He was heading right at me. I braked and reached for the door handle. The engine died and by the time I turned back, he was on me. He laid the lip of the bucket up against the driver’s side of my car, making it impossible to open. He down-shifted and began to push my car sideways toward the mound of dirt. I couldn’t see the hole, but I knew it was there. The VW was rocking, sliding sideways, raw dirt piling up against the passenger’s-side door. I stuck the gun down in the waistband of my jeans and slid over into the passenger seat. I pulled back on the door handle and then shoved, trying to push the door open against the rapidly increasing buildup of soil and rock on the other side. This was never going to work. I abandoned the effort and cranked down the window, working as fast as I could. By then the dirt accumulating against the side of the car was almost to the window. I hoisted myself onto the sill, making a low sound in my throat when I saw how fast we were moving. Five miles an hour doesn’t sound like much, but the pace was steady and relentless, leaving me very little room to negotiate. I rolled out, kicking to free myself, barely managing to clear the car as it scraped past me and tumbled into the hole. The ‘dozer came to an abrupt halt while the VW hit bottom with a bang and a shudder that left the rear wheels spinning.

I staggered to my feet and headed out across the raw dirt field, hoping to make a wide circle back to the road. The ground had recently been plowed and the soil was broken into chunks that forced me to lift my feet high like a member of a marching band. Running across the rows was like running in a dream, agonizingly slow with no progress to speak of. Behind me, Padgett, in his ‘dozer, trundled along at a same nifty five miles an hour, easily cutting the distance between us. I tried veering left, but he had no problem correcting the direction of the ‘dozer, which proved to be remarkably agile for a machine weighing in at forty thousand pounds.