Title: Back Story: A Spenser Novel
Author(s): Robert B. Parker
Publisher(s): Putnam Publishing Group
Pages: 165
Year: 2003
Format: MOBY
Language: English
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I drove out the road from Malone$prime;s cottage in green shade. The trees pressed close to the small road. I recognized white pine and maple and oak, and some pale-skinned birch. I felt like Natty Bumppo. A half mile from Malone$prime;s cottage, a dirt road cut across the paved road. I was twenty yards past it when I spotted a car parked across the pavement. I looked in the rearview mirror. A car pulled out of the dirt road behind me and parked across the pavement. Men got out of both cars and stood behind them. They had long guns. I was pretty sure this wasn$prime;t a speed trap. I slowed. There was no way past the car in front of me. I checked the rearview mirror again. There was no way past the car behind me, except that when it had pulled straight out of the dirt road, it had left a little space behind it. I couldn$prime;t go straight past it on the pavement, but I might be able to turn onto the dirt road. I didn$prime;t have any other choices. I did a really perfect, and really quick, three-point turn and floored it back toward the second car. Behind it, two men raised their guns. Probably shotguns. I slouched down behind the wheel as much as I could, and just before I hit their car I rammed on the brakes and yanked my car as hard right as I could. The car almost stood on its side. But it didn$prime;t, and I was onto the dirt road and into the woods. It was barely a road. Something scraped the bottom of my car. I smelled gasoline. The car bucked and stumbled; it went far too fast down through the root-welted, rock-stubbled trace. My right wheel hit an outcropping of granite, and the tire exploded. Ahead of me I could see the glimmer of the lake. I stomped on the brakes and rolled out of the car and hit the ground running. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and running shoes. At least I was dressed for it.
To the right was the gray-buckled remnants of a fishing camp. I went past it on the run. I was pretty sure these were city guys behind me. If I got them deep enough into the woods, I might have a chance. I was a city guy, too, but I hadn$prime;t always been one.
Behind me I heard the cars pull up, the doors open and close. I had a short-barreled.38 on my hip, but against five or six guys with shotguns, that was pretty much irrelevant. This was a case of Feet, do your duty. I slowed to a jog as I moved through the woods. Twisting my ankle on a rock or tripping would be a bad thing. The lake showed itself occasionally, when the forest thinned for a moment. I knew I could run ten miles, and I was hopeful that none of my pursuers could. If they could, carrying shotguns, I was also hopeful that they$prime;d give up before I did. I looked at my watch: 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun would have moved westward enough to get a direction. It was hot in the woods. There were insects. A vast network of thin vines with thorns was everywhere, catching at my pants legs. I was walking now, moving as fast as the forest permitted, keeping the lake on my left. I was glad for the heat and the bugs and the thorny vines. I could put up with it to save my life. I wasn$prime;t so sure the shooters could put up with it to kill me. There was an opening in the forest where a big old maple tree had fallen, its upper branches ten feet out into the lake water. I climbed over it and stopped and listened. Distantly, I could hear them thrashing along. I could hear their voices. They were not happy voices. I looked at the lake and the tangle of rotting limbs in the water. Beyond them across an inlet, I could see the imploded fishing hut. We$prime;d been walking around a long inlet for an hour. Straight across, it was about a hundred yards. I could hear my heartbeat, steady but loud and fast from exertion. I took my gun out and went along behind the fallen tree and into the water. Holding the gun high enough to keep it dry, I waded carefully over the underwater rocks, slippery with algae, until I was neck deep among the rotting leaves and branches. I waited.