Shepherd

SIX

Trouble was brewing right from the start. Shepherd, expecting to pull out of the diner parking lot first, found that the man from Utah had beaten him to it, hauling his rig out into the road to take the lead in his place. Nobody said anything. They didn't need to, thought Shepherd. He'd snubbed them at the diner and now they were taking matters into their own hands. He didn't much care; being snubbed by humanity had stopped bothering him long ago.

Utah's rig vanished down the highway and the others followed. Shepherd waited until last before pulling out to take the rear position in the convoy. He left a good few car lengths between himself and the Texan's truck; if anything happened, which it would, he wanted plenty of time to react in his own way.

He'd taken one of the rifles out of the cabinet and loaded it with a fresh magazine, sitting three more in the passenger seat next to him. He'd also filled his mug with fresh coffee and put a sandwich on the dashboard for later. This turned over in his mind, thoughts that the snub had set in motion. Utah had finally revealed himself as someone looking for the top-dog spot and in his eyes he'd snatched it out of Shepherd's hands.

"You dumb fuck," he said to himself, remembering his dark face. "You'll kill them all."

They drove well into the evening and the dusk came with little or no warning. The sky, purple and bruised and angry, became an omen to Shepherd of things to come. By now the road had become more or less empty. The rolling farmlands, barren and abandoned, gave way to dusty scrub and far off the higher peaks loomed like some strange wall of stone, barring their way towards Glendo and on to Casper. The cracked asphalt was theirs now and as their headlights blinked on one by one, they became a moving, living thing that breathed halogen fire and roared like a chorus of predators on the hunt.

Shepherd eased back a little more; the Texan's rear almost invisible in the dust motes that his beams picked out in the black. The cab lights were dim and the a/c was working steadily, keeping the little bubble a comfortable temperature. He didn't feel tired at all, in fact, he was more than happy to keep going for the full 600 miles before even thinking about sleep. How that was going to happen, he didn't know. It would mean stopping, taking turns to watch the road, half of them sleeping whilst the others stood guard. Had Utah thought that far ahead when he'd assumed command inside the diner? Shepherd didn't give him credit enough for that.

It was a few miles out from Casper that the first incident took place. Shepherd guessed that it had something to do with the old coal-fired plant to the north near Glenrock. The road diverted off a ways, this he already knew, but when the Texan swung a hard left into the central reservation, Shepherd realized that something seriously wrong had happened up front.

"What the fuck is that?" cried Frannie over the radio.

"Utah has stopped, I think he hit it," said Foley who'd been nearer to the front than Frannie.

"Utah? Are you there?"

Nothing. The rigs began to veer off to the right, aiming for the branch ahead that would take them into Glenrock, breaking away from the I-25. One by one the vehicles lumbered back into formation, heading down the narrower road and as Shepherd began to shuffle forward he could see now what had happened.

There, spanning the entire highway, was a wall of concrete slabs, junk cars and debris that ensured that any traffic coming north from Denver was diverted towards Glenrock. In his experience, that was never going to end well.

"Shepherd, you coming?" said Foley.

"Where's Utah?" he replied.

"We think he drove on ahead. His lights must have sparked out when he hit the wall."