"Have you ever been shot at?"

“Well, which road should we take?”, I asked as I looked out to where the road divided – one road down into a valley where a small settlement was and the other up the ridge.

“I think we should take the road that goes up the ridge. It looks like it will lead back down about a mile ahead.” he said.

We had worked together for five years, and we knew each other fairly well. We had recently been assigned the task of evaluating the old properties that the company still owned. Our job was to determine if any were worth keeping and we had spent the last couple of weeks traveling all over the state, taking samples, surveys and pictures. This was the last property. We wanted to get this one finished up quickly so that we would have plenty to time to get to the airport and fly home later that night.

As we drove up the ridge, we had a clear view of the tiny settlement below. It wasn’t much of a settlement, mostly tents and shacks. I didn’t seen anyone around or any movement, but I was beginning to feel uneasy. We drove past the settlement, and came to a small rocky outcrop. It appeared to continue laterally across the small valley and up on to the next ridge. Our property lay in the valley.

“This appears to be the same structure as what is running through the property. Let’s just take our samples and survey here, and we take pictures down on the property. “ he said.

Normally, I was the one who did everything “by the book”. He knew that I might protest and say that we had to be down on the property. But, I was uneasy about this, and agreed.

We got out and quickly set up our tripods and transits. We were a very efficient team. I took the measurements and photos needed, while he took several bags of rock samples. As I took the last of the hand held photos down on the property and the surrounding terrain, he broke down the equipment and loaded them in the back of the truck. I was just finishing up, and decided to take some shots of the little settlement.

“Quick, get into the truck!”, he yelled.

I turned, “What did you say?”

He was in the truck and had started the engine. He yelled out the window, “GET IN THE TRUCK NOW!”. He had reached over and opened the passenger side door. Sensing his panic, I ran and jumped in the truck. I looked behind and saw two people running up the road behind us.

“Get down!” he yelled. He stepped on the accelerator hard, and we lurched forward gaining speed rapidly down the deeply rutted road. It was clear that he was struggling to keep control of the truck.

About the time, the back window of the truck blew into a million pieces. Then the passenger side mirror exploded.

He careened down the road as fast as he could and didn’t stop. By the time we hit the main highway, we felt reasonably safe. Even though our flight was several hours later, we drove straight to airport and he dropped me off to check the gear and boxes for our flight home. He went to check the truck in to the rental agency. Two hours later, he found me in the bar having a beer. As soon as his double scotch arrived, he told me that he had a lot of explaining to do about the multiple bullet holes in the back of the truck and the blown out window and mirror. While he was filling out the accident report, the sheriff arrived to take a statement. He said “You know, the sheriff didn’t seem surprised or anything by what I told him.”

The following week, three men in black suits with government badges showed up at our office. They wanted to talk to my partner and I about our “little” experience. We told them what had happened and where it had happened. After several hours of “interviews”, they took the rolls of film that I had taken and told us that we were lucky to be alive because we had stumbled upon a “drug running camp”.

The previous story is true, although it happened over 30 years ago and I have condensed some of the events. Today, I saw my “partner” again. We ran into each other at a conference luncheon. We hadn’t seen each other for over 20 years. We had lost touch with each other when I moved away. It was trip down memory lane, both of us laughing about how stupid we were back then. There was a young geologist sitting at our table, listening in and asking us questions about our work. He asked “Have you ever been shot at?”. My “partner” looked at me. We both started laughing. He then proceeded to regale the young man with this story.

My photo today isn’t very exciting, so I thought I would retell our adventure since it was fresh on my mind. I hope you enjoyed it.