Whistlers

Jack Walker — I Spy

The plain is mostly flat but breaks into a series of small, rolling hills at times. The highway traverses in a nearly straight line but follows the undulations of the land, rising to crests and descending into small valleys. Trip and I are currently walking through one of those series of hills, which limits our visibility until we come to one of the hilltops.

“Did you hear that?” I ask, halting near the bottom of a dip in the road. “That sounded like a gunshot.”

“How could I? You were talking,” Trip responds.

“It was close. Maybe if you weren’t lip-smacking your food down, you would have heard it.”

“That could be Ponch.” Trip takes off at a run.

I reach out and grab him by the shoulder as he passes by, my fingers closing around a section of his clothing. He is brought up short, causing his packet of food to upend. He frowns as he looks from the spilled food to my hand still gripping him.

“Look, all we know is that it’s someone that’s armed. It may or may not be Mi…Ponch. I agree we should move quickly, but we also need to be cautious. Remember those military vehicles we left? I don’t think we want to run pell-mell into them.”

Trip continues to stare at the food and my hand holding him.

“If I let you go, you aren’t going to just start racing up the hill, right?” I ask.

He says nothing in reply, which I decide to take as a yes. Releasing him, I half, well more than half, expect him to completely ignore what I said and start running again. I just never know with this guy. He doesn’t and smoothes out his jacket where I grabbed him.

Like that’s going to help, I think, starting up the hill.

I move off the edge of the road and closer to the fields should we suddenly find the need to hide. Starting cautiously up the hill, with my carbine readied, I glance quickly behind to see Trip following. Near the crest, I hear a second gunshot which seems to come from just over the rise. I crouch lower, crawling the last few feet so that I don’t silhouette myself against the skyline. The landscape slowly unfolds before me until I reach a point just before the top.

Ahead, the road dips slightly and almost immediately runs under a bridge; the crossing highway seems to be the road Trip and I were on before trekking to the other roadblock. Bringing my M-4 up, I peer through my optics down to the structure. Below, not very far away, an armed man is standing over a body. I can see him clearly, but it’s the pink shoes and poncho that first gives him away.