Page 69 of Final Ride

“True enough.” Travis shook Kevin’s hand one more time and the deal was done.

“Done deal, Dad,” said Virge. “We get our new ranch tomorrow. Wonder when our furniture and all the rest of our shit is coming on the big truck?”

“Supposed to arrive tomorrow, Virge. If it doesn’t, we’ll be spending a night at the Budget Inn.”

“That’s okay. We can hack it for another day, Dad. We’re almost home free.”

“Yeah, we are, Virge. We’re almost all the way there.”

Route Seventy-One. Southeast of Smithville.

Heading south on route seventy-one back to Coulter-Ross, Travis heard more than one Harley behind him. He glanced in the rearview to confirm it.

“Yep, there they are, Virge.”

Virge was already on it. “Six of them, Dad.”

A deserted stretch of highway came up and the bikes ganged together and forced Travis’s pickup off the shoulder of the road.

“Good a place as any to kill them, Virge.” Travis pulled over and parked the truck. He grabbed for the door handle and shouted at Corb. “Lie down on the floor, Corb. Do it now.”

Virge jumped out of the passenger seat with his gun in his hand and came around the truck from the opposite way.

Three of the Breed were on Travis before he could get a shot off at any of them.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Virge took the other three down with lightning-fast knee shots and when they fell, he finished them with head shots where they lay. No chance of them shooting at him or Travis when they were down. That happened to him before, and lesson learned. It would never happen again.

He ran around the truck where Travis was fighting off three big bikers waving blades.

Bang.

He had a clear shot at the back of the head of one of them and that guy toppled into the ditch with his brains leaking into the long grass.

Virge shouted, “Get off him or I’ll kill both you fuckers.”

Bang.

Another one rolled off with a bullet in his gut from Travis’s Sig.

Bang.

The last one raised his knife to plunge it into Travis again and Virge shot him in the ear. The fuckers were too stupid to give up.

In a frenzy of adrenaline mixed with fear for Travis, Virge kicked the bikers away from Travis to see the damage done to his father. A lot of blood gushing through Travis’s clothes. There were at least two, possibly three stab wounds.

Travis held his phone in his hand pressing a number. “I’m okay, Virgie. You did good.”

Virge opened the back door of the truck. “It’s okay now, Corb. Dad ain’t dead, but those assholes were giving it their best shot.”

Corb sat up, pale as death himself and peered at the carnage.

“I called Blacky,” said Travis. “He’ll be here soon and he’s sending an ambulance. Virge, I want you to stay here and hold the scene when the ambulance comes and give your statementto Ranger Blackmore. Corb can come in the ambulance with me. You come to the hospital in Smithville to get us when you’re done.”

“I got it, Dad. Sirens coming now.”

A big Escalade parked on the wrong side of the road and two big guys with long black hair hopped out and came rushing over.

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