Simon opened his mouth but he knew that whatever he said wouldn’t be the right answer. Not to her. She expected him to be ruthless.
He lowered his eyes and counted silently to himself. When he lifted his eyes to hers again, the look on her face told him everything he suspected.
“What’s to stop them?” He pointed toward the upper campground. “Why stop with the women there? If they can do whatever they want, why couldn’t they take you, as well?”
“Uh, maybe because if you didn’t kill them, I’d claw their fucking balls off.” She stood upright and planted her hands on her hips. “Those ignorant, inbred, mouth-breathing pieces of hillbilly horse shit can do whatever they want…UP THERE.” She pointed to the upper campground. “They come down here with their dicks in their hands and I’ll send ‘em back with them shoved up their asses.”
Simon smirked and slowly came up from the cooler. “Or…”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Or what?”
He glanced up the hill then back to her. “I step in.” He shrugged. “I tell them I’ll lead their little pack, but they’re not touching any of the people.”
She raised a brow at him. “That would go over like a lead balloon.”
“Tough shit if they don’t like it.”
Lana gave him a cautious look. “And if they don’t like the edicts placed on them by their new leader?”
Simon shrugged. “Then I kill ‘em.” He turned and met her steely gaze. “I’ll lead the sheep instead of the wolves.”
18
Hatcher slowed the little car to swerve around the vehicles littering the highway. He sat upright in the seat and peered past the congestion. It looked like there had been a pileup further along the road.
With a groan he sat back and checked the gas gage again. “I’m gonna have to find fuel pretty quick.”
He stared at the lone line of cars and winced at the idea of siphoning from five or ten different tanks. “My left nut for a 7-Eleven right about now.”
He eased the little car off of the highway and onto the median. He crossed over onto the oncoming lane and drove along the shoulder, staring at the cars parked on the other side of the road.
He glanced further up the road and smiled. A shiny white tanker truck was parked right in the middle of the whole mess. He pressed the accelerator down and scooted the little 4X4 back across the median. He eased the car up as close as he could to the tanker and parked.
He stepped from the car and rapped his knuckles along the side of the tanker truck. “Please be gas, please be gas, please be gas…” He gripped the metal rung of the ladder and pulled himself to the top of the trailer. He had to beat on the valve at the top and it hissed at him as he unscrewed the cap. The odor let him know, it wasn’t gasoline.
Hatcher sat down heavily atop the trailer and sighed. “Of course not. Diesel.” He hung his head for a moment and peered over the side of the trailer at the dirt colored Jeep. “Why couldn’t you be a diesel you little shit?”
Being totally offended by his comment, the car didn’t reply.
Hatcher stood and reached for the ladder rung again when something shiny caught his eye. He leaned back across the trailer and stared down at a shiny, silver, 4X4 Ram 2500 Power Wagon…DIESEL.
Hatcher glanced over his shoulder at the little Jeep then back at the big shiny pickup. “Let’s pray we can move these cars out of the way. I’m fixing to upgrade.”
He climbed down from the trailer and pulled open the door of the truck. The key fob was sitting in the cupholder and the truck had a push button starter.
He crossed his fingers and pressed the button. To his relief, the big Cummins turned over then belched to life. Hatcher did a quick fist pump but resisted the urge to whoop out loud.
He did a quick walk around and inspected the rig. It had been built to go off-road from the factory, but somebody had spent a lot of money to make it look even tougher. The roll bar in the back had a huge spare tire bolted to it. Under the front of the roll bar was what looked like a toolbox; it was an auxiliary fuel tank. A quick check told him that it was nearly empty, but luckily for him, there was a huge reserve parked almost directly next to it.
Hatcher walked along the front and tried to estimate how many cars he’d have to try to move to get the beast out. Most had keys in them or were small enough to be pushed out the way with the huge truck.
After roughly an hour of maneuvering, he had cleared a path for the monster truck. He was tired and cranky, but at the same time happy that he had something with some heft under him. He was never a compact car kind of guy.
He popped the back of the car and pulled the long siphoning hose from the box of gear. He glanced at the semi then back to the pickup. “Why climb up there when the saddle tanks will have diesel, right?”
He pulled the Power Wagon alongside the cab of the truck then hopped out and unscrewed the fuel cap from the saddle tank of the semi. It was nearly full.
He whistled to himself as he began to siphon fuel from the big truck into the tanks of the Ram. He leaned against the bed of the truck and whistled to himself. “I knew today would be a good day.”
After he topped off both tanks, he pulled the siphon hose and rolled it up. He pulled the Power Wagon alongside the little Jeep and began moving stuff to the back seat.
He shut
