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.The gun barrel bobbed by Hester’s ear.Her eyes were wide.“OK, straddle the centerline,” Paul ordered Ralph.“Nobody can get past us on this road.”That might be true, Hester thought.Eventually, more help would come from ahead now that the police had somehow gotten wind of their plight.But then what would happen?Meanwhile, the bookmobile was setting no speed records.Ralph, his face frozen in grim fury, drove with his foot pressed to the floor.But every time the highway rose, Hester watched the wavering orange needle on the big round speedometer dip to 35, then 25, then 20.Ralph battled through the gears.As they rounded a bend a quarter-mile before Wahkeena Falls, blue lights flashed in the big rear-view mirror outside Ralph’s window.Paul could see the state police cruiser, which had stopped just long enough to pick up Harry Harrington, closing fast behind them.“Damn, damn, damn!” he shouted.It occurred to Hester that she had heard Paul swear more in the past hour than she ever had before.The bookmobile weaved to avoid a rock outcropping that overhung the highway.Paul turned and peered into the other mirror.With his face inches from hers, Hester saw something else new.The corner of his right eyelid suddenly jerked back as if trying to touch his ear.Hester hadn’t noticed the tic before.“This can’t be happening,” he moaned.Then a look of decision flashed across his face, and Paul turned and ran to the rear of the bus.Hester watched in amazement as he pushed open the door on the right rear side of the bookmobile and leaned out.She heard, rather than saw, the gun fire.“Oh my God, Ralph, he’s completely off his nut!” she hissed to the driver.Ralph rolled his eyes and nodded, stealing a glance to the rear of the bookmobile.“Ralph, now’s our chance.We’re coming up to Wahkeena.See the old snow piled from when they plowed the parking area, there on the right? It’s slushy enough, it shouldn’t be too hard.We can jump out the front door!”Ralph nodded.“With his head out the back, he’s not going to see us,” Hester continued.“Aim us next to the snow bank.When I say go, I’ll get the door open and leap for it.You be right behind me.”Ralph didn’t have time to argue.Another gunshot sounded, this one more distant.Were the police firing back?Ralph twisted around, saw Paul leaning out the door again, then looked ahead to the wide spot at the side of the road.He whispered to Hester, “Here we go!”He edged the bookmobile to the shoulder.The speedometer needle dipped to 30, then 25.“Now!”Hester leapt from her seat, wheeled and grabbed for the door handle.As the door crashed open, she glanced back and saw Paul Kenyon staring at her from the rear of the bus.He looked.puzzled?Hester jumped.All she felt was the shock of cold as she rolled out of control in mushy, wet snow.She had a fleeting, blurry impression of the bookmobile’s big rear wheels passing within inches.Then a 220-pound weight knocked her breath away.A loud “Oof!” came from Ralph as he tumbled off Hester and into a 10-inch deep puddle of slush.After a second, he raised his head.“Oooh,” he groaned.“Let’s never do that again.”Chapter Twenty-eightThe driverless bookmobile almost stalled.But it kept moving, like a drunk staggering toward a closed door.A stone bridge abutment, built when Woodrow Wilson was president, stood in its path.Leaping from the back of the bus, Paul skidded on the linoleum floor, then wrenched the steering wheel just in time to avoid disaster.The bridge rail took a layer of magenta paint off the entire right side of old No.3.Sliding into the driver’s seat, Paul grappled with the oversized gear shift.He winced as the transmission made a sound like a fork caught in an eggbeater.Finally, gears clicked.The bus once again lumbered on its way, the engine roaring like a wounded beast.Five miles away, Nate Darrow gripped a radio mike and coordinated the emergency response.A uniformed officer next to him guided their blue-and-white Ford as it rocketed up the steep road toward Six Tepees Over Oregon.“Harry, are you sure the driver and Ms.McGarrigle are OK?”Harrington, in the passenger seat of the state police cruiser, turned and cocked his head at Hester and Ralph, wrapped in blankets in the back seat.“I’ll be fine,” Hester said.“Just catch that S.O.B.,” Ralph added, nursing a cut lip.Harrington thumbed the mike.“She’s scraped up, and he should have a couple X-rays.We’ll get them to the E.R.at Gresham for a look-over.But they say to keep moving.”“So where’s the bookmobile?” Darrow’s voice came from the radio.“The postmistress in Bridal Veil said he headed uphill, definitely did not get on the freeway.We’re probably less than two miles behind him.We ought to be seeing him any time now.We’re not tailing an Indy car, trust me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]