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noise.  So I peeked out, a little at first and soon full out onto
the road.  Sure enough, it was gone.  I didn’t know if that was a good sign or
a bad one, though, so I started off again.
    I’d
been at it for a good fifteen or twenty minutes more, when I heard a gunshot. 
I don’t know if it was the first one, or if there had been others and they had
just been beyond my hearing, but either way it was not a good thing.  So at
that point, I pulled my rifle from its place in my pack, without much breaking
stride.  Another shot followed a few minutes later, but this one had a
different sound to it; much louder, a different caliber, too.  So there were
two guns at least. in both directionstif
    I’d
covered maybe another hundred yards or so before I saw the little plane on the
road where it had apparently landed.  I knew I was close and slowed my pace
considerably.  The pilot was somewhere nearby and, if I figured things right,
so were Gabriel and his mother.  I didn’t understand what was going on at that
point.  There was no plane at the farm where they’d been held, at least as far
as I had seen, so all this confused me.  Was the pilot associated with Mr.
Ponytail, or was he someone entirely unrelated to his gang?  If it was Gabriel
and his mom out there, as it surely must be, why were all these people after
them?  Figuring that out, though, was going to have to wait.
    The
next thing I heard was a man’s voice.  “You may as well throw down that gun and
come on out, you hear?  You ain’t getting away, that’s for damn sure.  If I got
to, I’ll just sit and wait ‘til the rest of ‘em catch up.”  Silence.  ”So what
do you say, huh?  Is it worth it?  Why take the chance on you or your kid getting
hurt when it’s just going to end up the same anyway?”  Or something like that.
    I
spotted him then.  He was on the other side of the road and about thirty yards
away, standing behind a tree with his back to me.  He had what looked like some
sort of compact carbine in his hands.  That was bad news. 
    So
I eased back on the hammer of my rifle, slipped the safety on, and quietly as
possible moved closer.  I should tell you that moving quietly in that type of
situation is no easy task.  You have to split your attention between the threat
on one hand and where your feet are stepping on the other.  If I was looking
down at the same time the pilot turned around, he could pop me one before I
could respond.  On the other hand, if I kept my eyes on him the whole time, I easily
could trip and fall, or make a noise that would give my presence away before I
was ready.  So it was a slow process moving closer to him.  Eventually, I
positioned myself ten or fifteen yards away from him, behind a slight
embankment, and next to a good sized spruce that had toppled halfway across the
road.  In this place, I had an easy shot.
    But
of course, now what?  I didn’t want to just shoot him.  I’ve already explained
how I felt after killing Harvey.  Boy that sounds weird doesn’t it, calling him
by his first name like that?  Anyway, I didn’t want to have those same feelings
all over again, but I also couldn’t let him hurt Gabriel and his mom.  So I pushed
off the safety, pointed my rifle and said, “Don’t turn around.  I’ll kill you
if I have to.  Drop your rifle on the ground.”  Again, or something like that.
    Well,
as you can imagine he jumped about two feet.  I was so nervous at that point I almost
shot him right then and there, but he didn’t turn around, thank God.  In that
same position, we talked back and forth to one another for a few seconds, and I
guess I was able to convince him that I was serious because he did eventually put
his gun down.  After that, I had him raise his hands up, walk to the center of
the road, and sit down cross-legged style.  I figured he’d have to unfold his
legs if he was going to stand up and that would give me plenty of warning to do
something