Dragons Wild

Six

Tooling down the expressway with the morning sun rising on his left, Griffen realized he wasn’t in the least tired despite his driving through the entire night. Other than a couple stops for fuel and a quick stop at a Waffle House to stretch his legs and grab a bite, he had been behind the wheel for nearly ten hours and felt as fresh as when he had started.

He found himself wondering if this was one of the so-called dragon powers that Uncle Malcolm had talked about, then caught himself and forced the thought from his mind. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t fret over the whole dragon thing until after he had a chance to talk to his sister. Besides, it was more likely that he simply enjoyed driving his car.

A state trooper eased up beside him with customary predatory smoothness, paused to look him over, then glided on ahead.

Griffen was neither worried nor surprised. It was the third or fourth time that had happened during this run alone. He knew he was well within the speed limit, being in no particular hurry, and was used to his vehicle drawing attention.

It was an old Sunbeam Tiger with its original British racing green paint, with a black top and trim. A few people recognized the body as being the same kind of car that Maxwell Smart had driven during the opening of the old Get Smart television series. Except Max had been driving a Sunbeam Alpine, not a Sunbeam Tiger. Only a few sports car fanatics were aware of the difference.

The Alpine was a sporty little two seater with a four-cylinder engine. The Tiger, on the other hand, used the same body, but had a Ford V-8 engine crammed in under the hood. Basically, it was an engine on wheels with a thin candy shell, and could hit 120 mph with comfort.

Griffen had lusted after the car the first time he set eyes on it, though even now he felt a twinge of guilt recalling how he acquired it.

It wasn’t really his fault, he told himself for the hundredth time. The kid who owned it was legally an adult, and no one had put a gun to his head to get him to sit in on a high-stakes poker game. Definitely no one was to blame that the kid hung in until he was deep in the hole. It had been a fair game, and there was no reason for Griffen to feel any guilt over his winnings.

Even as he reviewed the evening, however, Griffen found himself again shaking his head in disgust. His oft-recalled justifications didn’t nearly take into account the whole story. Fair game or no, the kid had no business being there. He was perhaps a decent frat or dorm game poker player, but he had been way over his head that night. The only reason he had sat in at all was that he was flattered that Griffen had invited him to play. Even then, he might have bailed out after a while if Griffen hadn’t encouraged and flattered him, loaning him the necessary cash to hang in while “waiting for his luck to change.” When the debts were totaled up at the end of the evening, however, it was clear that the kid would never be able to come close to buying back his IOUs. That was when Griffen had offered to tear up the chits and give the kid an additional five grand in exchange for his car.

Griffen still felt twinges of remorse over that deal. It certainly wasn’t the last time he had used his poker and people skills to further his own ends, but it was the most blatant gambit he had ever pulled simply to get something he wanted. He felt bad about it, but not bad enough to give the car back. The car, which he named the Goblin, was his pride and joy, and he had taken his share of trophies driving it in gymkhanas, those amateur races where you run a driving obstacle course against a stopwatch.

Two pickup trucks were cruising along in the slow lane ahead of him. Without changing speed, he switched to the passing lane to ease past them.

As he passed the lead truck, he glanced over at the driver, thinking to give him a pleasant nod of the head as a road courtesy. Instead of meeting his gaze, the man responded by accelerating, matching Griffen’s speed so he couldn’t pull ahead.

Annoyed, Griffen glanced in his rearview mirror, thinking to pull back in behind the suddenly awake trucker. The trailing truck, the one he had already passed, had switched lanes and was now sitting on his rear bumper, also matching his speed.

A small trickle of alarm woke in Griffen’s mind. Whether they had intended to or not, the two trucks now had him boxed in against the soft shoulder.

Easing up on the gas pedal, he tapped his brakes lightly so his taillights would flash, trying to signal to the truck behind him that he wanted to slow down and return to his original lane.

Instead of slowing to let him escape, the truck behind him suddenly accelerated, ramming his rear bumper and forcing him to speed up. The truck alongside him matched the move, not only increasing its speed, but edging over until its left wheels were crossing the center stripe.

Griffen was fully alert now and more than a little scared. What were these jokers trying to do? If they weren’t in a clear stretch of road…

Glancing ahead, he saw there was a gentle curve to the right less than a mile ahead. If he didn’t do something, the two trucks could potentially run him off the road and into the ditch that ran along the median.

For a moment, Griffen was tempted to floor the gas and try to outrun them, but he decided against it. He didn’t know what these two had under their hoods, and if he failed to outrun them, they’d all hit the curve at an even greater speed.

There was, of course, another option.

Wrenching his steering wheel to the left, he took the Goblin onto the soft shoulder, then stood on the clutch and his brake pedal simultaneously.

The Tiger slid and fishtailed a bit, but came to a halt as the two trucks swept past and into the distance.

Heart racing, Griffen saw them slow to their original speed and reassume position one ahead of the other.

That should have been it. He was out of danger and could either sit for a few moments until they were out of sight or follow at a distance until he found an exit.

Instead, he stared after them through a red haze.

“So they want to play, do they?” he said out loud.

Dropping his shift lever to low, he popped the clutch and stood on the gas, charging back onto the expressway with a spray of dirt and a roaring engine.

It didn’t take him long to overtake the pickups. They were driving below speed limit now, back in their old formation one behind the other in the slow lane.

Dropping his speed, Griffen slid in behind them, making it a line of three vehicles. He figured if nothing else, it would make them nervous enough to spark a reaction. It didn’t take long.

Studying his opponents at leisure, he noticed something he had missed before. Both truckers had CB radios, and were talking back and forth as they watched him in their rearview mirrors.

Apparently they reached a decision. They reduced their speed, seeing if he would fall into the old trap and try to pass them.

No deal. Griffen lowered his speed to match theirs, sitting about ten feet behind the tailing truck.

The lead truck pulled out into the fast lane, then started to drop back as his buddy held his speed. Unless he dropped his speed even further, Griffen was going to end up in the same box he was in before, with one truck ahead of him and the other alongside, pinning him against the soft shoulder.

This time, he had something else in mind. Instead of dropping back, he moved onto the soft shoulder and eased up on the truck in front of him. This placed him in the blind spot of the second truck, while that truck in turn was blocking the line of sight of the truck dropping back. For a moment, neither driver could see him.

Confused, the driver in the trailing truck craned his neck around trying to get a fix on Griffen’s position, while his partner dropped back quickly to try to establish the box.

With a tight smile, Griffen dropped down a gear and floored the accelerator. With a snarl, the Goblin responded, darting along the soft shoulder to pass the truck alongside. Startled, the driver shied away for a heartbeat, then gunned his own engine and moved toward the soft shoulder, trying to crowd Griffen into the ditch.

Too late. The Ford V8 engine was wide open and Griffen slid past, pulling back onto the highway ahead of his attacker.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, Griffen could suddenly see only one truck.

Not having encountered the expected resistance, the truck which had tried to run him off the road had itself gone into the ditch. Its front wheels were mired and twisted at a painful angle, and the hood had popped open.

That only left one.

The truck still on the road slowed momentarily, as if hesitant. Then roared to life again, surging forward. With his lead, Griffen could outrun him, but his blood was still up. Anger and adrenaline making him act foolish. He let the truck gain.

Not even Griffen knew what he was thinking. No longer was he acting off a plan, but merely following the heat of the moment. He let the truck start to pull up along his side, not quite at an angle to run him off the road yet. He only had ill-conceived notions of taunting his adversary before flooring it and leaving him in the dust. He glanced back, catching sight of the driver through the window.

Caught sight of the driver, past the length of a shotgun.

Startled, Griffen almost wrenched himself off the road in shock. That involuntary jerk was the only thing that saved at the very least some damage to his car, if not preventing total disaster. His engine screamed, drowning out the roar of the blast behind him, and the shot went wide as the Goblin tore down the road, finally outdistancing his attacker. In his rearview mirror, a now thoroughly panicked Griffen watched the truck slow. His last glimpse of it was to see it turn, pushing over the divider, presumably to go rescue the other driver.

Putting his car back in gear, Griffen continued along his way at a much more reasonable speed. His fingers gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white, as his pulse pounded through his ears.

As his heartbeat slowly returned to normal, he found himself wondering at his recent actions. Even though things had eased considerably in Michigan since the late sixties, when the crumbling auto industry inspired frustrated laid-off line workers to retaliate by running imported cars off I-94, it was not unheard of for such incidents to occur even today. Griffen himself had survived three such attempts in the Goblin. In those cases, he had dodged the initial attack, then pulled off at the next exit, shaken and glad to be alive.

He had never felt moved to retaliate…to counterattack the way he had just now. It had been a mistake, a nearly fatal one. Even though he had no way to know just how hostile the truck drivers had been, it had been utterly reckless to give up his lead without a clear plan of action. This sudden shift in his reactions both puzzled and bothered him.

What bothered him even more was not the final attempt, but the quick burst of savage glee he had felt when his initial plan had worked and he saw his first attacker in the ditch.

It wasn’t until he pulled off the expressway to refuel that he noticed his steering wheel was bent slightly out of round.