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“Parker’s not going to just put his hands in the air when we show up,” he says. “He’s going to run. He’ll fight back. What happened in San Antonio is proof of that.”
“Harvey was the one who shot Luisa Ramirez,” I say. “Parker said as much. He made it clear he never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“If the only way to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison is shooting a Texas Ranger,” Carlos says without taking his eyes off the road, “I don’t think he’ll hesitate.”
I think about this for a minute.
If Parker goes for his gun, will I shoot him down? Can I kill someone I once called a friend?
I’m out of time.
“We’re here,” Carlos says, as we crest a hill and spot where the road passes over the tracks. “Get your head in the game, Rory.”
CHAPTER 49
UP AHEAD, DOWN a gently sloping grade, we see a familiar confluence—just like in Parker’s diorama—where the road meets with the Pecos River and the railroad track perched along the canyon’s edge. The road crosses over both the tracks and the river via an old iron truss bridge.
There are two men—clad head to toe in black—on top of the bridge, standing next to motorcycles and looking down on the tracks below. As the train barrels toward them, ready to pass underneath their feet, it looks like the two men are getting ready to jump on top of it.
Carlos floors the accelerator, and we roar down the hill toward the bridge. The train, barreling toward the junction, looks like it’s going to reach them mere seconds before us.
The motorcyclists turn their heads and spot us. Both men are wearing their helmets, keeping their faces hidden.
One of the figures throws a leg over his motorcycle, kicks the bike to life, and blasts away, heading over the river.
“He’s making a run for it,” Carlos says.
But the other person doesn’t flee. Instead, he climbs over the railing on the bridge and perches himself on the outside. When the train comes roaring beneath him, he lets go and drops.
I hold my breath, unable to see what happens to him.
Carlos slams on the brakes and skids to a halt next to the abandoned motorcycle. We jump out of the truck and run to the edge of the bridge. The train comes into view. The man is rising to his feet on top of one of the freight cars. As the train takes him away, he pulls off his helmet and tosses it over the side of the train, where it clatters down the rocky slope.
Even from this distance, we can tell the figure is Parker. He lifts a hand to us in a mocking wave that seems to say,Not today, boys.
“Damnit,” Carlos says, his words hardly audible over the noise of the train thundering beneath us. “We’re too late.”
When we were searching the house, it was Carlos who didn’t want to give up. Now it’s my turn.
“Go after Ellis,” I yell. “I’ll get Parker.”
He gives me a look that says he can’t believe what I’m saying, but he doesn’t argue. He runs to the truck and floors it, leaving a cloud of rubber smoke in his wake.
I take a deep breath and hoist a leg over the bridge railing. I hold on and look down at the train racing beneath me. Cowboys in old Westerns make this look so easy—hell, Parker made it look easy—but now that I’m in this position, the idea of jumping onto a moving train is petrifying. The drop to the top of the train is probably only ten feet, but the cars are pounding along at a good forty or fifty miles an hour. And, from up here, the roofs of the freight cars seem impossibly narrow.
I can’t do this.
But if I don’t, Parker gets away—it’s that simple.
I look up the tracks at the train snaking away in the distance. Parker is dozens of cars away now. From where I’m clinging, there’s no way of knowing when the end of the train will come.
It’s now or never.
I take a deep breath.
And jump.
CHAPTER 50
