Jearl Rugh, Author: 64 Born to Make the Kill

Minutes after Tony had driven away from the convenience store, the adrenaline rush of the holdup plunged and he felt exhaustion begin to creep like an aggressive malignancy into every fiber of his body. Conscious of a lump in his throat, he had swiped at the tears in his eyes. Not one thing, not even when Ma had been run down by the drunken bastard, had wrung a single tear from him. Yet Hank’s death, the tension of his relentless flight from the law, or the anticipation of the release of his Ma’s torment, had reduced him to silent sobs. He glanced toward Rudy to make sure he didn’t see his weakness. Relieved to find his face turned toward the window and the gray hoodie pulled over his head, and with no need to check Natalie as she lay on the rear seat where he had left her, he had opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, lit one and then tried to change the subject in his mind.

Hank was perhaps the only friend he had known in recent years and his death had no part in the plan. Yet in some cruel turn of fate, the bullet Natalie put in his chest marked the true start of her worthy test and each time she countered his plan, Ma’s atonement drew nearer. Before he finished with her, one last trial remained for her to face, and it would require all their strength.

Mourning was an emotion he had never felt. In fact he believed he couldn’t feel anything but hate. But this grief came on against his will with such power he had decided his current state must be total mental and physical exhaustion. His body needed to be recharged. That meant sleep and he had a searched for a secure place.

Like a few hours earlier when he had stolen the sedan, he had found a narrow dirt lane off the main road and backed the Nissan into a stand of trees. There, he would be invisible until morning light.

Natalie had been tossed on the backseat like a bag of dirty laundry. Tony had then bound together her hands and feet behind her back with a white nylon rope he had stolen from the store. To complete her imprisonment and humiliation, he had shoved a piece of a disposable diaper into her mouth and had wrapped masking tape around her head to hold it in place.

Once Tony had fallen asleep, she calmed herself with deep breaths through her nose. Since the cab wasn’t as heavy with tobacco smoke, the air had been fresh enough that she felt her body begin to give in to exhaustion. The tension siphon off. She knew she would need her strength when she had an opportunity, so she had given in to sleep.

Now, several hours later, something caused her to stir. From the shadows manifested in the passenger compartment, she realized it was the time of day when first light begins to break just before the sun volleys its first rays over the horizon. She had experienced this many times before on the farm. Now with her face toward the back of the seat, pleasant thoughts of her dad rising with the sun to begin a long day’s work filled her head as she heard the sound of a distant tractor.

The faint hum of a diesel engine crept into Tony’s sleep and he woke with a start. He feared his hiding place had been compromised. He looked out through the rain stained windshield and saw across the dirt road from the stand of evergreens under which he had parked, a large recently harvested field lay blanketed with downed corn stalks yet to be disposed. The wet shucks glistened as the sun found the moister from last night’s shower.

He started the Nissan and crept up to the edge of the forest. In the distance, a half mile away, he could see to his left a tractor plowing the field. It headed away from him. Between his position and the tractor stood the prize about a quarter mile up the lane, a burgundy pickup truck. He rolled the sedan out of the trees, turned left and headed for it.

As he approached, he could see it was a four door. He stopped beside and just behind it, and hoped to hide the Nissan from the farmer’s view. If the driver of the tractor reached the end of the row he was now plowing and turned around, Tony wanted nothing suspicious to attract his attention. He needed enough time to make the switch and avoid the farmer’s eye.

He turned toward Rudy who had woken up when the Stanza’s engine came to life. Before he gave in to sleep last night, Tony had tied Rudy’s hands and feet together with the same nylon rope he used on Natalie. Now, he reached into his coat pocket, produced a box knife also stolen last night and cut the ropes from Rudy’s feet and hands.

“Get her into the backseat,” he said, “and hurry. We don’t have much time.”

Tony jumped out of the driver’s seat of the sedan and stepped toward the truck He wanted to gain access without breaking a window—a purely amateur means of entry. Back in Jersey such a feat wouldn’t have posed a moment’s concern as he would have had the proper tool for the job—a Slim Jim. None at hand, though, posed no problem as the farmer had left the doors unlocked. Once inside he began his search for keys. After a few failed attempts: behind the sun visor, under the floor mat, in the console compartment, he thought to look in the most obvious place, the ignition. They were there.

“Stupid farmer. He deserves this.”

Rudy opened the back door of the truck and then went back to the Nissan for Natalie.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he picked her up off the backseat.

She couldn’t answer with the gag in her mouth, but she seemed to grace him with an “I understand” smile in her eyes. After what she had said to Tony last night, “it’s my job to escape. When I said that, I meant from all of you, Rudy included,” this kindness was reassuring.

He realized that the way Tony had tied her had to be uncomfortable, even more than the way she had been tied up in the van, so he placed her carefully on the backseat of the truck.

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