Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(19)

The Tahoe lurched and dropped back, swerving. Peter imagined the confusion inside as the arrow came through, shards of glass everywhere. Maybe he’d even hit someone. It would be like getting hit with a hammer.

Peter smiled back at the shooter, who was now holding on to his ride for dear life, trailing his rifle outside the window by its strap. The Waylon Jennings song from The Dukes of Hazzard stuck in his head. “Just a good ol’ boy, never meanin’ no harm . . .”

They came to a long turn and the black truck came up again. This time the shooter stuck his rifle out of the hole in the windshield. Peter didn’t know if that would help the man’s aim or not. He notched another ball-headed arrow.

The rifle purred again, now on full auto, still aiming for tires but firing wild. The bumps would be exaggerated from inside the truck, making it harder for the man to steady his aim.

If it were me with the gun, thought Peter, I’d have shot at the guy with the bow and arrow. They must want her bad, trying not to fire into the car by accident. Or maybe they were figuring two for the price of one, as any loss of control could be fatal for Peter, standing halfway out of the sunroof. If he was thrown clear at fifty or sixty miles an hour, the impact would turn him into jelly.

So why was he having so much fun?

He pulled the bowstring back to his cheek, feeling the pressure on his bare fingers. Aimed at the muzzle of the gun this time, waited again for a moment of calm, then released. The arrow made another hole to the left of the first, and now spiderwebs appeared in the glass. The muzzle of the gun jerked wildly for a moment, then pointed upward. Peter felt the blast of joy, reminded himself to take a deep breath, then watched as the muzzle steadied back down to point directly at his chest.

He already had his last arrow from the quiver notched and ready. It was the broadhead, the hunting point designed to slice into flesh. He aimed for where he thought the driver’s center of mass would be. Standing on the seat gave him a high vantage, so he figured the steering wheel wouldn’t interfere much with his shot.

He aimed and released.

The broadhead smashed through the windshield high and to the left of where he’d been aiming, although he still could have hit the man. The black Tahoe fell back again. Peter had more arrows below him in the long box, but he wasn’t about to ask June to hand him more. The road curved sharply ahead, the mountain on the left, the wide rocky bed of a drought-lowered river on the right.

As he bent his knees to drop back into the car, he heard the blast of an air horn. Blaat blaaaaaat.

He turned as he dropped to see the dirty red nose of a giant logging truck coming around the curve, hogging the road and growing fast.

“Omigod omigod omigod.” June’s voice rose up in a losing battle with the truck’s air horn.

The logging truck was two hundred feet away.

At their combined speeds, Peter figured they had about two seconds.

The world slowed. June’s knuckles white on the wheel, braking to buy time as she steered them toward the nonexistent right lane. No air bags in this old car.

Peter planted himself in his seat, precious fragments of a second lost as he maneuvered the awkward bow over his shoulder into the back, then jammed his feet to the floor, hoping the box of arrows would be trapped under his legs. Loose arrows could kill them as easily as the crash.

A hundred feet.

Blaaaaaaaat blat blaaaaaaaaat.

The wandering gravel road was not designed for two vehicles to pass at speed. Definitely not when one of them was a giant semi-tractor. Reaching for his seat belt with his right hand, Peter remembered the time in Oregon he had driven in reverse for twenty minutes to find a spot wide enough for a fully loaded logging truck to get past.

Fifty feet.

The Subaru was halfway onto the shoulder, a weedy slope that dropped unpredictably toward the rocky riverbed. The truck’s front grille was enormous, taller than the car. Peter could see giant bugs crushed on the glass of the headlamps.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Peter’s hand found the buckle, pulled it down and across, and snapped it into the latch as the car left the road. He planted his feet hard and threw out his left arm to keep June’s head from banging into the steering wheel. The front passenger wheel dipped. He reached for the dashboard with his right hand, locked on tight.

Gravity changed.

The landscape whirled around, the sky beneath them, weeds overhead. Then sky above and dirt below. Now clouds beneath and rocks above. Crap floated through the air as the car rolled, energy bars and water bottles and lemonade packets everywhere. Peter banged around in his seat like a toy shaken by an angry toddler, banged in the chest and legs and back over and over for what seemed like forever, until the car finally came to rest.

Peter looked out his window. The glass had disappeared completely.

The sky was up and the ground was down. They were on the dry section of the riverbed.

He looked over at June. “Are you okay? June. June!”

She looked back at him, blinking. “Oh, man,” she said sadly. “I really loved this car.”

“Are you hurt? Is anything broken? Look at me. Look at me!” All the while taking an inventory of his own injuries, the aching shoulders, the pain in his ribs that hurt when he breathed in, the left leg on fire.

She had a bruised lip that would get nice and fat, and a bloody elbow, maybe from all the glass in her lap. No compound fractures that he could see. Her window was mostly gone, but the windshield was intact.