A Saga of Revenge

Part Four: Bixby versus the Welcoming Party



“Well, well. Looky who finally showed up.”

Bixby was caught off guard, which didn’t happen very often. It had been a long trek to the train station. He was tired, sore, and on the verge of collapse. A perfect time for his enemies to attack. Bixby could see the train station, not but a hundred yards away. Sitting between him and it, however, was something else. A mobile assault vehicle of some sort. It was larger than any Bixby had seen, even the ones he had seen and fought against so many years ago in the war. There were two men sitting up front, he could see their eyes through small slits in the armor. There were two large guns on each side, probably with gunners manning each one.

“We gonna gun you down and grind ya up, turn you inta vulture food.”

Then of course, there was the loud one, with his head sticking up out of the top hatch as he yelled. In a flash Bixby had his gun in his hand and fired, catching the man between the eyes and killing him. His lifeless body fell down into the assault vehicle. Bixby took aim and fired again, right through the tiny slit, catching one of the men in front in the eye with his bullet, killing him. The other man quickly slammed shut the slit in front of him. The vehicle roared into life. Bixby turned and sprinted away, back towards the canyon. He had spent many days traveling through the canyon and had grown quite familiar with it. The gunners were firing at him, but Bixby wasn’t too worried about that. The vehicle was driving after him crazily, turning sharply and going over and around rocks and boulders. The gunners weren’t able to really aim. He picked up his pace as he cut down a narrow crevice in the rock wall. The vehicle scraped against the sides of rock as it followed him, barely fitting down the crevice. As Bixby came out the other side of it he slowed his pace. The vehicle lurched forward as it emerged from the crevice. Bixby let it get right behind him before he picked up his pace again. He was running as fast as he could, but it was gaining on him. He felt the front of the vehicle touching his back just as he dropped off the edge of the cliff. Bixby twisted in mid air and grabbed onto the edge of the cliff as the vehicle went right over his head, flipping slowly in the air as it fell. A loud explosion rang out as the mobile assault vehicle finally landed. A hot breeze was blowing against his sweat drenched brow as he finally pulled himself back up. As much as he wanted to lay on the dry ground and sleep, he had to keep moving. There’d be time enough to rest soon. Time enough to rest when he was dead.

 

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