corner of the Road king. He eased past the first pair of headlights and
the engine hatch “-cut across Arizona into New Mexico-” “-they got cops,
too-”
“-into Texas, put a few states between us, drive all night if we have
to.” Jim was grateful that the shoulder of the highway was dirt rather
than loose gravel. He crept silently across it to the driver’s-side
headlights, staying low.
“-you know what piss-poor cooperation they got across state lines ”
“-he’s out there somewhere, damn it”
“-so’re a million scorpions and rattlesnakes-” Jim stepped around to
their side of the motor home, covering them with the shotgun. “Don’t
move!”
For an instant they gaped at him the way he might have stared at a
three-eyed Martian with a mouth in its forehead. They were only about
eight feet away, close enough to spit on, which they looked like they
deserved. At a distance they had appeared as dangerous as snakes with
legs, and they still looked deadlier than anything that slithered in the
desert.
They were holding their handguns, pointed at the ground. Jim thrust the
shotgun at them and shouted, “Drop ’em, damn it!”
Either they were the hardest of hard cases or they were nuts-probably
both-because they didn’t freeze at the sight of the shotgun. The guy
with the redoubled ponytail flung himself to the ground and rolled.
Simultaneously, the refugee from Road Warrior brought up his pistol, and
Jim pumped a round into the guy’s chest at point-blank range, blowing
him backward and down and all the way to hell.
The survivor’s feet vanished as he wriggled under the Road king.
To avoid being shot in the foot and ankle, Jim grabbed the open door and
jumped onto the step beside the driver’s seat. Even as his feet left
the ground, two shots boomed from under the motor home, and one of them
punctured the tire beside which he’d been standing.
Instead of retreating into the Road king, he dropped back to the ground,
fell flat, and shoved the shotgun under the vehicle, figuring to take
his adversary by surprise. But the guy was already out from under on
the other side. Jim could see only the black cowboy boots hurrying
toward the rear of the motor home. The guy turned the corner-and
vanished.
The ladder. At the right rear corner. Next to the racked motorcycle.
The bastard was going onto the roof Jim hustled all the way under the
Road king before the killer could look over the edge of the roof, spot
him, and fire down. It was no cooler beneath the vehicle, because the
sun-scorched earthen shoulder radiated the heat it had been storing up
since dawn.
Two cars roared by on the highway, one close after the other. He hadn’t
heard them coming, maybe because his heart was beating so hard that it
felt as if he were inside a kettle drum. He cursed the motorists under
his breath, then realized they couldn’t be expected to stop when they
saw a guy like Dork Knob prowling the top of the motor home with a
handgun He had a better chance of winning if he continued to do the
unexpected so he immediately crawled on his belly, fast as a marine
under fire, to the rear of the Road king. He twisted onto his back,
eased his head out past the rear bumper, and peered up across the
Harley, at the ascending rungs that appeared to dwindle into blazing
white sun.
The ladder was empty. The killer was already on the roof He might think
that he had temporarily mystified his pursuer with his vanishing act and
in any case he wouldn’t expect to be followed with utter wrecklessness
Jim slid all the way into the open and went up the ladder.
He gripped the hot siderail with one hand, holding the compact shotgun
with the other, trying to ascend as soundlessly as possible. His
adversary was surprisingly quiet on the aluminum surface above, making
barely enough noises of his own to cover an occasional pop and squeak
from the ladder rungs under Jim’s feet.
At the top, Jim cautiously raised his head and squinted across the roof