the nearby cabins were inhabited, but he couldn’t tell where the screams were coming from. And then all of a sudden a young girl came running out of the middle cabin, running barefoot in her pajamas.
“The bad men... Mommy told me to run,” she sobbed, and pointed back inside the cabin.
Charlie grabbed her by the shoulders. “See my cabin at the end of the road? The door is unlocked. Go inside and lock it. Don’t open it for anyone unless it’s me or the police. Now run!”
“But... Mommy...”
“Go!” Charlie said. “And don’t look back.” Then he took his gun off safety.
The little girl ran toward Charlie’s cabin as he ran toward the open door. He didn’t know what he was going to find, but the woman wasn’t screaming anymore.
It was a careless, foolish thing to do, but when Charlie reached their front porch, he didn’t slow down. He went up the steps and into the cabin on the run.
There was an unconscious man on the floor in a pool of blood, and the woman was nowhere in sight. Then he heard something breaking in the back of the cabin and a woman moan, and he slipped down the hall, following the sounds.
A bedroom door was ajar, and he could see two men in prison orange, and the missing woman, unconscious and bloody, lying spread-eagle on the bed.
There was a rifle lying on the floor beside the bed, and both prisoners were taking off their orange jumpsuits and tearing through the man’s suitcase, trying to find clothes that would fit.
One prisoner was in the act of changing clothes, and the other one was still rummaging through a suitcase. They had taken the cash out of the woman’s purse and the man’s wallet, and it was lying on the bed beside the unconscious woman.
“Hey, Grover, I found the car keys. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Just a minute, Joe. I’m almost—”
Charlie shoved the door inward, slamming it against the wall.
“Get down on the floor! Down on the floor!” he shouted.
Joe made a dive for the rifle, and Charlie fired.
Joe dropped and screamed “My knee! My knee!” while Grover hit the floor screaming “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
Charlie could hear sirens now and speeding vehicles on the road outside. Someone else must have heard the screams and called the ranger station. He kicked the rifle out of their reach and then moved quickly to the woman on the bed to feel for a pulse. She was alive, and with a spreading bruise on her jaw.
Moments later, he could hear footsteps, and men shouting “Police! Police!” as they came running into the cabin.
At that point, he called out.
“Back here! In the back bedroom. I have the prisoners subdued.”
The woman was moaning, beginning to regain consciousness as police swarmed the room, and Joe, the prisoner he’d shot, was writhing and screaming in pain. Grover already knew the routine and was belly down with his hands locked behind his head.
Charlie’s hands were in the air. “I have a permit,” he said, and carefully laid the gun on the floor and stepped back. “I’m down the road in Cabin One. I heard the woman screaming and started running up this way. I met their daughter running out of this cabin, and sent her down to mine and told her to lock herself in. The man in the living room was already on the floor. I don’t know what they did to him. The woman was like this, and they were changing clothes when I arrived.”
One of the officers took Charlie’s handgun, as another one was calling for multiple ambulances. Two state policemen headed down to Charlie’s cabin to retrieve the child, while the others on-site handcuffed both prisoners and dragged them out of the cabin.
The first ambulance arrived and took the wounded prisoner, and the second one was right behind it. They took the wounded man from the living room floor, while the third ambulance arrived and began tending to the woman.
Charlie watched from a corner of the room as the woman began talking and mumbling as she came to.
“Ronnie...they hurt Ronnie. My little girl...my Shelby?”
A state police officer pulled Charlie aside.
“Sir, we need to see some ID.”
Charlie pulled his wallet from his back pocket.
“I’m Charlie Dodge. This is my driver’s license and my private investigator’s license. My military ID and my permit to carry.”
“Whoa. This is enough,” the officer said. “You’re a PI?”
“Out of Dallas,” Charlie said. “I was taking a break from the job and