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just to wander around until our scant resources ran out?
    I tried bringing up our situation with my grandma, but every time she shook her head or shrugged her shoulders.  It was unlike her not to voice her opinion, but unless she had a better idea, I supposed she chose to remain silent.  I wasn’t able to sit back quietly, however.  He was gambling with our lives and I needed something, some semblance of a strategy, to convince me that our current travels had a purpose beyond putting as much distance between ourselves and the pain we’d endured in Williston.
     
     
    Four days after we’d left Williston, we stopped for a water break, which was basically just eating handfuls of powdered snow.  I took the opportunity to voice my concerns.
    “Hey, Dad?” I wanted to sound the least confrontational as possible.  I’d been practicing my speech in my head for a good portion of the morning.
    My dad leaned against a tree with his arms crossed. “Hydrate, Sam,” he told me. “It’s a water break.”
    I bent and scooped up a handful of snow and shoved it into my mouth.  I swallowed down the melting snow and took a deep breath to try again.  “Dad. What are we doing out here?  We need to figure out what our End Game is beyond surviving one day to the next.”
    My father held a finger to his lips and my complaint fell away.  “Did you hear that?”
    I stood quietly, listening for whatever had made him pause.  I was about to restart my Grand Speech, thinking he’d made up the noise so I’d stop talking, when I heard it, too.  It sounded like men shouting.  My father, instead of moving away from the noise like my survival instincts were telling me to do, started walking in the direction of the troubling sounds.
    I started after him and grabbed at the sleeve of his heavy coat.  “What are you doing?” I hissed.
    He shook me off, but didn’t respond.  I looked at my grandmother to back me up, but she shrugged.  We both knew there was no talking to my father once he’d made up his mind about something. 
    The two of us silently followed him.  As we cautiously crept through the thinning forest, the angry shouts grew louder.  Then, a high-pitched feminine shriek pierced the air.  At the sound, my father began sprinting.  His formerly careful movements turned into a burst of speed like he’d been shot out of a gun.
    “Dad!” I yelped, momentarily forgetting we were supposed to be traveling inconspicuously.  No longer thinking about my own safety, I chased after him. 
    The forest gave way to a county highway.  Abandoned vehicles dotted the road and I wove around the long-forgotten 4-wheel drive trucks and SUVs.  Car travel was risky business.  You needed a 4-wheel drive vehicle to plow through the snow-covered roadways, but they were also energy inefficient.  Finding gasoline these days was nearly impossible.  Gas had been the first non-renewable resource to go.
    I hadn’t run this hard in sometime; I hadn’t gotten very far before it felt like my lungs were going to burst.  I sucked in mouthfuls of dry, winter air and it burned down my throat.  It felt like my windpipe was bleeding, but I knew that was just in my head.
    I continued chasing my father’s still sprinting form.  The shouting had stopped.  It was either that or the pounding of my boots on snow-covered highways and the heavy beat of my heart echoing in my ears had drowned out the struggling cries. 
    I spotted the source of the loud noises.  Two lumbering figures dressed all in black, including black ski masks, were yelling at the passengers of a white SUV.  With the sun high in the sky glaring off the front windshield, I couldn’t tell who or how many people were inside the stopped car. 
    The masked men wielded metal crowbars and they began assaulting the vehicle directly.  I heard the distinct sound of glass shattering and that same female shriek followed.  My chest seized at the sound.  I bent my head down and willed my