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told himself, I had to shoot him. They forced me. I had to protect Katy.
    “Katy! Oh, shit!” Jake screamed, running into the camper.
    “Oh God, Katy! Are you all right? Katy, are you all right?” he screamed again as turned on a light. Her tiny head was peeking from underneath her sleeping bag. He raced to her and hugged her.
    Jake picked her up and ran to his truck. She was about to cry. He put her in the front seat and ran back inside, jumped into a pair of blue jeans, and grabbed a shirt. A thought stopped him before he got to the truck. He ran back inside to grab Katy’s camo gear. Slinging it all into the truck, he could hear the mayhem at the gate.
    They were screaming at him. “You killed him! You killed him! You son of a bitch! We’re gonna make you pay…you…you’re dead!”
    One guy kept yelling over and over, “You’re a dead man walking!”
    There were only two ways for Jake to get out of the camp. The main one was the gravel road the rednecks were blocking. The other was a seldom-used logging road that snaked through the woods for several miles until it hit an old railroad bed called the Dummy Line that ran for several miles, eventually ending on a county road. Jake had never left the camp by way of the Dummy Line.
    Jake caught a glimpse of the gang by the gate as he turned south heading toward the Dummy Line. He was slinging gravel as he slid around the corner.
    “Daddy, what’s going on? What’s happening?” Katy pleaded.
    “Some very bad guys were gonna hurt us, and I had to shoot one of ‘em. Now we gotta get out of here. Please listen to me and do exactly what I say…OK? Please? I need you to help me. OK?”
    With tears in her eyes, she nodded. Jake grabbed his cell phone. One bar of service. He slammed on the brakes, opened his glove compartment, and found his address book. His first instinct was to call the sheriff; he didn’t know the number or really how to tell anybody where he was, but he tried *HP anyway. The call wouldn’t go through. He punched the gas and took off; rounding a couple curves, he took out small trees. As it got muddier, he slowed and shifted into four-wheel drive. Suddenly he thought of his friend Mick Johnson, who lived only fifteen miles away. Mick had introduced him to the members of this club. He slammed on the brakes again. Two bars. This might work. He looked up Mick’s number and dialed.
    “Come on, come on, go through. Katy, why don’t you start getting dressed…there’s your stuff.
    “It’s ringing!” he said excitedly almost out of breath. “And then fasten your seat belt.”

     
    Mick Johnson had been in bed since nine that night. He turkey-hunted almost every day of the season, and by mid-April he was exhausted. When he heard his phone ringing he immediately turned off his alarm clock and thought how short the night was. His wife jabbed him in the side and told him it was the telephone.
    “Hello,” he answered groggily on the sixth ring.
    Trying not to talk too fast, Jake kept it simple. He didn’t have faith that the signal would hold up. “Mick, this is Jake. I need the sheriff at the huntin’ camp. It’s an emergency. There is a bunch of rednecks trying to kill me…Hello, Mick…can you hear me? Mick?”
    The call dropped. Jake cussed under his breath. He needed some distance between him and those lunatics. He threw the phone down and drove on, certain they were coming after them. Damn it! I’ve got no idea if Mick heard anything.
    “Who was that?” Mick’s wife asked sleepily.
    “I think it was Jake Crosby on a cell phone. It sounded like he said it was an emergency,” Mick said, pulling himself up on one elbow.
    “Why would he call you?”
    “I don’t know,” he replied, lying back down.
    “What kind of emergency?”
    “I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes.
    “Well…what are you gonna do?” she asked as she rolled over.
    “I guess I’m gonna go and check on him. I can’t sleep now.”
    “Be careful. Why don’t