Laura had been in a state of shock ever since the truck had been driven out of the ranch yard. She knew Monty had not had time to get to his gun at the barn, and she hadn't seen or heard him since he disappeared up into the attic. Now her kidnapper, who had already killed 3 people, was about to drive onto the main highway and head south to Mexico, taking her with him.
Suddenly, a loud explosion tore the night air. She thought she saw a flash of fire from the top of the embankment straight ahead, and the windshield shattered into a thousand cracked pieces, a hole appearing on the driver's side. The driver screamed as his right shoulder was driven back into the seat, and his foot slipped off the clutch he'd pushed in to downshift as his other foot in a reflex action pushed down the gas pedal. The truck shot across the highway and stalled with its crumpled grill embedded in the embankment. Blood started running down Ranny's shoulder which had been stuck by a heavy bullet more normally used to knock down a 400-pound wild boar.
Before Laura could begin to sort out what had just happened, she saw Monty leap from the embankment onto the hood of his truck, then down to the ground beside the driver's door. He ripped the door open and grabbed the M-16 from between Ranny's legs, throwing it in the ditch back behind himself. Then he grabbed Ranny by the left arm and hauled him out of the seat, slamming him roughly against the truck. He held the moaning man there with one hand while he fished the handguns out of the pockets of Ranny's long black duster. He stuck his own .357 magnum in his belt and slid the .38 across the seat to Laura.
"Laura, can you come around here and give me a hand?" he asked.
Laura was barely able to keep her voice steady as she answered, "Sure, Monty, but you'll have to untie my hands first."
She unlocked the truck, opened the door, and got out carefully, worried that with her hands tied she might not be able to catch herself if she fell getting down from the high truck seat. But she made it, and by the time she got around to Monty her legs had stopped shaking. Monty quickly united her hands, then pulled off Ranny's coat. He used the same rope to tie Ranny's left arm to his side. His right arm hung down uselessly from his torn-up shoulder. Monty then lowered the wounded man down onto the grass at the shoulder of the road, and said, "I guess we'd better try to stop the bleeding. Not that I'd care if he bled to death, but we'd probably be in trouble if we let that happen." He used his strength, and his anger at the situation this man had put them in, to rip one of the sleeves off the coat to use as a tourniquet.