Chapter 5 - Fire on the Canal Road
The engine screamed as Jax twisted the throttle, opening the carburetor wide. The vibrations hammered through the steel frame, up through Jax's thighs and into Toby’s chest. The canal road was a rutted mess of dried mud and broken shale, bordered on the left by an empty concrete irrigation ditch and on the right by endless fields of barbed wire and dead alfalfa.
Jax glanced down. Toby's little fingers were white from clenching the brass links of Jax’s belt.
""Keep your head down!"" Jax yelled over his shoulder, his voice swallowed by the wind. The boy tucked his face deeper into Jax's spine, squeezing his eyes shut.
In the rearview mirror, the gap was closing. Creed was riding point on a souped-up chopper with extended forks, a lunatic grin painted across his face. In his right hand, Creed swung a length of heavy industrial chain, the iron links glinting in the harsh desert glare.
""Jax!"" Creed’s voice carried through the roar of their engines. ""Pull over and maybe I’ll let you bury the runt!""
Jax didn't answer. He knew the canal road ended three miles out at an abandoned pump station where the bridge was washed out. If they hit that bottleneck, they were dead. His mind raced through every dusty detour in the county. There was a cattle guard ahead—a grid of steel pipes across the road to keep livestock from straying. If a bike hit it at an angle, it was an instant wipeout.
Jax slowed down deliberately.
""What are you doing?!"" Toby screamed into his back, sensing the drop in speed.
""Hold on with everything you've got!"" Jax ordered.
Creed surged forward, anticipating an easy strike, raising the chain high to lash at Jax’s back wheel. Just as Creed drew alongside his left flank, Jax slammed the rear brake, flicked the handlebars hard to the right, and launched his bike straight across the flat lip of the cattle guard at a perfect perpendicular line.
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Creed, moving too fast to react, caught the slick metal pipes diagonally. His front wheel shuddered violently, whipped sideways, and the heavy bike flipped end-over-end in a catastrophic eruption of sparks, metal, and dust.
Jax accelerated away, the roar of the second pursuer temporarily fading behind the crash. But as they crested the hill toward the safety of the foothills, the bike’s engine sputtered, coughed, and died completely.
