Lazaro, in the leather vest, bit his lip. His gaze flicked back and forth between Ramiro and Andres. He stepped back into the shadow by the wall, as if trying to disappear.
Salvador’s features turned hard. He straightened up and looked to Andres. A soldier awaiting orders.
As Ramiro started to crank up his tirade again, Andres slipped a hand inside his black jacket. He drew out a long black pistol extended by a thick silencer. He raised it and closed one eye, sighting down the barrel.
Ramiro saw the pistol and shut up as if he’d been slapped. He drew in a breath to speak, puffing out his chest.
Andres’s pistol coughed out a single hoarse shot. Ramiro crumpled to the floor. A brass shell casing rang off the wooden arm of the couch and bounced to a stop on the carpet. Silence reigned in the shadowy house.
Ash’s heart thudded in his chest. The sound of rushing blood filled his ears. Bile rose in his throat.
Andres swung the silenced pistol around to aim at Ash’s head. “You have brought the wrath of La Araña on us,” he said in thick English, “dividing us, breaking our loyalty.” The lines around his frown deepened into shadow. “The spider. Give her to me. Now.”
Ash stared up into the gunsmoke-tainted hollow of the silencer and finally understood what Andres wanted.
The last time he’d seen the spider, he’d been eleven years old, hiding in the bed of his parents’ pickup. His mom had driven to this house, the preacher’s house, in the heat of the summer night.
The truck’s exhaust had pinged. Insects had scratched. Ash had peeked over the edge of the pickup bed, watching his mom step up onto the preacher’s porch, clutching a heavy bundle wrapped in a faded towel.
Lamplight came on inside the house, bathing her in a golden glow. The door eased open.
Even from a distance, Ash could see the worry on the preacher’s wrinkled face as he carefully unwrapped the towel. Inside was a spider made of gold.
The gleaming idol was the size of a human skull, a fat body with jointed legs pulled tightly in, as if ready to pounce. Its emerald eyes caught the lamplight and shimmered in the darkness. Seeking him out.
Ash huddled against the wheel well, hot tears burning the corners of his eyes. He’d gone where he shouldn’t have gone, and found a thing that no one should have found. The spider’s merest touch could draw the life out of someone and leave them lying cold and pale on the floor. The only way to stop it, his mom had said, was to let the preacher break the curse.
That night, Ash had wanted to believe that the curse was lifted forever, that the spider would never come back to hurt or kill again.
He was wrong.
“The spider,” Andres repeated, holding the long pistol steady, its muzzle inches from Ash’s face. “Her power, she belong to me.”
Ash glanced at the dead man crumpled on the floor, then up into Andres’s deep-set eyes. Something glinted there: devotion, fervor, obsession. Ash didn’t know exactly what to call it, but it ruled out any kind of negotiation.
“Okay,” Ash croaked out. He cleared his throat, fighting to talk around a tongue that wouldn’t work right. “You win.”
“Where is she?”
Ash had no idea. “Outside,” he lied. “I can show you.”
“Do.” Andres motioned with the gun. “Get up.”
Ash struggled to his feet, unsteady. Rough hands grabbed him and shoved him through the gloom, down the hall. Lazaro pushed the front door open, letting in a burst of sunlight that shone on the sweat of his thin arms.
The crisp mountain air washed over Ash like a torrent of cold water. It whispered across waves of tan grass, carrying the scent of old pines, opening his eyes, making him feel alive again.
To his left was a jumble of sun-bleached split logs, the remnants of the wood pile. Downhill sat the creaky shed where Moolah still waited for him. Hopefully. If Andres found the dog, Ash had a feeling he’d shoot him just to make a point. The thought stabbed a cold pain through his heart.
The porch boards creaked as the gunmen crowded in on either side of him, Lazaro with his shotgun and Salvador with his evil-looking assault weapon. Behind, Andres’s leather shoes stepped onto the wooden threshold. Then everything went quiet.
“So,” Andres said, his voice husky. “Show me.”
Ash’s mouth went dry.
This was it. No room left to stall. Now he had to improvise.
He tapped his heel on the hollow floorboard and looked down, drawing their attention to his feet. Then he tensed and launched himself at the corner of the porch. He hit the rotted corner post with his full weight.
The post broke against his shoulder, black decayed wood exploding from its center. Ash let his momentum carry him off the porch. The roof collapsed behind him, deafening.
Down into the knee-high mountain grass. Rough ground. He stumbled and fought for his balance. The driveway’s loose sand slipped beneath his smooth soles as he sprinted for the shed.
He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The porch roof was an avalanche of shingles and rotted wood. It folded in on itself, tearing off siding from the second story. A wall of dust rushed outward, blotting out the front of the house.
Ash pumped his arms as he ran, breath burning in his chest, and skidded into the shed. The sudden transition from sunlight to darkness left him blind for a moment. Moolah barked and plowed into him, happy paws and wet nose.
“Come on, buddy, let’s go.” He blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust, looking for a weapon to grab. Stripes of sunlight fell on the red Galaxie where the afternoon sun shone through the wall. Nearby, a cobwebbed pitchfork hung from rusted nails. He reached for it.
Bullets cracked through the walls of the shed, punching a line of holes through the wood. He ducked under a rain of splinters. Fingers of sunlight reached through the bullet holes.
He pulled the car keys out of his pocket. The first two didn’t fit in the door lock. The second one turned easily, despite his shaking hands.
He yanked the door open. Watery yellow lights woke up inside the car, mounted low on the doors and back pillars. Everything inside was black and chrome, frozen in time. “Moolah, get in!”
The dog shot past him in a blur of cinnamon-brown fur. Ash got behind the wheel and slammed the door, looking for a place to put the ignition key.
The dash had a speedometer a foot wide. Chrome knobs on an AM radio. Shiny switches everywhere. And there, in the middle of the dash, a slot for the key.
He jammed it in. Turned it. The motor cranked over, sluggish. Then silence.
He pumped the delicate-feeling gas pedal. The motor cranked again, even slower this time, then picked up little spurts of speed as he worked the pedal. He kept pumping, listening to the ancient starter whine.
Dust shot across the shed in thin streaks, carried by bullets. Bits of old bird nests rained down on the windshield. The rusted pitchfork, its tines streaming with cobwebs, clattered onto the wide hood. Fresh white splinters bristled from the bullet hole in its handle.
Moolah cowered on the floor in front of the bench seat.
“Come on, you beast,” Ash whispered, pumping the gas pedal.
The engine coughed, then coughed again and sputtered to life. A little blue square of light flickered to life below the speedometer, printed with the word COLD. He jammed the chrome shifter into gear and nailed the gas.
The whole car shook as the engine died.
Chapter Three
Ghost
Cursing, Ash worked the gas pedal as he turned the key again, coaxing the old car back to life. He kept his foot on the gas until trails of oily blue smoke curled in the fragments of the shed’s sunlight. Bullet trails streaked through the smoke.
He dropped the Galaxie into gear. The tires chirped on the concrete. The car lurched forward and hit the wooden doors, forcing them open. Sunlight whited out the dusty windshield.
He spun the monstrous steering wheel. The Galaxie skidded across the loose sand and lumbered down the driveway,
kicking up a cloud behind him.
Through the dirty windshield, he could make out the driveway as a twisty dark stripe against the tan of the tall grass. He fought to keep the fast-moving car on the road. Its hubcaps rattled at him with every rock they hit, but the rest of the car didn’t let out a squeak.
He searched the dashboard until he found the chrome slider that operated the wipers. Stubby black blades creaked across the glass, scraping off the worst of the dirt, revealing the world again.
Ahead, the road forked. One path led up the side of the mountain, along a stream. The other headed downhill, and if he remembered correctly, it eventually led to the highway. Neither was marked, but he knew where the uphill fork led. The ghost town.
Unlike most of the ghost towns that dotted the Rocky Mountains, this one was more or less intact, as far as he remembered. It was also the make-out spot for local kids. He had spent a lot of summer evenings there with Cleo, talking about how one day they’d get out, leave this town behind and never come back.
Moolah climbed up off the floor and sat on the black bench seat next to him, panting. The dog’s alert eyes surveyed the inside of the car. Ash pried one hand off the steering wheel for a moment to pat the dog.
He was about to take the right fork when he saw another cloud of dust coming up behind his. The rusted green pickup appeared in the side-view mirror, closing in fast.
If the truck had four-wheel drive, it would make better time on these roads. There was no way he could beat them to the pavement. They’d catch up first, or he’d slide into a ditch trying to outrun them. Either way, they’d get him.
He cranked the wheel and took the uphill fork, hoping to lose them in the ghost town. Amazingly, the Galaxie’s engine wound up without protest. Ash wondered how long that would last. The rough road followed the meandering stream, whose crystal-clear water flowed over noxious yellow silt, tailings from the old gold mine nearby.
He raced uphill, rounded a corner and bounced onto what was once the main street of the old town. A few windowless, roofless shells of buildings stood on either side, their wooden planks burned silver by the sun in some places and painted black by rot underneath.
Further down, the mostly intact saloon still stood, and far beyond, a wooden tower loomed over the far end of town. A chute ran out of sight behind a rusted chunk of machinery that bristled with rivets. In between, the road made a right-angle turn to a covered bridge that crossed a gulch, twenty feet deep. It was the only other way out of town.
Ash slowed as he rounded the turn. The bridge was anything but solid. As a teenager, he’d walked across it more times than he could count, but he’d never dreamed of taking a car through there. Sunlight shone down through holes in the bridge’s roof, giving a ghostly glow to the weather-beaten floor.
There had to be another way. Maybe he could ditch the car and take off on foot. Maybe hide in the saloon. Traces of painted letters still showed on its one remaining glass window. The boardwalk in front of it was missing half its planks. Trying to hide there would be hopeless, he realized.
The pickup crested the hill behind him, closing in, kicking up rocks from its tires. Salvador leaned out the window of the bouncing truck, pulling the assault weapon tight against his shoulder, aiming at the Galaxie.
Ash nailed the gas and headed for the bridge.
No way it would hold him. If one board gave out, he’d be dead. The car would plummet twenty feet to the rocky floor of the gulch, and that would be the end of it. But he’d rather take his chances with the bridge than with Andres and his tattooed killers.
The dark tunnel of the bridge loomed. Beyond, the dirt road continued through the grass and pine trees. He focused on that and centered the Galaxie’s wide nose between the wooden posts.
The darkness of the bridge swallowed him, punctuated by flashes of sunlight. The rumble of the engine echoed around him. A chorus of creaking wooden beams. Crackles, like firecrackers. The whole car bounced.
Ash’s stomach gave way as the bridge sagged beneath him. Moolah yelped in panic. They were only a car-length away from the far end. But it might as well have been a hundred miles.
He pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The weight of the car shifted back onto its haunches as it leaped forward.
The front tires dropped off the end of the bridge onto the dirt. A screaming sound pierced the air as the rear tires spun. The car tilted back as the bridge splintered beneath them.
He let off the gas. The tires slowed and grabbed, then kicked the car up onto solid ground. The Galaxie traveled a few yards and skidded to a halt diagonally across the dirt road. Behind him, the bridge toppled into the gulch, trailing planks and splintered posts. Dust billowed out around it as it fell.
On the far side of the gulch, the pickup’s wheels locked up. The truck slid toward the edge. The tires stopped just inches from the drop-off. Lazaro stuck his head out of the window, gaping down into the gulch.
Ash didn’t give them time to come to their senses. He kept driving, following the overgrown road through the scattered pine trees, trying to put as much distance as he could between him and the pickup trapped on the other side of the gulch.
He caught himself breathing so hard it made him dizzy. He fought to get himself under control, calm down, but he didn’t dare pull over. This was the only head start he had.
He tried to roll down the window for some air. The two chrome cranks confused him, until he discovered that the small one rotated the triangular vent window. He got both windows open, letting in a blast of fresh mountain air.
Moolah climbed over the seat into the back, then came up behind him and pressed his snout into the wind. The sheer delight in Moolah’s squinting face made Ash smile. He reached over and rubbed the dog’s head.
“Don’t worry, buddy. It’s all downhill from here.” It would be only a couple of miles to the county road. But beyond that, he had no idea what to do.
As they rattled along the dirt track, he finally started to relax behind the big steering wheel. The car floated along in a way that hypnotized him, as if the Galaxie were steering him, instead of the other way around.
Without warning, the engine stumbled, shooting a cold jolt of panic through him. He looked over the old dashboard, but there was nothing that could tell him what was wrong: no tachometer, no check-engine light, nothing.
Then he spotted the gas gauge, where the needle hovered over the big white E.
Chapter Four
Empty
Ash nursed the engine down the long dusty trail to the cracked blacktop road. The Galaxie kept running, but it shuddered and burred at him all the way up the next rise. Once they were over the top, he put it in neutral and coasted down the steep mountain road, eyes wide for any sign of the gunmen.
By the time the welcome red sign of a Conoco station peeked into view, he was pumping the gas pedal to keep the Galaxie from stalling. Just as he started to make a left into the station, the engine finally quit, stranding him in the middle of the road.
As the car slowed on the gentle incline, he hopped out. Pushing, groaning, his back deep into it, he muscled the car across the double yellow lines. It started to pick up speed again on the gradual slope down into the station.
Ash climbed back into the silent car, slammed the door, and realized that he couldn’t steer anymore. The steering wheel that had turned effortlessly while the engine was running was now an immovable rock. The brake pedal, too, felt like it had been welded into place.
The Galaxie rolled straight downhill into the filling station, aimed directly at the corner gas pump.
A flash of fear washed over Ash as he pictured ramming nose-first into the pump with the Galaxie’s giant steel bumper. Teeth gritted, he pulled on the steering wheel with both hands. The car responded as if it bore a grudge, only turning at the last second to whisper past the gas pump. Ash put both feet on the wide brake pedal and stood on it until the massive car ground to a halt.
He sagged back into the seat, breathing
hard, and then heaved himself out of the car. “Moolah, stay.”
The dog whined.
Ash reached into his back pocket for his wallet, but found something else there instead. He pulled out a folded stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills, bundled with a rubber band. Pursing his lips, he shoved the bundle back into his pocket as quickly as he’d found it.
A glance around told him that nobody was watching. The only other car at the pumps was a white Honda with a couple of teenagers.
Parked off to the side of the building was a beige four-door sedan with deeply tinted windows and an extra antenna. It practically screamed “unmarked car”. He made sure not to stare directly at it.
He walked the long way around the pumps to avoid the sedan and went in the side door of the convenience store. One look at the newspaper racks confirmed the impossible: it was, in fact, two weeks later than he remembered.
He lost himself between racks of Funyuns and Mountain Dew. As soon as he felt safe, he pulled out the bundle of cash and licked his thumb. As he counted, a jittery energy grew inside him. In all, he had fifty bills. Five grand, all in hundreds.
He hefted the stack in his hand. Only a quarter of an inch thick, it seemed to have a magical weightlessness to it.
Five thousand dollars. He shook his head. Obviously, a lot had happened in the last two weeks.
He stripped one bill off the top, folded the rest, and jammed them back into his pocket where his wallet belonged. In a daze, he grabbed a Snickers bar, then a cold bottle of water for Moolah and another for himself. He slapped the hundred-dollar bill down on the counter and told the cashier to put the rest on the pump.
A moment later, he was back outside again, adrenaline making everything feel hyper-focused and surreal. The white Honda was gone. The unmarked sedan still lurked around the corner. He kept his back to it as he pumped gas into the Galaxie.
Five grand wasn’t really a big deal. He’d scored much more on some jobs. Ash couldn’t pinpoint what it was about this particular wad of cash that was getting to him. Something tugged at him, a memory that lurked maddeningly out of reach. Something about the cash seemed dangerous.
The Spider Thief Page 2