Bobby Cole - The dummy line

Jake screamed, “Nooooooo!” then put the shotgun’s front bead on Johnny Lee’s chest and pulled the trigger. BOOM!

All hell broke loose as fire shot out of Jake’s gun barrel, blinding everyone for a second. Johnny Lee was knocked off his feet. Reese shot twice in Jake’s direction, then grabbed Johnny Lee by the shoulders and dragged him toward their trucks. The fat one tripped over a barbecue grill. Jake pumped another shell into the chamber and was ready to shoot anyone that moved toward him or the camper. Two more shots rang out, hitting the camp house wall just above Jake’s head. They were hiding behind their trucks, frantically talking to their leader. Johnny Lee was screaming in pain. They quickly loaded him in the back of the black pickup. Gravel flew as they backed out and scratched off down the road; then they stopped at the gate. Jake could hear them arguing. One was extremely emotional.

Jake stood in a trance, soaking wet with sweat. Slowly breaking out of the haze, he told himself, I had to shoot him. They forced me. I had to protect Katy.

“Katy! Oh, shit!” Jake screamed, running into the camper.

“Oh God, Katy! Are you all right? Katy, are you all right?” he screamed again as turned on a light. Her tiny head was peeking from underneath her sleeping bag. He raced to her and hugged her.

Jake picked her up and ran to his truck. She was about to cry. He put her in the front seat and ran back inside, jumped into a pair of blue jeans, and grabbed a shirt. A thought stopped him before he got to the truck. He ran back inside to grab Katy’s camo gear. Slinging it all into the truck, he could hear the mayhem at the gate.

They were screaming at him. “You killed him! You killed him! You son of a bitch! We’re gonna make you pay…you…you’re dead!”

One guy kept yelling over and over, “You’re a dead man walking!”

There were only two ways for Jake to get out of the camp. The main one was the gravel road the rednecks were blocking. The other was a seldom-used logging road that snaked through the woods for several miles until it hit an old railroad bed called the Dummy Line that ran for several miles, eventually ending on a county road. Jake had never left the camp by way of the Dummy Line.

Jake caught a glimpse of the gang by the gate as he turned south heading toward the Dummy Line. He was slinging gravel as he slid around the corner.

“Daddy, what’s going on? What’s happening?” Katy pleaded.

“Some very bad guys were gonna hurt us, and I had to shoot one of ‘em. Now we gotta get out of here. Please listen to me and do exactly what I say…OK? Please? I need you to help me. OK?”

With tears in her eyes, she nodded. Jake grabbed his cell phone. One bar of service. He slammed on the brakes, opened his glove compartment, and found his address book. His first instinct was to call the sheriff; he didn’t know the number or really how to tell anybody where he was, but he tried *HP anyway. The call wouldn’t go through. He punched the gas and took off; rounding a couple curves, he took out small trees. As it got muddier, he slowed and shifted into four-wheel drive. Suddenly he thought of his friend Mick Johnson, who lived only fifteen miles away. Mick had introduced him to the members of this club. He slammed on the brakes again. Two bars. This might work. He looked up Mick’s number and dialed.

“Come on, come on, go through. Katy, why don’t you start getting dressed…there’s your stuff.

“It’s ringing!” he said excitedly almost out of breath. “And then fasten your seat belt.”

Mick Johnson had been in bed since nine that night. He turkey-hunted almost every day of the season, and by mid-April he was exhausted. When he heard his phone ringing he immediately turned off his alarm clock and thought how short the night was. His wife jabbed him in the side and told him it was the telephone.

“Hello,” he answered groggily on the sixth ring.

Trying not to talk too fast, Jake kept it simple. He didn’t have faith that the signal would hold up. “Mick, this is Jake. I need the sheriff at the huntin’ camp. It’s an emergency. There is a bunch of rednecks trying to kill me…Hello, Mick…can you hear me? Mick?”

The call dropped. Jake cussed under his breath. He needed some distance between him and those lunatics. He threw the phone down and drove on, certain they were coming after them. Damn it! I’ve got no idea if Mick heard anything.

“Who was that?” Mick’s wife asked sleepily.

“I think it was Jake Crosby on a cell phone. It sounded like he said it was an emergency,” Mick said, pulling himself up on one elbow.

“Why would he call you?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, lying back down.

“What kind of emergency?”

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes.

“Well…what are you gonna do?” she asked as she rolled over.

“I guess I’m gonna go and check on him. I can’t sleep now.”

“Be careful. Why don’t you take Beau?”

“Yeah…I think I will.”

He slowly got out of bed and got dressed. Beau, the family’s golden retriever, met him at the back door, stretching and yawning, tail wagging.

“Shut up! Shut up! Just shut the hell up! Everybody just calm down!” Reese yelled as he jumped in the bed of the Ford pickup to check on Johnny Lee.

Johnny Lee was gurgling blood, and his breathing was extremely labored. It took him several minutes just to say a few words. He was dying and he knew it. Blood ran out of his mouth with his final words: “Get him…get that son of a bitch.”

Johnny Lee Grover, one of the most vicious, notorious thugs of western Alabama, died at age thirty-six in the arms of his first cousin.

“Johnny Lee! Johnny…no! Johnny Lee, please! Don’t die!” Reese pleaded. He couldn’t imagine living without him. Johnny Lee had always been the center of his life.

Tiny didn’t say a word. He was horrified. Sweat stood at attention, awaiting instructions.

Reese stood, faced the camp, and screamed at the top of his lungs, “You’re dead! You’re a dead man! You killed him! You killed him! You son of a bitch! Do you hear me? You’re a dead man walking!” Then he grabbed anything he could get his hands on, slinging it as far as he could, screaming over and over, “You’re a dead man walking!”

The Chevy pickup came sliding out of the camp house area and disappeared down a road, away from the gang and into the heart of the property.

“Man, he’s haulin’ ass!” Tiny said.

“And he’s gettin’ away!” Sweat added.

“No, he’s not…he is doin’ just exactly what I want him to do.” Reese chuckled out loud. “OK, boys; the two of you go down this road till you hit the Dummy Line-y’all know where it is. He’s gonna try and get out that way. You’ve got a good ten-mile jump on him. The gate combination is nineteen ninety-two, I think. If it ain’t, just shoot the damn thing off. There’s only two ways out of this bitch, and we will be on both of them. Kill him and anybody he’s got with him. I want that sumbitch to suffer. You hear me?” Reese was spitting as he screamed.

Looking each of them in the eyes, Reese continued, “I’ll follow him that way.” He pointed the direction Jake had driven. “He can’t make it very far, it’s too muddy. That stupid sumbitch is trapped, and he don’t know it! Go! Now!”

Sweat and Tiny jumped into their truck. Tiny stomped on the gas with all his might, his mud grips shooting a rooster tail of dirt and rocks thirty feet. Sweat checked his pistol. It only took a few minutes to reach the old abandoned railroad track. Tiny nearly lost control of the truck when he turned the sharp corner. In spite of sliding wildly, Sweat never looked up. Miraculously, Tiny regained control and stood on the gas again. After miles of rough road, they saw headlights piercing the darkness at the gate. Sweat started cussing. Then they both let out a rebel yell at the top of their lungs.