On his previous day’s walk around he crawled into the back of a Home Depot trailer to find it chock full of washing machines and dryers.
And ten rolls of shag carpet.
He tried to think positive. Perhaps they could carpet the cold concrete floors of the prison with two or three layers of carpeting. It would help insulate it for sure.
But he’d rather fill the valuable space in the prison with something more substantial.
Something that could be eaten.
Or burned as fuel.
Or worn as clothing.
Washing machines and dryers, regardless of how pretty they looked, couldn’t be eaten or burned.
And a washing machine looked absolutely ridiculous when someone tried to wear it.
They were pretty much worthless.
Still, things were coming along nicely. He’d instructed the forklift drivers to take the appliances and to stuff them back aboard one of the trailers they’d emptied. The trailer would be picked up again and deposited somewhere along the highway.
In fact, Marty didn’t check, but the wayward appliances might have been in the trailer he’d dropped just before picking up the Coca Cola truck.
He crawled back into the cab of his big rig and shifted it into gear, then watched his air gauges.
No air leak. That was encouraging. It meant his luck was holding.
He shifted into gear and crept forward, watching the trailer’s wheels in his mirrors to make sure they were turning.
They were.
More good luck.
But Marty’s luck was getting ready to run out.
-34-
Ten years before, when the driver of the big red Coke truck abandoned it, he did the right thing and pulled as far off the roadway as possible. To do any less would have hindered other traffic still using the road.
The problem was that the shoulders on this particular stretch of highway 83 weren’t particularly wide.
In fact, they were rather narrow.
Just off the shoulder, the side of the road dropped at a considerable angle.
And that was where the passenger side wheels of the heavily-laden trailer came to rest for ten long years.
For ten long years those four wheels carried much more than their fair share of the load for a trailer which leaned just slightly toward the shoulder of the road.
It certainly didn’t help that at the driver’s last stop he’d rearranged the pallets on the back of the trailer, because the careless loaders had placed his next drop toward the front of the trailer where it wasn’t supposed to be.
In rearranging the pallets he placed four more pallets on the right side of the trailer, instead of distributing the load evenly.
The driver had known the importance of distributing the weight evenly. He’d been trucking for many years.
But his next three deliveries were on flat roads. There were no sharp turns or steep grades, or anything else which might cause his load to become unstable or tip.
He hadn’t known at the time he was getting ready to get a call from his cell phone.
A fellow driver had just abandoned his load on nearby Highway 87, and was headed the trucker’s way on his way home to be with his family.
“Drop your load,” the driver was told. We can bobtail in convoy back to Dallas. Be with our families when the world starts to freeze. That’s where we belong anyway. Not on the road, delivering product to people who are gonna freeze to death anyway.”
It didn’t take much to convince the driver. And he didn’t give a second thought to his unbalanced load when he dropped his trailer. For all he knew, the trailer would stay there for eons until it turned to dust anyway.
The four extra pallets on the shoulder side of the trailer put an undue strain on the already overloaded tires.
Marty had noticed the trailer was leaning when he arrived.
When he was aboard the trailer, after he finished enjoying his Sprite, he switched on the battery-powered pallet jack aboard the back of the trailer.
It was dead. The batteries couldn’t hold up to the long period of disuse.
Still, he didn’t see the unbalance as much of a problem. Like the original driver, he was quite familiar with the roads in the area. They were flat and he could get to the prison without making any hairy turns.
The one thing Marty underestimated was the toll the uneven load and ten years’ time would take on the tires on the heavy side of the trailer.
He’d rolled only ten yards before the first tire blew.
And that caused the remaining three tires to bear even more of the load.
And it started a chain reaction which caused all three of the other tires to blow in quick succession.
Marty was lucky in that the trailer didn’t tip. It was way too bottom-heavy for that.
But the combination of it being off the road, already at an angle, and the extra weight on the shoulder side of the trailer, caused it to list badly.
Bad enough for the tires on the driver’s side of the trailer to come ten inches off the ground.
And since Marty’s tractor was hooked up to the badly listing trailer, his tractor’s tires were lifted off the pavement as well.
“Shit,” Marty exclaimed as he killed the truck and stepped out onto the highway.
It seemed no other word would do under the circumstances.
-35-
Marty was good at thinking on his feet.
The first thing he tried to do was to call for Lenny, to tell his to drop his own trailer and come to pull him away from the shoulder and onto flat pavement.
And least, that’s what he tried to do.
The problem was the hand-held radios he and Lenny used to coordinate their runs had batteries which were several years old.
And they had a very limited range.
Lenny was already beyond that range.
As was their practice, the pair left the prison together looking for their next loads. Lenny would get the first one they came across. He’d hook up and head back to the prison, while Marty would continue farther along the same highway until he found his own load.
It was a system which worked well, and ensured that Marty would happen upon Lenny on his way back, should Lenny break down or get his truck stolen out from under him by marauders.
Neither of them ever considered the possibility that Marty might be the victim of an unfortunate incident.
As Marty jumped down from his truck, Lenny was already halfway back to Eden and was making good time.
And he couldn’t hear a word Marty said on the radio. Didn’t even pick up any static.
Marty stood back and assessed the situation.
All of the tractor’s tires on the driver’s side were off the ground.
He couldn’t unpin the trailer and let the tractor drop because there was too much weight bearing on the trailer lock.
He couldn’t get any traction to drag the trailer away from the shoulder, and even if he could it would still lean too far to the side to keep from unhooking the trailer.
In a word, he was screwed.
Luckily, it was still fairly early in the afternoon. He and Lenny still had at least one more load ahead of them. Maybe two.
Lenny would wait for Marty to arrive at the prison while the forklift drivers emptied his trailer.
Initially Lenny would gloat. He’d look forward to Marty’s arrival so he could give his friend a hard time about taking so long.
Tell him his better days were behind him. He was slowing down in his old age, he’d say.
But as each minute passed, he’d become increasingly worried.
He’d tell the forklift drivers to hustle up. To get him emptied so he could get back on the road.
So he could go in search of his friend.
Marty knew that within two hours, three at the most, Lenny’s tractor would break upon the horizon to his west.
Lenny would give him a major rash, sure.
But at least he wouldn’t have
to walk back.
While he waited, he assessed the situation.
He could have Lenny take him to a heavy duty tow truck at the Trucker’s Paradise truck stop.
But that was well over a hundred miles away.
It would take two hours to get there, and two hours to get back.
And even after they pulled the rig back onto the flat highway, there was no guarantee the trailer would release.
It would still be leaning badly, and the pin might well be bent.
And even if it wasn’t bent, it would have several thousand pounds of pressure against it.
As attached as he was to the big Kenworth tractor, he decided the best course of action was to cut his losses.
He’d abandon the rig and find another one. They were a dime a dozen these days.
In the grand scheme of things, the load of soft drinks and water in the big red trailer was worth far more than the tractor. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even claim the drinks as a consolation prize. On this particular day he’d lose a tractor for absolutely nothing in return.
While he waited for Lenny’s rig to appear on the horizon he busied himself by digging out his toolbox and removing the tractor’s batteries.
For while abandoned tractors were plentiful, most of their batteries were now shot.
From the cargo box he removed four additional air lines. He’d use them to replace bad lines on the trailers he grabbed in the days ahead.
Once he had all the things he’d salvage in a pile, he pulled out two cans of Ravioli he’d brought for his lunch and never eaten.
It was as good a way as any to pass the time while he waited for the cavalry to arrive.
-36-
The trucker’s gods might have been laughing at Marty, stuck on the side of Highway 83 waiting for help to arrive.
But those same gods were smiling upon Bryan as he drove westbound Interstate 10, twenty miles northwest of Junction.
The trailer itself was nondescript. Unpainted, silver in color, with absolutely no markings at all to hint of its company’s identity.
In Bryan’s experience, that usually meant heavy equipment. And some days, depending on his mood, he might have just passed this particular trailer on by.
But on this particular day his curiosity got the best of him.
He pulled over and used his bolt cutters to cut the padlock and break the seal.
Then cracked open the doors and swung the right door outward.
He whistled as he saw what was inside.
Hefting himself up, he squeezed between the two rows of pallets into the trailer, just to make sure it was a full load.
And he smiled.
It was too dark to verify that all the pallets contained the same type of feed. But even in the darkness he could tell the pallets ran all the way to the front of the trailer.
The checkerboard bags were unmistakable. He’d known what it was the instant he laid eyes upon it, even though he could see no lettering on the bags.
He tore off the orange colored shrink wrap the loaders had bound the bags with. Adorning each fifty pound bag was a jersey cow, perfectly groomed just to have her photo taken.
Across her breast were the words “Purina Cattle Cubes.”
He said, “Hot damn!”
Just a couple of days before he’d met with several others at the big house dining room to decide what to do about the twenty head of live beef.
“We can’t afford to take twenty head into the mine. We just don’t have enough feed to sustain them,” Mark said.
David offered the obvious solution.
“So, we slaughter all of them except for a couple of cows and a couple of bulls. That’s enough to breed. We can turn the rest into jerky. Or better yet, we can put a couple of reefer units into the back of the mine and keep the carcasses frozen until we need them.”
“So, do we have enough hay and feed to keep four head alive for four plus years?”
They crunched the numbers and decided they didn’t.
And it was too late to grow more hay.
Oh, they could shift one of their unused fields to hay or sorghum the following spring. But that wouldn’t do them any good if Cupid struck before then.
“That’s the trouble with this whole thing,” Brad grumbled. “There’s just too many ifs.”
This trailer solved the problem. Added to the feed they already had, it would be enough to sustain the cattle. If Cupid didn’t happen before the following planting season, they could still plant more crops and save the feed sacks for a later time. If it never happened at all, the feed might come in handy for an off-year, when bad weather reduced the crops’ yield.
Or a bad drought destroyed it completely.
Bryan hooked up and pulled onto the interstate.
He’d have to drive another fourteen miles, until the highway intersected with a “farm to market” road, for an exit and a chance to turn around.
He took the exit and swung the big rig beneath the highway, then took a left turn onto the eastbound side.
It was on the ramp, while he was going through his gears and building up speed, that his driver’s side window shattered.
He knew what it was immediately, not that there was much he could do about it.
He heard the gunshot about the same time the glass shattered. Not that there was anything he could do about that either.
The trucker gods were no longer granting him favor. From what he could tell, it was likely he’d gone and pissed them off.
The side of his face was bleeding badly, but he wasn’t sure whether it was from a bullet wound or the shattered glass.
And he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
He ducked as low as he could while still being able to see the highway in front of him. Now wouldn’t be a good time to drive off the roadway in a blind panic.
He continued to grind through his gears, even as a second shot tore into his cab and whizzed past the back of his head. It exited through the cab’s roof just above the passenger’s vent wondow.
Whoever was shooting was either a lousy shot or was just trying to scare him away.
If he was a lousy shot, Bryan wasn’t going to hang around any longer than he had to and give him any more chances. He shifted faster than he’d ever shifted in his life, careful not to miss any gears and bog the truck down. All the while he cursed the cow feed for being so darned heavy. Without a load he could bypass several of the gears and get moving faster. Not so when he was carrying twenty tons of cow feed.
If the shooter was merely trying to scare him away, Bryan was game.
“All right, all right, you slimy bastard. I get the message. I’m going.”
Bryan never heard the “plink” sound as the bullet entered his saddle tank. He never knew his tank was hit until he was a couple of miles down the road and looked in his mirror to see if he was being followed.
It was then he saw a steady stream of diesel fuel rushing from his tank and being scattered into the wind.
-37-
Bryan thought he had enough fuel to make it back. The second saddle tank was untouched.
His biggest concern was the other truckers. He worked independently of Rusty and Brad and didn’t have a clue where they were. He needed to see if they were in the area and if they were he needed to warn them.
“Brad or Rusty, this is Bryan. Come in.”
Nothing.
“Brad or Rusty, this is a distress call. If you’re within range, answer the damn radio.”
Still nothing.
“Security desk, this is Bryan. Come in.”
Nothing. It seemed Bryan was all alone in the world.
He didn’t really expect a response from the compound. He was twenty miles away from them, easy.
The compound had a base station with a stronger signal. But even so, pushing a signal through mountainous terrain for twenty miles was a bit iffy. The radio in the compound tended to receive better than send, though, so it was possible they heard his words
but he couldn’t copy their response.
In the event that was the case, he broadcast again.
“Security desk, this is Bryan. I cannot copy you, but if you can copy me, take this down. I’m about thirty miles or so northwest of Junction on I-10. I’ve taken fire. Nothing serious, and I should make it home okay. But if you’re in contact with Brad or Rusty tell them to steer clear of this area. You might also try to raise Marty and his bunch and tell them the same thing.”
As Bryan released the microphone he checked his mirrors and was distressed to see a black Ford Explorer coming up fast on his left.
“Oh, crap.”
He was pushing sixty miles an hour now and going up a slight grade. It was the best he could do for now, and his pursuers were gaining on him fast.
He saw a man leaning out the passenger side window with what looked like an AK-47.
“What the hell did I do to you guys?”
They didn’t answer. But the man with the rifle did take a shot at him.
The bullet whizzed past the front of the truck and did no harm. But the next one might.
Bryan couldn’t afford to let them get even with him. He had his AR-15 on the seat in front of him, but it was worthless under the circumstances. He couldn’t use it and drive the truck at the same time.
He had his handgun, but it was no match against a man with a rifle. And again, he had to focus on driving to keep from running off the side of the mountain.
He was in a world of hurt.
His best option… his only option, was to keep them behind him and hope they gave up.
As they closed the gap between them to less than fifty yards, Bryan suddenly changed lanes, directly into their path.
They dropped back a bit.
For the next two miles or so they played a game of cat and mouse. Periodically the pursuers attempted to pass him, and he cut them off each time.
Once, they tried to pass on the shoulder, but Bryan was too quick for them.
Then they got smart.
Bryan had been wondering why they didn’t just shoot out the massive tires on the trailer until he slowed to a stop. It’s what he’d have done.
A New Start: Final Dawn: Book 9 (Volume 9) Page 12