The Biker In The Garage And The Legacy Of Ben Reed

CHAPTER 6: THE IRON PURSUIT

The heavy diesel Peterbilt rocketed down the winding switchbacks of Custer Gap, its sixteen-speed transmission screaming as Hank slammed the heavy floor shifter from gear to gear with ferocious speed. The massive dual rear tires bit into the rain-slicked mountain asphalt, spraying plumes of steam and gravel as the heavy wrecker descended the terrifying twelve-percent grade.

Beside him in the wide cab, Sarah held Sam tight against her chest, her hands cupped over the boy’s ears to shield him from the terrifying sound of the pursuit.

Behind them, tearing through the darkness at eighty miles an hour, was Garrett Caine behind the wheel of a commercial six-wheel-drive articulated agricultural chemical transport truck—a forty-ton armored steel monster equipped with massive flotation tires and a reinforced steel cow-catcher bumper. Caine had abandoned his pickup and commandeered the heaviest machine on his ranch, determined to use forty tons of kinetic force to crush Hank’s wrecker off the limestone cliffs.

“He’s gaining on us, Hank!” Deke yelled over the CB radio from the secondary pickup two hundred yards back. “He’s got the governor bypassed! He’s going to ram your rear pintle hitch on the bridge!”

Hank looked into his wide convex side mirrors. The monstrous steel grille of Caine’s chemical hauler filled the glass, its high-intensity halogen light bars blinding Hank’s rear vision in stark white glare. The heavy diesel exhaust from Caine’s dual vertical stacks billowed black smoke into the mountain gale like a charging freight locomotive.

A half-mile ahead lay the historic Iron Mountain Draw—a narrow, two-lane wooden suspension bridge spanning a five-hundred-foot vertical chasm of sheer granite and raging mountain river rapids.

“Hang on to the roof bar!” Hank bellowed to Sarah.

Hank reached to his dashboard, grabbing the heavy brass lever that controlled the Peterbilt’s rear twenty-ton hydraulic recovery winch. Connected to the heavy forged steel drum were three hundred feet of one-inch braided aircraft steel cable terminating in a fifty-pound forged alloy rigging hook.

As the wrecker roared onto the wooden planks of the suspension bridge, Caine’s massive forty-ton transport smashed into the Peterbilt’s rear steel bumper with a bone-jarring impact that sent violent shockwaves through the suspension, nearly ripping the steering wheel from Hank’s calloused grip. The wooden deck of the bridge groaned and splintered beneath the combined sixty tons of moving machinery.

Caine backed off three feet, his face visible behind the heavy safety glass, twisted into a manic, homicidal grin as he prepared to deliver the final, fatal ram that would send Hank’s truck plunging through the wooden guardrails into the canyon below.

“Now, you bastard!” Hank roared.

Hank slammed the air brake lever down with his left hand, locking the Peterbilt’s rear tandem axles, while his right hand tripped the hydraulic winch release.

The heavy steel drum spun free at terrifying speed. The fifty-pound forged steel rigging hook dropped onto the bridge deck with a shower of white sparks, bouncing along the wet oak planks straight into the exposed front steering tie-rod and hydraulic brake linkages of Caine’s charging transport.

The heavy alloy hook locked with absolute, unbreakable force into the front axle housing of Caine’s machine.

Hank slammed his heavy palm down on the auxiliary hydraulic control lever, locking the internal dog-clutch of the twenty-ton Braden recovery winch, and threw the Peterbilt’s heavy twin-stick transmission into deep-reduction low-range granny gear. He stood on the floor-mounted throttle pedal with both feet braced, unleashing all eight hundred foot-pounds of turbocharged diesel torque straight through the dual rear differentials into the tarmac.

The one-inch braided aircraft steel cable snapped taut above the wooden bridge deck with the ear-shattering twang of a massive iron bowstring, vibrating so violently that spray whipped off the greased strands like mist.

The violent, instantaneous tension ripped the front steering assembly completely out of Caine’s forty-ton transport. The massive chemical hauler lurched sideways, its giant tires blowing out in explosive blasts of compressed air. The forty-ton steel monster spun out of control across the bridge deck, smashing through the reinforced concrete retaining wall on the far abutment, and flipped violently onto its side, sliding thirty yards through the gravel before coming to a halt against the granite canyon wall with a deafening screech of tearing metal.

Silence fell over the mountain bridge, broken only by the hiss of escaping steam, the smell of burning rubber, and the steady, unbreakable idle of Hank’s diesel engine.

Hank set the parking brake, stepped down from the cab with his twelve-gauge shotgun, and walked through the drifting smoke toward the overturned wreckage.

Caine was hanging upside down from his seatbelt inside the crushed cab, bleeding from a deep gash across his forehead, his custom cowboy hat trampled in the broken safety glass at his feet. His hand clawed weakly toward a dropped revolver on the floorboards.

Hank reached through the shattered windshield, his massive scarred hand clamping around Caine’s wrist with a grip that felt like an iron vise. He twisted the wrist until the gun tumbled away into the dark chasm below.

“The game is over, Caine,” Hank said, his voice flat, immoveable as the granite cliffs of the Black Hills. “Ben Reed built the machine that caught you.”

From the eastern highway, the night was suddenly illuminated by the flashing red, blue, and amber emergency strobe lights of twenty South Dakota State Highway Patrol interceptors and three unmarked black federal Suburbans carrying investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, their sirens screaming through the mountain dawn.