Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter

“Get down, you idiot!” Darla screamed. She started scrambling up the snow berm toward me.

All four trucks roared toward us. I pointed at the first old pickup and held my arms out, palms forward, in a gesture to stop.

A spray of snow kicked up beside my feet and the pop of a gunshot sounded from my left. The first pickup roared under the bridge directly below me. I glanced to my left. I could barely see one of the guys from the snowmobiles lying atop the snow berm a couple hundred yards off, pointing a rifle at me.

I felt Darla’s hands grab my right arm. She wrenched me around, throwing me down. I heard another gunshot. Darla exhaled heavily-a quiet “oof.” A red stain bloomed on her right shoulder and everything slowed around me. Her knees crumpled, and she slid down the outside of the snow berm. I lunged toward her. Snow plumed into the air beside me, and another gunshot sounded. I grabbed for her. My hand caught in her hair. It tore from her scalp, and Darla slipped away.

Darla fell from the overpass and landed on her back with a whump of compressed fabric on the roof of the cloth-top deuce passing underneath us. My scarf followed her, twisting in the wind. I teetered on top of the snow berm for a split second, afraid to jump after her, a hesitation I would regret for the rest of my life. I was left holding a clump of her hair and the necklace I’d given her, now broken. The truck passed under the bridge. And she was gone.

I ran for the south side of the overpass, hoping to catch the truck there. As I ran, I jammed the broken necklace into the pocket of my coveralls. The situation seemed impossible. I couldn’t run as fast as the truck was moving, let alone cross the gap between the lanes of the highway in time.

Something punched my right arm, and I heard another gunshot. The impact spun me partway around and knocked me off balance. To my west, the guy with the rifle was aiming, lining up yet another shot at me. Running across the road in full view of him was suicide. I turned away from him, sprinting east and dodging back and forth, hoping to make him miss. I felt the wet heat of blood flowing down my right arm.

I heard another gunshot, but didn’t feel or see anything. A miss. When I reached the northern edge of the overpass, I scrambled up the snow berm and threw myself over the other side. I slid face first down the snow berm and then down the long embankment to the base of the overpass. Flecks of snow flew into my eyes and ice abraded my cheek.

The two old pickups had pulled up and stopped north of the overpass. A guy jumped out of the lead truck’s load bed and ran up to me. I pushed to my feet and turned to run to follow the cloth-topped truck with its precious cargo under the bridge. My red scarf was pooled on the icy road. The guy grabbed me. Pain so intense that my fingertips tingled shot through me when his fingers closed around my right arm. I fought down dizziness and tried to pull away.

“Why were you trying to signal us?” the man demanded.

“Let go!” I tried to punch, aiming for his radial nerve. He caught my other arm before my punch could connect. I was weak, slowed by hunger and shock.

“You signaled to stop,” the guy shouted. “Why? What’s on the other side of the overpass?”

“Let go!” I yelled again. “Darla, I’ve got to get to Darla!” The words didn’t come out clearly. I realized I was sobbing.

The man let go of my right arm and slapped me. The blow rocked my head sideways, brought fire to my face, and stopped my sobbing. “What’s on the other side of the overpass?” he yelled.

I sucked in a deep breath. “It’s an ambush. There are eight guys on snowmobiles set up on the far side in a semi-circle. If you go under that bridge, it’ll be a massacre.”

The guy turned toward his buddies in the truck, still holding one of my arms. “Ambush! Eight snowmobiles. Far side of the overpass.” They all readied their rifles. Four guys jumped down from the truck to take up flanking positions on either side of the road.

“Four snowmobiles. Eight guys,” I said. “Now let me go-I’ve got to go after Darla!” I thrashed, trying to break the guy’s grip. I reached across my body with my left hand and dug my fingers under his pinky. That put more pressure on my wound, and pain spiked up my arm so intensely I saw colored lights. I ignored it as best I could, concentrating on bending his pinky backward.

The biggest guy in the world can be holding you, but if it’s your whole hand against his pinky, you can break his grip-or his finger-either of which should do the trick. The guy holding me let go rather than allowing me to break his pinky, and I cranked his hand around, twisting him into an arm bar.

I could have broken his elbow or kicked him in the nuts, but I was just trying to get away. I settled for a round kick to the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees in the icy road. Then I turned to run.

Another guy had jumped down from the back of the pickup and planted himself squarely in my path. He looked familiar.

“You run under that bridge, you’re dead for sure,” he said. He grabbed the collar of my coveralls as I tried to dodge around him.

The driver’s window was down. The guy at the wheel said, “Just let him go. What do we care if he gets his fool head shot off?”

“He saved us from a serious ass-kicking,” the guy holding me said.

“This is how you show your gratitude?” I tried to snake my right arm through his arms, preparing to throw him off, but a burst of pain so intense that it left me gasping stopped me.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said. “In Worthington with Darla Edmunds.”

Suddenly I placed the guy. The sheriff who’d met us outside Worthington last year. He was thinner now and had a nasty puckered scar running along his left cheek. “I remember you. I’m Alex. I’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

“Earl. How-”

“They’ve got Darla. She fell onto the roof of that army truck. She’s been shot. I’ve got to go after her.”

“Thought you said there was an ambush over there?”

“There is! But that’s the way Darla went.”

“Guys on snowmobiles are probably part of that bandit gang we were chasing. You go through there alone, you’re dead,” Earl said.

“Well, come with me, then!”

“We drive into that ambush, we all might die. Wouldn’t do us or Darla any good. And these pickups are no good in deep snow-we can’t get around and flank them.”

“But they can flank you pretty easy on their snowmobiles. They had a scout up on the overpass. Guy who shot Darla,” I glanced at my arm, “and me.” The outside of my coat dripped blood.

“We should see to that arm,” Earl said. “Looks like it needs stitching.”

I scanned the top of the overpass. My eye caught on a flash of gold-blond hair peeking out from under a watch cap. “Up there, peeking over the snow berm.” I pointed with my left arm.

One of the guys still on the truck lifted his rifle, took aim, and fired. The scout on the overpass ducked below the snow berm. “Damn, you missed him,” Earl said.

“What are we going to do about Darla?” I said.

“We should bandage your arm,” Earl replied.

“Hell with my arm!” I yelled. “How are we going to get Darla back?”

“You aren’t any use to her at all if you bleed out,” Earl replied mildly.

One of the other guys in the pickup bed turned toward us. He had a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck. “Earl, snowmobile to our west. About a half mile.”

“They’re flanking us!” Earl yelled. “Pull out! Back to Worthington.”

Earl pulled me toward the truck. I whipped my left through his arms and spun, using my forearm like a crowbar to wrench myself free. The guy who’d grabbed me the first time was standing behind me now, trying to nab me again. I kicked his legs out from under him and turned back toward the overpass in time to see Earl’s fist just before it crashed into my temple. Everything went black.