Uncertain Justice

Chapter 7

The third sandwich was good, but he was full now. Absentmindedly, he carried the plate to the sink and rinsed it in hot water from the faucet. He freshened his cup of coffee and sat back down at the kitchen table.

There were plans to make now. How to get out of town, how to get to ... Colorado. Yeah, Colorado would be his initial goal. The state was familiar to him. He'd driven out there a number of times for vacations but he'd spoken of the trips only to family members and a very few close friends.

They might or might not remember but they surely wouldn't have those conversations in the forefront of their minds. By the time some detective stumbled on the right question to ask, he would be gone, secure in the vastness of Colorado's mountains.

He got up to pace, coffee cup in hand, and walked around the home he'd be leaving behind. He would have to abandon possessions that had taken a lifetime to accumulate; the house and furniture would be auctioned off to pay the bail bondsman.

Anger flared high again. He'd worked a long time to be able to afford what he had. When he retired from the Army, he'd searched for exactly the right furnishings. He'd put a lot of work into the new home. He suppressed the resentment. He told himself if he escaped into the mountains, he wouldn't have to deal with prosecutors, juries, or prying reporters ever again.

"A fugitive from the law, huh? A fugitive."

He said it aloud. He wanted to hear the words in his ears; he wanted to taste the words on his tongue. He checked out the concept and measured its fit.

He laughed. Actually, it wasn't half bad.

It was a lot better than the alternatives the prison documentary suggested. They would call him 'convict' there, he'd be someone's 'b***h', and eventually ... they'd call him 'dead'.

Running would be taken as proof of his guilt. That troubled him. If he ran, he'd be giving up any chance he had of clearing his name--whatever that meant. Well ... so what? If he were pronounced not guilty today, this very moment, what would change?

He already knew he was innocent but the best he could get from a trial was a verdict of not guilty, and 'not guilty' wasn't the same as 'innocent' in people's minds. Even his brother and sister would never look at him quite the same again. They'd carefully herd their children away from Miles ... just to be sure. His neighbors, his erstwhile friends and acquaintances would be even less understanding.

Deliberately, he let a portion of the anger wash back over him. His facial expression hardened to reflect his thoughts.

Screw other people's opinions. He knew he hadn't hurt that young woman, and that was enough. He turned to the issue of getting out of town quickly and silently.

He had no experience at avoiding law enforcement officers but it occurred to him the first rule was to avoid notice. He'd watched all the "cop" reality shows on TV and observed that most criminals didn't act very smart sometimes. Stealing cars and driving them around at high speeds with broken windows and cracked steering columns was like waving a sign begging to be arrested.

It was an easy resolution to not drive over the speed limit, not drive recklessly, and to not carry any contraband--other than himself, of course. He chuckled at the small joke before he went on.

Rule number two, he decided, was to be where the cops weren't. Avoid high concentrations of people, and you sidestepped much of the law enforcement in the country. Traveling quietly and carefully on poorly patrolled rural roads should take care of the problem.

But ... no ... wait a minute. Perhaps one could go too far in that direction. Maybe the best bet was to not be in too rural a place. If there were fewer people for a lawman to watch, each individual in his sight was given that much more personal attention.

So ... it made no sense to attract notice by being a stranger too far off the beaten path. He would drive on state roads and the occasional federal highway, but not a county road or farm to market road.

On the other hand, he had to avoid interstate highways too ... too many law enforcement patrols were there and eventually, one would pick him out.

Good! It was a plan.

He smiled, happy to be reasoning logically again--it'd been so very long since he'd felt comfortable in his own mind.

He was beginning to look forward to what he was preparing himself to do--it was almost like setting up one of those driving vacations he'd taken out west in the peaceful years. With a little common sense and a lot of care, he could be successful at evading the police as he traveled through their jurisdictions.

"If it were done, 'twer well if it were done quickly," he whispered. He held up a reproving finger while mangling the line from Macbeth. He didn't remember anything else about the quote, and not much more about the play itself, but the logic in the line appealed to him. It seemed like excellent advice.

He wasn't sure he could conceal his intent for very long. He had to act before he said or did something to give himself away. A chill ran down his spine at the sudden thought that the judge might arbitrarily revoke his bail. He shivered. If he tried, he could find any number of things, most of them bad, that might happen if he didn't act soon enough.

He walked to his bedroom and looked through the window at the street outside. Television reporters had camped out in front of his house for a while this morning after the announcement of the new trial date, but they had other things on their minds this evening.

Presumably, the heavy rain and inevitable flooding would claim their attention for the remainder of the night and probably for several days to come. It was what had happened in previous storms, and this one was predicted to be one that would last for days.

The same applied to city officialdom, he decided.

Police would be working extra shifts with the inevitable emergencies caused by the weather. It was unlikely any manpower could be spared to specifically watch him for the next few days. There was a high possibility he had a window of opportunity, lasting as long as the storm did, to make a nice ... clean ... break. He nodded in agreement with his own analysis.

"Quickly," he counseled himself aloud, "but not hastily." He began to smile more broadly as he paced around the house, peering out at the rain-washed darkness whenever he came to a window.

Making his way to the garage, he scrambled up a ladder to grab the biggest backpack he owned from attic. He began loading it with everything he would need to survive in the wilderness.

It was soon overflowing with nearly every gadget made for camping or hiking he'd ever purchased. He hefted the pack, and promptly dropped it to the concrete floor. It weighed at least eighty pounds. A vision of himself staggering under the weight of the mammoth pack up a mountainside came to him and he laughed.

He sighed ruefully and dragged the pack into the living room to dump it out on the floor. Sitting cross-legged, he began the process of sorting out what he would need to live for a long time in the woods and setting aside things that would be a luxury. He stopped when he realized he was holding a hiker's fuel stove in each hand, unable to choose between them.

The would-be fugitive grinned through his fatigue. He was too tired to make the necessary choices right now and, for the first time in months, he didn't dread the dreams that might come in the night. He showered and slid in bed between a set of fresh, crisp sheets. He was asleep before he could pull them up to his chin.

§

The morning dawned miserably cold, dark, and rainy--and it got steadily worse. Radar graphics on all the television stations showed solid masses of thunderstorms marching down from the northwest toward the city. Storm cells were generating on the leading edge of the stalled weather front and training over the city.

Miles nodded to himself, satisfied. No one would be thinking about him in all this mess.

This morning he'd had no problem determining what to take with him. He selected a small hiking tent and a goose down sleeping bag. They'd proven themselves in long-distance hikes before. Dropping them in the bottom section of the backpack, he zipped it closed. He set aside an inflatable sleeping pad to fasten at the bottom of the pack later. His sleeping accommodations were complete.

In the multitude of zippered compartments, he stowed enough plastic cigarette lighters to light campfires for a lifetime. He found places for steel snares to trap small game, a gill net, fishhooks and several spools of monofilament line for fishing, and a small hiker's cooking set. He added a small first aid kit and a big bottle of multiple vitamins.

He'd made the decision to not take either of the fuel stoves. The fuel would run out too quickly to make the weight penalty worthwhile. He'd cook over the open flames of campfires, just as early mountain men had done some two hundred years earlier.

A small hatchet, three hunting knives and a couple of sharpening stones, a wad of parachute cord, and a couple of heavy-duty thermal blankets completed the list of gear he wanted to take with him.

He put in two pair of camouflaged BDUs and two pair of canvas cargo shorts; three changes of underwear and six pair of thick hiking socks completed his wardrobe for the trip.

To the outside of the pack, he lashed a lightweight parka (guaranteed to keep the wearer warm at thirty-five degrees below zero), an old Army surplus entrenching tool, plus a hundred and fifty feet of climbing rope. He slipped a pair of heavy gloves into a zippered pocket and clipped two large canteens to the hip belt. He'd fill them with water later.

He took one of the hunting knives out of the pack and put it aside. He'd slip his belt through the belt's scabbard later and carry it with him all the time.

Then he decided enough was enough. The remaining space would be stuffed with food. When he got out of bed this morning, he sliced nearly thirty pounds of half-frozen roast beef and steak into thin strips and put the slices in a marinade. One batch was drying in the oven now and would be done in a few hours. When it was all done, he'd put the dried meat--jerky was what early Americans had called it--in zip lock bags and stow them in the backpack. Any empty space would be filled with freeze dried meals and a few cans of high-calorie meat products.

He would need to hunt for meat to live eventually, but he wanted to carry enough food to get well into the wilderness before he started foraging for food. Hunting for game too early, would attract unwanted attention. When the time came to kill animals larger than the snares could hold, he had exactly what he needed.

A crossbow and a dozen bolts had been gathering dust in his bedroom closet for a long time. The crossbow was an ancient but effective weapon. Even in medieval times, the weapon had ranges of four hundred yards. Twentieth century versions were so effective they'd been used in organized warfare in World War I.

By contrast, the bows and arrows used by the American Indians had a lethal range of twenty-five yards. Yet, Indians had hunted even the largest game ... and quite successfully too. He would be able to do the same.

Miles had tried hunting with a traditional bow and arrow many years before but had given it up after proving to himself that he would never develop any expertise with the weapon. The crossbow was different. It was easy to use--remarkably similar to firing a rifle.

He had himself convinced in moments. The dismantled crossbow and bolts joined other gear inside the pack.

Though he'd decided not to carry a rifle into the wilderness, he found himself contemplating the .357 magnum pistol he'd bought while stationed in Alaska a decade earlier. It was a beautiful weapon and he hated to leave it behind. He decided there might be a need for a handgun someday ... to kill a snake maybe.

He grinned derisively at himself, certain he was talking himself into something he didn't really need. Loading the weapon with six of the big cartridges, he slipped it into a leather holster and fastened the rawhide thong across the hammer to keep the pistol in place. Two full boxes of ammo went into the pack. A hundred rounds plus the six in the cylinder would be plenty. He wasn't going to get into any firefights and ammunition was damned heavy.

He stood and tentatively worked his arms through the straps. Buckling the hip belt and pulling on the risers, he walked around the house to test the balance and weight. As he paced, he tried to think of a piece of equipment he might need but he couldn't. There was plenty of room in the pack but there was nothing else he could take with him that would improve his chances for survival. He was finished loading the backpack. When the time came, it would go in the bed of the twelve-year old half-ton Ford pickup he'd bought a few weeks before all the trouble began.

The pickup's body was in so-so shape. Reasonably watertight was about the best you could say about the cab, and the paint job was nothing to cheer about, but the motor was in great condition. In fact, the truck had been in the shop to overhaul the worn-out motor while the cops were actively investigating him and he hadn't picked it up from the garage until long after he'd been bailed out of jail by Jonah Trenton.

It had remained inside the double garage since and the authorities might not even be aware he had it. Even better, in all the confusion, he'd never gone to the trouble to have the title officially transferred to his name. He took that as a good omen.

The easy part of his preparations finished, Miles spent the rest of the morning locating small items he wanted his brother and sister to have and packing them in boxes salvaged from his move to San Antonio. He divided the pictures, trinkets, and small valuables accumulated through a lifetime and sorted them carefully into the boxes. He wrote a letter to go in each box explaining to his family his reasons for running. He asked them to forgive him and please understand. Two additional boxes were filled with Miles' legal papers and other records he'd amassed over a twenty-two year Army career. Those would go to his brother for safekeeping.

Impulsively, he copied all the documents he had on his computer onto two CDs and slid them inside protective cases. They would go inside the backpack though he had no idea if or when he'd ever see a computer again. Then he made two more copies and put them in the boxes destined for his brother and sister. All the boxes went into the truck bed for mailing in the last stages of the trip west. Their shipment would be timed to arrive at their destination long after he left for the mountains. He couldn't afford to have the act of shipping them used to track him.

He lifted his cell phone to cancel a dental exam he'd scheduled for next week, but put the phone down without punching any numbers. So far, everything he'd done to prepare for the trip had been behind drawn shades or in a garage with the doors closed.