They were well down the San Juan River before they saw lights in the water behind them. They’d disappear and reappear periodically as the river goose-necked its course. Finally, Eddie took his knee off Danny and waved Lazzo over to help him. “Sorry,” Lazzo said, pulling out a small medical kit. Danny nodded the apology off. Lazzo put a small flashlight in his teeth and pulled the fabric away from the wound. “Gonna hurt,” he said. Danny winced and nodded again. The bullet wasn’t in deep, and Lazzo’s first poke hit it. “That’s good.” Lazzo grinned.
“Yeah. Good,” Danny replied, shaking his head. Flippin’ wonderful!
Lazzo grabbed the scissors, poked them into the bullet hole, and pulled the bullet straight out. Blood pulsed out as he rinsed the wound off and covered it with gauze. “Hold,” he said to Danny, and Danny held the gauze. Danny had better first aid supplies in his pack, but that was somewhere down the river ahead of them.
“Why again?” Eddie finally asked Danny. “Why come back to help us?”
“Better question,” Danny replied. “Why’d you help us? You could have let us die easily and never been involved in any of this.”
Eddie nodded but looked away and didn’t say anything. Lazzo answered for him. “We were fooled.”
“No, I was a fool,” Eddie cut in. “I is a fool?” he asked, checking for the correct phrase.
“Either way,” Danny replied.
But Lazzo repeated, “We were fooled. Our government. They told us our family was dead. That Americans kill them so we attack America then. We figured out. They lied.”
“They killed your families?” Danny asked, searching Eddie’s face. “Or we killed—”
Eddie looked at him coldly. Lazzo whispered, “Yes. Someone killed our families. But after America was attacked.”
“So they told you your families were dead so you would fight? So you’d want to kill us?” Danny asked, already knowing the answer.
No response from Eddie. Another confirmation from Lazzo.
“So why chase us all the way across the country? What did our family do to you?” Danny whispered.
“You killed Eddie’s good friend, Markus, in Dakota. And more of our men,” Lazzo replied. “Eddie’s very loyal. We take that all personally.”
“He was a good friend,” Eddie spoke finally, looking at Danny, referring to Markus.
“Sorry,” Danny replied, shaking his head. “I lost my best friend too.”
“Me?” Eddie asked, his face relaxing a bit.
“No. You didn’t do it.” Danny shook his head. “Mountain lions.”
“Essex Park?” Lazzo asked. This time Danny just nodded. Essex, Estes…
“Girl with the bow?” Eddie asked, mimicking firing a bow.
“My sister,” Danny replied.
“Same sister?” Eddie inquired, referencing the girl he’d pulled out of the river.
“Yes. Same sister,” Danny confirmed.
Eddie chuckled. “So you have little girl too?” Another nod from Danny. “You were the four white suits at the hotel?”
“Uhhh…” Danny struggled to figure out what he was asking. “What?”
“On video,” Lazzo offered. “In room under floor. White Russian suits.”
Son of a gun. They didn’t even think about being taped. “Oh,” Danny muttered. “Yeah, that was us.”
“You’re a good soldier,” Lazzo told him. “How you survive the cold?”
“Cave,” Danny answered. “Big cave.”
“You kill vice president?” Eddie fixed his eyes on Danny’s.
The guy was direct. It wasn’t something Danny was supposed to answer, but the circumstances merited a reply. “Kind of,” Danny admitted.
“You visited him in tent?” Eddie followed up, clearly checking Danny’s honesty.
Danny nodded again. Impressive. “Who was the other guy?” Danny asked Lazzo, pointing back in the direction they’d come from.
“A good man,” Lazzo replied. “But we be dead without you.” He put his hand on Danny’s good shoulder.
“Again,” Eddie whispered.
The conversation answered many things for Danny. For one, he now knew for sure they were aware of his role in their survival in Cheyenne. Clearly, these men had found out they’d been lied to by whatever government was running this country now, and when they’d found out the truth they’d rushed to help Danny and his family escape. Scorn had been a powerful force in that decision as it put Eddie and Lazzo directly in harm’s way, but they didn’t seem to regret it or resent Danny for it. It also told him why they’d chased us in the first place. Initially, it had just been payback for Eddie’s friend, but then they’d been outsmarted one too many times, and Eddie had taken it personally.
“Can you tell me what this is?” Danny asked. “What’s going on here?”
“Soon,” Eddie replied. “Must move now.”
Danny accepted that reply for now. He pulled his flashlight out and began flashing it ahead. As Eddie and Lazzo paddled through the river towards Lake Powell, Danny continued to flash his light forward whenever they couldn’t see the lights behind them.
Up ahead, we saw a light flashing behind us. It seemed to be relaying some sort of message but we couldn’t decipher it. Nonetheless, we figured it was Danny, so we flashed back. We rowed backwards against the water to slow down and wait for them, and they caught us about ten minutes later. We were shocked to see who was in the boat with Danny.
EIGHTY: (Ryan) “Decoy”
We decided to dump Eddie’s raft in the rocks at the next set of rapids. Hopefully that would slow the search party behind us. They’d been gaining on us the past few hours, and it would be light soon. Jenna focused on Danny’s shoulder right away. She had him patched up in no time. Our two rafts were loaded with people and supplies, which did slow us down, but also seemed to allow us to travel the rougher sections better.
Eddie and Hayley had spent a great deal of time in conversation since we’d merged. Eddie seemed quite impressed with her, and Hayley obviously had a unique place in her heart for him as well. For the most part the rest of us just watched and listened. We didn’t know what to think of Eddie and Lazzo being with us now. Besides, we had enough other things on our minds. The water was getting rougher, and the sky was starting to lighten. We had to be coming up on the Colorado River soon.
Just before dawn, the San Juan River converged with the much bigger, much rougher Colorado River. A few years ago this river had almost completely dried up. A few heavy rain seasons had reversed that drought and then some. We were adjusting to the roughness when the helicopters made their first pass overhead. I’m not quite sure how they missed us—maybe it was the sun coming up behind us—or perhaps they saw the boats behind us and were distracted. Whatever the cause, we certainly didn’t miss them.
We had hoped to make it to Lake Powell and its many coves and channels, but the helicopters were going to make that impossible. They’d be flying back overhead any minute now. We paddled the boats into the nearest channel, wedged between two enormous canyon walls, and found a small inlet where we figured we could hide out for the day. It had an even smaller beach and several awkward trees that appeared to have been planted sideways and upside down into the canyon wall. It was cover enough, at least. We pulled up under the trees, flipped and covered the rafts with sand, and then walked up into a narrow crevice adjacent the small beach.
We hid ourselves in the cool shade of the overhanging rocks and spent the day listening to Eddie and Lazzo, mostly Lazzo, fill us in on the enemy’s plan and everything else they knew about the current state of America. It was easy to tell they were somewhat confused themselves. They knew there were seven countries involved in the attack against the United States, including Mexico, which surprised us all—that’s where the general was from who was hunting us right now. The seven leaders of those countries were now orchestrating the new government they called Qi Jia. Qi Jia knew surviving Americans were trying to get to Hawaii and Eddie confirmed it was indeed the only safe haven left in America—as the Secret Service agents had shared. Eddie did add that there may still be Americans alive in NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain bunker, but Qi Jian forces were still trying to break in. Who knows how long it would be before either they got in, or the survivors inside died. There really wasn’t much of this country left. It turned out everything we’d heard and feared was true, and in some cases even worse than we could have imagined.