Tag Along

James got another towel and draped it over Bud's head. I turned Sandy so she wasn't looking at Bud's bloody head and I held her. We didn't talk. The rest of our troop came back and stayed twenty-five yards away.

We heard a helicopter and felt the downdraft as it set down a hundred yards from us. Four people got out. Two carried weapons and two carried EMT bags.

The EMT's looked things over and focused on Sandy. A couple minutes in they determined that none of the blood was from Sandy. They asked James and Rob to get some water. They ran to the stream and came back quickly.

When they washed the blood off Sandy the armed men asked, "Can you tell us what happened?"

As Sandy told them the story she shook again and cried. The EMT's cut into the side of our tent and took a hundred pictures. Sandy couldn't see what they were doing. I had turned her away from our tent. The LEO asking Sandy questions could see what the EMT's could see and hear Sandy's story.

When she was done he asked me, "It's obvious she knows them. How?"

I outlined our history with them. He got our information and I made sure our story of who we were fit us being married. Sandy stayed quiet. The EMT's asked if they could take our tent into evidence. I knew asking was a courtesy, they needed it. I said they could have it. They picked it up and took it intact to the helicopter with Bud and Brandy in it. The LEO's said they would be in touch the next day.

While we were busy our friends packed up. Sally gave Sandy clothes to wear. We hiked out without hurrying. Sandy apologized for ruining the weekend. I thought the weekend wasn't ruined, for anyone except Bud and Brandy. All our friends were alive and well. Sandy was alive and well.

We went back to Sally and Rob's apartment, ordered delivery from a Chinese restaurant and stayed together. Often during the evening Sandy would start shaking and crying. Once, when she was coming back from the bathroom she burst into tears and came to me, crawled into my lap like she did when we were kids, and sobbed herself to sleep. Sally got a blanket and covered us.

In the next week we were visited by the police three times. By the end of that week they knew we were brother and sister. They didn't care, mostly because they weren't charging Sandy with a crime, but also because we were moving as soon as they gave permission. I transferred again after telling the home office what had happened to my wife.

On a Monday morning we got a call from the assistant District Attorney and he said, "You're free to go anywhere you want and I hope and pray you both have wonderful lives."

On Tuesday we were on the road to our new home. The U-Haul truck we drove wasn't very full. Three days later we unpacked in our new home and began life again as Mr. & Mrs. Ben Carter. The first night in our new home we slept on the floor. The second day we bought a bed.

We've been in our new lives two years now. We love the area where we live and all the activities available to us. We haven't gone camping yet. Sandy says she's not quite ready. I believe we will go and go often.

Sandy works in a three CPA office. We're eleven-hundred miles from where we lived when Sandy was attacked. We haven't been to our home town once and we don't plan on it. We talk about going "home" sometimes, but we know we can't. It would cost us the lives we've created. It would cost me the best wife a man could ever have.