Free Joshua (Book 2): Traveler by John S. Wilson

“You’ve got some guts, fella,” Rob casually pointed the gun right at him. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you?”
    They all stood there nervously waiting for something to happen, but then Alton broke the tense silence, “Why don’t we question them, Rob? There’s some answers we need.”
    Rob didn’t say a word but took aim at the man’s head.
    “Rob?”
    He still stood there, his finger on the trigger, looking the man right in the eye.
    “Rob?”
    Finally Robert lowered the gun, “All right, why not.” But he kept his eyes right on the man, “Alton, did you search your prisoner? How about you, McCain?”
    Alton spoke, “Just a brief weapons search.”
    And then McCain, “Yeah, same here.”
    Now Robert had a thought, “I didn’t search the woman yet. We might as well do it right now, and let’s be thorough about it.” Rob stepped back and pointed the Glock at the ground. “All three of you, stand right here.”
    The two men and the woman formed a line, shoulder to shoulder, right where Rob told them, “Take off your clothes.”
    The three of them awkwardly looked at one another.
    Rob started waving the gun around, “All of you, take off your clothes!”
    The three started slowly undressing with everyone watching them, each filthy piece of clothing landing at their feet. In a minute they stood there shivering, naked in the cold.
    Rudd never once stopped staring at the woman, a disturbing glint in his eye.
    Robert seemed quite pleased with himself as he addressed the man he met before. “Like I was saying, you’ve got a lot of guts. Did you really think this was going to work? Did you even consider what was going to happen to you if it didn’t?” He waited a moment for an answer, none came, and the anger only grew, “Hey! I’m talking to you!”
    The man stood there trembling both from the cold and the fear that was quite apparent to everyone there. “Mister, please don’t kill us.”
    “Why shouldn’t I kill you? You knew what would happen if you screwed with us. While I’m trying to make up my mind whether you’re going to live or not, why don’t you tell us all about it, tell us about your big plan.”
    The man still stood there silent and shaking.
    And Rob’s anger was only growing, “Start talking!”
    Finally the man found enough courage to speak. “It’s nothing against you, mister, or your guys here. We were hungry, we had to have food.”
    “We just gave you some food, what happened to it?”
    “We ate it.”
    “You ate it all, already?”
    “Yes, we were hungry.”
    “You were following us, weren’t you?”
    “Yes ...”
    “You were planning this the whole time?”
    “Yes ...”
    “Okay, so tell us all about this ‘Big Plan’ of yours.”
    The man stood there shaking, almost crying. “We didn’t want to hurt anyone. We wanted some more of your food. We thought we would fire off some shots, make you chase after us. Then she could sneak up while you were gone and steal us some more, that’s all.”
    Rob scoffed, “Oh yeah, brilliant plan, Einstein. Didn’t you even consider that some of us would stay behind to protect the food? What were you going to do then? Your wife is not even armed. She could’ve been killed.”
    The man had very little left to say, “We weren’t thinking that far ahead ... we were hungry.”
    “Who is this guy?” Rob motioned to the other man with his gun.
    “Just a guy we met on the road.”
    “You just met him?”
    “Yes ...” He still stood there shaking, cold and exposed.
    “And you decided you knew him so well the two of you could pull off this robbery together.”
    “I figured there would be a better chance of success if you had two people to chase.”
    Rob turned to the other man who was also trembling. “What about you, anything you would like to add to the conversation?”
    He covered himself with his hand as he spoke, “We’re sorry, mister. It was a bad idea. We know that now. We weren’t looking to hurt