After having interrupted Velvet Dove, Eyes of the Owl began to express her concern, pressing the point there needed to be an assurance that the creeps chased all the way up the hill, giving everyone time enough to get to safety.

Everyone agreed she had a valid worry that the rifle carriers might only run partway up the hill, come back down, and out from the tree line. They would be discovered running toward the cave. The ruse would be wrecked. Even Linda and Liz would be prisoners.

Clicking in now, Velvet Dove patiently expeditiously, elaborated upon the point. It was imperative everyone hear, comprehend, and remember how the whole operation would unfold.

Runs through the Field had been named the fastest runner, including boys, in her class. No one had ever been able to catch her during her toddler stage. She wore everyone out, especially her mama. She was well named.

She would be the one to do it. She would wait until the guards and driver came running out of the house so they could see her and be led in her direction. She would have made it up to the top of the hill by the time they crossed through the trees.

This definitely would get them to follow her and her imaginary companions. She would yell in the direction of bushes and boulders telling them to hide and not to move. Being loud enough, ensured the sound traveled down the hill.

As the four slobbering buffoons were running up the hill, she too would hide. Wriggling her way behind the bushes, until her pursuers were scattered enough throughout the top of the hill and sufficiently preoccupied, she would make her way toward the trees.

Eyes of the Owl, the youngest of the group, would hang back in the cedars and caw three times. The crow call would let Velvet Dove know the guns were as far up as they could be. She was free to go into action. This notified Runs the Field that everyone was safe at the opening of the cave waiting anxiously for her.

Runs the Field would dart across through the tree line and join the others in the cave. Liz had been mesmerized as she listened to a plan laid out, of which she could never have imagined. It was as if it had already happened and they were safely hidden in the cave. Yet here they were, hovering behind the bushes.

***********************************
That explanation took about three minutes. Everyone got into assigned positions. Though they stood silent and still in the cover of the trees, no guns popped out with disgruntled grumblers. Childhood memories of another time she was consumed by cedar, washed over Liz.

When she was especially anxious, she made her way into her parents' room to the object which had drawn her there assuaging her worries. Raising its lid, greeted the escape of all pain. Her mother's cedar chest contained her baby book with her proud little footprints inked-out on the page. Her mother had wanted to remember and cherish every little part of her. She had knelt there on the floor leaning in toward the wood for long minutes, inhaling, letting the balm take over.

How she wished she were ten again, back in her parents' room, in another place of cedar. She was jolted back to the present when one of the teens began whispering so everyone could hear. She noted must be no one had opened the backroom door where they had been held. They must have been too preoccupied to check on them yet. With no way of knowing when the three were going to come flying out of that house, stress climbed. If they had to wait too long, they would be tempted to let their guard down and lose their alertness.

It crept through the branches, twisting, writhing, coiling around everyone's throat. That's what fear did to people. Strangled them. Weaving, entwining, wrenching courage from their weary hearts. Everyone was flagging emotional and physical fatigue. They wanted this horrible nightmare to be ended.

Silence shattered with the breaking of a window. Peering between the needles, Liz spied a beer bottle sailing through the air accompanied by shards of glass. The raucous brawl which broke out next, reminded her of the final scene in George Orwell's brilliant book, Animal Farm. She was sure she'd heard a bold braying emanating from within the house.

At first, those in hiding feared the cause of such commotion was the dreaded discovery of their miraculous escape. Upon closer concentration, they detected an argument had arisen over money. The degree of trust was decreasing as the level of intoxication was increasing. With that broadcast, of an even longer delay, a universal primeval expulsion of exasperation could be heard throughout the row of firs.

Not long afterward, the van driver came slamming out from the house. They anxiously waited for the others to follow. The team was certain the long ago planned course of action would be initiated. They emotionally readied themselves.

It is a good thing they were programmed to move only with the leader's hand signal. When no one else came out, they knew it was another false alarm, another start, another jar to their threadbare nerves. Liz worried they might give way as easily as the worn ropes on the Venetian blinds they'd salvaged from the dumpster. What seemed like days ago was only x-number of hours ago.