Sosoni Ch. 03

I didn't respond.

He continued. "We got friends in every little town and police station 'round here. We'll know if you make noise about this. You go round askin' questions? She starts losin' parts. We see you—anywhere, that is—in town, at the store, at the gas station, outside my house—she loses parts and maybe we come visit you in the night. Break some shit. Set us a fire. Take some of your parts, maybe." He waved the pistol at my arms and legs.

I bristled at the threat but said nothing.

Headley finished. "Now you forget about this thing. Forget her. Forget us. Move back to your big city or stay, we don't care, but you let this go now, got it?"

I nodded. Inside, I was thinking really, really hard.

Sosoni was loaded into the front truck. Her guard jumped into the driver's seat. Bert climbed in the passenger side, sandwiching her in the middle.

Arm out the window, Bert trained his pistol on me as the other two climbed into their truck.

I walked toward Bert.

He re-gripped the pistol. "Easy, City Boy."

I raised my arms. "Buckle her," I commanded as firmly as I could.

"Huh?"

"You won your prize. Now keep her safe. Buckle her."

"Mind yer own business, now. She's ours, like you say." With that, Headley's driver made a three-point turn in my driveway and waited for the other truck. As it pivoted around, too, I saw something through the back window of Headley's vehicle.

He turned in his seat, grabbed the seat belt, and buckled in Sosoni.

The other truck took the lead; Headley's followed.

I walked into the front door of my house.

Once out of view, I bolted.

***

I raced down the hallway into my bedroom to get the safe key. Then, I sprinted to the basement, unlocked the gun safe, and pulled out a rifle along with the pre-loaded magazine. Throwing open the sliding glass door in the basement, I seated the magazine, pulled the charging handle, slammed the forward assist, and tore off throughout the woods.

Maybe, I thought, there was a little fact about foothill roads that they had forgotten.

I knew my property, and I knew the long, winding road that led to it.

I took the straight line.

They took the road.

The meeting point was just over half a mile for me, but for them, it was just over a mile on a narrow, slow road with sharp turns that they would be mostly unfamiliar to them.

I had to beat them to the stretch—a flat, straight part of the road that ran for a couple hundred yards before bending around toward the intersection with the paved street.

I might have run faster in my life, but never harder. Dodging trees, jumping little creeks, up crests and down draws, I sprinted for Sosoni.

The road came into view, 75 yards in front of me through the trees and downhill. Glancing right, I saw no trucks. To the left, no trucks.

I had either missed them or beaten them easily.

Had to assume I won the race.

My feet landed on the rocky gravel, and I laid in the prone, bringing the rifle to my shoulder and disengaging the safe with my thumb.

I was zeroed for a 100-yard shot. With trees and hills on both sides, wind would not be a factor.

The first truck rounded the corner. Headley's followed.

I probably looked like a log in the road to them.

I sighted in on the passenger.

150 yards. Speed increasing on the flat stretch.

I squeezed the trigger. The butt shoved into my shoulder as I trained the muzzle toward the driver's side.

It didn't matter.

When the bullet struck the passenger, the truck held straight for a moment and then swerved left. The driver overcorrected.

At just under 100 yards, the truck barreled into the trunk of a fat cedar tree. The driver's head and torso blasted through the windshield, and he lay there, half in and half out of his truck, unmoving.

Headley's truck skidded to a stop behind it.

Someone cursed loudly.

Headley's driver jumped out, never even looking at me.

They don't know, I realized. They think the other driver just lost control. Maybe they didn't hear the shot. Maybe they thought it was a backfire. Shit! They don't know I'm here!

Headley's driver ran over to the driver's side of the wrecked truck, and he stopped.

I squeezed the trigger, and he instantly fell into a pile like a dropped chain.

Headley had a pistol. I was 90 yards away. Good luck hitting me, asshole. I had a rifle.

The old fuck had just rounded the tailgate of the wrecked truck when I shot his partner.

Now, he scampered behind it just as I brought him into my sights.

I got up and ran into the treeline to get an angle on him. I heard the door of his truck open and close. I stopped and sighted in.

He had drawn his pistol. It was pointed at Sosoni's head.

I lowered my rifle.

He smiled.

I raised it back up.

Headley thumbed back the hammer on his pistol.

I slowly walked toward the truck, keeping Headley's face in my scope.

60 yards.

50.

I raised one hand.

40 yards.

30.

I stopped.

Keeping the pistol on Sosoni, Headley lowered the driver's side window and screamed, "You're a dead man, City Fucker! Them boys was my friends! I know cops! Tell them you kidnapped and raped this woman. We was trying to rescue her!"

"Cameras all over my house," I called back, bluffing. "Your story won't hold."

"I'll kill her! You won't have her! Never again!"

"Let her go."

"Just kill me then! No way!"

"If I put down my rifle, you let her go."

"Then, I just kill you and go find her?" he said, doubtfully. "No, you got something cooked up."

"Take off the pillowcase, cut the ties, and let her run. You won't catch her. She's lived in these woods hidden away for almost twenty years. You're an old fuck. She's free. That's all I care about."

He guffawed. "And you're just gonna let me kill you?"

I nodded. "You kill me. You go back and burn my house down. You pin the deaths of your friends on me. The woman goes free."

"Fuck you, prove it!" Headley screamed.

I lowered my rifle and let one hand fall away. "Set her free."

Headley licked his lips. The pistol slowly fell out of sight behind the door. He watched me as he yanked the pillowcase from Sosoni's head. His pistol turned toward me.

Sosoni blinked a few times and cried. She glanced left and right, taking in her situation, it seemed. She saw the old man's partner was gone. She saw the wrecked truck in front of her, and the two lifeless bodies inside. She saw me and yelled my name.

Then, she turned toward Headley. Her face twisted. Her eyes blazed.

Oh, shit! I ran toward Headley's truck. "No! Sosoni, no!"

Headley saw me running and raised the pistol at me. Then, he must have felt Sosoni moving behind him.

He turned in time to see her bound hands wrap over his head, and her bare white teeth driving toward his face, toward his eyes. He screamed.

The pistol fired into the air.

The inside of the truck was a blur of flailing arms and writhing bodies.

Headley shrieked and cried.

Another shot rang out, and Sosoni screamed.

I wrenched open the door. Headley fell out with Sosoni on top of him. They were both still screaming. Their bodies knocked me backward, and I lost the grip on my rifle.

I spun to retrieve it, but by the time I had it trained on Headley, I didn't need it anymore. His pistol was on the ground five feet away.

Sosoni hammered at his bloody face with her bound hands. A string of blood followed her clasped fists as she drew them up for another strike. Her stomach muscles tightened, and she smashed Headley's face again.

She stopped, panting and watching him.

I scanned her body for a gunshot wound. There was so much blood, I couldn't tell.

A choking gurgle erupted from Headley's mouth.

Sosoni's eyes widened. She screamed. She bared her teeth, and I watched her jaw fire into Headley's throat, ripping and tearing.

I ran over and pulled Sosoni away from him. She fought me momentarily, and her strength at that moment might have overcome me.

But, she knew my touch and my smell.

She relented and turned to me. Her face was shrouded with dripping blood. She cried out, and I held her.

If she had been hit by a bullet, the wound had to have been superficial.

She went to her knees, and I followed her down. She bawled. Like her laughter when I first gave her the blanket near her old home in the woods, the sound was unpracticed, untainted by civilization, feral, and true.

I glanced at Headley. His face was a massacre of blood and gnarled flesh.

Sosoni held my hand as I searched Headley's pocket for a phone. Finding one, I engaged the emergency line and dialed 911.