The sounds of gunshots and beer bottles smashing against his windshield are still ringing in Benjamin Dunham’s ears.

Dunham’s common-law wife, Amy Williams, was nursing a sore lip from being hit by one of those beer bottles. She said Sunday that she had other sore places on her body from hitting the dashboard.

“We’re getting out of Lawrence as soon as we can,” Williams, 28, said.

On Sunday, Dunham and Williams described the terror they felt early Saturday morning as they drove through Lawrence while being chased by a car they think was occupied by at least five men.

It all began over a dispute Williams and another woman had over the ownership of a ferret, the couple said.

The rolling road disturbance began about 2:30 a.m. in North Lawrence and ended on West Sixth Street near Maine Street, the couple and Lawrence Police said. That was when Dunham rammed the back of the car after it pulled in front of him and the occupants began firing more gunshots and throwing more beer bottles, he said.

“All I saw was white foam on the windshield,” Dunham, 38, said. “Not one shot hit the truck.”

The car was disabled from the collision, but Dunham was able to drive his rebuilt 1966 Chevrolet pickup to a motel, where the couple have been living, and call police.

Police arrested a Topeka man at the car and were looking for at least one other suspect, they said.

Amy Williams holds her pet ferret that she purchased a week ago. She believes the ferret is the reason for an attack Saturday on her and her common-law husband, Benjamin Dunham.

Dunham and Williams think the people in the car were friends with a woman Williams worked with at Paradise Saloon northeast of Lawrence. Both are dancers there, Williams said. Earlier, as the bar closed, Williams’ co-worker expressed her displeasure with Williams for having purchased a ferret from someone the co-worker had intended to buy it from.

After work, Dunham picked up Williams at the bar and drove to a Conoco gas station on North Third Street to buy gas. Three or four other carloads of people also stopped at the gas station and began angrily yelling at Williams. One beer bottle was thrown, missing Williams, she said.

The couple left the station and a car followed them across the Kansas River bridge, then west on Sixth Street, they said. At one point, as the car pulled alongside Dunham’s truck, a beer bottle was tossed through his open side window.

“I dropped back and it smacked her in the side of the face,” Dunham said.

When shots were fired Dunham said he “grabbed Amy by the head” and told her to get down.

Benjamin Dunham, Lawrence, shows the damage to his 1966 Chevrolet pickup after an attack Saturday night that began in North Lawrence and ended on West Sixth Street near Maine Street when the other car was disabled after Dunham rear-ended it.

Williams said she was quitting her job at Paradise. She planned to take her four children, ranging from 3 to 12 years old, and move to another town.

Police were still investigating the incident Sunday.