Bull Mountain(35)

“How much, Tilmon? How much you want?” Moe lifted his ass off the seat and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “I got seventy . . . seventy-three dollars. Will that cover it?”

“Put your money away, Moe. I’m just trying to make a point. Look . . . we’re losing Romeo.”

Moe looked out the window at the large sideview mirror and saw the black ’66 shovelhead Harley that had been tailing them pull over next to exit 118 to Broadwater Campground. Moe stuffed his wallet back in his pants and grabbed the radio handset.

“Romeo, what’s going on back there, bro?”

Static.

“I gotta take a leak. Keep on truckin’ and I’ll catch up.”

“Copy that. Bracken, you hear that?”

The voice of Bracken Leek, riding the Heritage Classic in front of Tilmon and Moe’s box truck, came over the radio. “Yeah, I got it. Do what you gotta do, Romeo, and get your ass back in gear.”

“Nothing to it but to do it,” Romeo said.

Tilmon reached for his smokes. “Bro?”

“Huh?”

“A second ago, you called Romeo ‘bro.’ You can’t stand that guy.”

“Yeah, well, he don’t hold two-year grudges over f*ckin’ cigarettes.”

Tilmon rolled his eyes. “Jesus, I’m sorry I said anything.” He held the pack out to his partner.

“Shove those up your ass, Tilmon.”

“Keep sharp, boys,” Bracken’s voice blared over the radio. “I don’t like being a man down. Keep your eyes open.”

The men exchanged a curious look. The big man they were going to see practically owned the state police on this stretch. They’d been making this run uninterrupted for years. Bracken was getting old. Everything made the guy paranoid.

“Moe, you copy?”

Moe grabbed the handset. “We copy, boss. We’re good back here.”

“Just confirm you heard me, and keep your eyes open.”

“Copy that.” Moe slid the radio back into the cradle. “The f*ck is his problem?”

“No idea,” Tilmon said.

“You two must’ve ate a bunch of * sandwiches before we left this morning.”

Tilmon blew a lungful of smoke at him. “Give it a rest, dude. You know I was just messing with you. Mi Camel, su Camel. Here.” He held the pack out again. Moe reached out to grab it, but the sudden jerk of the brakes slammed him into the door frame.

“What the hell, Tilmon?”

“Oh, shit. Do you see that?” Tilmon said, and pointed to Bracken’s wobbling Heritage right before it dropped to its side and skidded off the two-lane highway in a screaming whirlwind of sparks and dust. Bracken covered his face and rolled across the blacktop into the tall saw grass. Tilmon slowed the box truck, but not enough to avoid the highway spikes someone had painted black and laid out across the asphalt. All four tires blew like shotgun blasts, and the truck fishtailed all over the road, slinging an un-seat-belted Moe all over the cab. He cracked his forehead into the windshield, spiderwebbing the glass, then thrust back down hard into the seat, taking another hard whack to the back of the head against the aluminum wall behind him. The truck finally came to a stop on the embankment, wedged in the dirt and tall grass. Tilmon sat frozen, both hands death-gripped to the wheel. Moe, who ended up mostly on the floorboards, held his battered head with one hand and wiped the blood from his eyes with the other.

2.

One of four men decked out in flannel shirts and clown masks tossed Moe into the saw grass on the side of the road. Another man pried Tilmon out of the driver’s seat and forced him onto his knees next to Moe.

“You motherf*ckers picked the—” A jolt of hot pain exploded in Moe’s jaw as one of the hijackers brought the stock of his rifle down on his face. Moe fell back into the dirt and weeds and ran his tongue over his freshly loosened teeth.

“Until I ask you something, you keep your f*ckin’ trap shut,” the man said, and looked at Tilmon. “You got something you want to say?”

Tilmon did. He had a lot to say, but he liked his teeth so he kept his mouth shut.

“Good boy,” the man said.

Two more flannel clowns rounded the truck and tossed a road-battered Bracken Leek by his leathers to the ground in front of his men. His right leg was a mangled mess and he groaned when he hit the grass. Metallic blood-stink came off him, but other than his leg, it was hard to tell where, or if, he was hurt anywhere else because of the head-to-toe leather. It had most likely saved his life. Two of the hijackers patted down Bracken and his crew and took away their guns, stuffing them into their own waistbands. They zip-tied Moe’s and Tilmon’s hands behind their backs as the man in blue flannel, the one who appeared to be in charge, squatted down in front of Bracken. Red Flannel stood behind his boss with his rifle trained, while the other two searched the truck.

“You the man here?” Blue Flannel said.

Bracken propped himself up the best he could, nodded, and spit a little blood into the grass.

“I thought so. This is a simple deal right here. Give it to me, and you get to go back to whatever shithole biker bar you came from, a little the worse for wear, but breathing. Or give me a ration of shit, and I let my boy here shoot you all in the face and we take it anyway. You choose.”