Twice in a Lifetime (3 page)

Sometimes, Clara wondered if Joe wouldn’t have wanted her to find someone else, a man to love and help care for her. Over the last nine years, she’d had her share of suitors, men who were interested, but when they saw the sadness in her eyes they walked away. Clara had closed off her heart, burying it like she had buried Joe, never to allow it to love again. Her husband had been the man of her life. There could never be another.

She was alone and would stay that way.

“I…I miss you, Joe,” she said as her hand ran along the top of his tombstone, the only caress she could give him now.

Tears fell down her cheeks. Clara had managed to hold them back when she’d spoken with the sheriff, through Tommy’s outburst, witnessing her mother’s forgetfulness, and during her drive to the cemetery. But now, she no longer had the strength.

“Help me, sweetheart,” she sobbed, sinking to her knees in the grass.

Now, when she really needed an answer, all she heard was silence.

D
RAKE
M
C
C
OY
RACED
toward the turn, then eased off the accelerator, one hand downshifting gears while the other whipped the steering wheel to the left. Tapping on the brakes, he sent the car drifting, deftly holding it steady as dirt and rock sprayed. The engine roared and the tires screamed as he strained against his seat belt. Finally, he was through the curve, hurtling into another straightaway and stomping back down on the gas.

Through it all, he never stopped smiling.

The small track was just to the west of town; Drake wasn’t even sure of the place’s name, only that it was one of hundreds like it scattered across northern Missouri, and that it had a tavern where he’d rustled up some action. The track had seen better days: weeds filled the cracks in the pavement in front of the rickety grandstand; the paint on the outbuildings was faded and chipped; and rainwater had eroded part of the grade buttressing one end, making it harder to navigate. Worse, the track had been laid out with the straightaways running east to west, meaning that drivers would be staring straight into the setting sun. Normally these things would have bothered Drake, but not today.

Today was easy money.

Confident, Drake took a quick look into his rearview mirror. The other car was fading fast. The driver had entered the turn too high and was now struggling to stay on the road; he had to slow dramatically, falling farther behind with every passing second.

So Drake took his foot off the gas.

In the many years Drake had been taking money from drivers foolish enough to bet that they were better than him, he’d learned a valuable lesson: never whoop them
too
badly.

Drake whizzed past the grandstand. His friend and mechanic, Amos Barstow, watched impassively, his arms folded over his chest. Beside him were four or five other men, friends of the driver Drake was currently leaving in the dust; he had only gotten a quick glimpse, but he could see that none of them looked happy.

Most times Drake raced, it was like today; he was either on his own or had one other person along, while his opponent would be a local, a loudmouth, surrounded by friends, his pride on the line alongside his money. Usually, they drove fancy cars, new but without much substance, and looked at Drake’s four-year-old black Plymouth as outdated. They were braggarts who wouldn’t know how to spell
humility
if you spotted them six letters. That often made them sore losers. If they were beaten so badly that they were embarrassed, there could be problems; once, in Arkansas, Drake had had a gun pulled on him. Now, both older and wiser, he found it better to let his opponents lose with their dignity intact.

Barreling headlong into the next turn, Drake made it seem as if he was struggling to hold the road, which was tricky; it couldn’t be
too
obvious that he was shrinking the distance between the cars. By the time Drake was back on the opposite straightaway, the other driver was much closer.

And I bet he’s starting to think he just might win this thing…

But he was dead wrong. The bet had been for ten laps, so that meant there were only two to go. Drake would let the other car hang around, never drawing much closer, making for a good showing, but when it was time to cross the finish line, he would be first.

Drake smiled again. No matter what his life was like off the racetrack, he had always found peace behind the wheel. Most people would be terrified by the deafening noise, the bumpy rides, and the ever-present danger of a crash, but Drake was filled with a sense of calm. The inside of a racing car felt like the place where he belonged, almost as if it was home. Here, everything made sense.

Suddenly, violently, Drake was jolted out of his thoughts when the other driver rammed his rear bumper. The force of the blow caused the steering wheel to fight him, the Plymouth loose on the dirt track, trying to escape, but Drake held on, his hands a strangling vise, and fought it back under control.

“Now why in the hell did you have to go and do that?” he asked into the rearview mirror.

The rube wasn’t going down without a fight. At the next turn, one of the last, he took the more dangerous route and tried to pass Drake’s car on the left, to the inside of the track; at high speed and with such a tight angle, his chances of success were slim. Still, the odds didn’t appear to dissuade him any.

“You better watch what you’re getting into…” Drake warned.

Having been in this position hundreds of times before, Drake refused to budge; he had seen less-experienced drivers shrink in the face of impending contact, but if he wanted to win, he couldn’t give way.

Sure enough, seconds later the Plymouth was once again battered. The other driver’s bumper rubbed up against Drake’s rear wheel. The car bucked hard and the sound of grinding metal was deafening; he could only imagine the look on Amos’s face. Risking a quick glance back, Drake saw a shower of sparks. Regardless, he hung steady, determined not to give an inch.

You’re not going to get me that easy!

Roaring into the final curve, as the grandstand and finish line came into sight, Drake cut the corner tighter than he normally would, shrinking the other driver’s space further. Such a move left his competitor with few choices: he could either back off and concede victory to Drake, or he could push himself into an even more precarious situation, a dangerous one, a position that could easily end in a crash.

Not knowing better, and with the pressure of his friends looking on, Drake knew exactly which choice the man would make.

Danger, and damn the consequences.

With his accelerator pressed to the floor, the other driver plowed recklessly forward, once again brushing up against the Plymouth. Neither man would surrender an inch, determined not to be the loser, as they hurtled toward the rapidly approaching finish line. Drake grinned as he held the shaking wheel, his heart pounding in his chest, sweat dripping down his face as he tried to force his opponent farther to the inside. Wooden poles had been spaced at regular intervals along the track, many now leaning and worn, in as much of a state of disrepair as the rest of the place, and it wasn’t long before the other car smashed into one, then another, and then more. They exploded on contact, sending showers of splinters flying; one broken pole cracked the car’s windshield. Eventually, the barrage became too much for the other driver and he spun out of control, shooting up a cloud of dust before eventually coming to rest pointed back the way he had come.

Drake crossed the finish line first, the winner.

He was laughing the whole way.

“I told you to be careful!”

Amos Barstow stormed past Drake and knelt beside the Plymouth, inspecting the damage. When his hand touched the deep dent in the rear panel, he winced.

“That’s what I was doing,” Drake insisted, raising his hands, palms out. “But when the other guy gets it into his head to try to pass on the inside and there isn’t room to do it, I’m gonna get hit. What was I supposed to do? Lose?”

“Fixing this might cost us more than we won!”

Drake shrugged. “Take it up with the other guy if he ever manages to get off the track, though I doubt he’ll be in the mood to talk.”

The other car looked to have stalled. The driver was under the hood, swearing so loudly they could hear him at the grandstand.

“If you’d done what I told you to do, that bum wouldn’ta been within half a lap,” Amos grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

“What are you talking about? I won the race.”

The mechanic frowned. “I seen you take your foot off the gas, all ’cause you’re worried ’bout tryin’ to make that chump look good.” Giving the dented bumper a rap with his knuckles, he added, “And this is what it got us.”

Drake chewed the inside of his lip. Amos knew him as well as anyone. Hell, he knew him better. They had met eight years earlier, just after the war, when Drake got back behind the wheel. Amos had bounced around tracks for decades, tinkering with engines and making them run harder and faster than they’d ever gone before. Now closer to sixty than fifty, almost fifteen years older than Drake, Amos was thin, with sandy blond hair that looked white in the sun. Sweat slicked his forehead, wetting his shirt against his skin. Grease stained his fingers and filled the deep wrinkles that creased his hands, a testament to his work and passion.

“Every one of these dents is ’cause you were takin’ risks you ain’t got no reason chancin’,” Amos continued. “What’s wrong with us embarrassin’ that boy, winnin’ some money, and then hightailin’ it outta town?”

“What would be the fun in that?”

“Fun,” the mechanic echoed dismissively.

While Drake found happiness behind the wheel of a race car, caked in choking dust or dripping with sweat as he whipped around a track or down a lonely road, walking a dangerous, fine line, Amos’s love of cars was different. To Amos, automobiles were puzzles in need of solving. Under the hood, with a tool in his hand and the bright light of a work bulb illuminating the guts of an engine, was where he found happiness. If there was a problem, he fixed it, replacing broken parts and busted hoses, adding grease, water, or oil. When there wasn’t an issue, he created one: a challenge to drive faster, to push himself and the car to greater heights. Drake was the beneficiary, putting Amos’s handiwork up against drivers in Illinois and Mississippi, Kansas and Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. Together, they managed to eke out a living running sanctioned races around tracks, winning their share of trophies and prize money, and then supplementing their income by running against braggarts who thought their skills would match up. After all the years they’d spent together, the bond between the two men was strong, greater than friendship; Drake sometimes felt as if Amos was the father he wished he’d had. Still, that closeness didn’t mean the mechanic wasn’t testy whenever Drake brought back a damaged car.

“It’s gonna be hell to knock out these dents,” Amos grumbled.

“What are you complaining about? Would you rather I get hit up front? At least the engine isn’t busted up.”

“I’d rather you didn’t get hit at all!”

As he and Amos bickered, Drake kept an eye on the other driver’s friends. They appeared uncomfortable, put out that the car they’d backed had come up short. They kept looking back and forth between Drake and their bested companion, still swearing a blue streak out on the track; it was telling that not a one of them had moved an inch to help him.

“Which one’s holding the money?” Drake asked.

“The mousy-lookin’ one in the checkered shirt,” the mechanic answered, not even looking up from the damaged car.

Before the race had begun, they had agreed to have one of the men hold the forty dollars wagered; now that he’d won, Drake wanted his earnings.

“I’ll be right back.”

“You best be more careful than you was racin’,” Amos said.

Flashing a good-natured smile, Drake walked over to the men. Right away, it was obvious which one held the money. He was a runt of a man, short, all bony shoulders and elbows. His eyes were narrow and wild, looking everywhere but at Drake; just as Amos had said, he looked like a rodent.

“So, fellas,” Drake began. “Now that the race is over, I reckon it’s time for me to collect my winnings.”

“Well, I…I, uh…” the mousy man mumbled.

“I wouldn’t give him nothin’, Garrett,” one of his companions suggested; neither of the other men was much more remarkable than the money holder, disheveled in appearance and dress, clearly lackeys, not leaders.

“Just wait till Caleb gets here,” the other said.

“Listen here, Garrett,” Drake insisted, raising his voice enough to grab the man’s full attention. “You watched the race, didn’t you?”

Garrett nodded dumbly.

“So you saw me cross the finish line first, right?”

Another nod.

“Then there shouldn’t be any problem giving me the money. I was the winner, after all.” Drake had seen enough situations like this one to know that the sooner he got his money and took off, the better. Once men like this started thinking, bad things happened.

But a sudden honk meant that it was too late.

Drake turned to see the other driver finally leave the track. He braked his dented car to a sudden stop, kicking up a cloud of dust. The driver’s-side door flew open and Caleb got out. The man was red with fury, his face covered in sweat, his clothes and hands filthy from working beneath the hood. “Don’t give that son of a bitch a dime!” he shouted.

As Caleb stalked toward them, Drake noticed that each of the man’s friends took a small step back, all of them cowed in his presence.

Drake moved closer.

“The deal was winner takes all,” he explained, once again trying on his easy smile. “The way I see it, that would be me.”

“I didn’t lose,” the other man growled.

Caleb reached Drake and stopped, staring at him with barely restrained rage. Almost twenty years younger, he was half a head taller, his arms thick with muscle, his body tense with the energy of youth. There was little doubt in Drake’s mind that the man was used to getting his way, bullying those around him into doing his bidding; to be shown up so badly had wounded far more than his wallet.

To the younger man, Drake figured he looked like just another obstacle to be bowled over. At forty-two, he wasn’t physically imposing, but he carried himself well. Trim, he still had plenty of strength. His dark hair was cut short and flecked with silver across the temples. There were a few lines on his face, but whenever he smiled they vanished. It was only in his eyes, autumn brown touched with green, crinkled with a flock’s worth of crow’s-feet, that he saw his true age; some mornings he had trouble recognizing himself in the mirror, as if a stranger was looking back at him in the glass. But though he was no longer a young buck, Drake McCoy wasn’t easily intimidated.

Especially when it came to racing.

Drake chuckled. “Must have been my imagination then, crossing the finish line while you were pointed in the wrong direction.”