TANA WATCHED FLAMES billow out the back of the barge. Several men frantically tried to put out the fire, while others ran inside the cabin section.
She was at the back of the warehouse again, able to keep an eye on the men on the barge without being seen.
A few minutes later, she stood in horror as men dragged another dozen women from somewhere inside the barge. This group differed from the first group taken from the barge––they were younger women and girls, some barely teens. They were stumbling and disoriented as they moved from the barge to the dock, and Tana realized in horror that she could have killed them all when she ignited the generator room.
The big man stood at the end of the deck. He had his hands on his hips and was barking orders to the men. He grabbed two men and pointed to the pen. The two guards then began pushing the young women towards the pen.
Tana was watching when she noticed a gap between the rear of the building and the post holding the fence. It wasn’t a wide gap, certainly not big enough for the men or even some of the women, but Tana might get a least a few women out through it.
She slipped through the gap and stepped into the pen. She slowly and carefully made her way towards the front of the pen where the women clustered.
She stood behind one of the women and gently tapped her shoulder. When the woman turned, Tana saw she was a middle-aged Asian woman, her eyes filled with worry and fear.
Tana pointed towards the back of the pen, then took a step towards it.
“Follow me,” she said and waved her arm for the other to follow her.
She slowly walked backwards. The woman hesitantly took a step to follow her. Another noticed and began inching her way back, also.
Soon the women had spread out in the pen, and most made their way towards the back of the fenced in area.
The guards’ attention focused on the fire and they didn’t notice. Before long, Tana had ten or more of them safely outside the pen. She pointed to the path below, and the women started climbing down to it before scurrying into the darkness of the trees.
Six older women who weren’t able to get through the gap remained behind in the pen. One woman looked sharply at Tana and shooed her away, telling her to get away.
Just as Tana turned to leave, she heard the guards shouting. The six women ran towards the front of the pen as if to block the guards view of the back. Several gunshots rang out and two women fell to the ground.
The others raise their hands and slowly got down on their knees.
Tana and the others were out of sight now, running down the path in the midnight dark of the woods. Here and there, a girl or woman would trip, but the others would help her get back up quickly.
They were all quiet, except for two women engaged in a loud argument in Spanish. Tana pressed her way forward until she caught up to the arguing women.
“What? What’s wrong?” she said, grabbing both women’s shoulders.
They continued arguing, one woman pointing in the direction they were heading while the other glared at Tana. She seemed angry at Tana.
A young girl stepped up beside Tana.
“She says you ruined her.”
“What?” Tana didn’t understand. She looked from the girl to the women.
“She wants to go back. She says the men take her to a job. A good job in Iowa.”
Tana studied the woman. She was middle-aged, a bit overweight, and not the picture Tana had of the kind of women traffickers moved. The girl fit the bill, but not this angry, older woman.
“I…I don’t understand. Those men were going to put you in prostitution or…”
“Not her. She was going to work at a hotel. That’s where they take the older women.”
Tana didn’t know what to think, but she knew they had to keep moving. She gave the two women a push.
“Vamos.” She turned to the girl. “Tell her to get moving or she’s going to be dead when those guys back there catch up to us.”
The girl said something, followed by another angry outburst from the older woman––but she turned and started moving down the path again.
Tana told the girl to tell the women to keep going down the path, that police are on the way but they have to put some distance between themselves and the men from the barge.
The girl turned and started speaking in Spanish to the women. She pointed back towards the warehouse and several heads turned to look back.
The group then moved on. Tana stood watching until they were out of sight in the dark.
She jogged back down the path towards the warehouse. As she approached the end of the trail, she spotted the outlines of three men running towards her, having just started down the path. As she watched, one man tripped and fell. She heard a muffled boom, and a scream. The other men stopped and turned around, going back to check on the third.
He must have shot himself when he tripped, Tana thought, and after a moment, the other two men began running in her direction again.
She looked around at the trees in the night’s darkness. Her eyes had adjusted to the low light, and what had been a heavy, black darkness of the woods became a shifting blackness, revealing trees in different levels of night. She saw thinner trees, and the wide trunk of a large tree ahead, just off the path. She stepped toward the tree, then felt around on the ground for a branch or stone she could use as a weapon.
The men were less than thirty feet away, moving quickly and quietly. Tana desperately felt around the ground. Just as the first man neared the tree she was behind, she found a thick stone.
Grabbing the stone, she raised up in the dark, just off the path. The first man ran by.
The second man ran by and Tana swung her arm with the stone. She hit him on the back of the head and he fell to the ground without a sound.
Tana jumped out and grabbed his gun, then stood. She carefully studied the shadows, watching for the man running towards the women. His head was barely visible in the darkness, but the black of his shadowed figure was darker than the black of the trees.
She could see the figure bobbing and cutting as he ran. She followed his movement for a few seconds, then squeezed off a shot.
The shadow she was watching lurched forward, then disappeared.
Without waiting, Tana turned and ran back towards the warehouse. She found the man who had tripped and shot himself lying on the trail, unconscious.
As she got nearer, she saw the flashing lights of police vehicles reflecting off trees on the other side of the warehouse.
And a fire engine siren screamed in the distance.