Ever Hayes - Emergency Exit

“He wouldn’t,” Hayley assured her.

“I won’t,” he affirmed.

Hayley hugged Tara again, and as Danny walked out of the room he heard Tara ask Hayley if she’d go with her to talk to Emily now. Danny smiled. That was one less thing on his mind now.

While mapping out the area between Keystone and Custer, Captain Eddie found the perfect place to hide for the day. Thirteen miles west of Custer was Jewel Cave National Monument. The legend on his South Dakota map claimed it was the second largest cave system in the world. It was no doubt a sufficient short-term hideout option. Then again, he couldn’t ignore the possibility others might already be there. Americans. Maybe even “his lions.”

It was slightly after 3 p.m. when Eddie, Lazzo, and their fifty-eight men arrived at Jewel Cave. Several burnt vehicles in the parking lot indicated Qi Jia troops or drones had already been here at some point. Eddie’s men found several dozen bodies, but no signs of life above ground. They covered up their trucks and jeeps with tarps and dug out the main cave entrance. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called into the cold darkness, and laughed. The echo gave him chills.

He was almost disappointed their entrance wasn’t met with a response—gunfire or any form of human resistance. There didn’t seem to be anyone here. It sure would have been an easy place to end their pursuit with a few well-placed explosions. Oh well. He stationed several men near the road with radar equipment to monitor activity in both directions. Eddie and the rest of his soldiers spread out on a level plateau below ground and waited out the day.

Sunset was around 6 p.m. If the other companies had stuck to their plan, they’d be in Hot Springs by now, so Eddie figured it would be safe to move his troops to Custer. They had uncovered the trucks, loaded up, and begun their drive in when their radar screen flashed. Eddie halted the company and backed them up a couple hundred yards. Was it possible the other companies were still in Custer? That didn’t seem likely . Or could they have left some men behind to guard the town? That was more likely but still strange . Custer was a long ways north of Hot Springs to leave men behind. Eddie expected the Americans would likely come this way, as it was the fastest way out of the area, but he couldn’t ignore the one other southern route that would also allow them to pass without going through Hot Springs. He had to make the call. Right now. Every minute he spent strategizing was setting them back.

They had to move closer and find out what was going on in Custer. He sent one jeep forward to scout. They made it to within five miles of Custer with no radar noise appearing in town. Frustrated at what might have caused the earlier flash, Eddie ordered the rest of his troops to move forward. Seconds later he put the pieces together when the scout vehicle called back in noting “four large red dots heading south on 385” towards the other exit out of the Black Hills. That report seemed to confirm Eddie’s hopes and his fears. Four dots could very well be four American vehicles heading away from Custer and Hot Springs. If indeed it was, they were no more than twenty miles ahead. But Eddie would have to lead his men pretty close to the other companies to pursue them.

As darkness approached on the farm Danny gathered everyone together. “Time to go again, guys.” He looked around. “Everyone good?”

By now we figured the large mass of troops we’d followed south had gone through Custer and moved on. We were tempted to stay at the farm another day, but we also knew if we didn’t make it to Colorado, and specifically Estes Park, before snow closed up the mountains, we’d be stuck out in the open. Generally that occurred the last week of October or first week of November—in other words, some time in the next two weeks. This year there wouldn’t be snowplows or road crews to open it back up. We would either make it the first try, or we wouldn’t make it at all.

It was approximately 330 miles to Estes Park from the farm, close as we could tell by the atlas. Normally that would take about five and a half hours. We knew we’d be pushing it to arrive by sunrise, ten or eleven hours from now, given the caution we’d have to take and detours we’d have to make around Cheyenne, Fort Collins and Loveland.

We pulled into Custer and, as expected, the town was empty. The plan was to go further south on 89, instead of taking Highway 16 straight west. We stopped at a gas station west of town to top off the trucks and fill four extra ten-gallon containers with gas. We were leaving the station when the radar flashed at us. Unlike last time though, this time we saw the dots, a bunch of them, straight west of us on Highway 16. Then they disappeared. We had to be right on the edge of their range.

We stopped for a moment to see if they were coming towards us, but a few minutes later they still hadn’t reappeared. We continued on and made it about five more miles before the screen flashed again, but this time there was only one dot. With the dial cranked down a notch, to what we now knew was nine miles, the dot was still on the screen. One more notch and it disappeared. That dot was between eight and nine miles away and moving towards Custer north of us. Making valuable use of middle school geometry, A 2+ B 2= C 2 ,we determined the other vehicle was about fourteen miles away from us by road. We knew we’d seen multiple dots a few minutes ago. We weren’t waiting around to see if they also reappeared.

According to our map, we would soon be coming up on the intersection of 89 and 18, approximately six miles from Hot Springs. If soldiers were still there, we’d be cutting pretty close to them, and with no other viable side roads we’d likely draw their undivided interest.

As we passed into radar range of Hot Springs, we picked up four dots on the screen, scattered around the town. We were within their range and radar visibility for about five miles, and not one of them headed our direction. We quickly moved on south and west into Wyoming, hopeful we were finally alone for a while.

But one of the jeeps did notice the Americans passing and radioed it over to the officers of the two companies camped southeast of Hot Springs at the Angostura Reservoir. The officers there told them not to worry about it, that there was other troop movement in the area. The four men in the jeep were okay with letting those four dots go, until they saw another fourteen dots on the radar screen coming down that same road. That was a lot of troop movement, far more than there should be in that direction. They didn’t call it in this time, for fear of being reprimanded, but decided to go check it out on their own. They got to the intersection behind Eddie’s scout jeep and just before the next thirteen vehicles of the caravan.

Eddie had seen the single dot moving their way from town, and he was weighing what story he should give whoever it was coming to meet them. As Eddie’s jeep neared the intersection, he saw a single military jeep pulling up to cut them off. He slowed the caravan down, and four Middle Eastern men hopped out of their jeep and walked up to his. Here goes .

“What you is be doing here?” one of the men asked him.

And he thought his English was bad . “Trying to catch my men. You see them pass?”

The man ignored his question. “Where you all be go to?”

“Where we going?” Eddie asked, and noted a slight nod back. “Montana,” he stated.

“You come to from the Montana?” the man asked.