AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Ahn-"
"Let him talk," Duvalier said.
"I cannot walk far. Let me lead them on a wild Grog hunt. When they catch up, I will grunt and pretend that I am simple. They will think a trick has been played, that a poor dumb Grog has been put at the wheel to lead them away."
"Lots of Grogs know how to drive. They're good at it," Thatcher said.
Valentine looked at Duvalier, but she wasn't listening, or was only half listening. Her lips were moving in steady rhythm.
"Four minutes behind," she said. "I marked that hilltop."
She began to fiddle with her explosive-packed Spam cans, a detonator, and a fuse. She threw one out on one side of the road, and then the other went into the opposite ditch.
"You'll have to get royal-flush lucky to take one of them out," Thatcher said.
"I'm not trying for that. I just want to fool them into thinking they've been ambushed."
Valentine drove past a burning barn, collapsed down to the foundation and mostly sending up smoke by now. The Lincoln plunged into a thicket and he had to slow down. He found another legworm track and cut off the road again, splashing through a stream. The wheels briefly spun as they came up the other side, then they were out into broken country again. Following the legworm trail, he found yet another farm service road running along a rounded, wooded hill. They were in real back country now. It would be dangerous to go off-road-not that the roads in this part of Kentucky were much better.
"They're still behind," Duvalier said.
Valentine wanted to wrench the steering wheel free of its mount, throw it out the window, turn around, and smash the Lincoln into their pursuers-
"Enough, my David," Ahn-Kha said. "Let me take the wheel."
"Val, it's the only way," Duvalier said.
"Alright. But I'm coming with you."
"No," Ahn-Kha said. "You've kept faith with me. You must still see Gail back. I may be able to fool them. With you, there will be too many questions."
Valentine stopped the Lincoln in the middle of the road. "We have to hurry. Everyone out. Thatcher, don't forget your gun and duffel."
Ahn-Kha climbed out the back and came around to the driver's door, helping himself stand up by putting his long right arm on the side of the Lincoln, puddler cradled in his left. He was a mess, his back peppered with bandages and streaked in blood, a thick dressing on the back of his firepluglike thigh. Duvalier stopped before him, then stood on tiptoe to kiss one whiskered cheek. She looped her oversized canteen around the Golden One's neck. "I want this back, you hairy fuck. You hear me?"
Ahn-Kha murmured a few words into her ear.
"Oh, dream on," she laughed, wiping away tears.
Valentine could only stand, tired and fighting his headache, fiddling with his gun. Would it be better for their pursuit to come upon all their bodies, stretched out next to the flaming Lincoln? Perhaps with every dead hand posed with middle finger extended?
"We'll meet another dawn, my David," Ahn-Kha said as he reclined the driver's seat all the way so he could squeeze up front. He tossed the puddler onto the passenger seat.
"If we live to see another dawn," Valentine said.
"If not, we'll meet in a far better place," Ahn-Kha said. One ear rose a trifle.
"Good luck, old horse," Valentine said. He placed his forehead against Ahn-Kha's, hugged him, felt the rough skin and the strangely silky hair on his upper back.
Ahn-Kha squeezed the back of his neck and the Lincoln drove away.
"Off the road! Fast," Valentine said. Issuing orders in his old command voice, then picking a route up the hill, kept him from staring after the receding Lincoln. The best friend Valentine ever had, or would ever have, left only a little blood on the road. "Thatcher, lead them up that hillside."
Duvalier pulled the whining, pregnant Gail Foster into the bush, opening a gap in the bramble with her walking stick. Dr. Boothe and Pepsa followed her, Pepsa searching anxiously down the road for their pursuers. Valentine spotted one of Duvalier's Spam cans, unopened and unwired, left in the center of the road, and picked it up with a curse.
Valentine closed the gap in the brush behind them by forcing a few tree limbs down, and limped after his party, giving his tears their time.
Halfway up the hill they froze and counted the pursuit. A column rolled up the slight incline: another motorcycle, two Hummers, a pickup with dogs in it, and two five-ton trucks. A platoon of Wolves or a team of Bears could knock hell out of them, but he and Duvalier would waste themselves against it.
