping from it. He was so frustrated and in so much pain that big wet tears leaked out of his eyes and slid down his forehead and into his hair line.

  I glanced at my watch and realized I was running late. Taking one last glance I saw that the guy wasn’t going anywhere. Pleased with myself and the way things were going I left him hanging there and walked to the broken window to look out onto the street. My arrow was notched and pulled back to my ear, ready for anything but Big Jake wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  As I scanned the entire area I heard a faint scream on the next block. Claire! I knew it was her. My muscles tightened up in fear as my heart started to race. I tore up the block towards the sound I’d heard. I was careful going around the corner but couldn’t see Claire anywhere. What could have happened, she wasn’t supposed to be here but two blocks further over. I couldn’t figure it out. I knew it was Claire, every part of me could feel her in danger.

  A faint sound reached my ears, some kind of scrape. I was getting ready to head that way when I saw a man running towards me from far up the street. He must have heard hanging guy shooting at everything that moved, including his own foot, and was coming to investigate.

  I hadn’t planned on this, just like I hadn’t planned on Claire getting into any trouble. The dreadful feeling deep in my gut couldn’t have gotten any worse, but it was enough to get me moving. I started to dart back into the department store but stopped at the last moment. I had to worry about getting cornered into exposing myself to the guy hanging around in menswear.

  Instead I ran into the office building across the street, thinking how different this was compared to running from the dogs. The predator could follow me where ever I went and could reach out and kill me from well beyond my range.

  The office building was the same one where I met Claire for the first time. I smiled at the bitter sweet memory. “Please, God, Please, Please,” I mumbled again and started up the stairs. The building matched the rest of the downtown area. Old tan stone structures with large interiors and iron fire escapes hanging from the side of the building. I was walking down a long hallway when I heard glass crunch below me. The man must have seen me enter and was getting close. I decided to go down a fire escape while he came up. I needed to find Claire and get this over with.

  The long hallway ended in a double sashed window overlooking the black metal stair case. I tried to raise the window but it was stuck tight like a lock box. I couldn’t budge it. I leaned my bow against the wall and searched around for something to break through the glass. The only thing I could find was one of those old white trash cans. I brought it up to chest level and hesitated. I knew as soon as the glass shattered the armed man below would be on his way up.

  Taking a deep breath I smashed the window and threw the can to the side. Stepping through the window I reached back for my bow. When I pulled, the bow string caught on something. Without thinking I gave it a gentle tug, expecting it to slip off or if not I’d reach back in and free it. Unfortunately the small tug was all that was needed to slice the precious string in two. My mouth dropped open in shock as I stared at the now useless weapon. It took the stairwell door slowly opening to get me moving. I turned and started down the three flights of stairs carrying an unhelpful piece of fiberglass.

  When I jumped to the ground I ran for the corner of the building, trying to get out of sight before the guy looked out the window. I think I was successful because I didn’t hear anything more.

  Without any idea where Claire might be now, I decided to follow through with the initial plan. Walking towards the selected area, my guilt about losing my bow was overwhelming. I had no idea what I was going to do now.

  I tugged at my hunting knife insuring it’d come free easily if needed. As I turned another the corner I saw Claire running down the street looking over her shoulder. A few seconds later Big Jake followed around the same corner. He was unarmed but was gaining on Claire; she must have been real tired to let him get that close. I had a feeling she’d been drawing him away from me while I took care of the other two. She wasn’t supposed to have let things get this close. It looked like the situation was going bad fast. I started to bring my bow up but I remembered my screw up earlier and cursed under my breath.

  Claire turned into a parking garage. I could hear her tennis shoes echo through the cavernous building. I knew she’d go out the back. No way was she going to let herself get caught without an exit. I started towards them but saw Jake slam to a halt, his feet sliding on the dirty street as he changed direction. My stomach lurched when I realized that he wasn’t going to follow her into the garage but was running for the rear entrance. She was going to run right into him.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  I dropped my useless bow and ran flat out for the building, praying I could stop Claire before she walked into Jake. The garage was huge, empty with only a few cars in the parking spaces. Most people had stayed at home those last few days. Claire wasn’t anywhere in site. I stopped and listened but couldn’t hear her running. My heart pounded as I thought of her in his hands.

  We almost collided as I rounded the corner. The mountainous form appeared in the doorway like a slab of stone. We both sprang back. Big Jake's eyes bulging and mouth agape in total surprise and I’m sure mine was the same. We reached for our knives, my heart breaking when I thought about my useless bow lying out in the street. This could have been ended right then and there if I’d had my weapon.

  He brought up a twelve inch Bowie knife with a four inch wide blade that looked like it could cut through an oak tree. My new knife looked puny in comparison and felt strange in my hand. I wished they hadn’t taken my regular hunting knife from me.

  Big Jake ducked his head as he stepped into the garage, his pupils dilating as he left the bright sunshine and entered my darkened haven. He scowled, his forehead wrinkling and focus narrowing on me, then spit an ugly green goop of phlegm to the side. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, exposing massive, hairy forearms that looked like small cannons. I’d difficulty swallowing when I thought about what he could do to me if he ever got a hold of me.

  “Come on kid, let’s get this over with, I got things to see and people to do,” He said with a menacing sneer.

  I swear he thought he was funny. I didn’t say anything as I continued to back into a relatively open part of the garage. I figured the only advantage I might have was maneuverability over size. The Eagle needed to become the crow.

  He slowly stepped towards me. His free hand covered his stomach as he shifted the cutting edge of his blade to face downwards. I remembered a passage from an old book, something about using your free hand to protect your intestines and having the sharp edge facing up because that way you could cut with a left or right slice.

  It was obvious that he knew what he was doing and that made at least one of us. My hands shifted to mimic his movements and my mind raced as I tried to figure out what to do next. This was not what I’d planned, so many things could go wrong, not least of all was me ending up with a huge hunk of metal sticking out of my guts.

  We slowly started to circle each other when suddenly he tossed the knife to his other hand and then back before he lunged towards my left side. I was caught totally by surprise. The only thing that saved me was the fact that he hadn’t expected the move to work. He pulled back too early, expecting me to react faster than I did. My lack of experience was now evident and a confident smile crept over his face as he contemplated the ease with which he was going to gut me.

  The circling started again, both of us concentrating on the other’s weapon. He made a few weak faints towards me, each time stepping back to see how I’d re
act. I held my ground and continued to circle, looking for an opening. Sweat was starting to burn my eyes and I could feel every muscle tense up as tight as a board. I’d lost track of sounds or smells. I could only see that giant knife.

  He made another lunge, stabbing at my belly button. I sucked in my gut and scooted back as I instinctively brought my blade down towards his thrusting arm. I got lucky and nicked him a little on the upper forearm. He immediately brought his hand back and scowled at me as the blood started to ooze and drip onto the gray cement floor.

  Maybe it wasn’t going to be as easy as he planned, I thought. If I kept out of his reach and nicked and dinged him until he got weak from bleeding, maybe I could survive. My heart soared with the thought of surviving, maybe even beating him. I had to tell myself not to get cocky and concentrate. I couldn’t let this go on too long, the other men might show up or Claire might walk into the situation. I had to finish this and soon.

  He shifted the blade to his left hand and held the cut against his side to try and staunch the bleeding. He was baiting me, opening up, trying to get me to commit, instead I started circling to the right. He looked confused for a moment then quickly shifted the knife back to his right hand and took two quick steps towards me, leading with the knife tip. This time however, I didn’t step back instead I shifted to the side like a Bullfighting matador. The silver blade shot past me and before he could react I grabbed his enormous wrist and pulled, continuing his forward momentum while I brought my weapon towards his ribs.

  I saw a flash of fear race across his eyes when he realized how vulnerable he was as my blade reached for his heart. For just a moment, he thought he was dead. I didn’t hit true, I felt the knife skid along the bone and new that I hadn’t landed a killing blow. I let my movement carry me on and out of his range behind him. He spun around quickly, moving blindingly fast for such a big man. The cut on his side had opened up about six inches of muscle and bright red blood soaked his sliced shirt and his left arm wasn’t working correctly. He was pressing it against his body trying to slow down the bleeding. This wasn’t a faint, I’d really hurt him this time.