With Tank lying at her feet, Rylee picked up the binoculars, made herself as comfortable as she could on the worn-out chair, and began her vigil.
***
Rylee’s first clue that there was a problem was a series of screams that cracked the night.
Her phone rang, and she snatched it up. “Here!”
“Rylee, take Tank, leave everything else except your pack with your passport, and run for the plane. You have to run.”
“Wilco. Out.”
Dakota’s words were rocket fuel. She snatched up her backpack and Tank’s lead, and she was thundering down the stairs.
“What in the world!” she shouted as she reached the open doors of the hangar.
The moon that night was round and full, and it hung low to the ground, reflecting off the pale, packed dirt. Not bright enough to read by, but certainly bright enough to see the old pickup truck parked in the front.
A man in his desert robe stood in the truck bed, his semi-automatic rifle aimed.
Rylee came to a screeching stop, dragging Tank with her as she shifted into a shadow.
The caregivers hovered protectively, using their bodies to shield their loved ones as the rifles swept the space.
No shots had been fired, but the menace was enough to cow the people.
Two other men, rifles at the ready, covered their comrades who pulled supply boxes from the back, running them forward and loading them into the back of their truck.
They yelled instructions to each other in Arabic.
Panic was contagious. It spread like oil on water, then caught fire.
As the men turned to the back of the hangar for more boxes, those who could were running into the night.
Rylee turned to see two other trucks parked by WorldCares' main supply tent, where one of her responders had been sleeping.
Had he escaped?
Already disoriented and traumatized by the recent earthquake, the villagers were now running across the wide expanse barefoot in their nightwear. Fathers with children on their shoulders and elders on their backs. Mothers with kidsdangling from their hips, hunkered low so that their bodies shielded their children.
Shadows of people in terror.
Rylee hadn’t heard a single shot.
Bullets were unnecessary when people were exhausted and had no reason to fight. They’d escaped the tumbling buildings with their lives. Why would they risk that precious gift now?
Some children stood, sobbing, separated from their families in the tumult.
Rylee was lifting them and thrusting them in the arms of fleeing adults as she spun them and pointed them toward the rise of land to the north. Once over that incline, they’d be out of a bullet’s trajectory.
Rylee twisted toward the sound of a young woman screaming‘no’ as one of the men with rifles dragged her toward the truck. She sat back on her heels, trying to use her body weight to break his grip.
Tank shot from Rylee’s side with his lead dragging behind him.
Rylee raced after Tank to protect the girl, shouting “Stop! Leave my sister alone!” in Arabic.
The man turned toward Rylee as Tank leaped into the air, biting down on the rifle hand.
This was one of four men at the hangar. All of them had rifles.
