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His bullet clanged off a flange six inches from my head. I shot at him and missed. But it was enough to change the dynamics of things. He wasn’t holding ground anymore. He was getting out of Dodge, jumping to the next car as I struggled to my feet.
He was leaping to an oval-shaped tanker car when I jumped onto the container car behind him. I landed fine but I didn’t see the rider anymore. Then I realized he’d slipped when he’d landed on the tanker and done a face-plant.
He was slow to move, dazed by the hit, and I was able to close much of the gap between us. When he finally regained his feet, I saw he was no longer carrying the suppressed pistol. Had he dropped it?
“Stop!” I yelled. “I just want to talk to you.”
But he kept moving forward.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
He didn’t slow.
I aimed to his left, sent a bullet by his ear. That caused him to cringe and turn toward me with his hands up.
That’s better, I thought. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Ahead, I could see we were approaching a train trestle. I cautiously jumped to the tanker and got another ten feet closer to the rider. We were less than twenty feet apart. He crouched, holding on to a wheel on top of the tanker.
“I just want to talk,” I said again.
“’Bout what, man?” he asked, trying to act tough but looking scared.
I held up my hand, showed him the three-finger salute, said, “I want to talk about this. And Finn Davis. And Marvin Bell. And you riding this train.”
He looked at me like I’d grown horns and shook his head. “No way, man.”
“We know you’re protecting something on this train. What is it?”
He looked away from me, shook his head again. “No way. Can’t.”
“We can protect you.”
“No, you can’t,” he said. “Ain’t no one can protect anyone from Grandfather and the company.”
“Grandfather and the company?” I said as the train started across the trestle high above a deep, narrow canyon thick with woods. “Who’s Grandfather? What’s the company?”
Looking at me with a stricken expression, he said, “Death of me.”
He let go of the wheel, launched out of the crouch, and dove off the tanker, off the trestle, screaming and waving his arms and trying to fly as he took the long fall to the treetops, crashed down through them, and vanished.
Chapter
79
I couldn’t believe it, and I twisted around, looking back and down into the canyon and the forest that had swallowed that young man whole. The only creatures I could see were crows circling lazily above the canopy, all of which disappeared from my view when the train rounded a curve.
The tunnel on the other side appeared so fast I had to throw myself down on top of the tanker and hold tight until we exited the other side into deep woods. I tried to call Bree but got no signal. There was no chance for me to get off the train for ten miles.
By the time it slowed and then stopped, night had fallen and the moon had risen. I’d come a long ways down in elevation. In the dim light I could see agricultural fields to either side of the tracks. I peered ahead, looking for a road crossing. Why were we stopped? I was about to climb off when—
“Let’s do this, man,” a male voice called from down the embankment.
I startled and then realized he was talking to me.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
