Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

“And if we don’t tell anybody, can we come back tomorrow or the next day to get more?” he asked.

I looked at Mr. Peterson. He seemed hesitant.

“I have an idea,” Mrs. Peterson said. “What if they left their empty containers hidden in the bushes up at the top of the lane and we’d make sure they were filled and put back there?”

“Would that be all right, Mr. Peterson?”

All eyes turned to him. He lowered his shotgun the rest of the way. “You all wait at the end of the drive. We’ll get you the water. Then we will bring it out and show you where to hide the containers from now on.”

“Thank you, thank you so much. In the meantime we’ll figure out how we can return the favor, sir,” the man said to him. “And, Adam, thank you.”

The sun came up over the horizon. The light and the warmth were awesome after our night outdoors. I stood up and stretched, working out the kinks in my back. After a quiet few hours, Todd and I had decided to stop patrolling behind the fence sometime around three-thirty in the morning. I took up sentry duty in front of the house. Todd hunkered down by the barn.

Following the confrontation, just after the intruders left with their water, I felt my whole body get soft and mushy. It was the aftereffect of an adrenaline rush I didn’t even know I’d had. Nothing else had happened for the rest of the night.

I circled around the side of the house and went to the barn. The door was shut and Todd was sitting on a chair, leaning backward, snoring, with the bat on his lap. I couldn’t blame him for sleeping. I knew I’d drifted off a couple of times, once while I was standing.

But I wanted to get home before my mother did. It would be far better for me to explain things and for her to see that I was all right than to have somebody else tell her I was gone and get her worked up and worried until I returned.

“Good morning.”

I leaped into the air. It was Mr. Peterson. He laughed and then tried to hide it.

“I guess I’m a little jumpy,” I said.

“A little? You got some good hang time there.”

“Maybe a bit more than a little,” I said. “So I think we have to get going soon. Things are okay during the day, right?”

He nodded. “So far, but I’m not sure that means much.”

“I’m sorry we can’t stick around.”

“I understand, and I’m grateful for you guys being here last night. Especially the way you handled things with those men. Polite and civil is better.”

“As long as it works,” I said.

“Those men were just trying to provide for their families, and I’m just trying to protect mine.” He shook his head slowly. “But it’s only day four. Somebody is going to get hurt or killed if this goes on much longer. I sure as heck don’t want to be the one who gets killed, but I really don’t want to be the person doing the killing either.”

Those words bounced around in my mind. I was carrying a gun, but I certainly didn’t want to use it. Could I point a weapon at another person and pull the trigger? I wasn’t ready to think about something like that. I should be thinking about school, or what university I was going to in a couple of years, or flying lessons, or Lori—although she was probably thinking about Chad. Or Brett.

“I’m worried about my family, about how I can watch the place with just the three of us.”

“I might be able to come back.”

“And then I’d be worried about you as well. It wasn’t right of me to put somebody else’s son at risk.”

“I volunteered. Look, I’m going to talk to my mother and Herb and see what they have to say. One of them might come up with an answer. I better wake up Todd now. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

Todd groaned. “I am awake, and did you say walk ?”

“Good morning, dear,” I said.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“We can’t wait for somebody to pick us up. It’s not that far. If we move fast, we can cover the distance in less than ninety minutes.”

He got up, yawned, and stretched. “Unless you’re planning on running instead of walking it’ll take way over two hours.”

“We might jog a little.”

“Do we at least get breakfast before we leave?”

“I’ll mix you up some fresh eggs and toast,” Mr. Peterson said. “And then I can drive you on my tractor as far as the overpass.”

“It’s probably better if you don’t leave the farm,” I said.

“It’s probably better if we don’t have to walk all the way,” Todd countered.

“He’s right,” Mr. Peterson said. “Besides, it’s so early that nobody is going to be out yet, and if they are, well, I’ll bring my gun.”

Todd and I bounced along on the rear of the tractor, standing precariously on the hitch, facing backward. I’d never been on a tractor, and this didn’t seem particularly safe. At least the trip wasn’t any rougher than in my car. That probably said more about my car and the need for new shock absorbers than anything else.

The road was empty and deserted. Leaving early was smart, although I really didn’t expect that we’d find anybody along this first section. It was after the overpass where the houses and apartment buildings started that we’d see people around. It was Saturday, although anything but a normal weekend. I just hoped most people would be still sleeping and those who were up and about wouldn’t be causing any trouble. Mr. Peterson had lent us two baseball bats just in case, and of course I still had the gun.

I was thinking how this ten-minute ride had probably saved us a forty-five-minute walk when I saw something up in the sky to the south. It was a small plane!

“Do you see it?” I screamed.

Todd looked up to where I was pointing. Mr. Peterson had noticed, too, and brought the tractor to a stop. Todd and I jumped off. The plane had changed directions and seemed to be coming right toward us. I wondered if he’d seen us moving along the road and was as curious about us as we were about him.

“I think it’s a Cessna,” I said.

“But I thought planes couldn’t fly?” Todd said.

“It’s probably older, precomputer.”

There was now no question it was coming right over us and was dropping down to have a closer look. It was a Cessna, an old four-seater. It closed in, so low that I could make out the pilot and the passenger beside him. Todd jumped up in the air, screaming and hollering and waving as the plane buzzed over the top of us. We stood there watching as it flew off, gaining height and then banking to return to the course it had been on before it saw us.

“It’s great to know some planes are flying,” I said. It gave me hope that maybe my father could find one of those and fly it back. The worse this got, the more worried I was—not just about him but about us being without him.

We said goodbye to Mr. Peterson and walked the rest of the way in an hour or so. We saw a few people outside their homes and apartment buildings, but they seemed to go out of their way to avoid us. Probably because that’s what you do when you see two guys with baseball bats coming your way.

It was good to get past the checkpoint and into the neighborhood. I felt my whole body relax. It was almost like I hadn’t realized how tense I’d felt until I wasn’t tense anymore. I wasn’t at my house yet, but still, this was home. I’d lived in this neighborhood almost my whole life. We were one of the first families to move into the subdivision. I remembered houses going up, the mini-mall being built, the stores opening, and those little shrubs and trees growing into real trees.

As we arrived home, the driveway was crowded with the peculiar little fleet of vehicles driven by the patrols.