We had no weapons left. Meredith, in horror, I think, had dropped the revolver in the mud and left it there. Behind us, the squat guard had reloaded and was firing after us in short bursts. The bullets ripped through the leaves all around us. The rebels from the troop carrier—I don’t know how many—were racing over the open field behind us, trying to get around the trees and cut us off to keep us from escaping. We were dragging Jim and dodging tree trunks and leaping over roots and pushing through foliage. Our pursuers were closing on us quickly.
We broke out of the trees and reached the plane. It didn’t look large enough to hold us all, but it would have to. Meredith and Nicki, unencumbered by Jim, had rushed ahead of us. Nicki yanked the door open and bent the front seat forward. Meredith climbed in quickly so she could help pull Jim aboard.
Palmer and I brought the groaning Jim up to the plane and hoisted him through the door. Meredith grabbed him and dragged him through as he screamed in agony. His legs were a mass of blood.
Now Palmer was gone—around the plane to the pilot’s seat. Nicki was climbing in and pulling the seat back to make room for me up front. I jumped in shotgun.
Even as I shut the door, the engine was roaring to life, the propeller turning and the plane starting to strain forward against the resistance of the muddy ground.
“Come on!” Palmer shouted at the Cessna. He was covered in mud and blood and his eyes gleamed white with intensity.
As if in answer to his cry, the Cessna went forward a little faster—then a little faster still.
There was no runway, but there was a stretch of dirt where the grass grew sparse. The earth was packed tighter here and the mud was not as bad. As the Cessna’s wheels reached the spot, the plane sped up and turned.
I looked ahead through the windshield and saw the mountains to the west, the clouds breaking apart above them to reveal the dark-blue sky and the lowering sun.
The real shooting started now. The rebels from the troop carrier had come around the curve in the tree line. They had a bead on our plane as it rolled away from them. They were firing at us—their rattling blasts blending together into one solid death-dealing roar.
I didn’t look back at them. There was no point. They would bring us down or we would outrun them, and there was nothing I could do to change the outcome. I sat in the plane facing forward, breathing hard from the chase but oddly unafraid, oddly calm about whatever was going to happen next.
Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything.
I remembered what Meredith’s sister, Anne, had taught her:
Put your hands together and point your soul toward the light of God.
As the Cessna rolled faster, as the noise of gunfire rose above the noise of the plane, I clasped my hands together in my lap and faced the windshield.
I felt the plane take to the sky. I felt it wobble as if it might yet tumble back to earth—and then I felt it right itself and lift up faster and faster, higher and higher. I heard Nicki give a shout of celebration. And I heard Palmer laughing. I saw the sky surround us and I saw nothing before us but the mountains and the sun.
We headed for that light—with Costa Verdes, that country of tragedies, falling away below us.
We flew for the west.
America.
Home.
Freedom.