Crecca let off on the gas.
“What are you waiting for?” the Magus howled. “Ram it!”
Much easier said than done.
Crecca let the RV roll back fifteen feet, as far as he could go without hitting the wag behind, then he tromped the gas pedal. The Winnebago struggled up the slope, banged into the wag, deeply denting the sidewall, but didn’t budge it out of position even an inch. If anything, the blocking RV seemed to be wedged more firmly into the face of the uphill road.
“Get out!” the Magus cried. “Get out and find a way to move the damn thing!”
Crecca ordered the three rousties out first. They exited with their blasters ready. The carny master waited a minute or two, then followed with a chain-clipped Jackson at his side and an M-16 in his hands.
Crecca carefully watched his young stickie, who stretched out its neck and sniffed at the air. From Jackson’s lack of blood lust, he knew that Cawdor and his pals were nowhere around. He waved for the other drivers and rousties to exit their wags. All in all, just fifteen chillers had survived Bullard ville, not counting the Magus.
A brief look-see told Crecca that they couldn’t use the other wag to push or pull the obstacle out of the way. He climbed into the abandoned wag’s driver’s compartment and tried to start the engine. It cranked over, but when he put it in gear and tried to power forward, all he managed to do was dig holes in the road with the back wheels. Then the engine died, and he couldn’t restart it. The gauges on both fuel tanks read empty.
The Magus wasn’t happy when he got the news that pursuit of Ryan Cawdor would have to proceed on foot. With his bad leg, he couldn’t walk, let alone run to keep up with the others. And if they carried him it would only slow the chase.
It meant he would miss the fun, unless the fun was brought to him.
Standing in the RV’s open passenger doorway on his good leg, the Magus gave Crecca his marching orders. “I want three rousties to stay here with me. Take the rest and all the excess ammo, and track down Cawdor and the others. I don’t care what you do to his friends, but I want you to bring Cawdor back here alive, even if he’s barely breathing.” He paused for a pain spasm to pass, then added, “And his kid, too.”
Crecca chose three men to stay behind. As twelve of his rousties hurried to gather up the surplus ammo, the carny master stared at the lucky ones who weren’t going ahead on foot. They were trying hard not to look too relieved. Though it had gone unsaid, he knew their job was going to be carrying the Magus to safety if he and the others didn’t make it back. If Ryan Cawdor chilled them all, the monster left himself an exit option.
With Jackson securely leashed, the carny master led his men past the roadblock and up the road. He could see the wall of blue dark forest ahead, and above the tops of the nearest trees, the savage looking ridge of the mountain.
Tactically speaking, Crecca knew the situation had changed. In the terrain ahead, the rousties’ advantage in numbers was negated. Once inside the woods, they would be open to ambush. To hit-and-run strikes. To that scoped longblaster Cawdor carried.
Crecca payed out the full length of Jackson’s chain, letting his mutie bird dog enter the forest first. Jackson strained hard at the leash, sniffing the air. Long strands of drool swayed from its chin as it made soft kissing sounds.
The stickie had caught Cawdor’s scent.
Chapter Twenty-Four
From his vantage point, some six hundred feet above the ruined interstate, Baron Kerr watched and waited. The secondary fire road on which he hunkered ran over the top of the mountain and down its west-facing slope, intersecting the ancient freeway a quarter mile from the barricade, on the Paradise ville side. Parked in the shadows behind a large sandstone boulder a short distance uphill was the Baja Bug Kerr had commandeered from the carny scout. From the direction of Bullard, he could make out a series of dust devils, twisting high into the windless afternoon sky.