The tableau going on was one for the scrapbook. Hank had his hands around the shotgun between Jake’s hands, each engaged in a tug-of-war to the death. Julie was on Jake’s back with her hands dug into his face and neck.

“Stupid ass,” she kept saying. “Stupid ass stupid ass stupid ass.”

Hank let go with his right hand, clenched it into a fist and drove it three times in rapid succession into Jake’s nose, cheek and mouth. Jake’s lip split and a tooth tumbled backwards into his mouth. Blood began to flow even as Jake let go of the shotgun and rocked backwards. I noted surprise on Julie’s face-her mouth framed an “Oh!” that I never heard as she fell back underneath Jake.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Ohhhh,” Julie moaned. “My head.”

Hank ran his fingers through her head, feeling.

“She’s got a pretty good knot back here,” he said, “but she should be fine. Wait a minute. I know an old Indian trick. Bill, check on the waitress. She disappeared. I’m hoping she hasn’t called the cops yet.”

“Will do,” I said. I left the two of them there and went back toward the kitchen.

Just as I was about to enter, a tall black man came out. He had a long-barreled twelve gauge shotgun in his hands.

“Whoa there,” I said. “We took their guns away from them.”

“What kinda devilment you brought into my ‘stablishment?” he shouted at me. He raised the shotgun, leveled it at me point blank.

“Nothing,” I said. The hole at the business end was suddenly a cavern hanging in front of my face. A cavern from which quick death in a whirlwind of fire and blood might emerge at any second.

“Put the gun down, stupid ass,” I said.

He looked at me uncertainly.

I yawned.

The cavern went away, slowly.

“You got some kinda nerve,” he said. “Like I never seen.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

“You can call the cops after we leave. Just keep your gun trained on Frick and Frack there until the cops arrive. Tell them they tried to hold up the place, or whatever. I really don’t care what you tell them, just give us time to get out of here.”

I reached into my wallet and brought out five one hundred dollar bills.

“Here. This should cover the damage.”

“Shit,” he said. “Okay. You got it.” The man snatched the money from my hand.

I went back to help Hank get Julie to her feet.

“You doin’ okay?” I asked.

“Better,” she said.

“Let’s get outta here,” Hank said.

Hank took one long minute outside to pop the hood of Jake and Freddie’s pickup and remove a couple of plug wires from the distributor cap.

“If the cops don’t slow them down, then that will,” he said. He tossed the wires over the barbed wire fence at the rear of the place and out into the high weeds.

By my reckoning we still had about a hundred and fifty or so miles to go; from Wichita Falls to northwest of Childress, Texas, some eighty or so miles southeast of Amarillo as the crow flies.

“I have a friend who lives outside of Vernon,” Hank told me when we were well on our way. Wichita Falls had faded into gently rolling plains behind us and I found my ears were popping from the change in altitude. Sometimes it’s simply amazing to me just how far a fellow can go and still be in Texas.

“Are you sure now’s a good time to stop by and say howdy?” Julie asked him. She had stopped holding her head in her hands about twenty miles back. Maybe Hank’s old Indian trick had eased her concussion.

“I don’t want a visit, I want some supplies.”

“Oh,” she said.

The hint of an idea was beginning to form in my mind, and I wanted to take a little time and try to plan things out.

“Okay,” I began. “We’ll stop in Childress and try and get some lunch. Then we’ll get a motel room and-”

”And?” Julie asked.

“And we’ll have a little council of war.”

“Fine by me,” Hank said. “Except let’s stop in Quanah for lunch. It’s closer. I know my way around this part of the country a bit, you know. Also, we turn off before we get to Childress for my buddy. That’s where I get the supplies.”

“What kind of supplies?” I asked. We were still set for drinks and other amenities, but I suspected Hank had a different idea of supplies than either Julie or I had.

“Oh… You know. A few sticks of TNT. Some nitrates. Prima cord. Some caps. That sort of thing.”

“Nitrates!” I was a bit stunned. “Geez louise, Hank. And prima cord? A little of that stuff goes a long way. Are you planning to start World War III?”

“Those fellows did that when they blew up Julie’s duplex and killed Dock,” Hank said. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re still driving his truck.”

“Yeah,” I said.

I thought about it and watched another mile tick by in the bright North Texas sun. The sun was coming directly in Julie’s window. She’d end up with her right arm slightly more tanned than her left.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll get your supplies.”

I felt something wet on the side of my face. Dingo was licking my ear.

“Darling,” I said to Julie, “you didn’t know we were traveling with Demolition Man and Scooby Doo-ette, did you?”

She laughed. “No. I didn’t. I figured they came along for our comic relief.”

Lunch, finally, in Quanah, a small Texas town much like the fictional Lake Woebegone: somewhere along the line, time simply forgot all about the place. If memory served, the town was named after Quanah Parker, a Texas half-breed Indian of some historical note. There were spots of my education that had been neglected, and that whole scenario was one of them. I’d have to do some reading up on the fellow when-and if-I made it back home. Texas was just too big and the years since its inception were becoming, for some of us, innumerable. Somewhere along the line, but within my own lifetime, Texas History had become an accepted specialization in academic circles.

Over hamburgers at a roadside diner well off the beaten path, we commiserated.

“We’re only about fifteen miles from the Red River,” Hank said. “Just to the north of us.”

“Really,” I said. “We should have brought a map.”

“Yeah,” he said.

I looked out the window of the diner. Dingo barked. We were making a little game of it. Whenever I looked her way, she barked at me. Hank and Julie looked at each other and shook their heads.

I took a big bite of my burger and turned back to look at Dingo with her big head poking out of my window.

A man was there, patting her on the head. He was a big man.

Suddenly I knew who he was: Mr. Fat-Business-Suit with the discernible gun bulge under his left arm that we’d seen in the cafeteria in Fort Worth. The Fed.

“Hank,” I said. “Look.”

I pointed.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Who is it?” Julie asked.

“Excuse me,” a voice said before I could think of what to tell her.

We all turned together. The other federal agent, the black fellow, was standing there at our table.

“Would you folks mind if I talked with you for a few minutes?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You guys are like blood hounds,” Hank said. “We haven’t seen you since Fort Worth.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Go ahead, I told him. Hank slid over and he took a seat.

“Okay,” he said. “First, we put one of these on your car.” He held up a small button-battery.

“You put a calculator battery on our car?” Julie asked.

“Looks like one, doesn’t it. It’s a tiny GPS transmitter.”

“GPS?” Julie said.

“Global Positioning System,” Hank told her. “Satellite surveillance. It tells these guys where we are within about fifteen feet anywhere on the planet. Standard issue for all cops cars, although I’ve never seen one that small.”

“Yeah,” the federal agent said. “But you will in about ten years. That’s about how long it takes for our gizmos to reach the open market.”