“Can’t we go around it?” the Highway Patrolman asked.
“Have you got a magical robot device that will make this station wagon as thin as a sheet of paper?” Marshal Dimmock asked sarcastically.
“We could backtrack and use the side roads to get around this hill,” the Highway Patrolman said. “It will take us out of our way, but it will be quicker than waiting for this vehicle to be moved.”
The Marshal rapped his knuckles on the Highway Patrolman’s scuffed metal chest. “I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Put that chrome-plated head of yours to use and calculate a new route for us.”
“I have already done so,” the Highway Patrolman said.
“And?”
“It will add two hours to our journey time to take the detour.”
“That’s half-an-hour more than if we sit here and wait for that truck driver to return,” Marshal Dimmock said. “I knew it was a stupid idea. You just leave the thinking to a professional.”
“When will he arrive?” the Highway Patrolman asked.
The Marshal wasn’t listening to him. He paced up and down behind the log-laden truck. Eventually, an idea struck him.
“We can move this thing ourselves,” he said. “We just need to reverse it down the road a ways and then have a good run at it.”
“I’m sure the trucker already tried that,” the Highway Patrolman said.
“Yes, but to achieve something, you have to want to succeed. I read that in the front of a diet book. Not that I’ve ever needed a diet book. I have good genes.”
The robot policeman looked at the Marshal’s massive gut and said nothing.
Watching this as it happened, Harmony and I could instantly see what the Marshal apparently could not. He was distracted by the problem of getting Tree Feller’s truck up the hill, when he should have been thinking about what he needed to do to get his station wagon past it.
“Do you want me to drive the truck?” the Highway Patrolman asked.
“Why the heck would I want you to do that?”
With much huffing and some groaning, Marshal Dimmock managed to climb up into the cab of the truck. He started up the motors and the lights on the back of the last trailer lit up.
“I’ll move the station wagon so you don’t reverse into it, shall I?” the Highway Patrolman asked.
“Well, of course that’s what I want you to do. Do I have to tell you everything? Show some initiative.”
The Highway Patrolman backed the car down the hill until it was more than a safe distance away.
The huge rig that was piled high with huge logs began to move backwards slowly. When he judged that he had given himself enough space for a good run-up, the Marshal shifted into forward and readied himself for the uphill dash. But as the truck gathered speed, he suddenly swerved and drove it off the side of the road and up onto a steep bank. He put on the brake. The heavily-laden rig sat at a precarious angle.
“I think you should have aimed a little more to the right,” the Highway Patrolman said, standing in the road and pointing up the hill.
“That’s what you think, Mister Smartypants,” the Marshal said. He climbed down out of the truck. “We don’t need to get this thing up over the hill. I don’t care if it makes it up there or not. I just want it off the road so I can get past.”
“Maybe he’s not as stupid as he seems,” Harmony said next to me.
“Don’t be too quick to judge,” I said. I thought there was a fundamental flaw in the Marshal’s current plan.
Loud creaking sounds were coming from Tree Feller’s truck. Marshal Dimmock and the Highway Patrolman looked up at it.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to park them at an angle like that,” the Highway Patrolman said.
A loud Snap!
“We’d best be on our way,” the Marshal said. He walked down to the station wagon and climbed behind the wheel.
“This vehicle presents a hazard to other road users,” the Highway patrolman said, still standing next to the truck.
“It’s not my vehicle,” the Marshal said. “Let’s go.”
When the Highway Patrolman didn’t move, the Marshal drove the station wagon up the road, squeezing it past the truck.
“Are you coming?” he asked, leaning out of the window and looking back.
The Highway Patrolman hesitated. The rear trailer with the logs on it seemed to be vibrating. There was another loud snapping sound. The logs began to move. They tumbled off the trailer and crushed the police robot. It sounded like an earthquake had hit.
“You were right about it being a hazard,” Marshal Dimmock said. He opened the car door and climbed out.
“A little help here,” the Highway Patrolman’s voice said. His body was sticking out from under one of the giant logs. His legs were out of sight, completely crushed by the fallen tree trunk.
The Marshal stood over the trapped robot, shaking his head. He looked like he was seriously considering leaving the Highway Patrolman where he lay. Then he leaned forward.
“Give me your hand.”
The Marshal grasped the robot’s hand in both of his and leaned backwards, using all of his weight to try and pull the robot free. He fell over backwards. The Highway Patrolman’s arm had snapped off. Marshal Dimmock looked at the severed limb with disgust and then tossed it away into the undergrowth. He climbed to his feet and dusted off his uniform.
“You’re stuck,” he told the Highway Patrolman.
“I am aware of that fact.”
“Can you release your body and detach it from your legs?”
“I can’t leave my legs behind. I need them.”
“Son, when they come out from under there, they’re going to look like two strips of tin foil.”
“His bedside manner is a lot like yours,” I said. “Only he’s a bit more sympathetic.”
“You’d prefer to have him next to your bed?” Harmony asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
The robot was eventually persuaded to release the connection that held his torso to his lower body. And then he lay on the ground, helpless. He looked over at his newly empty shoulder socket.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” he said.
“You don’t have any flesh,” the Marshal said.
The robot looked down at himself sadly. “I don’t have much of anything. Will you go and retrieve my arm?”
“We’ve wasted enough time here,” Marshal Dimmock said. He began dragging the limbless robot towards the station wagon.
“This is undignified,” the Highway Patrolman said.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“You brought me to a scrapyard?” Floyd asked.
“It was closer,” I said. “The dump is way across town.”
“You’re not funny,” he said.
The sign over the gate said Doogal’s Metal Salvage. The letters had been salvaged from a couple of different signs. I wondered if the owner’s name really was Doogal with two ohs or if there just hadn’t been a ‘u’ in the letters available to him. The yard was in a small town that was only a stone’s throw from the city of New Grimsby. As long as you could throw a stone more than twenty miles.
Doogal himself came out to greet us when we drove into the yard. He wore dungarees, a flannel shirt, and an old baseball cap that had once been red. The clothes were streaked with dirt and rust and so was his face. I guess sometimes you have to dress according to your customers’ expectations. If Doogal had come out wearing a tuxedo we probably wouldn’t have taken him seriously.
“Afternoon, folks,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
I got out of the Trekker, but Doogal was a lot more interested in Harmony climbing down from the truck than he was in me. I wasn’t offended. Some men have a thing about trucks.
“The robot in the back,” I said, jerking my thumb towards the rear of the Trekker.
The salvage man went to look. He wasn’t impressed. “I couldn’t give you any more than twenty for it,” he sa
id.
“I’m not looking to sell,” I said. “I want to get him fixed.”
Doogal peered more closely at Floyd. “Why?”
“He’s been in the family a long time,” Harmony said. “The place wouldn’t be the same without him.”
“Is that why someone used him for target practice?” Doogal asked, his eyebrow raised.
“We’re prepared to pay the ‘no questions asked’ price if that helps,” I said.
Doogal looked at my battered face and blood-stained shirt. He gave it a moment’s consideration then he nodded. “Let’s drag him out of there and I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Thirty-five dollars an hour plus parts. If you pay cash you don’t pay sales tax. Unless you want to.”
“Sounds fair,” I said. “Do whatever you have to do and put him back together.”
We dragged Floyd off the back of the Trekker and I led him by his arm into Doogal’s workshop. Harmony followed us carrying the head and other arm.
“There’s a restroom around back if you want to get cleaned up,” Doogal said. “It’s nothing fancy but the water comes up pure from a spring in the ground.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Harmony and I went outside and left him to his work.
Off to one side of Doogal’s yard was a sort of used car lot. I guess they were all junkers that he had repaired and made road-legal. In front was a line of cars in varying shades of rust and dirt and behind them was a mixed bag of pick-up trucks and commercial tractors. All of the vehicles looked like they’d led tough lives but they were reasonably priced.
I leaned into the Trekker and sorted through my kitbag trying to find a tee-shirt that I hadn’t already worn.
“I’m going to wash the blood off my face,” I said. “Unless you need to use the facilities first?”
“I’m good,” Harmony said.
The lighting in the washroom wasn’t great. This was probably a good thing. The bump on my forehead looked huge. Putting some ice on it might reduce the swelling a little but I knew from experience that it might be a week or more before it faded completely. The split lip didn’t look nearly as swollen as it felt which was a relief because it felt like it was the size of my kitbag. I washed my face as gently as I could and rubbed some of the cold water in my hair to try and get the dust out of it. A hot bath would have worked wonders on my aching body, but that was a luxury that would have to wait for another day.
Gingerly I pulled the tee-shirt off over my head. It was stuck to me in a couple of places but came free without too much effort. My body was covered in scratches and there were a few minor punctures but nothing serious. The bruises were just beginning to come out. I’d look a lot worse the next day. The tee-shirt smelled like an old bar towel so I dropped it in the trash. I’d pulled a faded black tee out of my backpack and I pulled it on to hide the damaged skin.
I was tempted to pop a couple more pain killers but thought I ought to wait a while longer. I’d taken four back in the Trekker. Any more and my legs might turn to rubber.
Harmony was waiting for me when I came out. She was probably still worried that I had a concussion.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Do you want an honest answer?” she asked.
“No.”
“You look great.”
“You going to kiss this better now?” I asked, pointing to my lip. I thought it was worth another try while I could still count on her sympathy.
“I’m not touching that, it looks gross,” she said.
“You really need to work on your bedside manner.”
“I’m not coming anywhere near your bed,” she said.
“About that...”
“Let’s not talk about that here,” she said. “Please?”
“Fine,” I said, turning away from her. “Weather’s nice...”
“Quincy!”
I took her arm and she didn’t resist. We began strolling. I wanted to explore the scrapyard.
“This place is great, isn’t it?” I said.
She looked sideways at me – smiled when she realised I meant it. It was a breaker’s yard. Like an elephant’s graveyard for old vehicles. Trucks, skimmers, and even small spacecraft. And lots of cars. Some of them Doogal fixed up and sold on, some were broken up for spares, and the rest slowly rusted away.
“When I was a kid I used to watch this show,” I said. “The heroes would end up in a scrapyard and they would construct something to help them complete that episode’s mission.”
“I always think that there’ll be a classic car tucked away somewhere,” she said, “waiting for someone to rescue it and restore it to life.”
We wandered through the wrecked vehicles, wrecked robots, and piles of unidentifiable wrecked metal. It was like walking through a post-apocalyptic maze. I hoped we’d be able to find our way back to the start.
“Why did they take Skeet?” Harmony asked.
“He was in the wrong place at the right time,” I said. “Crawford wanted to grab one of us and Skeet happened to be off on his own.”
“But why take any of us?”
“Human shield,” I said. “When Crawford took the trailer and the whiskey, he knew we’d come after them. He’s counting on the fact that we won’t launch a full-on attack while he has a hostage.”
“All he’s got to do is hold us off until the deadline passes,” Harmony said.
I nodded. “Crawford will be holed up somewhere. If I was him I’d have called in reinforcements to guard me and the whiskey.”
“How long do we have left?” Harmony asked.
“Less than twenty-four hours,” I said.
“We’d better go and see how Doogal is getting on,” she said.
Doogal worked on Floyd until late in the day. A few times he sent Harmony and me off to look for something he needed. An eye, a piece of steel rod about yay big, a two-inch-long spring that was big enough to get a finger inside. I doubt he used any of the bits we found – he just made the requests to get us out of his workshop.
Finally, he came out through the doors, wiping his hands on an oily rag.
“What’s the prognosis, doc?” I asked.
“He’ll live,” Doogal said. He was frowning. “That machine is a strange one. Never worked on anything like him. I can see why you two are so attached to him.”
“He’s like family,” I said. “How much do we owe you?”
“Two hundred and fifty for the work on the robot and let’s call it an even thousand for the rig.”
“You didn’t do any work on our truck,” I said. I was confused.
“It ain’t yours until you pay for it,” Doogal said.
I’d suffered multiple blows to the head and my brain wasn’t up to much beyond the basics. But Harmony was looking confused too, so maybe it wasn’t me. “Explain it to us simply,” I said.
“The robot,” Doogal said.
“Floyd.”
“Floyd, right. He said you’d had your trailer stolen and you need a new one. He also said you’d take another tractor if I had one. I’ve got one in the yard over there and you can buy it for a thousand dollars.”
That was pretty simple and I understood it. Except for the part about us needing a second truck.
“I need to talk to Floyd,” I said.
“He’s on charge in the workshop,” Doogal said. “I didn’t have time to paint him up properly, but he said that don’t matter.”
“I’m sure he looks fine,” I said. “Just give me a minute with him.”
“Go right ahead.”
I pulled open the workshop door and looked inside. “What did you do to him?”
“Just what he asked me to,” Doogal said. “Is there a problem?”
“One minute,” I said and stepped inside.
I could hardly see Floyd. He seemed to be sitting behind some pieces of rusty steel plate that were covered with lines of welding that looked like fresh scars.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Better than you from the look of it.” Floyd’s voice was coming from his head again and the head was back on his shoulders. He had two eyes but they didn’t match.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked, indicating the pile of steel plate.
“Body armour,” Floyd said.
“Body armour?”
“For protection,” he said. “We should get Doogal to make you some.”
“There’s no time,” I said. “All of this is connected to you?”
Floyd stood up and the heap of rusty metal moved with him. It was a suit of armour. Of sorts.
“I missed my old body,” Floyd said. “What do you think?”
It all weighed too much for him to do a proper pirouette so he shuffled around in a circle. He looked like a sculpture made from dented food cans. But I didn’t tell him this.
“Looks good,” I lied. “You ready to move out? We don’t have much time.”
“The armour means I’m drawing thirty per cent more power,” he said, “but I’m at eighty-five per cent charge so we should be fine. Did Doogal tell you about the truck?”
“I didn’t understand that part,” I admitted.
“You will when you see it,” Floyd said. “It looks exactly like our truck. What are the odds against that?”
Our truck looked like it belonged in a scrapyard, so the odds of finding another that looked like it here weren’t what you’d call long.
“Why do we need it?” I asked.
“To move the whiskey,” Floyd said.
I was beginning to wonder if he was the one whose brain was scrambled.
“We don’t have the whiskey,” I said.
“Not yet,” he said.
“Crawford has the whiskey,” I said.
“At this very moment he’s probably discovering that he doesn’t,” Floyd said. “The trailer he took from me was empty. I pulled a switch.”
“You did what?”
Any minute now I was going to wake up from this crazy dream. I’d probably find myself in a hospital bed and a doctor would tell me that he’d had to remove a damaged part of my brain.
“Explain it to me simply,” I said.
“When the Dragon Riders turned up at the roadhouse that was too much of a coincidence,” he said. “Someone must have sent them there to distract you. That much was obvious wasn’t it?”
Road Rage Page 30