“Push!”
The land was not flat. It graded down toward the edge of the hill.
“Harder!”
The firm, sun-baked earth helped them, and the corrugated metal tracks helped them.
“Harder!”
The recent grease job helped them.
“Harder!”
But most of all, the gently sloping land and gravity helped them.
The truck moved.
22
When he felt the pickup moving, Colin jumped back, astonished.
The truck stopped with a sharp squeak. “What’d you do that for?” Roy demanded. “We had it going, for Christ’s sake! Why’d you stop?”
Colin looked at him through the open cab of the truck. “Okay. Tell me. What’s the joke?”
Roy was angry. His voice was hard and cold, and he emphasized each word. “Get … it … through… your… head. There… is… no… joke!”
They stared at each other in the fast-fading, smoky light of dusk.
“Are you my blood brother?” Roy asked.
“Sure.”
“Isn’t it you and me against the world?”
“Yeah.”
“Won’t blood brothers do anything for each other?”
“Almost anything.”
“Anything! It has to be anything! No ifs, ands, or buts. Not with blood brothers. Are you my blood brother?”
“I said I was, didn’t I?”
“Then push, damnit!”
“Roy, this has gone far enough.”
“It won’t have gone far enough until it’s gone over the edge of the hill.”
“Fooling around like this could be dangerous.”
“Have you got concrete for brains?”
“We might accidentally wreck the train.”
“It won’t be an accident. Push!”
“You win. I give up. I won’t push the truck or you any further. You win the game, Roy.”
“What the hell are you doing to me?”
“I just want to get out of here.”
Roy’s voice was strained now, almost hysterical. His eyes were wild. He glared at Colin through the truck. “Are you turning your back on me?”
“Of course not.”
“Betraying me?”
“Look, I-”
“Are you a phony, too? Are you just like all the other goddamned cheats and back-stabbers and liars?”
“Roy-”
“Didn’t you mean one word you said to me?”
In the distance a train whistle pierced the twilight. “That’s it!” Roy said frantically. “The engineer always blows the whistle when he crosses Ranch Road. We’ve only got three minutes. Help me.”
Even in the dimming, orange-purple light, Colin could clearly see the rage in Roy’s face, the madness in his blue, blue eyes. Colin was shocked. He took another step back, away from the truck.
“Bastard!” Roy said.
He tried to push the Ford by himself.
Colin remembered how Roy acted in the garage when they played with Mr. Borden’s trains. How he wrecked them with such fierce glee. How he peered through the windows of the derailed toy cars. How he imagined that he was seeing real bodies, real blood, real tragedy-and somehow found pleasure in those sick fantasies.
This was not a game.
It had never been a game.
Pushing, then relaxing, pushing, then relaxing, keeping a hard, fast rhythm, Roy rocked the truck until suddenly he overcame inertia. The pickup moved.
“No!” Colin said.
Gravity helped again. The truck’s wheels turned slowly, reluctantly. They squealed and squeaked. The metal rims ground harshly against the heavy corrugated tracks. But they
Colin raced around the pickup, grabbed Roy, and pulled him away from the truck.
“You little creep!”
“Roy, you can‘t!”
“Let me alone!”
Roy wrenched loose, shoved Colin backward, and returned to the truck.
The pickup had ceased all movement the instant Roy had been dragged from it. The slope was not steep enough to encourage the Ford to run away.
Roy rocked it again.
“You can’t kill all those people.”
“Just watch me.”
The truck needed considerably less coaxing this time than it had the last. Or perhaps Roy had found even greater strength in his madness. In a few seconds the Ford began to roll.
Colin leaped at him and wrestled him away from the truck.
Furious, cursing, Roy turned and punched him twice in the stomach.
Colin collapsed around the blows. He let go of Roy, gagged, bent forward, caved in, staggered back, and fell. The pain was terrible. He felt as if Roy’s fists had gone all the way through him leaving two big holes. He couldn’t get his breath.
His glasses had been knocked off. He could see only blurry outlines of the junkyard. Coughing, gagging, still struggling to breathe, he felt the grass around him, anxious to regain his sight.
Roy grunted and mumbled to himself as he tried to move the pickup.
Suddenly Colin was aware of another sound: a steady
The train.
In the distance. But not too far.
Coming closer.
Colin found his glasses and put them on. Through tears, he saw that the truck was still more than twenty feet from the brink, and that Roy had only just begun to get it moving again.
Colin attempted to stand. He got as far as his knees when a wave of excruciating pain washed through his guts, immobilizing him.
The truck was no more than twenty feet from the edge of the hill, gaining inches slowly, slowly but relentlessly.
By the sound of it, the train had reached the curve in the glen below.
The truck was eighteen feet from the brink.
Sixteen.
Fourteen.
