They made it as far as the prison courtyard before running into trouble. Ray was shuffling across the courtyard toward the prison’s main gate, which was already propped open, when two men approached from the minimum security ward. One man carried a screwdriver and the other a three-foot length of pipe. From the twisted looks on their faces, they weren’t out to offer thanks to the innkeeper for a comfortable stay.
“Hold up!” the man with the screwdriver shouted as he and his partner hurried to intercept them.
When Ray saw them, he started to run, but after only a few steps, he fell. He struggled to stand back up but quickly lost his resolve and collapsed on the asphalt.
Tanner was deliberately ten or fifteen steps behind Ray, but it wasn’t difficult to hustle into the path of the two oncoming men. Both were wearing orange jumpsuits identical to his, but he didn’t recognize either man. When they came to within a few steps of Tanner, they stopped.
The convict with the screwdriver took a step forward, pointing it at Ray.
“He’s got it coming. We got no beef with you, big man, but if you don’t want some of the same, you’ll step aside.”
Tanner moved his right foot slightly behind his left, a position he had taken many times when confronting angry men.
“Let him be.”
“They left us to rot in those cells, and for that, he’s going to bleed.”
“You look free enough.”
“After two days of nothing to drink but my own piss.”
“And here I thought that was just a milk mustache.”
Screwdriver’s cheeks turned a bright red, and he bit down hard on his lip.
“You think you’re a funny man?”
“Don Knotts was a funny man. I’m something else.”
“Two of us and one of you. That gives us the advantage,” said Screwdriver. “Plus, we got weapons and you don’t.”
The man with the pipe tapped it against his palm to emphasize the point.
“Wrong on both counts,” Tanner said, tightening his hands into fists the size of sledge hammers.
Ray moaned loudly, and all three men looked his way. Taking it as an opportunity to get the jump on Tanner, the first convict lunged forward with the screwdriver extended in front of him like a fencer might with an epee.
Tanner brushed it aside and leaned into a powerful ridge hand strike across the man’s throat. The blow hit him with tremendous force, his head whipping back as his feet lifted six inches off the ground. He landed flat on his back with his head smacking the pavement with a wet squish.
The man with the pipe looked from Tanner, to his partner, and then back to Tanner. His eyes were wide with fear.
“Did …did you just kill him?”
Tanner nudged the fallen man with his shoe. He didn’t move.
“Could be.”
The man took a step back, dropped his pipe, and ran.