The Spider Thief Read Free Page B

Sunlight whited out the dusty windshield.
    He spun the monstrous steering wheel. The Galaxie skidded across the loose sand and lumbered down the driveway, kicking up a cloud behind him.
    Through the dirty windshield, he could make out the driveway as a twisty dark stripe against the tan of the tall grass. He fought to keep the fast-moving car on the road. Its hubcaps rattled at him with every rock they hit, but the rest of the car didn’t let out a squeak.
    He searched the dashboard until he found the chrome slider that operated the wipers. Stubby black blades creaked across the glass, scraping off the worst of the dirt, revealing the world again.
    Ahead, the road forked. One path led up the side of the mountain, along a stream. The other headed downhill, and if he remembered correctly, it eventually led to the highway. Neither was marked, but he knew where the uphill fork led. The ghost town.
    Unlike most of the ghost towns that dotted the Rocky Mountains, this one was more or less intact, as far as he remembered. It was also the make-out spot for local kids. He had spent a lot of summer evenings there with Cleo, talking about how one day they’d get out, leave this town behind and never come back.
    Moolah climbed up off the floor and sat on the black bench seat next to him, panting. The dog’s alert eyes surveyed the inside of the car. Ash pried one hand off the steering wheel for a moment to pat the dog.
    He was about to take the right fork when he saw another cloud of dust coming up behind his. The rusted green pickup appeared in the side-view mirror, closing in fast.
    If the truck had four-wheel drive, it would make better time on these roads. There was no way he could beat them to the pavement. They’d catch up first, or he’d slide into a ditch trying to outrun them. Either way, they’d get him.
    He cranked the wheel and took the uphill fork, hoping to lose them in the ghost town. Amazingly, the Galaxie’s engine wound up without protest. Ash wondered how long that would last. The rough road followed the meandering stream, whose crystal-clear water flowed over noxious yellow silt, tailings from the old gold mine nearby.
    He raced uphill, rounded a corner and bounced onto what was once the main street of the old town. A few windowless, roofless shells of buildings stood on either side, their wooden planks burned silver by the sun in some places and painted black by rot underneath.
    Further down, the mostly intact saloon still stood, and far beyond, a wooden tower loomed over the far end of town. A chute ran out of sight behind a rusted chunk of machinery that bristled with rivets. In between, the road made a right-angle turn to a covered bridge that crossed a gulch, twenty feet deep. It was the only other way out of town.
    Ash slowed as he rounded the turn. The bridge was anything but solid. As a teenager, he’d walked across it more times than he could count, but he’d never dreamed of taking a car through there. Sunlight shone down through holes in the bridge’s roof, giving a ghostly glow to the weather-beaten floor.
    There had to be another way. Maybe he could ditch the car and take off on foot. Maybe hide in the saloon. Traces of painted letters still showed on its one remaining glass window. The boardwalk in front of it was missing half its planks. Trying to hide there would be hopeless, he realized.
    The pickup crested the hill behind him, closing in, kicking up rocks from its tires. Salvador leaned out the window of the bouncing truck, pulling the assault weapon tight against his shoulder, aiming at the Galaxie.
    Ash nailed the gas and headed for the bridge.
    No way it would hold him. If one board gave out, he’d be dead. The car would plummet twenty feet to the rocky floor of the gulch, and that would be the end of it. But he’d rather take his chances with the bridge than with Andres and his tattooed killers.
    The dark tunnel of the bridge loomed. Beyond, the dirt road continued through the grass