Dan saw the cop was reducing speed. The truck was creeping up on him. The great beam of the headlights was centred on his back.
‘The fool!’ Dan thought. ‘He must know she’s nuts. He must know she’ll run him down.’ And he leaned out of the cab and screamed at the crouching figure just ahead.
‘Get on! She’ll nail you, you goddamn fool! Get out of the way! She’s going to run you down!’
The wind snatched the sound from his mouth, flung it uselessly away. The cop couldn’t hear anything above the roar of his engine and the wind. He was still reducing speed, set solid in the middle of the road. The truck’s lights beat on him; the roaring hood of the truck no more than twenty feet from his rear wheel.
Dan turned frantically, made a grab at the ignition switch, but the girl slashed at him with hooked fingers. Her nails ploughed furrows down his cheek and he cannoned against the steel side of the cab as the truck swerved, ran up the grass verge, straightened, slammed back on to the road again. He held his face in his hands, blood running between his fingers, his skin crawling with horror and pain.
Then, as he looked up, it happened. The cop glanced over his shoulder, seemed to sense his danger. Nick saw the mud-splashed, goggled face for a brief second, saw the mouth open iii a soundless shout. The girl rammed down the gas pedal. The two machines seemed suspended in space: the motor-cycle struggling to get away, the truck to reach and destroy it. Then with a tremendous surge of power, the truck hit the motor-cycle and contemptuously tossed it high into the air.
Above the roar of the wind Dan heard the cop’s yell of terror, heard the crash as the motor-cycle hit the mountain-side, saw the flash of fire as it burst into flames. Then he saw a dark form come down heavily in the road, right in the path of the truck’s headlights.
‘Look out!’ he screamed, threw up his hands before his face.
The cop struggled to his knees as the truck smashed into him. The off-side wheel bumped up, thudded down. The off-side rear wheel skidded and slithered in something soft. Then they had an empty road ahead of them once more.
‘You’ve killed him!’ Dan yelled. ‘You mad, wicked bitch!’
Without thinking, he flung himself forward, snatched at the ignition key, ducked under a flying claw. He managed to turn the switch and then seize the wheel. He tried to wrench it to the right to crash the truck into the mountain-side, but the girl was too strong. The truck swayed madly on the road while they fought for the possession of the wheel.
His face was close to hers. He could see her eyes like lamps behind green glass. Swearing at her, he hit out, but the truck swayed and his fist scraped the side of her face.
She drew in a quick hissing breath, released the wheel and went for him. Her nails ripped across his eyeballs, splitting his eyelids, blinding him. He felt hot blood drowning his eyes and he fell back, crying with pain, hitting madly at nothing, seeing nothing: a nightmare of pain and movement.
The girl slipped from under the wheel and threw herself at him, her hands fastening on his throat; her long fingers sinking into his flesh.
The truck swung off the road, crashed through the white wood fence. The headlights swung aimlessly out into a black empty pit. Stones rattled inside the mudguards as the tyres bit uselessly on the gravel verge. There was a crunching, ripping noise and the truck hung for a second in mid-air, then went down through the darkness into the valley below.
The big Buick utility van, its long hood glistening in the morning sunshine, swept effortlessly up the road that rose steeply towards the mountains.
Steve Larson sat at the wheel; his brother, Roy, lounged at his side. There was nothing to tell that these-two men were brothers. Steve was big, muscular and fair, with good-humoured eyes. His skin was burned a deep mahogany colour from the wind and the sun and he looked younger than his thirty-two years. He had on corduroy trousers and a cowboy check shirt and his rolled-up sleeves revealed thick brown arms.
Roy was older, dark, almost a head shorter than his brother. His thin lips were nervous, his agate eyes narrow. His movements were sharp, jerky; his reflexes exaggerated, those of a high-strung man whose nerves are beginning to snap under some constant strain. His smart city clothes looked out of place in the mountain country.
Steve had driven down from his fox farm up on Blue Mountain Summit to meet his brother, who had travelled by train cross country from New York. The brothers hadn’t seen each other for years, and Steve was still puzzled to know why Roy had suddenly decided to visit him. It was not as if they’d ever got on well together, and Roy’s surly greeting when Steve met him at the station came as no surprise. The two men scarcely spoke a dozen words for the first two miles of the journey. Roy seemed nervous and kept looking back through the rear window as if to make sure they were not being followed. This unexpected furtiveness began to, get on Steve’s nerves, but knowing how touchy his brother was, he hesitated to ask what it was all about.
‘You look pretty well,’ he said, attempting to get a conversation started. ‘Doing all right in New York?’
‘So-so,’ Roy grunted, twisted round once more to peer through the rear window of the van.
‘Well, it’s nice to see you again after all these years,’ Steve went on, not sure whether he was being sincere or not. ‘What made you suddenly decide to come out and see me?’ If there was anything on Roy’s mind — and Steve was pretty sure that there was — this was an obvious opening for his confidence.
But Roy hedged.
‘Thought a little change of air might do me good,’ he said, shifting in his seat. ‘New York’s too hot in the summer, anyway.’ He stared morosely at the huge rocky peaks that cut up the distant skyline. Whichever way he looked mountain rose above mountain, some jagged and sharp, some softly rounded, their crevices and fissures filled with snow, which gave off a dazzling brightness under the sun. ‘Lonely as hell here, isn’t it?’ he went on, impressed in spite of himself.
‘It’s grand,’ Steve returned, ‘but you’ll find it quiet after New York. I’m twenty miles from the nearest cabin and I’m lucky if I have a visitor in weeks.’
‘That’ll suit me,’ Roy said. ‘I aim to relax.’ He twisted round in his seat to stare through the rear window again. The long empty road unwinding like a ribbon behind them seemed to give him satisfaction. ‘Yeah, this is going to suit me fine.’ He brooded for a moment, went on: ‘But I wouldn’t like it for always. How do you get on, being all alone? Don’t it make you restless?’
‘It suits me,’ Steve returned. ‘Of course it does get lonely at times, but I’m pretty busy. I have over a hundred foxes to look after, and I’m self-supporting.’
Roy shot him a hard, curious look.
‘How do you get along for a woman up here?’ he asked.
Steve’s face tightened.
‘I don’t,’ he said, staring ahead. He knew what Roy was like with women.
‘You always were a cold-blooded punk,’ Roy said, tilting his hat to the back of his head. ‘You mean you stick here year after year without seeing a woman?’
‘I’ve been here a year, anyway, and I don’t bother with women,’ Steve returned shortly.
Roy grunted.
‘I wish I’d imported a floosie,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d got a supply laid on.’
Ahead the road forked to right and left.
‘We go right,’ Steve said, changing the subject. ‘Left takes you to Oakville, over the mountain and down into the valley. You’d see plenty of traffic on that route. All trucks heading from California use the Oakville road. This way we go up into the mountains.’
‘Looks like a wrecked truck up there,’ Roy said suddenly, and pointed.