Buck said, “No. I’ll do it.” Hunter started to interrupt but he said, “I was a tunnel rat in Vietnam, so no arguments.”
She nodded, “Find us a way out of here.”
Buck stopped by the boys and patted each of them on the shoulder, saying, “I’ll be right back.” Then he was in the back of the collapsed room, crawling forward on hands and knees, then down on his stomach to worm his way into a narrow break in the destruction.
When his feet disappeared, Hunter said to the boys, “Come help me watch.”
When Buck entered the tunnel, the air’s flow was disrupted and smoke became heavier in the closed space. Hunter went to some of the smaller openings into the rubble, not sure if they went all the way through, but she worked to clear them, and two of them opened enough to vent the smoke a bit.
By then they were all coughing, and Hunter pointed at the hole where she’d crawled through to shoot Adan. “Take turns because it’s small, but go up and take some clean breaths, look around a little but don’t stick your head up too far.”
Carlos went first, and Lonny and David remained with Hunter. Lonny said, “I hear that bulldozer engine again, sounds like it’s getting louder.”
Hunter listened. Lonny was right. She went to the hole and called Carlos back. As soon as he cleared the hole, Hunter went in, carrying the 10-22.
When her head reached the opening, she eased it up until she could see. What was visible from outside was not evident from the small interior area: The fire continued spreading, and fast. It would be in their space soon.
A sound of metal on metal brought her attention to the bulldozer, half hidden under the shelter of the pole barn a hundred-fifty yards distant. One of the killers stood near the blade and held a large wrench. He seemed preoccupied with something on the back of the blade and repeatedly leaned behind it, disappearing from her sight only to reappear again.
Hunter put the small rifle to her shoulder and held the crosshairs on his forehead, pulling the trigger twice, and so fast it sounded almost like one shot.
She saw the man flinch and grab high on his side as he dropped the wrench, then he disappeared behind the bulldozer. “That should give him a bellyache.” She said.
Antonio held his hand over the wound in his side, “That bitch!” The other round had nicked his hand and hit the wrench as he held it in front of his stomach, saving him from a more serious wound.
Rodolfo checked it while Antonio held up his shirt. “It hit a rib, followed it under your skin and exited six inches later. You will hurt, but the bullet didn’t go inside you.” Rodolfo put his unused handkerchief over the wounds, unfolding it to make sure it covered both the exit and entry, then he taped it to Antonio’s skin with gray duct tape. He wiggled the unused portion of the roll in front of Antonio, “All I could find,” he said.
Hiyoki’s voice came over the phone, sounding angry, “Get that bulldozer back out there and smash that house and those people. Crush them, then burn the place until there’s nothing left. Do it now.”
Antonio looked at Rodolfo, who shrugged his shoulders, “I guess you’ve got it to do.”
Antonio said, “You gonna ride along, keep Kincaid from putting more lead into me?”
Rodolfo checked his .45, “Let’s go.”
Antonio touched his wound, winced, and climbed on the dozer.
Under the rubble, Hunter crawled through the open space to check on Buck’s progress on finding another exit. She saw his feet far down the tunnel, sticking out of a small opening, and she called, “Buck, you still with us?”
Buck’s muffled voice came back, “Goin’ slower because that damn dozer knocked stuff down in the tunnel. I’ll have the last of it out of the way in a few minutes. Shouldn’t be too much longer and I’ll be able to see outside.”
“Okay.” She returned to the boys and started to say something when she heard the dozer coming their way.
Antonio’s side throbbed with every heartbeat, and the rough riding bulldozer exacerbated it as he drove over the uneven ground. When they reached the half-demolished home, both Antonio and Rodolfo crouched as they looked for any sign of Hunter.
When they came close to one of the burning areas, Rodolfo moved to be behind Antonio as he drove, and the dozer turned to the less damaged portions. Antonio said, “They have to be under these places in some open spots. Let’s see how they like having a bulldozer on their backs.” He moved forward, using the blade first, followed by the massive weight of the dozer clanking and roaring to reduce walls and roof to ground pieces of stone and wood under the metal treads as Rodolfo lit flares and tossed them in different crushed places so the fires grew, feeding on bone-dry wood.
Hunter moved the boys to the side away from the sounds of the dozer as it climbed on the rubble, and she felt her stomach lurch when it crushed the area where her tunnel to the outside had been moments before. A feeling of claustrophobia started, but she shook it off and followed the sound of the dozer as it moved across the home almost above them, crushing and demolishing everything.
The smoke became stronger, and she noticed one place where she occasionally saw a wink of flames through the fist-sized tunnels running through the broken detritus. She readjusted the cloth over David’s face when it dropped below his nose, then made sure the others had theirs in place.
Some of the wooden two-by-fours in the pile snapped like small explosions when the heavy machine mauled them under the treads, and when Hunter realized the direction the machine was going, she crawled as far as she could and yelled, “Buck! Watch out!”
She watched the far cave crushed flat, and couldn’t see Buck’s feet anymore. The heavy machine growled and rumbled, moving back and forth, left and right to flatten the building into the ground. She waited, listening, but never heard Buck’s voice.
Crawling on hands and knees, she went to the original sniper hole to see if she could clear it. The boys sat in silence, but stayed close to her. They were scared, and they were brave, and she didn’t want to let them down to die like this. “We’re going to dig out, okay?”
Carlos said, “We’re ready, tell us what to do.”