One Second After [139]
A girl was lying in the ditch against the median barrier, multiple gunshot wounds having stitched her body. Makala barely paused to look at her, wrote a "3" on her forehead, and moved on. The girl looked at John, crying.
"What did she write? What did she write?"
John knelt down by her side. It was a wonder she was still alive, the gunshot wound to her upper thigh having shattered her femur. How the femoral artery was not torn was beyond him. She was also shot through the chest and stomach, blood frothing her lips. He didn't recognize her. Most likely a freshman who had yet to take his class.
"She wrote '2,' sweetheart," he lied. "Others worse hurt than you. Help will be along shortly."
She tried to smile, to nod, but was already beginning the gentle slide into the night. John leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
"Go to sleep now, honey. You'll be OK."
She reached out and snatched his hand, her grip remarkably strong. "Daddy?" she whispered. "Daddy, help me." "Daddy's here."
She began to shake uncontrollably.
"Now I lay me down to sleep," he whispered.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ..., she mouthed the words. The shuddering stopped... . She was dead.
John brushed the hair from her sweat-soaked forehead, kissed her again, then gently released her grip and turned away.
Distant shots echoed from the hills and more closely, from behind, as Tom's men continued to kill the Posse wounded.
Ahead, smashed into the side of the gap, was the smoldering wreckage of Don Barber's recon plane. During the worst moments of the fight John had seen Barber fly over, coming in low, tossing satchel charges, taking out one of their tractor-trailer trucks, and then suddenly wing over and go in.
John had specifically ordered Don not to tangle in the fight, to stay high, to keep doing recon, and in the opening hours he had done just that, flying up, observing, swooping back down over the town hall and dropping a note attached to a streamer with the latest update regarding the enemy moves, then going back out. The info had been crucial, keeping John posted on which direction the Posse was pouring in from and, most important, knowing when their full force had been committed before the closing of the trap.
But as he had feared all along, Don could not stay out of the fight and had decided, at last, to play the role of ground support fighter.
Don Barber was tangled into the wreckage ... dead. He was wearing his old uniform from the Korean War. John slowed, saluted him, then pushed on.
A line of prisoners was being led along the westbound side of the road, hands tied behind backs, all roped together, roughly thirty of them, including the last survivors flushed out of the burning house.
A guard leading them looked over at John and he motioned for them to move towards the truck stop at the top of the pass, the place he was heading.
The truck stop was actually a turnoff lane at the very top of the crest, a mandatory pull over for all commercial vehicles, especially 18-wheelers. Trucks that pulled in were not allowed to proceed until the drivers had examined the map of the long descent that marked out "runaway truck lanes" for vehicles that might lose their brakes on the way down. A traffic light was hung across the lane, timed to let trucks through at safe intervals or to stop them completely if there should be an accident farther down the mountain. Of course all that was now in the distant past. To the good fortune of the town, at the start of the crisis one of the trucks stalled there had been loaded with snack crackers, but those were long gone as well.
It had been the command post for the barrier line established what seemed to be an eternity ago and was now where so many were heading, as if by instinct.
John continued on the road, several students falling in around him, all with weapons poised, acting as a guard.