Not His People, Part Ii

There came loud shouting, and more gunfire, the killer frowned, grabbed a pistol and ran, Rico struggled to escape from his bonds, but they held him down like an iron band. For another minutes bullets flew hot, then a dead silence fell over the house, Rico heard slow footsteps come up the stairs, he could only groan, and wonder ‘what now?’ Then he saw a man appear at the door, a figure that Rico knew very well, a blond-haired friend name Anthony Johnson, a fellow border guard, who looked like hell. He held his side, where he’d clearly been shot, and limped slowly to where Rico was tied, said, “God damn, I think those bastards got me, but I wasn’t gonna leave you to die. As the man moved slowly to get a knife more memory of the past night came back, he’d been patrolling with Anthony when a call had sent them down a rutted track. His friend had stayed in the car to call in when Rico had gone out to scan the place, he must have escaped when the ambush came, then gone and trailed the bastards all this way! He came over and freed Rico’s left hand, Rico them took the knife and cut the rest, he stood up in time to catch Anthony, who was going pale and fighting for breath. “Damn it, you should have gotten some back-up,” said Rico to his friend as he grew weak. “Couldn’t,”said Anthony, “Damn bureaucrats, would have just argued on it for a week. “And you know how all those damn bleeding hearts get when dealing with thugs in Mexico, half would get soft, the others ignore it, at the end of it nobody would go.” Rico frowned hearing his friend’s labored words, but couldn’t deny that he might be right, there were those so afraid of seeming ‘racist’ that they’d prefer to let good people die. So Rico took Anthony back downstairs, he found some keys and stole on of their cars, they began driving north, for the border, which, thankfully, he found wasn’t too far. But even so as he kept on driving, he saw Anthony slowly start to fade, he talked to the man with tears his eyes, said to hold on, good distance they’d made. He told his that help wasn’t that for off, but knew that nothing could help his friend now. They were still ten miles from the border when Anthony’s head so slowly slumped down. He drove on the shoulder, past lines of cars when he finally reach the checkpoint gate, guns were drawn thinking that he was a thug, but when they saw him, their fear did abate... CONCLUDES IN PART III.