A Life Wasted

Got Away

I was able to run quite a way down the rail road track in the dark before a cross road and light blocked my path.  I'd run so hard that I was no longer cold, but still hadn't winded myself.  All the basketball games I'd played with the youngsters in the jail was paying off as I was in superb shape for a 44-year-old.  But the well-lit cross road forced me to stop and forced me to make my first critical decision.  Should I wait in the dark for the train, move off the tracks and into the shadows, or cross the lit road to the dark train tracks beyond it.  In the seconds that I stood there trying to decide my best course of action, a series of police sirens sounded in the dark.  Less than five minutes had passed since I dropped off the jail roof and they knew I had escaped.  Not good.

Ironically the sounds of those sirens helped with my decision.  It sounded like four separate police cars.  All in different locations and I assumed all headed towards the jail.  I also assumed that all the responding police cars would be moving fast with their lights and sirens on.  Since none of those sounds or lights was coming from the road I needed to cross I made a quick decision to cross that road and hope no one saw me in the brief time I was lit by the street lights.  So I ran across the road.  I didn't see anyone as I crossed, and to the best of my knowledge no one saw me.

Once again in the dark I ran as fast as I could down the rail road tracks.  The sounds of police sirens seemed to have intensified.  They were closer to me but there were also more of them coming from far away.  What I did not hear was the sound of a train.  About a mile ahead of me I could see the lights of another road.  As I got closer I realized this was a four lane road and even this late had a fair amount of traffic.  It was also well lit.  I slowed as I got closer, wondering if there was even a remote chance of crossing that road and at that moment a police car stopped on the road and parked across the railroad tracks.  Instinctively I made a quick turn off the tracks and into some nearby bushes.  When I looked back up the police car's spot light came on and pointed down the tracks towards me.  I was too far away to be seen without being in the open, but I ducked any way.  I looked back the way I had come and saw a pair of flashlights moving slowly up the tracks towards me.  They were a long way off, perhaps back at the jail.  Either way I had to leave the tracks.

I was already on the north side of the tracks so I moved in that direction.  I passed through a small patch of woods and came to a small fenced in pasture, really more of a large back yard.  There was a horse in the pasture.  He looked at me as I crawled under the fence but didn't seem alarmed.  I would have stolen the horse and ridden him bareback but there was no gate out the back of the small pasture and I had no way to cut the barbwire.  I crossed the pasture, gave a longing look at the horse then went under the barbwire fence on the other side and started walking across an open field.  The only good news is that everything in front of me was dark.  Not a light in sight.

* Sorry for the delay in the new post. Life is a little busy these days! I know I've got some comments to get to dad and some replies from him. I'll try to post a little more regularly. Thanks for reading! I hope you stay to the end and see how it all turns out and the changes that take place in my fathers heart. Sometimes it's difficult for me to read the comments because I know dad changed. So I hope you'll stay and read the rest of his story and see for yourself.
~Rebecca