Holding Their Own

Chapter 1



By the time Bishop spotted the spikes, it was too late. His foot was halfway to the brake when the front tires of the pickup exploded, followed less than a second later by the rear rubber. The steering became mushy, the truck fishtailing as he fought desperately for control. Someone had strategically positioned sheets of plywood across the road, dozens of huge nails pointing skyward.

Terri shouted something from the backseat, but he was too focused on avoiding devastation to digest her words.

The pickup skidded the last 200 feet on its rims, only the soft sand of the roadside desert preventing the tortured machine from flipping over on its side.

Bishop’s first instinct was to check on his wife and son in the backseat. Terri was pale, huddled over Hunter’s car seat trying to protect the child with her body. She stared at her husband with wide, questioning eyes. “What the hell just happened?” she snapped.

Before he could answer, the passenger window exploded in a shower of glass… small holes stitching across the windshield, bullets thwacking and sparking into the truck’s sheet metal.

“Get down,” he screamed, reaching for his rifle.

Bishop bailed out of the driver’s door, hitting the ground hard, pulling the M4 by the sling along behind him. He rolled toward the back tires, his instincts screaming that the shooters were on the passenger side and to the rear of the truck.

Bullets snapped through the air, their supersonic greeting forcing Bishop to stay low to the ground. Careful not to expose his head, he raised the M4 over the edge of the bed and fired several blind shots. He didn’t expect to hit anything; the act was merely a desperate play to keep the bushwhackers at bay and give him some time.

Still crouching close to the ground, he flung open the passenger door, shouting for Terri to get out. The truck wouldn’t stop bullets or help them escape. Bishop’s beloved Texas pickup was now nothing more than a death trap on wheels. Damn, and I just washed it, Bishop thought.

His wife was already one step ahead of him, a wide-eyed Hunter liberated from his car seat and on the floor, shielded by his mother’s torso. “Come on! Come on!” Bishop screamed, reaching to pull the boy out.

Cradling the baby in one arm, Bishop again raised the rifle with his free hand and began firing blind. Keep them back, kept racing through his mind. Give them something to think about.

Hunter, his ears assaulted by the report of his dad’s rifle, started screaming at the top of his lungs.

Terri pivoted and twisted her way out of the truck, hitting the ground in an ungraceful tangle of arms and legs. She was reaching back in the cab for her own rifle as another salvo slammed into the couple’s pickup-shield.

Surprise was no longer an advantage for the attackers, Bishop recovering enough to begin forming a tactical outline of the situation. There were at least six or seven shooters engaging them. They sported a mixture of weapons. The ambushers were grouped in two separate areas. The most damaging piece of information – they didn’t give a shit if they killed women or children.

Slinging her rifle, Terri tugged Hunter from her husband’s arm and then scrambled for the front wheel and the protection of the engine block. Smart girl, Bishop noted in a momentary flash of pride.

He chanced a glance around the rear bumper, exposing his head only long enough to take a mental snapshot. His scouting effort was rewarded with a dozen bullets pinging off metal and cracking through the air.

Focusing intensely on the image in his mind, he determined his family was in a completely untenable position. The ambushers were most likely leveraging a small drainage ditch about 70 meters away. A natural bend in the gully allowed the highwaymen two different angles on the road. A strategic location to set a trap.

“We can’t stay here,” Bishop shouted to his wife.

“I’m listening,” she replied.

Bishop looked behind them, thankful the opposite side of the road afforded at least some cover. He spied a boulder field, a few of the individual rocks the size of their truck. Beyond that lay a steep, craggy-looking ridge that might be a dead end or might be climbable.

“We’re going that way,” he announced, gesturing with his head. “But I need my pack out of the bed. Can you give me some covering fire?”

“Where?” she mouthed.

Bishop pointed with his arm, giving her the general direction to aim.

Nodding, Terri set Hunter down and pulled her rifle around. Her finger was working the trigger as she rose over the hood.

Bishop did the same, this time exposing his head more than before. He centered the red dot where he was sure the ambushers were camped and let loose a hailstorm of fire.

After 20 rounds, he took his left hand off the weapon and reached into the back of the truck. His pack was there, along with a load of supplies. He’d barely managed to pull back before a blizzard of bullets was punching through the bed, exit holes of jagged metal chasing the Texan as he ducked behind the rear wheel.