59

We didn’t have to wait long. A Cadillac drove by about a half hour later. It was nearly dark now, but I kept my lights off as I pulled into the road behind it.

I followed the Cadillac down the mountain and east along 52. By the time the Caddy pulled off the main road and onto another mountain road, it was completely dark. I kept the headlights off and maintained as much distance as I dared, focusing on the tiny red taillights in front of me.

The road rose in front of us, narrowing and turning like a snake. Off to our right, I saw the lights of the small town of Brethren. We continued up the mountain.

Over my many years working as a private investigator, I’d followed a lot of people in this same way, headlights off, chasing their red taillights, but I’d never done it on a twisty mountain road like this one. Eventually I felt Ronnie growing tense in the seat next to me, especially when we caught a glimpse of what was coming in the glow of the Caddy’s headlights. The road wrapped around a rocky bluff, tightening itself like a belt. There was barely enough space for a vehicle on the road, and any mistake would cause a long plummet into a dark valley and an almost certain death.

The taillights disappeared around the bend.

“Turn your lights on now. He’s on the other side of the mountain,” Ronnie said. “He won’t be able to see them.”

I considered doing just that, but then thought better of it. Any inkling the driver of the Cadillac had that he was being followed would be a problem.

“Open your door,” I said.

“Why?”

“So you can see the ledge. Tell me if I get too close.”

Ronnie did as I asked.

“Can you see anything?”

“Maybe. It’s so fucking dark. Where’s the moon when you need it?”

“It’s too cloudy. Give your eyes time to adjust.”

While I was waiting for that, I drove slowly, my foot just barely touching the gas. I rolled down the window on my side and stuck a hand out, feeling for the stone wall. Once I touched it, I cut the wheel to the left, inching even closer to the wall, hugging it until I heard the scrape of the side mirror against rock.

“You’re good over here,” Ronnie said. “Just don’t straighten it out, or this tire will be in the air.”

Eventually, with me touching the wall on my side and Ronnie looking out on his, we made it around the bend. The taillights were in front of us again, far away, and much higher than we were. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the Caddy was on a totally different mountain, but that was just the way the road rose. I dropped the truck into second and started to make the climb.

We followed the Caddy like this for about twenty minutes. I became more convinced that the driver was either Blevins or Harden himself.

I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get there when I heard Ronnie whistle.

“What?”

“Slow down.”

“Why?”

“Somebody’s in the road.”

I squinted hard as I slowed the truck. Sure enough, two figures stood in the road. One of them was smoking a cigarette.

“You think it’s the Hill Brothers?” Ronnie asked.

“Yeah, Blevins had to have called ahead.”

“What now?” Ronnie asked.

“We pretend to be lost,” I said.

“And then what?”

“We go back.”

“But we ain’t even seen it yet.”

“I know, but we’re close, right? We have to be if these guys got here on foot so fast. Just let me handle it.”

One of them—the one without the cigarette—was heading this way.

With my window still down, I could hear his boots crunching on the gravel. He was moving slow, cautious. I could hardly see him at all, just a shape—a shadow—floating this way. The only corporeality that emanated from the shadow was the sound of the boots on the gravel.

Ronnie gasped.

“What?” I said, but I’d barely felt the word slide past my lips when I saw it too. Another shadow in his hands. A rifle, or shotgun, it hardly mattered except it was aimed right at me.

I slid down in the seat as the first shot hit the windshield, splintering it into bladed pebbles. The night came alive with sound and light.

More shots hit the vehicle. I was down low, my body twisted under the steering wheel, but I managed to reach up and put the truck in drive.

“Hold on,” I said, and put both hands on the gas pedal. I slammed it to the floor and felt the truck lurch ahead, spinning gravel out behind us like machine gun fire. I felt the truck lift, rising with another hill, and I pulled myself out of the floorboard, cutting my hands and wrists on the broken glass. I ignored the pain, grabbed the wheel with one hand, and flipped on the headlights with the other. The road ahead was suddenly awash in my headlights. Another bend lurked, this one as tight or tighter than the last. I slammed my foot on the brakes, but there was no stopping. I’d have to take the turn. Ronnie, still in the floorboard on the passenger’s side, screamed out, as surely as if he’d seen the same thing I had. He must have intuited it somehow. I cut the wheel, and the back end of the truck began to slip out to the side, toward the long fall into the dark nothingness.

I let off the brake, tried to center the truck, but now my front end was threatened by the yawning pit. The front right tire slipped off the ledge and Ronnie screamed again. I felt my body tense as I ripped the wheel left again, flooring the vehicle.

Somehow the other three tires found their purchase, and with a great bump and hop, we were back on the gravel road—the now straight gravel road.

“You okay?” I asked, bringing the truck to a stop.

“Yeah. Cut up a little, but I ain’t shot. That was some hellacious driving back there, Earl. Never knew you had it in you.”

“Me neither,” I said. I looked around. The road continued up a long winding rise, at the top of which was a lone cabin with a single light burning inside. The Cadillac was parked in front. “Get out,” I said.

“What?”

“Trust me. I’ve got an idea.”

“I thought you said we were going to come back after we had the lay of the land.”

“I got the lay of the land, and there ain’t no point in putting off the inevitable. Besides, this might be the only time those brothers are behind us. Hurry, before they catch back up. Oh, and look in the dash. There’s a gun for you.”

Ronnie opened the dashboard and pulled out my spare gun, a 9mm.

Then we were both jogging up the rise, toward the cabin and whatever waited inside.