ran toward the slumped man who clutched stomach. Jonas didn’t witness any truck or person hit the man laying in a fetal position.
The lead truck exited the intersection and continued its tortoise advance toward the Jove Foods gate. Jonas pressed the 9-1-1 portable radio emergency button sequence. “Kathy, Jove Foods, need ambulance, intersection Galway and Fourth. Put Walsh and Cannon on alert.”
One-by-one the truck convoy activated left turn signals. Within twenty feet of the gate, the lead truck’s front tires angled for the gate’s center. Convoy air horns blasted in sequence.
No striker at the gate twitched a muscle; shuffled a boot sole.
White cabs and trailers obliterated Jonas’s view of the fallen man near the intersection. A siren blared; turret lights flashed. The fire department ambulance screeched to a stop in an intersection’s crosswalk, blocked short of the fallen man by the turning eighteen-wheelers. Convoy truck grills nearly glued to tailgate bumpers, no adult skinny enough to squeeze from one headlight to the opposite side. Trucks didn’t break ranks; the ambulance detoured around.
“C’mon, guys,” Jonas pleaded. “Give the trucks a path. Don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
Chants of “scabs, scabs, scabs” and “turn back, turn back, turn back” overlapped to fill the late morning air. Hoisted bats, sticks, and picket signs waved menacingly. Three uniformed security guards jogged from a warehouse door across the parking lot and halted, grouped together. While the Sheriff’s Department displayed batons as their sole weapon, the rent-a-cops un-holstered stun guns.
Jonas feared the worse, an out-of-control riot. The air horn must’ve been a signal. The Jove Foods steel wire gate rumbled noisily as it retracted from its closed position. The security guards spread out, equally spaced in a line ten feet inside the opening gate facing the strikers.
“Keep together,” McNamar shouted.
“Solidarity forever,” Hunter echoed.
Two eggs splattered on the lead truck’s windshield. Wiper blades never arced. Jonas missed identifying the thrower. Eighteen wheels of each truck rotated to inch forward, grills protected by gleaming stainless steel bars, three across, curved around each fender to shield the headlights. Black electrical tape covered each headlight lens. Fifty-three-foot box trailers unmarked, two with reefers.
A dark ski mask, similar to the earlier Econoline guards, hid each trucker’s identity.
“Sgt. Anderson,” Jonas yelled. “Take the left fender. We’ll walk this truck in.” Paul complied, his back centered on the headlight to Jonas’s left. To the strikers, Jonas shouted, “Move, get out of the way, this truck’s coming through.”
No striker moved; the official plea ignored. Jonas raised baton to parallel across squared chest. A left eye glimpse confirmed Paul positioned himself likewise. The truck’s grill bars bumped Jonas’s buttocks. Three short paces separated him and four strikers. “Join your friends, guys. I’m ready to arrest anyone who interferes. Touch either Sgt. Anderson or me and the charges will be assault on a law enforcement officer.”
“Pig.” A saliva wad struck the asphalt at Jonas’s feet.
“Move aside, Bill,” Paul called out.
The last four strikers in unison executed one backward step. The security officers, stun guns braced in extended hands, marched one left and one right pace closer to the gate opening. “Hold on, guys,” Jonas barked to ready-to-advance security guards. “These strikers are still on public right-of-way.” The center security officer’s laser stun gun barrel threatened McNamar.
Jonas’s eyes rotated to bore deep into Hunter’s eyeballs. Neither blinked. McNamar squared body in front of Paul as he and Hunter remained after two buddies scrambled sideways. Jonas shuffled feet to maintain balance feeling the truck nudge him.
“Unless you two want to burn from a stun gun’s jolt, step aside.”
McNamar’s hurried rear glance and jutting jaw indicated four feet weren’t moving. Jonas released one hand from baton, grabbed Hunter by the shoulders, and shoved him aside. The pony-tailed striker stumbled to one knee, left hand fingers grabbing the wire fence to prevent fall.
Paul followed his boss’s lead to toss McNamar forcibility out of the way. Jonas and Paul dived in opposite directions to avoid being run over and crushed by the lead truck. When Jonas scrambled to his feet, four trucks had passed the gate, warehouse security guard line, and fanned out to separate Jove Foods loading docks. Jonas swatted pants to shake off dirt covering knees.
Vision temporarily blocked by the last two semis, Jonas couldn’t see Paul although he heard shouts: “Pig. Company whore.” Wood clashed against wood. The Jove Foods gate clanked closed. Strikers, more than the original nine who blocked the gate, formed what Jonas interpreted to be a fight ring. He squinted and couldn’t see Paul.
A voice cried out, “Hit’em again.” A louder voice, “Kick’em in the balls.”
* * *
Melanie Stark expanded the storage room metallic window slats for a better warehouse delivery gate view. She’d signed the contract with “No Name Trucking” for three weekly deliveries. They claimed special strike outfitted equipment and highly trained drivers. She could’ve sworn the brutish man she met at the state park lodge to receive the company’s cash deposit had no neck, an overlarge forehead stacked on a jaw squatting on broad muscular shoulders.
To alleviate a stuffy feeling, Melanie unlatched and extended the upper glass inward an inch. Alerted by a distant air horn, she watched the lead truck grind relentless toward the gate. Stupid picketers. Get squashed. Serves you right.
Was Jonas leading the truck? She screwed up eyes to be sure. Who else? Oh, Sgt. Anderson. Startled by storage door squeak, she inhaled Barry Chesterton’s musky cologne before she twisted, heard footfalls behind stacked file boxes, and heard him speak. “Thought I might find you here.”
“Our first deliveries almost docked for unloading,” Melanie said proudly.
She felt his arms encircle her waist, and then a teasing squeeze. Around them file boxes with employee records and order invoices, old steel desks, a crank adding machine, and broken chairs piled high and random in a spider’s delight, except for one corner. Cleared floor space permitted one dorm-sized metal spring bed with a six-inch mattress for the night security guard.
“I see.” Chesterton’s right hand fingers widened a slat row while left arm cradled her shoulders. “He and that other guy present a commanding presence. You call the sheriff?”
“No.” Melanie still hadn’t relaxed from the reluctant Sheriff’s kitchen visit early that morning. Surprised a tad Jonas showed up, his total unwillingness to devour what she offered irritating and pork link sausages represented the last thing on her mind’s menu. Regrets didn’t outlive the passage of hours nor blot out the reality Chesterton would shortly command her body, if never her soul. She understood what he craved. His lowered left hand rubbed in a circle, and a dropped right hand’s pressing fingertip teased bellybutton protrusion signaling he’d lost interest in parading strikers and slow-moving trucks maneuvering on the asphalt below.
She’d indulge Chesterton in a farewell encore after she determined the name of the plaid-shirted striker tossed to the ground to the right of the gate? The uniformed officer was Sgt. Anderson. Ouch. Anderson’s shoulder swatted with a picket sign. A tightening ring of maybe twenty men surrounded the two fighters. Knocked to one knee by the picket sign’s second blow, Anderson swayed; rose to both feet. With two hands squeezing the baton’s rubber grip he thrust its blunt end into the striker’s stomach. The blow catapulted the man’s shoulders forward, and hips backward.
“That’s got to hurt,” Chesterton said. His right hand tried to separate Melanie’s thighs.
“No. I’m okay.” Melanie laughed when Chesterton’s contorted expression told her he’d spoken about the fight, not her comfort. Before Anderson could thrust baton a second