Free Buzzard Bay by Bob Ferguson Page B

see him from there.”
    There was no trouble following Green’s trail in the moonlight. They were almost across a large open flat when they heard a familiar noise. When a bullet hits something solid, it had a distinct sound, and the noise from the rifle was right behind it. They turned to look at the sound of the plop and saw Albert go flying into the snow, and then they heard his screams. They had no idea where the shot had come from; they had been concentrating on following the tracks. Ginter began backing up firing in all directions, so did Henekie. They were caught in the open having no idea that Green had a rifle. They left Albert to fend for himself and began running back to the trees.
    Alf and Metro were sitting in the van with the motor running, trying to warm up. They didn’t hear or see Green’s first shot that hit Albert. Alf did see the muzzle fire from Ginter and Henekie.
    “They got him!” he shouted. “Turn the lights on so they can see where we are. Pull down the hill a bit. It’s probably easier to drag the body here than all the way back up the hill.”
    Metro pulled on the lights and started to move down the hill when Alf saw the wink of Green’s shot.
    “What the fuck…” was all he got out before the windshield exploded.
    Metro’s face was cut, he let go of the wheel. The van turned then went over the edge of the road, sliding headfirst down the steep embankment, burying its front wheels into the six-foot deep pile of snow at the bottom. With no windshield, the snow came in almost smothering the both of them. When they abruptly stopped at the bottom, something hit Alf hard in the back. He dug desperately to clear the snow away. He poked his head out, only to come face-to-face with one of their victims.
    When they had landed, everything had come forward, including the body bags; one had broken open on impact. Alf screamed and dug faster. Metro was right behind him. They both left the van and began scrambling up the steep embankment. A bullet whined over their heads forcing them to slide back down and try to hide where they could around the van. Alf had seen where the rifle fire was coming from.
    “He’s up on the hill,” he told Metro.
    Ginter and Henekie also saw the wink of gunfire and now knew they had screwed up badly. Albert had managed to crawl quite a ways toward them. They hadn’t seen any gunfire for a while. They decided to go out and get him. It didn’t take long; they’d done it before on the battlefield, grabbing an arm and on the run pulling Albert into cover. It took them close to an hour to get him up the hill to the old farmhouse.
    By then Alf and Metro had joined them. Metro’s face wasn’t as badly cut as he had first thought; the windshield had been shatterproof. However, it looked bad enough for Ginter to send him inside with Alf to clean it up. Ginter knew when he saw the wound there was little use bringing Albert up, but he hadn’t decided what to do with him yet, so they brought him up to the house.
    The house was cold with no windows left in it, so they set to work covering them with newspapers or whatever they could find. Alf had gone outside to look around. They didn’t think Green would be crazy enough to come back, but then they hadn’t expected him to do what he had done either.
    Albert was in bad shape; he would probably live if they got him medical attention immediately, but that was out of the question. The bullet had hit Albert square in the hip bone, making one hell of a mess. Ginter told Henekie and Metro to give him a hand. They carried the unconscious body outside; there, Ginter put his pistol to Albert’s head and put him out of his misery. They all knew it was for the best.
    Alf came up to see what was going on. “There’s a tractor in the shop,” he reported. The shop is heated, so it would start. Ginter told Alf and Metro to take the tractor down to the van and pull it out.
    “If it’s too badly damaged to run, pull it up to the shop,”