Chapter 4: Saturday, November 17th, 2012 - 1230

Bill was waiting at the crest of the hill for almost 15 minutes while he watched the SUV at the crest of the next hill. It was idling as if they were waiting for someone to clear out ahead of them and Bill wondered if they were travelers trying to get to safety the same as he was. Bill decided to give them five more minutes before trying to find out. The SUV suddenly roared as the driver stepped on the gas and it leapt forward and over the crest. Bill thought they may have seen him and panicked. Bill heard the shriek of metal being torn and wondered if they had wrecked the SUV in their panic to get away from him.

Hurriedly Bill drove forward to the crest of the next hill. He cautiously edged forward just enough to allow him to see the other side. The SUV partially blocked the road behind a little Nissan Sentra and the hood of the Sentra was pressed against a fence post and barbed wire. Two men were laughing as they pulled a struggling girl from the front seat. One man held her while the other casually sliced the clothes off the girl as if she were an animal being skinned. Bill saw a woman being pulled from the driver seat and he could see from her bloody nose and cut face the air bag must have deployed. She seemed dazed as the man holding her tried to keep her on her feet.

Bill's binoculars gave him a clear view of the scene and he was torn over what to do. He needed to get to the property safely but his conscience wouldn't let him just pass by. He didn't want to live with the guilt and helplessness he had felt the day before when he watched the men at the freeway roadblock. There were three of them though so Bill would need to get close to have any luck. "I wish I had one of Rob's rifles," he thought as he pulled a poncho over his head. Bill remembered an old movie and how the hero used a poncho to hide his hands until he was close. He wondered in the back of his mind while he put his truck in gear if that hero was as scared as he was. Bill was trying to be quiet but he didn't need to worry. They couldn't have heard his truck over the screams of the women.

Bill was parked and within about 20 feet of them before the one holding the woman on the other side of the car noticed him. He had just driven his hips forward and his face seemed to be a flood of lust and bewilderment at seeing a stranger walk up to them.

Bill continued walking toward them and asked, "Do you share?"

"What?" one of the thugs holding the girl asked startled and looking around and grabbing for a pistol in his belt.

Bill pulled his glock from under the poncho and shot him through the head. The dead man slammed against the other man holding the girl causing all three to fall. The man on the other side of the car lifted his pistol and fired. The woman he had pinned against the car with his hips was flailing and screaming. That was the only thing Bill could think of that would cause him to miss at that range. Bill felt something hot on the inside of his left arm just before he fired. Bill missed his head and but the thug's neck showered blood. The man that had held the girl was twisting on the ground with his pants wrapped around his ankles. He was fumbling for his own pistol tangled in his clothes. The girl was crawling toward her clothes crying softly, "No, no, no". Bill could see her bloody thighs and, looking back to the man could see the blood on his crotch. Bill shot the rapist in the crotch first. Bill untangled the pistol from the rapist's pants while listening to him cry and moan. Then Bill shot him in the head. He really didn't like rapists.

Bill walked around the Nisan to check the man that he had shot in the neck. He was still alive and trying to crawl away with his pants around his knees and holding his hand against his neck. He was bleeding badly but Bill hadn't hit the jugular. He walked toward the thug intending to shoot him but Bill heard a guttural growl of rage from behind him and coming fast. He quickly stepped to the side and whirled thinking he hadn't accounted for one of the bad guys.

The image was burned into his memory and everything seemed to shift to slow motion for a moment. It was one of those moments of clarity in your life that is as permanent as initials carved in an oak. The naked woman with the bloody face rushed past him. She was covered in dirt and blood and looked like a wild woman. Her short brown hair was sticking out from her head and her full bare breasts with hard nipples bounced as she ran like that actress in that movie '10'. Bill could even see where the hot hood of her car had burned her breasts when the rapists had forced her to bend down over the hood of her car. The woman looked like a mess, scary, and beautiful at the same time. She had picked up the knife her attacker had used to cut her clothes off and was screaming as she ran. She leapt with a guttural howl and landed with her knees squarely in the middle of the back of the thug. She landed with the knife raised high in both hands she plunged it into the thugs back as her knees hit. Over and over she drove the blade into his back crying and cursing him the whole time.

Bill finally stepped forward and softly said, "Lady, I think he is dead."

The woman whirled on Bill with the knife held in front of her.

He held up his hands and quietly said, "I'm not going to hurt you lady but I need to get moving. I don't want to leave you here but if you don't want to go with me then you should get moving too."

Her wild eyes looked at Bill almost but not quite comprehending what he was saying. He could see her struggling to understand him.

"I need to get moving. Do you want to come with me?" Bill asked softly.

She looked around her as if coming out of a fog. Bill could see the effort as she struggled to understand what was happening. Suddenly something flared in her eyes and she screamed, "Mary!"

An answering cry of,"Mama," came from the other side of the car.

The woman started forward but stopped eyeing me warily.

Bill stepped to the side and gesturing toward the car said, "You should go to her if that's your daughter. She needs you."

The woman hesitated then shot past him and around the car.

Bill hurriedly checked the pockets of the dead man. He stuffed all the identification, cash and spare bullets into a pocket on the poncho. Bill picked up the pistol where the thug had dropped it and stuck it under his belt. Not the best place to carry a pistol but he was running out of hands.

Bill walked around the car and saw the naked woman staring down at the man that had raped her daughter. She was holding her daughter under one arm and the knife was still in the other. The girl was crying and clinging to her mother.

"Where did you shoot him first," the woman asked in a strangled voice.

Bill gestured towards his missing crotch. He was surprised how much damage a 357 hollow point could do to human flesh. There was a big hole where his genitals and pubic bone had been. "I let him, ah, enjoy his loss for a few moments before I finished him," he said quietly.

"Not nearly long enough," the naked woman growled and she kicked the dead man in the side.