Page 150 of Lone Star

A turnoff loomed ahead, the burned-out shell of an old shop on one corner. He remembered the intersection from his time living in Amarillo. Straight ahead would take him into downtown, but the left turn would take him the long way, through neighborhoods with more warehouses and machine shops than homes.

Any decision would be a gamble. One wrong step could cost him precious time.

He took the turn.

Roared down a bare stretch of road, and then signposts started to flash past, speed limits that he ignored, two cross-walks that he blew through. He passed a gas station, and a strip mall with dusty signage he couldn’t read. An apartment block, low-slung single story connected villas with flat roofs, and a plaster life-size horse holding up the sign.

The road curved, and forced him through a sequence of four-way stops that he pushed through, horns blaring, tires squealing. Warehouses reared up on either side. A three-way stop, and a wide, very visible parking lot in front of a warehouse with three huge roll-top doors open to the road. A bike parked haphazardly, and a man in leather and denim holding a gun on a smock-wearing man with his hands in the air.

Albie.

Fox nearly laid his bike down making the turn into the shop lot. Was off of it before the engine died. “Albie.” A sharp bark, an order.

Albie flinched, but didn’t lower his gun. “I have them,” he said through his teeth. “Help me.”

Fox stepped up beside him and took stock of the situation. The man in the smock was middle-aged, heavyset, with close-cropped gray hair and smudges of grease on his fingers. The stitching on the breast pocket readRay, and his expression was one of unmistakable terror. Over his shoulder, through the open roll-top door, Albie glimpsed a jacked-up Ram with mud tires and a tool box. A younger man in a matching smock stood at the rear of the truck, a tire iron in his hand, his eyes wide and face pale.

“Albie,” Fox repeated.

When he got no answer, he took a closer look at his brother.

Albie wasshaking. His face gleamed pale and sweaty in the sunlight, his jaw clenched tight, fine tremors cycling through every part of him. The muzzle of the gun vibrated faintly. His eyes – blue and cold in this moment – reminded Fox of Devin’s. Of his own.

“I don’t think it’s them, mate,” Fox said. His own voice came out calm; hefeltcalm. So long as someone needed him to be the one in charge, the voice of reason, the steady hand, there was no limit to the panic he could suppress.

Albie bared his teeth, chest heaving as he breathed. “It is. I followed them.”

“I don’t–”

“It’s them!”

“Please,” the man named Ray said, voice trembling. “I-I-I don’t know what he’s talking about. He just pulled a gun on me.”

“Dad,” the younger man called from the garage door.

“Do you mind if I have a look at your truck?” Fox asked. He showed his open palms. “No gun.” Not one visible. “Just a look.”

Ray swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’m going to go look at the truck,” Fox told Albie. “Don’tdoanything.”

Albie didn’t acknowledge him.

“Easy, easy,” Fox said to the younger man as he approached. His smock readTyler. “Don’t get any ideas about that.” He gestured to the tire iron and gave the kid a wide berth as he walked up the side of the truck.

“What’s his problem?” Tyler demanded. He was as scared as his father, but trying to cover it with useless bluster – the kind that led to rash decisions like taking a swing at someone. For Tyler’s sake, Fox hoped he didn’t make that mistake. “We didn’t do anything!”

“I know,” Fox said. The truck was an older model, with an extended cab, and suicide rear doors. He opened the front door – nothing but empty leather bucket seats and two massive gas station soda cups – and then the rear. More leather, a blanket, a tool box. “He’s had a rough morning.”

Fox turned to face him. “We’re looking for a truck. Something big, with a back seat, or maybe a camper shell on the bed – something with room for cargo. A brush guard. Big mud tires.” He framed the width of the tracks back at the clubhouse between two hands.

Tyler stared at him, breathing hard, wary, his gaze flicking out through the door, toward Albie, and his father.

“Have you seen another truck this morning? On this road?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Fox walked back out into the parking lot. “Ray, have you seen a truck similar to yours on the road this morning?”

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