Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

The truck slowed even more and I crawled behind at less than walking pace, fuming at the delay. You put an ordinary nice guy in an automobile and he loses all the common decency he ever had. A guy who’ll politely open a door for an old lady will damn’ near kill the same old lady by cutting across her bows at sixty miles an hour just to beat a stop light, and he’ll think nothing of it. This guy in front probably had his troubles and must have had a good and sound reason for going so slowly. I was in no particular hurry to get back to Fort Farrell but still I sat there and cursed — such is the relationship between a man and his auto.

I glanced into the mirror and was startled. The guy in front certainly had good reasons for going slowly, for coming behind at a hell of a lick was another logging truck, an eighteen-wheeler — twenty or more tons moving at thirty miles an hour. He got so close before he slammed on anchors that I heard the piercing hiss of his air-brakes and he slowed to our crawl with the ugly square front of his truck not a foot from the rear of the Land-Rover.

I was the filling in the nasty sandwich. I could see the driver behind laughing fit to bust and I knew that if I wasn’t careful there’d be some red stuff in the sandwich which wouldn’t be ketchup. The Land-Rover lurched a little as the heavy fender of the truck rammed into the rear, and there was a crunching noise. I trod delicately on the gas pedal and inched nearer to the truck in front — I couldn’t move much nearer or else I’d have a thirty-inch log coming through the windshield. I remembered this cutting from the way in: it was a mile long and right now we were about a quarter way through. The next three-quarters of a mile was going to be tricky.

The truck behind blared its horn and a gap opened up in front as the guy ahead put on speed. I pressed on the gas but not fast enough, because the rear truck rammed me again, harder this time. This was going to be trickier than I thought; it looked as though we were going to do a speed run, and that could be goddam dangerous.

We came to a dip and the speed increased and we zoomed down at forty miles an hour, the truck behind trying to climb up the exhaust pipe of the guy in front and not worrying too much about me, caught in the middle. My hands were sweating and were slippery on the wheel, and I had to do some tricky work with gas pedal, clutch and brake. One mistake on my part — or on theirs — and the Land-Rover would be mashed into scrap-iron and I’d have the engine in my lap.

Three more times I was rammed from behind and I hated to think what was happening to my gear. And once I was nipped, caught between the heavy steel fenders of the two trucks for a fraction of a second. I felt the compression on the chassis and I swear the Land-Rover was momentarily lifted from the ground. There was a log rubbing on the windshield and the glass starred and smashed into a misty opacity and I couldn’t see a damned thing ahead.

Fortunately the pressure released and I was running free again with my head stuck out of the side and I saw we were at the end of the cutting. One of the logs on the left side of the front truck seemed to be loaded a little higher than the others, and I judged it was high enough to clear the cab. I had to get out of this squeeze. There was very little room to manoeuvre and those sadistic bastards could hold me there until we got to the sawmill if I couldn’t figure a way out.

So I spun the wheel and chanced it and found I was wrong. The log didn’t clear the top of the cab — not by a quarter of an inch — and I heard the rending tear of sheet metal. But I couldn’t stop then; I fed gas to the engine frantically and tore free to find myself bucketing over the rough ground and heading straight for a big Douglas fir. I hauled on the wheel and swerved again and again, weaving among the trees and driving roughly parallel with the road.

I passed the front truck and saw my chance, so I rammed down hard on the gas pedal and shot ahead of it and fled down the road with that eighteen-wheel monster pounding after me, blaring its horn. I knew better than to stop and fight it out with those guys; they wouldn’t stop on the road just because I did and me and the Land-Rover would be a total loss. I had the legs of them and scooted away in front, passing the turn-off to the sawmill and not stopping until I was a full mile the other side.

Then I stopped and held up my hands. They were shaking uncontrollably and, when I moved, my shirt was clammy against my skin because it was soaked in sweat. I lit a cigarette and waited until the shakes went away before I climbed out to survey the damage. The front wasn’t too bad, although a steady drip of water indicated a busted radiator. The windshield was a total write-off and the top of the cab looked as though someone had used a blunt can-opener on it. The rear end was smashed up pretty badly — it looked like the front end of any normal auto crash. I looked in the back and saw the shattered wooden case and a clutter of broken bottles from my field testing kit. There was the acrid stink of chemicals from the reagents swimming about on the bottom and I hastily lifted the geiger counter out of the liquid — free acids don’t do delicate instruments any good.

I stepped back and estimated the cost of the damage. Two bloody noses for two truckers; maybe a broken back for Jimmy Waystrand; and a brand-new Land-Rover from Mr Howard Matterson. I was inclined to be a bit lenient on Howard; I didn’t think he’d given any orders to squeeze me like that. But Jimmy Waystrand certainly had, and he was going to pay the hard way.

After a while I drove into Fort Farrell, eliciting curious glances from passers-by in King Street. I pulled into Summerskill’s used car lot and he looked up and said in alarm, ‘Hey, I’m not responsible for that — it happened after you bought the crate.’

I climbed out. ‘I know,’ I said soothingly. ‘Just get the thing going again. I think she’ll want a new radiator — and get a rear lamp working somehow.’

He walked round the Land-Rover in a full circle, then came back and stared at me hard. ‘What did you do — get into a fight with a tank?’

‘Something like that,’ I agreed.

He waved. ‘That rear fender is twisted like a pretzel. How did that happen to a rear fender?’

‘Maybe it got hot and melted into that shape,’ I suggested. ‘Cut the wonder. How long will it take?’

‘You just want to get the thing moving again? A juryrig job?’

‘That’ll do.’

He scratched his head. ‘I have an old Land-Rover radiator back of the shed, so you’re lucky there. Say a couple of hours.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour and give you a hand.’ I left him and walked up the street to the Matterson Building. Maybe I just might have the beginnings of a quarrel with Howard.

I breezed into his outer office and said, without breaking stride, ‘I’m going to see Matterson.’

‘But — but he’s busy,’ his secretary said agitatedly.

‘Sure,’ I said, not stopping. ‘Howard is a busy, busy man.’ I threw open the door of his office and walked inside to find Howard in conference with Donner. ‘Hello, Howard,’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to see me?’

‘What do you mean by busting in like that?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ He thumbed a switch. ‘Miss Kerr, what do you mean by letting people into—’

I reached over and lifted his hand away from the intercom, breaking the connection. ‘She didn’t let me,’ I said softly. ‘She couldn’t stop me — so don’t blame her. Now, I’ll ask you a like-minded question. What do you mean by having Waystrand throw me out?’

‘That’s a silly question,’ he snarled. He looked at Donner. ‘Tell him.’