Catastrophy of the highest order..part five

You are not traveling that fast and you contemplate stopping. In just a short millisecond your brain tells you that in that big truck you are a pretty small target. The wagon is halfway off the shoulder of the road and about 100 yards ahead. You see the five guys in the back standing up and leveling off their shotguns and rifles at you. "This isn't going to get me home" you rationalize so you do something totally out of character. After all, the need to get home and protect your family is getting to become all consuming.
You squat down in the seat, lay on the air horn, veer over onto the shoulder where the tractor and wagon are and slam down on the throttle. The expressions on the faces of the men quickly changed from a "Better not mess with me" kind of look to a "I just crapped my pants full" kind of look.
I guess if you are an ant and you see an elephant start to step on you, you try to get out of the way. That seemed to be the case now as you see the guys coming out of their temporary state of shock and start jumping out of the wagon and heading towards the field. You turn the wheel sharply back onto the road, barely missing the rear end of the wagon and tractor. One of the guys had jumped out towards the center of the road and you just miss him as he scrambles out of the way. You check your rear view as you round the next curve but you notice that they are not as interested in stopping you as they were before.
"Great", you think "Now we have highwaymen out on the roads already". You wonder if society has already fell and you just don't know it yet. You have been one to always have faith in man-kind thinking that the good qualities of man would always win and come shining through during any kind of a crisis. This worries you further now that you have personally witnessed the failing of the so called "good" in man in just two short hours. Now you are wishing that you had brought one of your guns from home on this trip. You never have "carried" while working because you have never seen a need to. Now the feel of your smith and wesson in your hand would sure be comforting. You have several guns at home and you think about how you have shown Carl, your twelve year old how to shoot the 410 shotgun. He was pretty adept on the use and safety of guns. He had even shot a 12 gauge during a turkey shoot for thanksgiving last year and had scored pretty high. Missy, your wife, was also pretty good with her little .32 cal. As a part of a community push back home they had recently bought a gun cabinet. Missy also had gone through a gun safety and a concealed carry class offered by the local gun club. Now you are so glad that she had the knowledge that it brought with it. Contemplating these lines of thought brings some comfort to you but you are still very aware of the perils of being out in the country like they were. One of the things about being where they were was that they had some good neighbors around. He thought about Bill and Kay along with their son Joshua who lived just a half-mile down the street. Good honest folks who had a small patch of land where you and the family would visit during the spring to buy some vegetables they grew. Missy knew she could go to them if anything arose that she couldn't handle while he was out driving.
Just a few more miles and the road turned into a four lane. The road was clear of cars but you are thinking that it's because whatever had happened had done so in the middle of the night and they weren't that many folks out driving. Thankful for this, you are able to push it just a little harder. Home was about another 275 miles away....