One Second After

She nodded, stepped back, and went over to one of the wounded, a girl, a volleyball player from the school. She was crying, curled up, clutching her stomach. John watched as Makala knelt down, brushed the girl’s forehead, spoke a few soothing words, and then with an indelible ink pen wrote “3” on the girl’s forehead. Makala leaned over, kissed the girl gently, and then got up and went to a boy lying by the girl’s side. The boy’s leg was crushed below the knee, and he or someone else had slapped a tourniquet on him. He was unconscious. Makala put a finger to his throat to check his pulse, wrote “1” on his forehead, and stood up.

“A one! Here now!” she shouted.

A stretcher team sprinted up, one of the boys looking down at the girl shot in the stomach and slowing. And John could see the agony in his face. The two had dated a year ago, in fact had been something of “the couple,” until she broke it off. At a small college, everyone knew about the lives of the others, sometimes not so good, sometimes rather nice.

“Over here! This one here! Move it!” Makala shouted.

The boy, tears streaming down his face, was pushed forward by the girl at the back of the stretcher. They loaded on the boy with the mangled leg, turned, and started to sprint back down the road. Makala was already up to the next wounded, pen in hand. She was now, as the ancients might have said, the chooser of the slain: 1 for priority treatment, 2 for delay till all Is were taken care of, 3… 3 simply meant they were going to die and effort was not to be expended on them for now.

None of the student soldiers going into the fight knew about this triage, though the students assigned as medics did, as did all who were now helping to clear the battlefield, but it did not take long for the receivers of this to figure it out.

A girl was lying in the ditch against the median barrier, multiple gunshot wounds having stitched her body. Makala barely paused to look at her, wrote a “3” on her forehead, and moved on. The girl looked at John, crying.

“What did she write? What did she write?”

John knelt down by her side. It was a wonder she was still alive, the gunshot wound to her upper thigh having shattered her femur. How the femoral artery was not torn was beyond him. She was also shot through the chest and stomach, blood frothing her lips. He didn’t recognize her. Most likely a freshman who had yet to take his class.

“She wrote ‘2,’ sweetheart,” he lied. “Others worse hurt than you. Help will be along shortly.”

She tried to smile, to nod, but was already beginning the gentle slide into the night. John leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Go to sleep now, honey. You’ll be ok.”

She reached out and snatched his hand, her grip remarkably strong. “Daddy?” she whispered. “Daddy, help me.”

“Daddy’s here.”

She began to shake uncontrollably.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” he whispered.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep…, she mouthed the words. The shuddering stopped…. She was dead.

John brushed the hair from her sweat-soaked forehead, kissed her again, then gently released her grip and turned away.

Distant shots echoed from the hills and more closely, from behind, as Tom’s men continued to kill the Posse wounded.

Ahead, smashed into the side of the gap, was the smoldering wreckage of Don Barber’s recon plane. During the worst moments of the fight John had seen Barber fly over, coming in low, tossing satchel charges, taking out one of their tractor-trailer trucks, and then suddenly wing over and go in.

John had specifically ordered Don not to tangle in the fight, to stay high, to keep doing recon, and in the opening hours he had done just that, flying up, observing, swooping back down over the town hall and dropping a note attached to a streamer with the latest update regarding the enemy moves, then going back out. The info had been crucial, keeping John posted on which direction the Posse was pouring in from and, most important, knowing when their full force had been committed before the closing of the trap.

But as he had feared all along, Don could not stay out of the fight and had decided, at last, to play the role of ground support fighter.

Don Barber was tangled into the wreckage… dead. He was wearing his old uniform from the Korean War. John slowed, saluted him, then pushed on.

A line of prisoners was being led along the westbound side of the road, hands tied behind backs, all roped together, roughly thirty of them, including the last survivors flushed out of the burning house.

A guard leading them looked over at John and he motioned for them to move towards the truck stop at the top of the pass, the place he was heading.