“Sure. It’s staying on the road that’s the problem.”
The trees that lined our escape route to this point have vanished. Now water stretches away from both edges of the road. My margin for error is gone. With a pang of guilt, I release Wilma Deen’s neck and clench both hands on the wheel. If we go off into swamp water with those bikes behind us, we’re going to die, one way or another. Drowning in slime, or getting shot trying to crawl out of it.
Another staccato burst of lead slams into the truck. With a silent prayer, I kill the lights.
“Only two rounds left in the rifle,” Lincoln says. “I’m going to let them get closer, make these count.”
In my mind I see a God’s-eye view of our predicament: a lumbering beast being pursued by hunters on steel horses down a narrow causeway, the hunters rapidly closing the gap—
“Come on, come on,” Lincoln murmurs.
As I brace for his next shot, something slams into my seat back, then cracks against my head. Jerking forward, I risk a look behind me. Two booted feet are flailing around the cab. It’s Snake, kicking wildly from the floor of the truck. Now he’s trying to hook a foot around my head.
“Make him stop!” I yell. “I’m gonna wreck!”
“What?” Lincoln asks, still aiming the rifle through the back windshield.
He doesn’t even know Snake is conscious. While I try to keep the old man’s feet off my head, his boot glances off the seat and connects with the dome light, which flashes on again, illuminating Lincoln as he aims his pistol down at Snake’s thrashing body. I’m not going to stop him this time, but before Lincoln can fire, another fusillade rips out of the dark behind us, and he flies forward with an explosive grunt.
“Lincoln!”
Panic hits me with a force that makes fear seem trivial. Twisting in my seat, I scrabble in vain at the dome light with my right hand, then hammer it with my fist until it breaks. Blessed darkness envelops the cab once more.
Lincoln’s breath is a shallow wheeze in my ear.
“Talk to me, man! Where are you hit?”
“Shoulder blade,” he croaks. “Smashed it, I think.”
“Right or left?”
“Left . . .”
Before I can think of anything to tell him, the Harvester’s left rear door flies open and a rushing wind fills the cab. At first I’m certain that a biker somehow managed to dive into the bed of the truck, then work his way around to the door. Then I realize Snake must have done it—
“He jumped!” Lincoln yells, pushing himself off my seat back with a roar of pain. “Snake’s out of here! Stop!”
“Are you crazy?”
“The bikers slowed down . . . they don’t know what happened, or who he is. Let me shoot him. Stop!”
With a supreme act of will, I pump the brakes until we manage to stop without sliding off into the swamp.
Cursing in pain, Lincoln somehow gets my rifle up on his right shoulder and braces it on the frame of the shattered windshield.
“Can you see him?” I ask, looking down at Wilma once more. Her entire chest and abdomen are covered in blood, and her eyes are closed.
“I’ve got him. He’s silhouetted in their headlights. You see him?”
Twisting in the seat, I’m startled to see a triangular shadow against living arcs of light. Snake must be on his knees, about forty yards behind us, well within the point-blank range of the .308.
“Say a prayer, Penn. I’m sending him to hell.”
I don’t think Lincoln has ever used my first name, and I don’t have time to reflect on it because my thoughts are blasted into oblivion by another burst of gunfire from behind us, which tears into the metal and glass of the Harvester.
Lincoln jerks backward, clawing at his face with both hands. “I can’t see! There’s glass in my eyes!”
Behind us, the triangular silhouette wavers against the light, then a taller shadow joins it. The pack will be after us again in seconds. With a violent yank on the gear lever, I manhandle the transmission into reverse.
“Get down,” I yell, “they’re going to shoot again.”
“What are you doing?” Lincoln cries. “Get to the river!”
“We won’t make it. Get down!”
When I jam the gas pedal to the floor, Lincoln covers his head with both hands and rolls onto the floor. Heeding my own warning, I slide as far down as I can without losing sight of my target. The Harvester gains speed, and the air rushing through the side door builds to a buffeting wind inside the cab.
The bikers don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late to get out of the road, but Snake hears us. The silhouette stutters against the lights, doubles in height as Snake struggles to his feet, but before he takes two steps our rear bumper plows him over at fifty miles per hour. The heavy metal Harvester doesn’t even slow down until it smashes into the first Harley. The momentum of the old truck carries implacable force, and three motorcycles crumple in the face of it. After the fourth collision, the Harvester finally judders to a stop.
Screams of rage and pain reach my ears, but before anyone has time to react, I shift back into first and floor the accelerator again.
“What happened?” Lincoln croaks from the backseat.
“Snake’s dead.”
“You saw him go down?”
“He’s gone. Obliterated. How bad are you hit? Can you get to the boat?”
“I think something clipped my lung . . . can’t breathe right. How close are we to the river?”
“Close.”
“Don’t go too fast. The last thirty yards top a little berm, and there’s nothing but river after that.”
It takes inhuman restraint to slow the Harvester, but as I battle the fear coursing through my body, I remember Colonel Eklund describing my father’s actions in Korea. If Dad could do what he did in the face of almost certain death, then I can ignore what’s behind us and slow down to keep from launching us into the river.
“See any lights behind us?” Lincoln asks in a hoarse voice.
“Not yet. Do they know Snake has a boat out here?”
“I don’t know. Let’s pray that boat was Snake’s ace in the hole. Maybe they think they have us penned against the river.”
Without warning the truck tops a rise and the Mississippi River appears like the dark edge of an ocean. I kick the brake pedal, then ease back enough so as not to skid, and finally the old truck shudders to a stop.
“Where’s the boat?” I ask.
“It was tied to a tree this afternoon. Look to your left.”
Sure enough, about thirty yards downstream, I see gleaming chrome rails bobbing in the powerful current.
“Can you make it if I bring the woman?” I ask.
“I’ll make it. Is she alive?”
“I don’t know. Yell out if you need help.”