Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2) (9 page)

A new world sped by. Hemlocks pushed out memories of February snow drifts. Turkey buzzards occupied the space in my mind that winter crows once did. Red-tailed hawks screeched as they took wing after field mice. Endless thermals would lift them into space if they would just let them. Ancient buildings—barns and homes—represented a human element, property to be protected or lost. I checked the mirror again, even though I wasn’t sure why. The mirror, as honest as it was, would never tell me if we were speeding away from trouble, or toward it.

“Back up! Back!” I shouted. The roadblock sprung to view as we rounded a bend just past Bruceton Mills. “We shouldn’t have come this way.”

“I thought we lost them!”

Tires squealed. The smell of hot rubber rushed into my nose.

“They must’ve come down 381 through Gibbon Glade,” I muttered, but it was too late. “Straight back. Go.”

She had a hard time keeping the wheel straight in reverse. We dropped onto the shoulder.

I grabbed the wheel. “Gas,” I said. “Hit the gas.”

We managed to get the Jeep back onto the road and crossed the center line. Two pickups blocked the road ahead. A third slowed to a stop

just behind them. As we backed up, Lewis and some of his men scrambled into their cabs. Charlie’s pickup was the first out.

“For being a fat bastard with a gimp, he sure can move.” I ducked as some low branches scraped through the Jeep’s open top. “Keep your eyes on the road. Doing good.”

But the roadblock scared me too, jumping out at us like a raccoon from a trash can. Either this was overkill or something else, something bigger than Alex supposedly speaking ill of the Lewises. The red pickup came fast. The rumble of its engine preceded it down the road like wind ahead of a storm.

I pointed frantically. “Dirt road. Here.”

Alex ground gears as she tried to find first.

“Shit.” It was the first time I’d ever heard her swear. The Jeep lurched forward in a sickening gurgle.

Stalled.

“It’s okay. Take your time.” Trying to mask my panic with calm was like trying to catch fish without a worm. Or a hook.

The red truck accelerated as he came within a half mile. “He’s going to ram us.” The words came out louder than I had intended.

Alex wiped tears from her eyes then turned the key. The Jeep crawled forward as she eased it into gear. The look of sheer surprise on Charlie’s face as he overshot us almost pushed the butterflies out of my belly.

“Nice and easy now.”

The scrape of the oil pan against the road’s shoulder had the same effect on me as fingernails on a chalkboard. “Alex, listen to me. At the bottom is the Big Sandy and a chance to lose them. You got to go, though. Be dangerous, okay?”

Mud splashed onto the windshield and into my hair. “Stay against the hillside. If he catches us you need to stay against the hill. That’s the most important thing.”

She nodded.

Over my shoulder the disorder began to reorganize. The old red Chevy, Billy’s truck, slowed in time to follow us off-road instead of overshooting the turn like Charlie did. But the new red Lewis Lumber Ford was right on his tailgate and Charlie Lewis was shouting at his grandson to get the hell out of the way.

Lucky for us, Billy had nowhere to go. The convoy careened down the edge of the canyon. To our right a sheer face of Greenbrier Limestone kept us hemmed in. To the left was the long drop to the stream itself. The sound of rapids and waterfalls barely overcame the sound of engines struggling to stay in first, the most obvious sign that this once high-speed chase had taken a dramatically different pace.

“Watch out,” Alex said as this road—goat path really— shoved the Jeep up into the branches of an old white oak. Young, green acorns fell into the seats. A shower of leaves filled our wake.

“You have to go a little faster. Sorry, I know you’re nervous, but you have to go.” I adjusted the side-view mirror.

But she misinterpreted my encouraging tone as criticism and shot back, “I’m going as fast as I can.”

“No, Alex, you can go faster.”

A tremendous scrape ripped through the trees. I watched the road behind us half expecting to see my axle laying there. Instead, Billy’s old red Chevy rubbed paint onto limestone as Charlie passed on his left.

“Shit. New plan.” I turned and sank into the seat.

“You have one this time?” Her voice dropped as we bounced over a muddy rut created by recent runoff. I hung on to the roll bar.

“Still working on it.” I bit my lip and looked in the glove box for a can of snuff.

The red truck lurched forward in a more deliberate attempt to catch up.

“The only thing I can think of…” I said while trying not to get tossed from the bucking Jeep. “I’m going to have to get out—”

“No you’re not,” Alex said.

“I’m not abandoning you, but this here, it ain’t working. Trust me. You keep on going.”

“What are you planning?” Her quick glances searched for comfort in my expression. But I could only shrug.

In the back sat a case of beer bottles next to the emergency tow cable. My tool box had been buried beneath Alex’s stuff. I placed the bottles on the seat next to me and said, “I’m going to change the pace again.”

I picked up one of the warm beer bottles. Spent motor oil coated the sides like snot.

The Jeep fishtailed in the layer of old leaves that covered the slimy clay. I held onto the roll bar to keep my balance. “Doing good, Alex.”

The red Ford sprayed mud onto the windshield of the truck behind it and Charlie Lewis closed in. His face was an exaggeration of twisted features. His thin lips pulled back tight across his teeth. His gin-blossomed nose and bulging eyes reminded me of a belsnickle’s mask.

Alex slowed to round a sharp switchback, then hit the gas again. Inertia and centrifugal force knocked me onto the floor behind the passenger seat.

“Shit.” A goose egg formed on the back of my head, just below the whorl on my scalp.

“Shit.” I tried to rub the pain away then grabbed the heavy tow cable too. Twenty feet of half inch cable may not be enough to stop a truck, but there were a lot of other things I could do with it.

“You all right?” Alex asked. “Fine. Where are we at?”

Alex pulled away from Charlie at the bottom of the first of four switchbacks. I leaned out of the hairpin turn as the road doubled back on itself. These old logging roads ran around the canyon like contour lines on a topographic map, never gaining elevation, never falling. The sloped switchbacks were built to connect the parallel roads. We headed back upstream, back up the canyon.

“Slow down a sec.” I grabbed a carton of nails from my toolbox, opened them and shook them all over the road behind us.

“What?” Alex let the Jeep drift.

“I’m going to get out here. Keep going. Whatever you do, don’t stop ‘til you get to the bottom. Meet you at the bridge.”

“Be careful.”

“I will. Now go, okay? Burn wind.” I jumped onto the road with the tow cable over my shoulder. I reached back, grabbed the beer bottles and banged on the tailgate a few times. “See you at the bridge.”

Alex stepped on the gas and bolted like a rabbit out of high grass before disappearing around a shallow corner. The Jeep’s steady rumble faded into the trees.

Charlie Lewis’s red Ford appeared from the hairpin. With a flick of a finger, I encouraged him to come closer. “Fucking mouth-breather.”

He saw me and hit his gas. The truck spun a little in the mud. Charlie’s passenger had a shotgun resting on the passenger side-view mirror.

I planted my feet. Then like a pitcher about to throw a shut-out, I fired the first beer bottle at the center of his windshield.

The bottle fell short. I busted my nut way too early. My hand shook with adrenaline.

“Aw fuck it.” I stepped closer to the edge of the road and threw the next one. It hit the hood and bounced over the cab. “Shit!”

Charlie kept coming. My plan to stop him became an act of self-defense. Before throwing the third bottle I paused. Just for a second. I’d been trying too hard to get a batter to go down swinging. I needed to change tactics. I needed to throw a runner out at home.

Holding the bottle near the middle, so the oil wouldn’t fly all over, I took a deep breath, wound up and let it loose.

The bottle exploded against the windshield with a sticky haze of brown sludge. Charlie Lewis swerved into the hillside on his left to avoid rolling into the canyon. I threw another one and connected with the windshield again.

His passenger lurched and the gun fell onto the shoulder before taking a bad hop over the edge. He tapped a tentative hand on his scalp to check for blood. It was Charlie’s right-hand man, Eddie Tasso. Janie used to be best friends with his daughter, Lucinda.

Charlie pounded the hood with his pistol.

I threw another. But instead of aiming for the windshield I aimed for Charlie. It shattered against his open door. He wiped oil from his face. “Stop, you cocksucker. On your knees.”

I picked the tow cable out of the mud. All around, cobbles of Greenbrier Limestone weathered out from the ledge along the road. Some were as small as golf balls, others big as softballs. At my feet I found a nice round one, smaller than a baseball, perfect for a slider.

Charlie yelled as the stone hit the windshield inches from his fat, fumbling paw.

“Motherfucker son of a bitch,” he yelled. He fired two rounds at me.

Stepping into the trees, I yelled, “You’re taking this too far. What’s your fucking problem?” Trying to talk a black bear down from an empty beehive would’ve been easier.

Just then, I spotted Tasso reaching behind the seat. It was either for a first aid kit or a hunting rifle. I dropped down the slope before I could find out which.

“Stop,” Charlie Lewis yelled. “I’ll have your ass for property damage, then I’ll shoot you for trespassing—”

The sound of my feet sliding through wet leaves muffled the rest of what he said. My breath left me nice and easy, even though I was running as fast as I could. My Jeep passed from left to right on the road fifty yards below. Alex had slowed down considerably.

As I half slid, half fell down the slope, I searched for something to push onto the road, a rock, a log, anything. But there was only one downed tree. It was too big for me to move by myself. From the hill above, gunfire rang through the trees.

My mistake—two guns. The hunting rifle and a pistol.

Soft mud broke my landing on the road. I looked to my right and saw Alex heading toward the next switchback. Her brake lights seemed so far away.

Two to go
. I crossed the road. Climbing down the next ladder while Alex took the long away around.

I fought to keep my feet beneath me as rocks and logs slipped out from under me. Jaggers ripped at my shins. Scrambling down the slope brought me to a ledge. From where I stood it looked too high to jump. Panic prevented me from seeing an alternative. If the ledge was too high I was screwed. “Fuck, man. What’d you do?” I had to take a minute to catch my breath. My breathing came a little heavier this time.

Searching to the left and right didn’t offer any escape routes, so I improvised. A young poplar, about as thick as my thigh, stood right next to me just waiting for a moment like this to make its life meaningful. I flipped one of the tow cable’s hooks around the trunk. The easy part.

Rappelling was where my problems began.

The cable was too thin for me to easily grip. I kept slipping. Suddenly the ledge seemed like a cliff. An unrealized fear of heights surfaced, making me dizzy. I could hear the trucks coming on the road above, and got sloppy. Sweat formed on my palms. I paused above a section that went a little beyond vertical.

“Shit.”

Taking a deep breath was all I could do to prepare myself. A small step backward was the only move I had left. In an instant that small step morphed into a giant misstep. The overhang rushed up to greet me. I slammed into the face. The impact knocked the wind from me. My left shoulder, left hip and thigh tingled with the feeling that real pain was on its way. I choked to catch my breath, and tentatively lifted my arm to see whether a larger fear had been realized. It rose slowly, sending pain in protest. But it wasn’t dislocated.

The rest of my descent was barely more than a controlled fall. Young maples and hemlocks didn’t stand a chance against my skidding feet. I coiled the cable as I went. All of the wildflowers and moss and mud in the world couldn’t have stopped me. I hit the next section of road with a jarring thud. A few strong tugs with my right hand brought the rest of the cable falling after me.

Even as I hit the road I searched for my spot, jogging until I found what I was looking for—twin poplars straddling the road, probably some of the first to sprout after this area had been clear-cut.

I reckoned a couple of things could happen after I set my trap. Charlie would either stop and take the cable down or try to run through it. If he tried to run it, the cable would give at the weakest part, probably the hooks. If I was lucky, it would hold and cut his head off. Either way I’d have to place it at windshield height to make sure he saw it.