Collision Course (8 page)

The deputy turned and looked at her without relinquishing his grip on Gabe. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Mr. Horne's with us. He's our friend.”

* * *

The rain started around four. Light at first, it increased until it became a steady, monotonous shower. DJ had strung up his hammock and tried to read, though he was unable to focus on the book. His mind kept obsessing over how long the rain would last and how much further behind schedule it would throw him. The constant sound of the rain on the tin roof, a sound he normally liked, only served to taunt him. He felt as if the rain were sucking the energy out of his body. After what seemed an eon of tossing and turning, he fell into a fitful sleep.

When he woke up, it was almost dark. The rain was still coming down, not quite as hard as before, but steadily. DJ fixed some dinner and poked at the meal. When would this damn rain stop? He spent some time going over his quad, though he knew it was fine. He recalculated his fuel range and now had plenty, even if he had to take another major detour. Looking over his new route on the map, he determined that it was still his best option. After an hour or so of piddling around, he decided to get some more sleep.

He awoke with a start. What was that? He looked around, but it was pitch-black. He listened but didn't hear anything. Then he smiled. The rain had stopped. That's what had wakened him. He walked to the door and looked out. The sky was clearing, and he could see the stars. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was two thirty. He might not make a lot of distance, but at least he'd get over the river. He felt well rested, and he was excited to get going. He hurriedly packed his stuff and readied himself for the ride.

Climbing onto the big four-wheeler, he pulled out of the barn and traversed the muddy field to the road. It was cooler than he'd expected, but it felt good. Once he got on the road that would take him over the river, he pulled out a jacket and put it on. He increased his speed some and soon could see the bridge ahead. There were a few cars stopped on it, but he could easily zigzag around them. He smiled.

As he approached, he slowed slightly so he could weave through the cars. He twisted the handlebars from side to side with a big grin. It was fun snaking through the stalled vehicles, and he applied a little more throttle to test his prowess on the big bike. The tires produced a small screech as the weight shifted from side to side. About halfway across, it occurred to DJ that the cars were more evenly spaced than would have seemed natural. It appeared as if someone might have strategically placed the vehicles where a car or truck could pass, but only at a reduced speed. The quad was able to move through them more quickly, but he wondered if it would be quick enough. Was this a trap? He stopped the four-wheeler to try to ascertain just that.

The answer came a split second later when he heard an engine crank and saw a truck pull up next to the last car on the bridge. A knot formed in his stomach. He quickly turned to look behind him. If they had a car on each end, he was a sitting duck. Nothing was moving behind him. He breathed a small sigh of relief.

The engine on the truck shut off, and he heard two doors slam.

“You, on the bridge, we know you're there,” a voice called. It was vaguely familiar to DJ. “This is our bridge. You have to pay a toll to cross.”

DJ quickly weighed his options. He could turn around and find another way. He had the gas to do it, but what if he ran into the same situation at the next bridge? How much further behind would that put him? The longer he stayed out here on the road, the more dangerous things would get. Turning around might be a good backup plan, but he wanted to cross here if at all possible.

He could fight his way across. There was a chance he might get hurt, but there were probably just two or three guys guarding the bridge. All of a sudden, he knew where he recognized the voice from. It was one of the rednecks from the store—one of the men who had wanted to trade the watch for gasoline. If it was just those two, DJ could take them out easily. After all, he was a security specialist, and they were just a couple of yahoos. Creating a ruckus was the last thing he wanted to do, though, and there was always the chance that they had more guys than he could easily dispatch.

The last option he could think of was just to pay them. Maybe they didn't want much. It seemed foolish not to try this avenue at least, he reasoned, even though it could still be a trap.

“How much to cross?” DJ shouted.

“What have you got?” the redneck called back.

“I've got about twenty bucks,” DJ said.

Laughter came from the other side. DJ listened closely and only heard two men. “Buddy, you could have twenty thousand bucks, and it wouldn't be enough. Haven't you been watching the news? Money's worthless unless you need to start a fire or wipe your ass.” The man laughed at his joke. “We want something we can use.”

“What did you have in mind?” DJ asked.

“Gas is good.”

DJ thought for a moment. Other than his firearms and his quad, there was nothing more valuable to him than the gas. Still, if he could get by on two or three gallons, it would be worth it. “I might have a couple of gallons I could spare.”

“Two gallons? I don't think so. The least I'd be willing to take is ten.”

The irony that these guys wanted the same amount of gas DJ had taken from the store last night wasn't lost on him. It occurred to DJ that if this was a trap, they'd have just agreed to the two gallons and then tried to take whatever they wanted. He relaxed some and tried another tactic.

“How about an ounce of gold?” he called out.

“How about ten?”

Crap, don't these bumpkins know any number besides ten?

DJ decided that bargaining with these hooligans wasn't going to work. He'd go back down the road some and then decide what to do. “I don't think so. I'll just turn around and go back.”

“Then we have a problem. You see, you're already on our bridge, so you owe us a toll no matter which way you go.”

Now DJ was mad. Who did these idiots think they were? DJ reached down and grabbed the pistol grip on his rifle. He'd show them. As he began to remove the weapon from the scabbard, more rational thoughts took over. They were probably ready for that. Better to do this on his terms. The old truck they were driving didn't look too fast. He could be gone by the time they made it across the bridge.

“Okay, I'll give you the gas,” DJ said. He hit the starter on the eight-hundred-cc engine and backed up from the car he'd been using to hide behind. When he had enough clearance, he whipped the bike and trailer around and made his way off the bridge as fast as he could. At the end of the bridge, he realized that, with his night-vision goggles, he was going too fast to see anything in the road in time to stop. He thought about turning on his headlight, but that would give his position away. He'd just come this way, so it should be safe, unless a cow or something had wandered into his path. It was a chance he'd just have to take. Looking down at the speedometer, he saw that he was already over sixty miles per hour. The big quad continued to accelerate. At this speed, it was really cold, but DJ kept his mind on the task at hand.

He would travel at high speed until he could find a side road. Since he'd spent so much time examining the maps, he was pretty sure that the nearest road was about a mile and a half away. He glanced down at the red needle; it was pointing at seventy-five. As he looked at his GPS, it seemed as if his estimation of how far it was to the first turnoff was accurate. It would only take a little over a minute to get there. He glanced over his shoulder. The truck's lights were on, and he could see the beams weaving through the cars on the bridge. If those guys had been smart, they'd have blocked off both ends, he thought.

DJ made out the road coming up on his right. He let off the throttle and prepared to turn. Looking back, he saw the headlights of the old truck—one bright and one dim—way behind him. Would they expect him to turn at the first intersection? If he was one of them, he would. Deciding that he'd better continue past the first road, he hit the throttle again and strained his eyes to see the next turnoff.

Thirty seconds later, he saw a road on the left side, but he was going so fast that he couldn't slow down in time to turn onto it. He looked at the GPS again, but the road didn't show on the screen. It was probably new or not important enough. He glanced over his shoulder. The truck was a little closer now. He had to find a turnoff quickly, or they'd be on him. The GPS showed the next road in a mile.

He finally saw the road sign and squeezed the brake lever hard, bleeding off his speed. He turned hard to the right and accelerated to a comfortable speed. The road was dirt, but that didn't bother the quad. He kept looking over his shoulder, and a few seconds later, the pursuing truck sped past. DJ blew a long breath out and realized that he had a death grip on the handlebars. He took his thumb off the throttle, and the big bike coasted to a stop. DJ shook out his arms.

He wondered what his next move would be. He could turn around and try to go across the bridge before the rednecks gave up on chasing after him, but if there were more than two of them, and some had stayed behind, they'd shoot first this time. No, he'd look for a place to camp and wait until tomorrow night. He'd creep quietly across the bridge and be past them before they knew what was happening. And if he had to shoot at them to keep them from blocking him off, he'd do that, too.

He resumed his course down the road. It seemed to go on forever, running between fields and not intersecting any other roads. The farther he went, the narrower and rougher it became. He wondered if it was going to end up as a cow path. Since it was so uneven, DJ kept his speed down. He scanned back and forth for a good hideout, but there were only fields and pastures. An old barn or any little copse would work for him this far off the beaten path, but he couldn't find anything.

Then he noticed that the white tops of the metal fence posts were flashing in a not-so-rhythmic pattern. Looking back, he saw the cockeyed lights of the pickup closing fast.

CHAPTER 9

D
J hit the throttle on the big quad. His mind raced as he tried to figure out how the rednecks had found him. He pushed his goggles up and turned on his headlight. It would have been impossible to stay on the bike at full speed on a bumpy road like this with the night vision. As the bike passed sixty miles per hour, DJ looked behind him. The rednecks were still closing. He could see by their headlights that the potholes in the dirt road were making the truck bounce violently all over the place. However, the driver seemed to have little regard for the damage it might be causing his vehicle.

Even though DJ had the throttle lever pushed down completely, he found himself putting more pressure on it. The quad was now starting to pull some air on the bigger bumps, and he could feel the trailer's weight acting as an anchor as it returned to the ground after each aerial event. This was an unsafe speed, he knew, but slowing down wasn't an option.

He looked for a way out. The fences on each side were barbed wire. They would cut him to ribbons if he tried to drive through them. He could only try to outrun his pursuers. He wanted to look back, but at over seventy miles per hour, he had to keep his eyes forward. “Come on, baby. Give me just a little more,” he urged the Polaris.

Headlights finally engulfed DJ and he realized that he wouldn't be able to outrun the truck. He wondered if they were going to shoot at him. He instinctively flattened his body against the quad. There was nothing else he could do. Then he felt a nudge and heard metal-to-metal contact. A second later, the truck pushed the trailer again, harder this time. DJ's mind raced for solutions, but none came. He could bail off the quad, but if the impact with the ground didn't kill him, getting run over by the truck would. He squeezed the sides of his ride with his knees as a horseman would his mount. “Hold on tight” was all that kept running through his mind.

The truck was making harder and harder contact with the trailer. The impacts would give DJ a push and some space, but it never lasted longer than a few seconds. He felt like a mouse being played with by a cat. Finally the truck hit the trailer hard enough that the bumper climbed on top of it and got stuck. The driver hit his brakes at the unexpected result. DJ felt the bike being pulled down by the weight of the bigger vehicle.
This is it
, he thought.
I'm a goner
.

The hitch coupling gave way under the enormous strain. DJ felt the quad rocket forward like a rodeo bull finally released from the gate. The headlights of the truck started making wider and wider arcs to the sides as the truck skidded wildly down the road. Suddenly, the lights disappeared from DJ's view. He sneaked a quick peek back and saw the truck plowing through the pasture on his right side. He felt the muscles in his face tighten and his vision turned red. “Those assholes are going to pay,” he promised himself.

He slammed the brakes on the big quad and slid it to a stop. Grabbing the grip on his rifle, he pulled it out of the scabbard and brought it to his shoulder in one smooth motion. His thumb flicked the safety off as his finger found the trigger. In a split second, his tritium-powered scope was centered on the truck and he was unleashing the .22-caliber projectiles as fast as his finger could twitch.

The truck driver was still fighting for control of his vehicle when several bullets stitched across the windshield. DJ heard the engine rev up on the truck, and it seemed to regain its purpose as it barreled away from the gunfire. Finished with the first thirty-round magazine, DJ quickly changed to a fresh one and sent several more rounds of encouragement toward the retreating pickup. The truck went a couple of hundred yards and then ran back through the fence and onto the road. DJ watched until the small circular taillights disappeared from his sight.

For the next several minutes, DJ leaned against the quad's handlebars, his mind in a fog. He could feel his heart pounding like a bass drum, and he had to constantly swallow in order to fight the urge to empty his stomach. His left heel jumped up and down in reaction to all the adrenaline pouring through his bloodstream. He tried to stop the movement, but his foot seemed to belong to someone else. After several more minutes, his heart beat slowed to a mere gallop, and he was able to unclench his fist from around the pistol grip of the rifle. His fingers felt like ice, in spite of his insulated riding gloves. DJ flexed them to try to restore some feeling.

He replaced the partially used magazine in his rifle and then returned it to its scabbard. Removing the flashlight from his pocket, he looked at the back of his quad. Nothing looked damaged or amiss, other than the missing trailer. He motored over to where the truck had gone through the fence the first time. There lay his precious trailer in the shallow ditch that ran beside the road. It looked more like an accordion than a trailer. Parts of it and its cargo were scattered across the ditch. DJ could feel the hot blood returning to his head as the realization of what this meant sank in. His rigid body seemed to melt, as his head hung and his shoulders sagged. How could he carry all of his stuff without the trailer? How would he make it without all of his carefully assembled gear? He sat and pondered those questions for a long time.

Finally he began to collect his stuff. First he looked for his firearms. The rifle case was dirty but undamaged, and he opened it up to find that his rifles were fine. The pistol case was crushed on one corner, but the contents were intact, except for one ruined magazine. His shotgun, however, hadn't fared so well. It had been run over by the truck. Both barrels were noticeably bent, and he wasn't sure if the receiver had any damage or not.

Then he gathered the jerry cans of gasoline. The empty one was only dinged up a little, but two of the full jerry cans had split open on the seam. Now he had only five gallons of fuel, besides what was already in the quad. He'd have to find more somehow. As he fought the urge to just plop down in the middle of the field, he wondered if he'd ever get to his destination.

Almost all his dried goods were trashed, but most of the canned food was still good. The aluminum poles for his tent were bent beyond repair, and his cook stove was totaled. Jacob's son's chain saw had come out of the case on impact; it was packed with dirt and debris and DJ suspected that it would no longer work. DJ threw the unusable gear into one pile and prioritized the rest, strapping items onto the racks of his quad.

The firearms and gas were easy to place, even if they did sit higher than he would have liked. He had to make some choices on ammo. He left the shotgun ammo behind since he no longer had a working scattergun. What he had the most of was the ammo for his carbine, so he decided to take half of it. He took all of the ammo for his bolt-action rifle and the rimfire rifle, but he only took the pistol ammo for his main sidearm. He found a spot for a little of the food that had been on the trailer. He still had five or six days' worth between his emergency pack and the MREs already on the quad. His sleeping bag, tool kit, and gravity-fed water filter took up the rest of the available space. He looked at the things he was going to leave behind and sighed. He could do without them, but he hated the idea of leaving behind things he could use.

Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to leave them here for someone to take,
he thought. He looked across the road and saw that the cornfield there wasn't planted all the way to the fence. There was a path wide enough for a tractor to turn around between the crops and the property line. DJ dug out his folding shovel and climbed over the fence. The ground was hard, and the digging was strenuous, but he finally had a deep enough hole to bury the usable items he couldn't take. Carrying them across the fence and covering them only took a fraction of the time it took to dig the hole. DJ packed the dirt in as tightly as he could and camouflaged the mound to the best of his ability. He saved the location in his GPS with the hope that he'd be able to come back one day to retrieve the cache. The pile of worthless gear and the hole in the fence were the only signs of what had happened.

Back on his quad, he returned to the bridge. This time he pulled the quad off the road on the side of the overpass and hid it. Taking his carbine, he crept from car to car, looking and listening at each stop for anyone manning the roadblock. He hoped the rednecks were here. If he found anyone, he wouldn't give them the chance to deter him this time. Retribution would be fast and merciless; he didn't care what the law had to say. DJ had bent a few laws when he was younger, and a couple of them had landed him in some mild trouble, but what he had in mind now would have been unthinkable under normal circumstances. But what was heretofore unthinkable was now necessary. That's just the way things were. The world had turned hard, and he'd just have to be harder.

He finally got to the other side and saw that the bridge was clear. A few minutes later, the river that had caused him so many problems was now in his wake. He hardly noticed, as he was still brooding about his latest shortage of gasoline and the loss of much of his gear.

* * *

Gabe woke up and immediately knew something was amiss. His brain raced, trying to figure out what was wrong. It took several seconds for him to realize that he simply wasn't used to waking up this early on a Saturday, and certainly not without a hangover. He couldn't recall why he hadn't had anything to drink last night.

Jane Walker had insisted that he eat dinner with them. He was amazed at how well the woman was dealing with life without electricity. She had oil lamps, running water, and even a woodstove. She wasn't using it yet, but winter was coming. He'd wondered how she'd come to have these things, but he hadn't asked. In fact, he hadn't said much at all last night. Robby had blathered on and on about how Gabe had stopped the thief and how cool it had been. Jane had said thank you about a million times, but Gabe had kept quiet. He had eaten, expressed his gratitude with a mumbled “thanks,” and gone home.

He lay back down for a moment, thinking about the events of yesterday. He was glad Jane had been there. Otherwise, he would have been in jail. Deputy Harris might have reacquainted Gabe with his nightstick, too. Gabe's hands felt up and down his ribs. It had seemed like forever before the purple circles had gone away. Even though it was more than a year ago, Gabe thought he could still feel the slightest tenderness in those spots. He hadn't had a drink in town since, because he certainly didn't want to relive that experience. It had been bad, even in the semiconscious state he'd been in at the time.

Pushing those unpleasant memories out of his mind, he got out of bed and put on his clothes from yesterday. He scrunched up his nose at the strange mixture of alcohol-laced sweat and Aqua Velva. After he pulled on his boots, he grabbed a clean bucket and went outside. The air was heavy, and he noticed some dark clouds on the horizon. He made his way behind his shed, where he had a rainwater collection system that fed into fifty-five-gallon barrels. He normally used it to water his garden between rains. Scooping up a full bucket, he carried it back into the kitchen. It had some small particles floating in it, and he wondered how he could get them out. He knew he could boil the water to purify it, but that wouldn't rid it of the floaters. He saw the coffeepot on the counter, and an idea came to him.

He grabbed a coffee filter out of the cabinet and duct-taped one side of it to the bucket underneath the spout. Then, by tipping the bucket and holding the other side of the filter, he was able to fill a large pan with water while keeping the particles trapped in the filter. He lit the old propane stove with a match and set the pot on a burner. It finally started boiling, and he let it go for five minutes. When he took it off, he poured about half of the water into a large bowl and took the rest into the bathroom. He poured it into the basin. While it was cooling, he got some clean clothes and stripped off the dirty ones. The water was still too hot for him to leave his finger in for more than a second or two.

He thought about how long the water in his barrels would last. He needed water to wash his clothes, cook, bathe, and drink. That was probably more than three barrels would hold between rains. He'd have to figure something out. Finally the water was comfortable enough for him to take a bath. He would have preferred a shower, but he still got clean. Donning fresh clothes, he felt ready to take on the day.

He headed outside and started working on his garden. Before long, it began to rain, and he quickly jumped at the chance to gather more water. He grabbed two five-gallon buckets out of the shed and started dipping water out of the barrels. He carried them into the bathroom and poured them into the tub. When it was full, he started on the tub in the other bathroom. The barrels now close to empty, Gabe focused his efforts on gathering all the buckets he had and putting them on the back porch to fill. Stepping back inside, he noticed how cold the rain had been. He removed his clothes and hung them up to dry. He dried himself off with a towel, vigorously rubbing the goose bumps on his arms. He pulled on an old pair of sweatpants and made his way to the kitchen. The soup he'd bought at the store looked tempting, and he fixed himself a can. Sitting down with some crackers, he ate slowly. The meal warmed him up.