Donald Harstad: A Long December

There was a scream, and the shotgun went off, and the man in the doorway disappeared. The other man on his knees jumped back, and he, too, left my field of view. He had heaved on the stock of his AK-47 and it came free, causing him to sort of fly backwards into the living room and out of my line of sight.

As I tried to maintain my balance and get to my feet, it was pretty obvious I had a choice to make. Either go charging into the living room, where there were two pissed-off armed men I couldn’t currently see, or get the hell out of that place and regroup outside.

I’m not that fast, but I was on my feet and out onto the porch in two seconds, onto the steps, and heading for the shelter of the barn.

Call it instinct, call it a reaction to recent events, but I changed course halfway to the barn and went thundering down into the tall, frozen weeds between the barn and the driveway. “Come on!” I yelled toward Hector. “This way!”

I continued toward cover, moving as fast as I could. Hector caught up, and I think the only reason he didn’t pass me was that he wasn’t sure where we were going. I wasn’t all that sure myself, but I knew one thing: No more barns for this deputy. As soon as I got into shadow, I knelt down behind a skinny crab apple tree, shoved my keys into my pocket, and grabbed my walkie-talkie. Hector slid in the fresh snow and came to a stop about ten feet past me.

“Three to anybody! Ten-thirty-three, I repeat, ten-thirty-three!”

Sally, who was apparently still at the Lemonade Stand, answered in an instant.

“Three, go!”

“Up here… at the Heinmans’,” I said, breathing hard. “They’re here.”

“Who’s there?”

“Two suspects from the farm. The one’s we’re looking for.” I needed to catch my breath. I slowed my speech as much as possible and tried to sound matter-of-fact and calm as hell. “Somebody broke into my car and tried to hot-wire it.”

“Ten-four.”

“It sure as hell wasn’t the Heinman boys,” I said.

“Ten-four. They’re on the way.”

“Hustle it up,” I said, and released the mike button. It occurred to me that I had heard Sally very clearly. Given the present condition of my hearing, that meant that I must have the volume turned up way too high to be able to hide. I fumbled around, found the little dial, and turned the volume on my walkie-talkie way down. Since I’d never be able to hear somebody sneaking up, I sure didn’t want them to be able to hear me.

“Hector?

“Why we running, man?”

“The bad ones are in the house. Listen, get a little closer here, and if you hear this walkie-talkie, let me know. My ears are all screwed up from the bomb at the barn; I can’t hear all that well.”

“Sure.” He shifted closer.

“I shot one of ‘em. I don’t know how many more there are. I hope just one.”

I started scanning the area. From where I was, I couldn’t see a single light in the house. They’d turned them off. Great.

I wondered where the Heinman boys parked their car. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember. I dimly recollected being able to see into their garage, and that the little building was chock-full of tools and shop things. No room for a car there. Had I ever really seen their car? I had an image from years ago, of the Dodge Dart they’d been driving when it had been hit by the bus. It was the only car I’d ever associated with them. Well, whatever kind it was, there wasn’t any car visible but the two cars we’d driven into the place. Regardless of the reason for its absence, that was why Odeh had tried to steal my car.

My eyes were becoming better adjusted to the dark. From my new perspective in the shadows, the front half of the house was between the yard light and me. In the golden glow, I could see through the thinly curtained front windows on the upper floor, and into what I guessed would be the kitchen on the ground floor. There was no movement there, and the back half of the building was pitch black.

We’d left some pretty clear tracks leading right to where we were. Great. Nothing to be done about it, but I was beginning to feel that a white Christmas was a little overrated.

It always becomes quieter when the snow starts to fall, but the deadening effect of the snow-filled air was emphasizing the shriek in my ears caused by the nearness of the shotgun blast. It was a little distracting.

The crab apple tree that had become our little bastion wasn’t nearly as thick as I was. I seemed to remember reading somewhere that an AK-47 round could easily penetrate ten inches of wood. Not good, but it was definitely time to stop moving around. In the dark, movement is the tattletale.

A staccato clang behind me just about scared me to death.

“What…?” escaped from Hector.

I twisted around and caught a silvery shape in the darkness. The hog feeders. We were almost at the wooden fence that separated the hogs from the yard. There apparently was a hungry hog behind us. “Hog feeder,” I said, with a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d sucked in, and turned back toward the house. Just in time to catch a flicker of movement in the upper window. It was one of those things that happens in the dark, where you just aren’t sure you’ve actually seen anything. I looked back at the hog feeder, and then brought my gaze back to the house. I did that three times, and never once caught a hint of movement. That pretty well satisfied me that I’d actually seen something.

But what had I seen? Whatever or whoever it was, it wasn’t there now.

I was beginning to wonder where the cavalry had gotten to. I placed my ear as close to the mike-receiver as I could, and called Sally.

“Three to Mobile Comm?” I heard something like a response, but it was too faint. I pressed the little speaker right to my ear and adjusted the volume upward.

“Three to Mobile Comm?”

This time, I heard Sally say, “Three, go ahead!”

Hector punched me in the arm, apparently to let me know the walkie-talkie was receiving. Just like I’d asked him to do. “Okay, uh, where’s everybody at?”

“Some of them are there already,” she said. “Where have you been? We’ve been calling…give me your exact ten-twenty.”

My exact location. I did the best I could. “We’re kind of southeast of the residence. About a hundred feet.”

“Stand by.”

Like I had a choice.

“Three,” said Sally, after about five seconds, “would you be near a small tree?”

That was a surprise. “Ten-four, I am.”

“Stand by.”

I did. The “some of them” she’d referred to must have night-vision equipment.

“Three?”

“Go.”

“Three, a team member has you in sight. Remain where you are if at all possible. And who’s this ‘we’?”

“The Hispanic male subject is with me. We’ll sit tight, ten-four on that.” That’d be pretty easy. “Be sure they know there’s two of us.”

There was a pause, and then, “They know.”

I looked around me. Nothing moved. No indication of where the team member might be. I was hoping I didn’t have to “remain” all that long, as the cold was starting to seep through my clothes.

“Stand by one moment, Three…” and it got quiet again. Then she was back. “Uh, and, Three, be advised that there’s an unidentified subject just entering the yard from the east side of the residence, apparently armed, and about twenty-five yards from you.”

Holy shit. I stopped talking and just clicked the mike button in quiet acknowledgment.

I could tell Hector had heard the conversation, because he instantly looked in the right direction. I wasn’t sure about Hector’s younger eyes, but I looked as hard as I could into the deep shadow cast by the house and didn’t see anybody. I tried looking to one side and then the other, hoping to catch a movement in my peripheral vision. No go. But if he was on my side of the house, my tracks ought to be pretty apparent in the yard light. I fervently wished it hadn’t snowed.