There came a loud ka-pow at Vince’s back and a yell he heard even over the wind and the steady blat of the Vulcan’s engine: “Mutha-FUCK!” He looked in the rearview mirror and saw Peaches falling back. Smoke was boiling from between his pipestem legs, and oil slicked the road behind him in a fan shape that widened as his ride slowed. The Beez had finally blown its head gasket. A wonder it hadn’t happened sooner.

Peaches waved them on—not that Vince would have stopped. Because in a way the question of whether Race was redeemable was moot. Vince himself was not redeemable; none of them were. He remembered an Arizona cop who’d once pulled them over and said, “Well, look what the road puked up.” And that was what they were: road puke. But those bodies back there had until this afternoon been his running buddies, the only thing he possessed of any value in the world. They’d been Vince’s brothers in a way, and Race was his son, and you couldn’t drive a man’s family to earth and expect to live. You couldn’t leave them butchered and expect to ride away. If LAUGHLIN didn’t know that, he would.

Soon.

LEMMY COULDN’T KEEP UP WITH the Tojo Mojo el Rojo. He fell farther and farther behind. That was all right. Vince was just glad Lemmy still had his six.

Up ahead a sign: WATCH FOR LEFT-ENTERING TRAFFIC. The road coming out of Cumba. It was hardpan dirt, as Vince had feared. He slowed, then stopped, turned off the Vulcan’s engine.

Lemmy pulled up beside. There was no guardrail here. Here in this one place, where 6 rejoined the Cumba road, the highway was level with the desert, although not far ahead it began to climb away from the floodplain once more, turning into the cattle chute again.

“Now we wait,” Lemmy said, switching his engine off as well.

Vince nodded. He wished he still smoked. He told himself that either Race was still shiny side up and in front of the truck or he wasn’t. It was beyond Vince’s control. It was true, but it didn’t help.

“Maybe he’ll find a place to turn off in Cumba,” Lemmy said. “An alley or somethin’ where the truck can’t go.”

“I don’t think so. Cumba is nothing. A gas station and maybe a couple houses, all stuck right on the side of a fucking hill. That’s bad road. At least for Race. No easy way off it.” He didn’t even try to tell Lemmy about Race’s blank, locked-down expression, a look that said he wasn’t seeing anything except the road right in front of his bike. Cumba would be a blur and a flash that he registered only after it was well behind him.