Ray Gorham - 77 Days in September

The man hesitated, then slowly pulled a green duffle bag from the cart and tossed it on the ground beside him. As Kyle watched the bag tumble to the ground, the man turned casually away from Kyle and seemed to be scratching his stomach before he spun back around a split second later, a handgun drawn and a wicked sneer on his face. Kyle dove back towards the truck as two shots rang out, one of the bullets shattering the truck’s headlight and showering the ground around Kyle with pieces of glass.

Kyle frantically gathered himself behind the truck’s tire, a slight groan escaping his lips as the sound of the man’s cold laughter carried across the freeway. Clutching his rifle in his trembling hands, Kyle climbed onto the step of the truck and peered through the window. The man in the Steelers cap was kneeling behind the cart and rummaging with one hand through his duffle as he watched for Kyle.

“I just want my cart!” Kyle called out. “I don’t want any trouble!”

Through the window of the truck, Kyle saw the man stand up, smiling as though he were holding three aces in a game of poker. The man was now carrying another handgun, this one with a longer barrel, and after checking his weapons, the man crouched and began to circle wide around the front of the truck that Kyle was using as his shield. Kyle tugged on the door of the cab, but it wouldn’t open. Panicked, he ran along the step of the truck towards the rear of the tractor, grabbed the rail at the back, and swung himself around to stand on the back tires of the rig. On the back of the cab was a rack that was used to hold chains. Kyle quickly scaled it, then peered over the fairing for his assailant.

A hundred and fifty feet in front of the truck, the man knelt on the pavement and scanned under the truck. Kyle, his heart pounding so forcefully he worried it might shake him from his perch, ducked back down and tried to calm himself. He had shot a deer or an elk almost every year for as long as he could remember, he’d even hunted bear once, but he had never shot at another human being. His older brother had been in the service and one night over beers had opened up to Kyle about the horrors of combat, but Kyle never imagined himself being in a situation where he might have to actually shoot a person.

Kyle reached down and grabbed his rifle from where he’d propped it while doing the math in his head to figure out how many shots he had left. He was pretty sure he had at least four, maybe five, but couldn’t remember exactly when he’d last filled his clip, nor how many bullets he’d used since reloading. With one hand holding tight to the top of the truck, Kyle slowly rose up and looked over the fairing again, pointing his gun towards the spot where his assailant had been kneeling. “I don’t want anyone hurt,” he yelled with undisguised desperation.

The man had moved and was now crouching in the grass on the north side of the road. At the sound of Kyle’s voice he rolled sideways and fired in Kyle’s direction. Kyle squeezed of a wild shot and dropped down as two holes exploded in the fairing beside him, peppering him with shards of fiberglass. He leapt down from the top of the truck, then jumped onto the road on the south side of the truck in a desperate attempt to flee. With the man in the grass on the opposite side of the truck, Kyle, using the semi as a shield, raced towards the median. He slid into the meager shelter of the vegetation and rolled onto his stomach, his gun shouldered and ready to fire if the opportunity presented itself.

Holding his breath and praying that he hadn’t been spotted, Kyle strained to see any sign of movement. The grass around him had grown unchecked for at least a month and provided some camouflage, but Kyle knew the thigh high grass wouldn’t stop any bullets if he was spotted. Feeling agonizingly vulnerable, he edged eastward on his stomach while watching under the truck for his pursuer.

A flash of movement caught Kyle’s eye, and he saw the legs of the man moving towards the back of the trailer, bringing him frighteningly close to where Kyle was hiding. Kyle instantly jumped to his feet and sprinted across the median, an eastbound pickup truck about thirty yards to his left his goal. Covering the distance in record time, Kyle ducked behind the truck just as a shot rang out and a bullet struck metal, hitting a foot or two from where he’d taken shelter. A second shot echoed, and the windshield of the truck exploded, sending glass bouncing in every direction.

Clutching his gun to his chest, Kyle swung around to the back of the pickup and popped his head up just long enough to catch a glimpse of the man standing half-exposed at the back corner of the semi-trailer. Another shot rang out and whistled by somewhere overhead. “You can have the cart!” shouted Kyle from his shelter. “I don’t want to die….and I don’t want to hurt you!”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate,” the man shouted back. “You took a shot at me when I had my back to you. You think I’m going to let that go?”

“I didn’t shoot at you!” Kyle protested as he scrambled towards the front of the pickup on his hands and knees. He looked under the pickup in the direction of his attacker, but the westbound roadway was ten feet higher than the eastbound side and made it impossible for Kyle to see beyond the median from under the truck. Stopping at the passenger door, Kyle cautiously raised his head until he could peer through the broken windows towards the semi. The man still stood at the back of the truck with much of his body exposed, almost daring Kyle to take a shot. Kyle looked to the west to assess his chances of escape, but it was at least a hundred yards to the next vehicle. To the east, the closest vehicle was maybe fifty yards away, but if he ran in that direction, it would take him directly in front of the shooter, giving the guy an easy shot.

“I can’t shoot you!” screamed Kyle. “I have no argument with you. I’m just trying to get home. Please, just let me go. You keep everything.” The fear of dying alone on the freeway in the middle of Colorado weighed on him, almost pinning him to the ground. To die like an animal, with his journal in the cart heading to some unknown destination, would mean that Jennifer and the kids would never know what happened to him. His body would rot on the side of the road until animals and nature had their way with it, then, if he was lucky, be tossed into a grave along with other unidentified bodies. He couldn’t let that happen.

Kyle squatted behind the pickup, still struggling to breathe, listening for what seemed like an eternity for an answer to his plea. His hands and knees shook uncontrollably, and he forced himself to take some deep breaths. He held onto the side of the truck to steady himself and rose to take another look. The man hadn’t moved, but was no longer pointing his guns towards Kyle. Instead, his arms were pulled back and resting against his body, his elbows bent with his hands up by his shoulders, pointing the guns at the sky.

Kyle stayed crouched behind the truck and tried to come up with a plan while still watching the man, hoping he would give up and leave. When it became obvious his attacker was willing to wait him out, Kyle summoned his courage and raised his head and both hands slowly into view. The man stepped closer to the trailer but didn’t make any threatening movements. Kyle continued to rise, his eyes locked on his assailant, watching for any hint of danger, but the man made no attempt to move and the his face was blank — no fear, no anger, no murderous rage, just a placid look that wouldn’t have been out of place at a children’s ballgame. Kyle was now exposed from the waist up, holding his rifle by the barrel in his left hand with the stock against his arm and pointed unthreateningly in the air. The man still didn’t react. Kyle forced himself to move his legs, shuffling them clumsily towards the back of the pickup, his eyes still locked on the figure across the highway. Reclaiming his cart was no longer his goal. It was now survival.