“Don’t do anything stupid,” Daniel repeated as he turned to climb into the cab.
The utility truck started with a lurch and reversed, accompanied by a tearing of metal as the embedded railroad tie took out part of my Durango’s fancy grill guard. I shot my free hand forward and grabbed the rim of the nearest drum. It was heavy and cold, the aroma of gasoline pungent.
We could go down on our hands and knees, or kneel, or stand bent over in an ape posture that I’d be able to hold for about five minutes. As soon as the truck started down the narrow road, I realized how truly close to torture this was going to be.
“How’s your head?” Waddell asked.
“Attached.”
“You took a hard lick.”
“That son-of-a-bitch has fast hands,” I said.
“And who’s Couey Martin?”
“Just a name,” I said. “He used to work for the highway department years ago. I didn’t figure this son-of-a-bitch needed to know who you were.”
“What’s he aim to do?”
“I don’t know. But right now, he’s got the cards. A good truck, what looks like two hundred gallons of gasoline, and two hostages. Go figure.” I tried again to get comfortable, but the jouncing was brutal.
“Put your left hand down flat on the bed right by the front wheel,” Waddell whispered. With the cab’s center window blocked by the utility bed’s front tool boxes, Daniel couldn’t see us. But what served as his ally was the continual battering we took from the truck’s impossible suspension. Try to move, and a lurch sent us crashing into the drums or the bike.
On his hands and knees, Waddell planted his right hand on the truck bed opposite my left, the two of us snuggled against opposite sides of the bike’s engine. “Just lift the front of the bike. Use your shoulder, or butt, or whatever. Even a knee against the front wheel. It’s on its kickstand, so all we have to do is lift it a little bit, then we slide the cuffs forward, out from under the wheel.”
“And then what—leap off a moving truck into the cactus?”
“We’ll think of something. Jump on him, maybe.”
The problem with his scenario was that we had to lift the front end of the bike and at the same time, slide our hands in unison, hoping to slip the short link that connected the two halves of the cuffs under the three measly inches of rubber resting on the bed. It didn’t work, despite our duet of groans, gasps, and curses.
“Why don’t we just push the son-of-a-bitch out the back?”
“We don’t want to go overboard with it,” the rancher said. He thumped the heel of his hand against the nearest drum. “You think he’s got gas in all of these?”
“That’s all that I smell,” I said.
I pushed the small of my back hard against the bike’s engine, trying to ward off a savage lumbar kink. “Can you reach the bungees?” Two secured the back, with two more at the front. On top of that, the bike rested on its stout two-legged stand, held tightly from side to side.
A sudden lunge of the truck cracked the right side of my head against the rim of one of the barrels. Just when I thought I had my balance, we swerved left and I fell again. “I’m going to shoot this son-of-a-bitch when I get the chance,” I swore. Looking toward the back, I recognized the wider, smoother surface of County Road 14. We’d turned off the primitive Forest Road, and the truck’s speed picked up.
“I got it,” Waddell said, and the rear bungee buckle on his side flopped loose. I don’t know how he found it in the dark, but his hands were more nimble than mine. Contorted like a gymnast, he strained to reach the other. It was on my side, impossible no matter how he twisted. With my left hand held firm, I turned my back to the bike, pressing against the massive engine. This was the time when it would have been nice to have working rotator cuffs. With a review of every curse that I knew, I could reach the bungee buckle with my right hand, but could not managed to do anything with it.
“Find a purchase and skid the bike toward me a little. Get some slack in it,” I said. He braced his back and pushed, and the bike gave a little. Another push, and the bungee drooped. This time I could reach the hook where it latched onto the frame of one of the utility boxes.
“Now the front,” Waddell said in triumph. With our hands laced together under the frame ahead of the engine, the logistics of the front bungees were easier. We had the technique down pat. In another mile, and with a dozen more bruises collected, the first bungee parted company, and we had it made. The second followed.
“Okay,” I said. “Now what? If we don’t do this just right, we’re taking a dive off this truck with the bike.”
“Then let’s do it right,” Waddell said. But as he spoke, the truck slowed hard, and I rose on one knee, trying to see over the cab. Sure enough, we had reached the intersection with State 78, the highway from Posadas out through the northwest corner of the county toward Newton. That meant twelve miles to go down County 14 until we crossed State 17, and then on down the county road still farther to Waddell’s holdings—if that’s where we were headed.
We enjoyed the smooth transition for two blissful seconds as we crossed the pavement. Daniel hit the gravel on the far side and accelerated.
“Turn your back to it, reach down and grab something, and lift and heave forward,” Waddell said.
“Remind me again why we want to do this?” I muttered. The exhaust pipe was handy. “Now!”
We heaved and accomplished nothing other than digging the handcuff link deeper into our flesh. “One more,” Waddell gasped. And this time it worked. The bike rolled forward a bit, the kickstand snapped back, and the bike was balanced on its tires. And that meant that we were the ones defeating gravity.
“Don’t let it lean on you,” Waddell said. “We’ll never get it up.”
I silently blessed the county road department for keeping County 14 in some semblance of repair. A click, and Waddell said, “It’s in neutral. Easy now. When it goes off the back, slap your hand down hard on the bed. Let it roll over the cuffs.”
“This is going to hurt,” I grunted.
“Of course. Anything worthwhile does.”
“I’m going to remember you said that.”
Looking like a pair of spastic crabs, we edged the bike backward. Linked as we were his right to my left, we had to crawl backward ourselves, shoulders and hips pushing against the bike to keep it upright. What seemed like a week took only seconds. We felt the back tire hit the rim of the bed, and then gravity did the rest.
“Hand down!” Waddell yanked me flat, the bike leaned sideways to rest its bulk on my hip. Then I felt it start to go. The front tire hit our shackled hands, took skin and flesh with it as it twisted away. Then it was gone, pitching back to land on the road with a satisfying crash and scatter of expensive parts that winked in the moonlight.
Waddell’s face bloomed into a grin of wild glee. “He ain’t going to be happy about that!”
Sure enough, the truck braked violently, sliding to the shoulder. Both of us careened forward and I dropped to my knees, banging my elbow against one of the drums, eliciting only a dull thunk.
Elliot Daniel charged around the back of the truck, his pistol waving like a conductor’s baton. He ran back a few yards and surveyed the scattered bike, cursing. The machine might have been able to wobble down the road were it not for the crushed left handlebar. He kicked the front wheel savagely, then bent down and pulled several items out of one of the rear panniers. He didn’t bother moving the bike from the center of the dirt road.
He stalked back to the truck, and I picked myself up. He kept the side utility box between himself and us, and the gun, as always, at the ready.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “It just went out the back.”
“Give me your cuff key,” he demanded.
“It’s back in my truck, son.”
He thought about that
for a few seconds, then nodded. “You won’t go anywhere.” Without the least hesitation, he raised the gun and fired a single shot, the explosion loud and sharp. Miles Waddell gasped and lost his balance, dragging me down with him.
“You don’t play games with me,” Daniel said. “You and your buddy just…” and he let the rest of the sentence go, running out of words.
He returned to the cab, but returned almost immediately with one of those yellow fabric tow straps. He tossed it into the truck bed. “Wrap that around behind your cuffs,” he ordered.
“Now wait a minute,” I started to argue, with visions of him dragging us down the road. He lifted the damn gun again. I held up a conciliatory hand. “Don’t do it.” I looped the strap through the cuffs.
“Just give me the ends.”
I thought on that. The strap was weighty, but not a good weapon. I could swing it at him, but what would that earn? Miles had regained his balance, but stood hunched, his free hand pressed against his thigh. I did as I was told, and the tow strap sawed against my wrist as Daniel pulled out the slack. With both ends in hand, he yanked the tow strap over my side of the truck and slipped both end hooks around something well out of reach, up forward toward the cab’s rear door. Such an arrangement wouldn’t have stopped a couple of agile teenagers, but it was effective for us. I might have been able to slide over the side, breaking only a few things, but I was cuffed to old peg-leg.
Daniel returned to the cab, I guess confident that I wouldn’t drag my wounded partner out the back or down the side, or anywhere else. He evidently knew the handy utility of darkness. Even if we successfully bailed without shattering any more legs or necks, just where would we go? Stand in the dark and wait for the cops?
Daniel was digging his personal hole deeper and deeper. I wanted to be there when he hit bedrock. The truck started with an unnecessary jolt. Waddell cursed again.
“That son-of-a-bitch shot me,” he said between gritted teeth. His free hand clutched his thigh.
“Bad?” The instant I said it, I realized how stupid it sounded. Even if it doesn’t break bones, a hole is a hole, and all kinds of blood leaks out. Miles was just a dark shadow, though. He tugged my hand over and put it on his, halfway between knee and hip, right in the heavy thigh muscle.
“I don’t think it hit the bone,” the rancher said hopefully.
“Just try to hold still,” I said. “Let’s get a belt or something around it.”
“It’s not bleeding that much,” he said. “Just leave it.” He drew himself up a little, trying to relieve the weight on his leg, and then sucked in a sharp breath as the truck lurched and dumped us hard against the steel truck bed and the drums. “This is going to hurt.” He looked across at me, his features indistinct. “It’s a good thing I hired you to keep me out of trouble.”
“You bet,” I said. “Think where you’d be if I had left you behind at that damn reception.”
He laughed, but without much humor. “What’s the sheriff going to do?”
“I have no idea. The only thing I can guess is that he’s got the girl. Someone has her. And he’ll be able to guess where we’re headed.”
“My place.”
“Yep. I mean, where else?” I rose a bit, trying to see out beyond the cab. “Get a good hold,” I said, ducking back down. “The canyon breaks north of the interstate and Seventeen are coming up.” He knew what I meant. We wedged ourselves as tightly as we could, at least thankful that the drums were dead weights, reluctant to slide around against their retainers. For four miles, we charged through narrow cuts in the rocky mesas, across two arroyos, and finally down a jagged slope that angled along a mesa flank. The mesa had dumped all its loose rocks on the road, and we swerved this way and that, at one point scraping the undercarriage.
The road delivered its last savage jolt, and then we were skimming across a dry sandy lake bed—the water gone about the time the mastodons left. Headlights cut the night sky, and we flashed under the interstate, the late-night tourists blissfully ignorant of what was going on below them.
Posadas County is sliced by three east-west state highways, and Waddell’s holdings lay between NM 17 and 56. Once we crossed NM 17, we were headed for his home turf…and, I wagered, Elliot Daniel’s grand plan.
Charging up a rise in the prairie, we reached the stop signs for NM 17. Determined to give us no opportunity, Daniel slowed the truck only a fraction, and with no headlights cutting the night to argue with him, dove through the stop sign, across the old state highway.
His view wasn’t as good as ours. As we shot across the macadam, I saw the moonlight touching the white roof of a car three reflector tenth-posts to the east. As the pavement faded behind us, I saw the car pull out, running without headlights.
I knew that Deputy Thomas Pasquale often drove 303, one of the older hot rod Crown Vics. I had been in the office one day when Pasquale had gazed out the window with lust at the undersheriff’s new Dodge Charger. He’d turned to Sheriff Torrez and asked plaintively, “When am I going to get one of those?”
“When you learn not to turn ’em into junk inside of a week,” Torrez had said, and that ended that conversation. The young deputy’s nickname, “Parnelli Pasquale,” was well-deserved.
The old patrol car, still plenty peppy, reached County Road 14 before we’d gone another mile, still running without headlights. It turned onto our dirt road with a smooth power slide in the gravel that sent up billows of moonlit dust.
I sat back down. “Well, this will be interesting.”
“Who do we have behind us?” Wadell asked. He could see the dust cloud now as the deputy closed the gap. If Daniel was paying attention, he might be able to see it as well.
“My guess is Pasquale,” I replied, fervently wishing that my cell phone wasn’t back on the center console of the Durango. “The sheriff said he was headed out on Seventeen. Let’s hope he doesn’t get too eager.” And sure enough—the young deputy had either thought this through all by himself, or was listening to Sheriff Torrez’s calm instructions. His patrol car slowed and remained a good quarter-mile behind us. Maybe we were lucky, and Daniel hadn’t spotted him. Hopefully, Torrez hadn’t just said, “Get close enough and shoot the son-of-a-bitch,” although had I the wherewithall, that would have been my first choice. I was getting goddamned tired of being jounced, bruised, nicked, and otherwise assaulted by the rough, cold ride in the back of the Posadas Electric utility truck, chained to a fellow who didn’t deserve a minute of the beating.
Chapter Thirty-five
I knew County Road 14 well enough that I could predict the worst of the bad spots, and now that we were drawing closer to NightZone, Elliot Daniel was getting antsy, pushing the truck hard. I still had no idea what he had in mind. Unfortunately for us, he hadn’t been the sort of bad guy who liked to spout soliloquies about his motives. As the guy in the Italian western once advised, “If you’re going to shoot, shoot—don’t talk.” Apparently Daniel had memorized that script. This wasn’t a guy who was suddenly going to negotiate.
Far in the distance to the north, I saw the faint prick of headlights. More company.
“Whatever he’s planned, he’s going to have a good audience.” I pointed, and Waddell nodded.
“I saw it. And he probably did, too.”
“The only thing I know for sure is that Daniel thinks he can barter his way out with us if there’s a problem. There’s no reason to keep us alive otherwise.”
“That’s a cheerful thought.” We jolted and Waddell let out a little yelp. “Now it hurts,” he muttered.
Over the last little rise in the prairie, the new electric substation project appeared, the small forest of steel poles and transformer platforms ghost gray. With power restored on the service line, the crews had taken a Saturday night off. One of the big bucket trucks remained parked inside the enclosure with a low-boy utility trailer attached, loaded with f
our new transformers. As we drew closer, I could see various piles of construction junk around the site, but anything valuable—like the huge roles of copper cable—should have been locked inside the barbed wire and chain-link enclosure with the truck.
We didn’t slow down until the last minute, and at the same time that Daniel spiked the brakes, I was crouched with one hand locked around the headache rack, the other with the damn tow strap around my forearm and handcuffs grounding me to Miles Waddell. Able to just see over the cab, my eyes ran from the cold. Just enough February to make us doubly uncomfortable, but not enough to throw a blizzard into Daniel’s plans. The prairie was full of humps and bumps and things that showed no definition for the eye, even with the undiluted moonlight. I sat down and for the first time, I could hear Miles Waddell’s teeth chattering. “You know, I never asked you this, but is there any chance you happen to be carrying a gun, Couey?”
That prompted a shaky laugh. “Don’t I wish,” he said.
“Hang in there. We have lots of company now.” Off in the prairie somewhere, a cow bawled for its late fall calf. All the activity was making her nervous.
With exaggerated care, Daniel swung the rig into the sub-station’s rough driveway.
“Sure enough,” I said. He stopped, engine idling, with the railroad tie a pace from the locked gate. “Slide back, right against the bulkhead,” I whispered. “Protect your head.” I scrunched down tight beside him. Under the truck I heard a faint clunk as it was shifted into four-wheel-drive low range. The Ford jerked backward a dozen paces, and then Daniel shifted into drive and hit the throttle.
Free arm over my head, curled up with Miles like a couple of old best friends, we huddled down. The truck took the gate dead center, tearing it out from under the barbed wire strands that passed over the top bar. One wire scraped along the headache rack above us, the stout chain-link gate panels collapsed inward, ripping fence support posts on either side out of their fresh concrete beds. The whole thing snarled on the truck’s grill and front bumper, pushed inside the compound, dragging chain-link and posts. He stopped when we were just about dead center in the enclosure, parked beside the electric company’s bucket truck, the railroad tie butted against one of the transformer platforms.
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