The Brotherhood of the Wheel Read Free Page B

the Marquis’s neck, a terrible awareness of what was happening to him. He glanced back at the trash lying on his bunk. Her wet eyes held a glimmer of hope. The Marquis had to fight the urge to vomit. He revved his engine, and the whole truck shook.
    â€œGet out of my way, Paladin,” he said.
    â€œThey know, Wayne Ray,” Jimmie said into the mike, revving his own engine now. “They know what you did to those girls, and they’re coming for you.”
    â€œLet me go, or I’ll kill the whore,” the Marquis said, sweating and blinking. “Move!”
    â€œYou’ll kill her anyway,” Jimmie said, “and quick is a damn sight more merciful than what you had planned for her. If you let the girl live, that will show them you can have compassion. It will help you, Wayne Ray, and right now you need all the help you can get.”
    â€œFuck compassion,” the Marquis screamed, spittle flying from his blued lips. He jammed the accelerator and shifted the large gearshift with a silver skull as the knob. The Mack lurched forward, accelerating. “And fuck you!”
    Jimmie slammed his boot and the accelerator to the floor and jerked the shotgun gearshift as the Peterbilt blasted toward the charging Mack truck. “C’mon, you sick bastard,” Jimmie said as the two trucks headed straight for each other. “Bring it!” Jimmie punched a button on the console above his head, and the cab was filled with staccato metal guitar—Metallica’s “No Remorse.”
    Many large corporate fleet trucks came equipped with speed governors to keep them moving at a respectable but less legally actionable speed. Pretty much any semi could pull a full trailer load up an eight-degree incline at a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour. Independents like Jimmie and the Marquis liked to tinker with their engines, giving them thirteen- or eighteen-speed transmissions and making them capable of greater speeds, much greater speeds.
    Both trucks were hurtling like rockets toward each other on the dark, icy road. Their speedometers creeping higher and higher … seventy mph … eighty mph … eighty-five … ninety … Less than ten yards separated them now.
    Jimmie was sweating. His eyes locked on the windshield, on the brilliant lights and the massive grille that now encompassed his universe. His hand was steady on the wheel. This was it. He had faced this before—over there in Khafji, on the Road, when the cannibal sages of Metropolis-Utopia had almost gobbled him up, and the time with Ale and the others when they rode into the deep darkness to save Ale’s old lady and her baby son. Jimmie knew the shape of death, the dry taste of dust and the bittersweet wine on her lips. The crazy sumbitch would blink, he’d swerve … hold … hold …
    Saving Ale’s baby. Jimmie suddenly flashed to his wife—to Layla, and the baby in her belly, his baby. Layla was home right now, waiting for him. Waiting with Peyton, his fourteen-year-old little girl. Their brights blinded both men as the trucks came closer and closer.
    Who would keep them safe from things in this world like the Marquis, and worse? And Jimmie Aussapile knew there were things so much worse than the sick little madman barreling down on him. Who’d keep them safe? His family was waiting for him.
    Jimmie’s courage shivered. He began to jerk the large steering wheel to turn and try to avoid the crash. But the blinding lights of the Marquis’s Mack suddenly swerved to the left. The maniac had turned, and the two cabs rushed past each other, like passing freight trains. Jimmie’s driver’s-side mirror exploded as the trucks passed, and sparks flew off the Marquis’s trailer as they narrowly averted a crash. Jimmie downshifted and clutched the wheel tight as he applied the hissing air brakes. The wheels of the truck squealed in defiance. If he