What goes around...

The beginning of one ugly relationship

Once upon a time, I accidentally aroused the ire of one of my Tennessee hometown's most infamous bad guys.

And that's saying a lot, since there were quite a few well-known bad guys from my neck of the woods back then.

So many in fact, that during my first stay in Texas, some ex-convicts Steve and I regularly associated with for a while suddenly went pale when they learned where we came from-- and after that made themselves scarce from our company.

(And no; I never did find out who or what had scared them so about our home county. But it sure wasn't Steve or me: we never did anything but treat them kindly, while they were around.)

My own involvement in this particular misadventure seemed to have started when my friend Ben and I went to see this major bad guy in person. Though my friend knew something of the guy's 'bad news' status, and tried mightily to impress it upon me before we met him, to me the guy was just the owner of a wrecked Camaro my friend was hoping to purchase parts from.

Fortunately we made this visit in Ben's 1967 Camaro he was fixing up at the time, and not Shadowfast.

This happened only around a month or two before my final run in Shadow. And sort of helped prepare me for that, I guess. I was off both V.I.P. convoy duty and training for a few weeks. So I'd looked up my old friend, and was accompanying him on this parts run.

After arriving at the guy's house, we noticed the fellow had a shiny new Pontiac Firebird Trans Am too, besides the wrecked Camaro.

The ruined Camaro had been a famous local fast car before the crack up, not only according to my friend, but other sources as well. So I was actually much more familiar with the car's reputation, than that of its driver.

The Trans Am was a blazing red 1973 model with 455 cubic inch Super Duty motor-- one of the very first ones delivered in early 1973, apparently.

Roddy Grooms seemed like an exceedingly strange person to me, with some sort of nervous tic, which was disturbing to witness in action.

He'd supposedly killed several guys, and only spent a brief time in prison for any of it. But that didn't impress me as much as it did my friend. I knew quite a few folks with similar pasts, and had worked closely with at least one of them for months.

To me the best stories were about Grooms' wrecked Camaro.

But his new Trans Am caught my eye now. After a most unsatisfying talk between Ben and Roddy regarding Camaro parts (my friend didn't get any), we all gravitated to the subject of the new Trans Am.

Roddy seemed surprisingly ambivalent about the car; like he was disappointed in it or something.

I thought it looked terrific, and loved many aspects of the car. Of course, I knew I couldn't afford something like it. Plus, even if I could have, I'd likely have only gotten killed in it. For my lifestyle of the time pretty much demanded the tough and gritty Shadowfast: a less substantial, more showy car, would only have delivered me to my grave.

If and when I changed my way of living, things might be different...but that decision didn't seem entirely mine to make.

Yeah, I already had the best damn car around, and kind of knew it. But those Trans Ams were just so gorgeous...

I mentally drooled over the power the 455 Super Duty might possess, and longed to test drive the car; but surely that was out of the question.

Imagine my surprise when Roddy asked if we wanted to take her for a spin!

My friend Ben took the wheel for the departure leg, and me for the return. My friend was much more conservative than I in general; plus maybe a bit intimidated by Roddy. So his drive resembled that of a trek to a church picnic-- by someone three times his age. Or at least that was my own impression at the time.

No, I didn't hot rod the car either at first, simply due to it belonging to someone else. But after I asked and got Roddy's permission, I felt it okay to try a few things.

My surprising disappointment began from the first moment I put it into gear. I realized then that maybe my friend had been pushing the car harder than I thought.

The Trans Am was an automatic, as Roddy said his wife had insisted upon it. That was one of his beefs with the car. His Camaro had been a four speed.

But me, I found auto trannies better anyway for rough driving. So that part was fine with me. What wasn't fine was the power.

455 cubic inches; Super Duty. I wondered if the idle was set too low on the car; or the trans was in need of tweaking. For while idling (or even with a slight pressure on the gas pedal!), the car couldn't pull itself up a very shallow incline at all, where in the same situation I had to hold Shadow back with the brakes.

Was it a big difference in low end torque? I wondered.

In hindsight, it was likely a difference in pollution controls and overall vehicle weight between the cars. For instance, the Trans Am looks to have weighed maybe 3500 pounds empty, versus Shadow's 2800.

The performance situation didn't improve any on the highway, as I had to push the gas pedal remarkably deep for the response I got.

As we didn't have any good curves handy to try out in our little joy-ride (we were mainly tooling about in town and nearby surroundings), I didn't get to test the car's cornering performance. But maybe that wouldn't matter much, if the car had so little low end and mid-range power. Maybe this car mainly excelled at the top end? I definitely had no chance to test that aspect.

So in the end I basically agreed with Roddy about the Trans Am. I mean, it was new and pretty and much more comfortable than Shadow. But I personally would have been ill at ease much of the time, driving such a car.

It seemed to look a lot faster than it drove; at least at low to medium speeds.

Roddy said he'd probably buy himself another vehicle, and give the T-A to his wife. The way he talked, money was of little consequence to him.

Although there may have been hints to the fact in that meeting, I don't think I truly realized Roddy was (among other things) a drug dealer at the time. However, I did find myself wondering if he was on some sort of drug himself, during the time we spent with him. For his occasional disconcerting tic, often incongruous facial expressions, and at times ill-formed statements, all seemed to indicate either an altered state of mind, or unusual mental perturbation of some sort.

It turned out to be lucky for me that I'd met Roddy that day-- and not been driving my own car.

While I would be unaware of the connection until much later, I inadvertently caused Roddy a bit of trouble only a few days after my friend and I had visited him. But he wouldn't know it was me for quite some time. As I was (perhaps infuriatingly) average in size and personal appearance (and so difficult to pick out of a crowd), Roddy's men would use my car as a means of positive identification, in describing me to him: an all blacked-out Mustang, with a roll bar inside.

The incident in question happened bright and early on a Sunday morning. Circumstances had forced me to make an early junkyard rendezvous for an important part. Unbeknownst to me, a close associate of Roddy's happened to be there too-- but for a darker purpose.

We were all standing inside the junk yard's 'front office': basically a medium-sized cinder block walled warehouse, with a counter near the front, and an all-purpose garage/workshop deeper inside the building. There were multiple sets of large sliding doors built into the walls of the place, and various tables and pegboards near the counter, covered with old and well-worn tools. The yard owner (and customers like me) often used those tools to go remove parts from the many junkers surrounding the structure.

Roddy's buddies was trying to fence stolen cars to the yard owner. They weren't too picky either, as one also asked me if I'd be interested in a spanking hot new 'Cuda with a 340 engine, for just $500. Thanks but no, I told him.

The junkyard owner wasn't interested either. But it increasingly seemed like they weren't going to give him a choice in the matter.

Yeah, I could have just left. But I knew Marvin the yard owner, and his wife and kids. I also knew Marvin was trying to stay clean, because he'd been in prison before. Although Marvin wasn't bad in a fight (I'd heard), this was three guys, one of them pretty big. Way unfair odds, in my book.

Plus Marvin flashed me a look indicating he'd appreciate some help; not just once, but several times. Or at least that's how I took it.

I was pretty sure that subtlety or incremental escalation wasn't going to cut it in this situation. I couldn't afford to warn these guys I might intercede, without likely guaranteeing Marvin and I would be on the losing end of what came next.

I'd been in similar spots in my home county before, and knew the toughies would just expect bystanders like me to quietly slink off, or merely stand and watch. For that's what most people in these parts seemed to do in such circumstances.

But I don't always do what's expected of me. As the persuasion got a little harsher on Marvin, I whipped around with a long pair of bolt cutters that'd been laying on a table nearby, to hit the biggest guy in the bunch.

My aim was off due to having to aim blind in my turn (I'd begun my swing with my back to my first target; this had been necessary in order to pick up the tool, and maximize the element of surprise), so I only hit him in the shoulder. But I followed that up with a rapid twist to bash another of the three as well.

I fully expected Marvin to join in at that point, but instead he turned and ran.

Holy crap! I was so screwed!

Now it was me or them. Three of the suckers! Luckily the second guy I'd struck was backing off, but the first guy-- the biggest guy-- looked little the worse for wear from my initial blow, and the third-- their apparent boss-- pulled out a pistol.

I continued flailing at them with the bolt cutters, mostly missing as they retreated and gathered their wits for a counter-attack.

Then they shot me: for there was a mighty BANG! I was stunned by a sudden, overwhelming sense of my own mortality; what the hell had I done?

But there was no pain. And the bad guys weren't looking at me. I followed their line of sight to see Marvin standing there with a 12 gauge pump shotgun, smoke drifting from the barrel. The gun was pointed at the gang, but so far as I could tell no one was shot.

I was alive!

Marvin later told me his shot had been in the air, to get everyone's attention.

"Get the hell off my property right now, or so help me I'll blow your goddamned heads off!" Marvin ordered the gang.

With little more than muted grumbling, they backed off, returned to their car, and left. Their chief wasn't about to challenge Marvin's 12 gauge with an itty-bitty pistol.

Once we were sure it was over, Marvin expressed some annoyance with me over the incident. But it helped that I had a family connection to the local law, and so my presence at the event would allow Marvin (with some careful explanations to folks on both sides of the law) to avoid any subsequent repercussions-- and likely get out of having to fool with any future hot car deals, too.

This kind of stuff was normal in my hometown. So I didn't give it much thought afterwards.

A few nights later I'd pulled over into a large parking lot to check something-- I can't recall what now. I put Shadowfast into parking gear, but kept him idling. I had my window down.

I'd parked not far from a group of cars mainly consisting of 'regulars' in this particular lot: commuters to one of the few main job sources in the region; a chemical plant some 30 miles away. The workers would park here and catch a bus to save money.

I liked to park in groups for cover, as it wasn't unusual for someone to be after me, whether I was currently aware of it or not. So I often used groups of parked cars in and around my hometown-- and especially when I was near the most popular city road around, as now.

Unfortunately, this tactic wasn't entirely fool-proof. For on occasion there could be others lurking in the group as well, for various reasons. Although I always scanned for such folks before parking, it's not all that difficult for someone to escape notice, even by pure happenstance.

This was one of those times.

Suddenly I heard someone say "Give me your money or I'll shoot".

I looked up and recognized Roddy, who was standing beside Shadow with a snub-nosed pistol stuck in my face. The muzzle was maybe a foot from my nose.

I was already hunched over because of things I'd laid out in the floorboard before me under the lot's lamp light. So Roddy couldn't tell the difference when I fished my thick electrical cable club out from under my seat with my right hand, while also opening an interior storage panel in my car door with my left. I passed the club to my left hand, and one end into the storage compartment, staying in the same crouched position all along. So to Roddy, it appeared I didn't move much at all after hearing his demand.

"What?" I stalled, while getting my club into position.

"Give me your goddamned money or I'll shoot!"

"I'd be careful with that thing if I were you," I said.

"What? Why, you crazy mother-fucker!" Roddy laughed. "I'll shoot your ass! Give me all your money!"

Money was awfully hard to come by in those days, and I was pretty young. And maybe a little too willing to resist such demands.

"Do you hear that?" I asked him, as inside I tapped the exposed copper wire at my club's far end against the thin exterior sheet metal of my car door. My little storage compartment simply opened up into the naked interior space of my door.

"What's that?" Roddy's smile got a little less enthusiastic.

"That's my sawed off twelve gauge," I lied. "I've always wondered what it'd be like to shoot someone with it through the special place I made for it inside my door." I tried my best to look happy.

"You're a goddamned liar!" Roddy challenged me.

I smiled back as if he were pointing a daisy at me.

"I figure you might live long enough to get to the hospital," I continued. "After all, it's not like I got a solid slug in it right now. Just a load of shot."

Most civilian shot gun shells of that period came in two basic types: gigantic lead slugs which could be used to cut down small trees, and scatter-shot, or lots of small metal ball bearing-like projectiles, which scattered to impact a much wider area than a single object could, and thus make it easier to strike down small game like birds or rabbits.

Of course at this range scatter-shot wouldn't have a chance to spread out, and would act more like a slug, ripping through the thin sheet metal of a car door, and gouging out a pretty big hole in any human torso which happened to be positioned only a couple feet farther away.

I don't know if any male born in my hometown could reach adulthood without becoming aware of those things.

Of course Roddy was in no danger, since my club was certainly no shot gun. This was one of the extremely rare instances where I tried bluffing my way out of a bad situation. I hate bluffing.

Roddy's face oddly alternated between nervousness and an excited smile. He changed the subject, still pointing his pistol at me.

"Hey! Don't I know you?"

"No," I answered for some reason.

"Yeah, I know you from somewhere, I'm sure."

The apparent stand off continued for another minute or so, as Roddy seemed to get ever more confused trying to figure out who I was, and I didn't make it any easier for him.

Finally Roddy's on-again-off-again smile broke into an open-mouthed string of hysterical laughter and profanity, and he ran away, waving both hands-- including the one with the gun-- in the air. Part of the time he seemed to be ranting about how crazy I was.

It was probably dumb of me to refuse him my money like that. But I was a product of my times and circumstances.

Roddy may not have remembered in that event where he'd originally met me, but he'd sure remember my car afterwards. In Roddy's warped perceptions, the blacked out Shadowfast and its driver seemed to be becoming an ever larger thorn in his side. And Roddy wasn't accustomed to suffering thorns.

Some days after that I was driving on a fairly long five-lane highway in my hometown (after dark), and looked to my left to find him there beside me, in his Trans Am. Making motions with a free hand like he wanted to race (street lights made his movements visible).

I shook my head "no" in an exaggerated fashion to make sure he'd see it under the circumstances, at night, but on a well lit highway. He kept motioning insistently, and occasionally surging forward with his Firebird, but I wasn't taking the bait. This particular highway was nowhere near long enough for a serious race, and I figured Roddy wasn't thinking straight (or else had something bad planned for me). So I didn't cooperate. In another minute or two we came to a major intersection, and we both turned left onto the main drag in my hometown which everybody frequently cruised at the time. Again Roddy kept urging me to race him, now displaying obscene finger gestures and such to try goading me into it.

On the new road there were lots more witnesses to all this, due to its popularity as a hang out. Many people were parked in various lots adjoining the highway, merely watching traffic, or shooting the breeze with one another. Very few of these folks knew me personally. But maybe several had heard of Shadowfast. Part of the reason for my anonymity was this concourse was frequented mostly by the high school crowd on nights like this, and I'd already moved on to become a college drop out, myself.

I'd faced down the ultimate in peer pressure years before, so Roddy's juvenile antics had little effect on me. I definitely wasn't going to play his game, whatever it was. And my days of impromptu racing for fun were long past: I considered myself a serious driver these days. Especially now that Shadowfast himself was so armed and dangerous, in road war terms. I couldn't afford to get caught up in some silly altercation where someone got hurt, and then my special devices on Shadow discovered. The courts would have had a field day with that.

We approached and then passed the parking lot where only weeks before Roddy had shoved his gun into my face.

Once past that, Roddy stopped his efforts to antagonize me, and dropped back to behind Shadow.

I'd only come out driving to relax. I rarely got a chance for recreational driving in Shadow anymore; something I once loved to do, especially at night and during storms. But I almost never got the chance any more.

And here Roddy was, spoiling my latest try for a break. He kept following me, mile after mile after mile.

For quite a while I made no move to try losing him, as I wasn't in the mood. Plus, I wondered if he had a police car waiting somewhere to try catching me breaking the law. Since our (Ben and mine's) meeting with him, I'd heard that Roddy had powerful connections with certain local cops, despite his drug dealing and car theft operations.

During my high school days, one of my friends had been the local police chief's son, who had often entertained me and others with tales of all the corruption going on with local officers. In the time since, I'd run across little reason to dispute those stories.

I had my own family connection with the local law, but it was in the form of an uncle who was a judge. Based on how all the rest of my family was, I doubted there was much bending of the law going on in his court. So my own connection to the local law wasn't anything I figured I could exploit for profit or mischief. Indeed, if my judge uncle was anything like a teacher aunt I'd once suffered under in fifth grade, he'd go the complete opposite way-- to make an example of me any chance he got, as a sign of anti-favoritism to the population-at-large (I honestly had no idea most of the time as to why my teacher aunt had been so frequently brutal to me. Now, decades later, I've reached the conclusion there was something wrong with her).

So for a while I just took Roddy for a ride. In a huge, rambling tour of our native county. I had plenty of gas; enough for Shadow to visit an adjoining state and come back again tonight, if I so wished.

I tried to enjoy myself, but the nagging lights of the Firebird in my rear view pretty much prevented that. In just about any other case I might have stopped and confronted a follower like this in some well-lit public place. But it'd been in a well-lit public place that Roddy tried to rob me at gunpoint. So I didn't figure it wise to give him a second chance.

Eventually I tired of the game, and decided to end it.

Hmm. The low traffic, rural two lane we were on at the moment had plenty of high speed straight-aways, but also lots of family driveways which spilled onto it. And several other significant road intersections as well. So I led Roddy to the interstate.

I got on at normal speed to gauge traffic, with Roddy close behind.

Hmm. How should I deal with this guy? I wondered. Best to do it quick to minimize the risk to others, I decided.

Then it occurred to me that if I simply had the spare time, I might could wait him out. His smog-controlled 455 likely sucked gas like a demon, and all other things being equal, would have to refuel long before Shadow. But even a 455 could stay on the road for hours. And Roddy could have topped off his tank just before this trek. Plus, I didn't want to drive all night.

Sure, I could make him suck gas faster in a high speed chase, but that wasn't really necessary. Not to mention the danger to others it might pose.

So I looked for a decent strobe lights opportunity.

We were doing about seventy by that point, and were now about a third of the way towards the next nearest metropolitan area. I figured I could soon lose him, and easily double-back for home. Pretty straightforward.

So I made no suspicious moves whatsoever until I was ready to spring my distraction.

We came up on a suitable exit. I didn't use my turn signal. Shadow could almost stop and turn on a dime, compared to most other cars. So I waited until we were just reaching the turn off and flipped on my strobes for a second, then off again. Roddy immediately jammed on his brakes, as I watched his reaction in my rear view. He'd been momentarily blinded by the strobes. There was no other traffic around, so I hadn't endangered any innocents.

Roddy's hard stop gave me extra stopping room too, which I used to slow down dramatically, then let off the brakes, and make a power swerve onto the exit now almost past us.

Roddy would probably have been surprised to know how close our cars came to one another during that moment, as I used the road space his braking provided for my getaway.

Immediately after flipping off the strobes, I switched on Shadow's stealth lighting mode. Of course, back then the word "stealth" wasn't widely used. So I thought of it as a cloaking device.

In stealth mode all Shadow's normal exterior lighting-- including brake lights but excluding strobes-- would remain non-functional except for those lights facing forward. So even if Roddy could see anything immediately after the strobes assault, there'd be no red tail light trail of any kind to follow. And as the rest of Shadow was flat black, it wouldn't give much visual purchase either in the darkness. The strobes were merely a guarantee of success: the frosting on the cake.

Being an old hand at this, I blasted off the interstate at relatively high acceleration to minimize visual exposure time as well. Then slammed on the brakes where the exit spilled onto another highway. Then massively accelerated again to build still more distance and uncertainty into the equation. Within another mile or so I slammed on the brakes once more, and pulled off into a good hiding spot, to see what came by.

I waited, idling, all lights off, stealth circuit still working so accidental brake light activation wouldn't give me away, listening to a music tape for twenty minutes, to make sure Roddy was good and lost. Then I went home.

From Roddy's point of view, suddenly he was dazzled by brilliant white flickering lights, and when his sight began returning again, I was nowhere to be seen. Vanished. Into thin air.

He could have continued on miles down the interstate, to no avail. Or even guessed my strategy, and used the emergency lane to back up to the same exit and take it-- only again to fail to find me. For he simply couldn't do all this rapidly enough to succeed.

I knew the effect well, for I'd used it many times on others. And even tested it on myself, with me in a regular car following dad driving Shadowfast. Man, were those strobes something! Especially at night, and when you weren't expecting them.

Unfortunately this incident just incensed Roddy, who was apparently getting into trouble on several different fronts at the time, according to what I'd later learn.

He began asking anybody and everybody about my car and its tricks after that.

Luckily the only people who knew any of the juiciest details were family and close friends. And even they were unaware of many features of the car.

But Roddy's connections with the local outlaws and police did provide him with some significant tidbits, stemming mostly from the experiences of others who'd come up against Shadow and lost.

Roddy had other connections too. Plus plentiful cash to fund some shenanigans.

Basically Roddy enlisted some other hot rodders to help him. Even a few who'd lost tussles with Shadow and I before, and wanted to see us brought down.

I did get a hint or two that something was brewing, but not enough to avoid the trap. Later I'd learn Roddy had promised significant rewards for everyone involved if the plan worked. Some of it in drugs, some in cash, some in hot cars.

A smack out of the blue

Not far from my parents' house was a four way stop intersection with no red light. I'd passed through it hundreds of times.

It was now just a week before I'd be heading back to my convoy job. As I neared the crossroads, I noticed a pickup truck parked at a house only yards from the junction begin to ease up to its own particular stop sign of the bunch.

It purposely neared the sign at a snail's pace, allowing me to stop first, then continue on with the right of way.

I'd experienced something like this many, many times at this intersection. Sometimes I was the one timing my stop to encourage others to take the first crossing.

I began to traverse the intersection at a normal pace, with the truck's front end only maybe ten feet or so away.

Suddenly the truck's driver floored it, and for a split second I couldn't believe what was happening. But then I immediately floored it too, to try to avoid a collision.

But even Shadowfast couldn't get out of the way that quickly, at point-blank range. At least not with my slight hesitation in the mix, damn it!

I didn't have time to consider a nitro boost. But even if I had, the result would likely have been the same, only with more tire smoke involved; it just happened too fast.

You simply don't expect complete strangers to try ramming you in such a situation. I could plainly see the driver's face, and so far as I knew I'd never met the guy before.

Shadow amazingly managed to get his entire front end and middle past before impact, leaving the truck only our driver's side rear wheel to smack into.

The good news was that was probably the best and toughest spot for us to take a straight on truck ramming in the side, with the wheel and axle behind it shouldering virtually the entire burden, and Shadow's tight suspension minimizing damage to the quarter panel by making sure the body closely followed behind the rear axle's path, sliding across the road.

So the hit didn't disable Shadow whatsoever. But it did put a nasty looking crater in the fender above the wheel.

Somehow, despite the truck's forward acceleration and connection, we sprang loose again along the way, so that the damage was limited to just above the wheel, and did not continue on through the remainder of our tail as we passed.

Thinking on this again decades after the fact, I'm struck by that curious lack of damage beyond the impact point. By rights, Shadow's entire rear end on the driver's side should have been decimated, including the accompanying portion of the custom rear spoiler and bumper.

The truck barreled on past us, and then the driver jammed on his brakes.

I stopped too-- angry of course-- but also aware that sometimes people mistakenly pressed the gas for the brake-- and sometimes equipment simply breaks at a bad moment.

The truck driver acted normally enough as he approached, asking me if I was okay, and apologizing.

So when his whole demeanor changed once getting in reach of me, I was surprised for a second time.

He abruptly began punching me like he was a boxer in training. I blocked as best I could, but he was a better fighter, and had maybe an extra hundred pounds of weight (and a foot of height) on me too.

Plus he was taking me wholly by surprise.

What the hell was going on? I pleaded with the universe.

We sort of went around in a wide circle for a moment as I tried to mount a defense against the unprovoked attack, but I was already hurting.

He then knocked me down, and I took the opportunity to get my head and arms under the rear end of Shadow, to frantically undo the two spring-loaded release latches for my crash bars there.

The truck driver painfully kicked at my lower body maybe three times, as I worked at getting the bars free. I tried protecting myself as I could, but wasn't wholly successful.

I was afraid he'd pull me out from under the car before I could get a bar. And he almost did. But just after he'd gotten a good hold and started to yank, my crash bars fell onto my chest, and I surprised him with a steel-reinforced sweep across his forearms.

These rods were like skinny crow bars with some fancy bends on both ends.

He retreated cursing and nursing his arms, and I scrambled out as fast as I could in an effort to keep him off balance, continuing to sweep the bars dangerously before me, forcing him back step by step as I got to my feet.

I had murder in mind at that moment, as I knew it was going to be him or me, and I didn't dare give him any further chances in the bout.

After I was back on my feet again I accelerated my aggression to manic intensity, catching him with several blows about the chest and shoulders and hips, pretty much all of them obviously painful (by that point I was wielding a bar in each hand (as there were two of them), and pummeling the hell out of him).

Finally I got past his defensive posture and caught him a couple times in the head and face, and he went down, bleeding.

He was now crying and pleading with me not to kill him, trying to protect himself from further bar strikes by basically curling up into a fetal position, with his arms folded over his face and head. He was huddled on the ground with his back towards me, peeking through his fingers.

"If you try anything at all I will kill you," I warned him. I wasn't about to take any extra chances with this son of a bitch.

"Why the hell did you jump me?" I demanded, poised to strike him again with the bars.

He then explained he'd been hired to attack me and my car. And who had done the hiring? Roddy.

Bastard!

The mugger-for-hire turned out to be a bouncer from a local bar. Who'd thought I'd be an easy couple of hundred bucks. He'd meant to disable Shadowfast, but failed. He was also supposed to cripple me up for a while. Not necessarily kill me; but make sure I remembered the moment (if I did live through it).

Now the question was, what to do with him?

I couldn't think of anything fancy or poetic with my adrenaline still racing. So I stood over him with bars still at the ready, as I instructed him to spread himself flat on the ground, crawl over to his truck, and then underneath it.

He was scared of what I was going to do next, but I told him I just wanted to have him underneath the truck where he couldn't make any sudden moves, while I thought for a minute. Plus I encouraged him by pointing out that he'd be better protected against my bars by being under the truck.

This gave me the chance to retrieve some spare automotive electrical wire and pliers from my trunk.

Then I made him a proposal.

"I tell you what: I'll leave it up to you. I can either whack at your head some more with my bars, or you can tie yourself up real nice and tight to your truck. Either way, I can then leave in peace. Which do you want to do?"

I had to repeat myself twice more, as the guy may have been a little out of it due to a mix of fear and injury. From the fairly sparse trickle of blood on the road I was pretty sure he wouldn't bleed to death. Not externally anyway.

I cut some generous portions of wire off the coil with my pliers, and handed one to him. I showed him where I wanted him to tie his first hand, and reminded him that his knot better make me happy.

Then I personally tied his other hand, keeping the bars close by just in case.

When finished he was on his back, half-way spread-eagled under his truck, with one hand tied to the rear end of his drive shaft (it was a two wheel drive) and the other to a leaf spring. His two hands couldn't meet to untie him. Yeah, I left him his mouth free to try it that way, since I wasn't any more anxious to report this to the cops than he was. By this time a couple of curious kids had shown up to gawk at the scene (and a few cars passed through the partly blocked intersection, their drivers offering no hint that they wished to get involved themselves).

"As soon as I leave, you're welcome to try using your teeth to get free. But just in case you can't, I'll put in a call to the cops that somebody up this way needs some help. I'll wait about ten minutes before I make the call. Allow the cops another ten minutes to get here, and that leaves you twenty minutes to scram," I instructed my would-be mugger.

I started to get back up off the asphalt and head for Shadow, but then something occurred to me. So I paused long enough to leave him with a parting comment.

"Oh, and by the way: if you ever come after me again, I'll finish the job. You understand?"

He mutely nodded his head.

I didn't actually call the cops; I was certain that he'd either free himself, or someone else-- like those kids maybe-- would do it for him. I was also never contacted by the police regarding the incident.

But keeping this out of the assault and/or accident reports meant I couldn't get the mugger's insurance to pay for the damage he did to my car. And I had only liability myself at that point. So repair costs came directly out of my own pocket, as usual.

My initial, frantic use of the twin bars together from beneath the car had pinched and blistered my hands something fierce. Some spots were bleeding.

I was bruised and sore for days afterward, with a tooth or two loose as well. By some miracle my glasses hadn't even come off in the brawl! But the frame had been bent a little.

Luckily for me, my younger brother was a talented bodywork man in training, and dad and I had built up a pretty decent little auto workshop as one byproduct of our putting together Shadow. So I used the incentive of substantial pay to get my brother to do a quick fix of Shadow's fender, and ran around with friends in other cars for a few days while he worked on it.

Though I was hopeful Roddy would finally be satisfied that he'd done enough, and leave me alone now, I knew I couldn't count on it; I'd have to be extra careful for my remaining time in town this trip.

It would be a while before I'd find out everything going on behind the scenes in this regard, after the four way stop altercation.

In the days that followed, I made sure to get more target practice than usual with my own armory of firearms. This also meant of course that I was traveling armed, much of the time.

In the months since dropping out of college I'd stayed at my parents' house during my hometown visits, and rented motel rooms when necessary for some convoy trips and other tasks. But usually I stayed at an apartment I was splitting with a couple other convoy folks, in the same town as our employer's office.

Those stays were much like sequestered jury duty stints, based on what my dad had told me about those: not much fun at all.

Anyway, it turned out staying at my parents at this time had protected me somewhat from Roddy. I would later learn that had I been staying elsewhere in town, I would have had to contend with at least another mugger or two of the type I suffered at the intersection. Or maybe serious vandalism or damage to Shadow instead.

But neither Roddy nor his cronies wanted to try anything at my parents' house. Partly because my family was generally well liked in the community. Plus I had three brothers, and we all of us had male friends with which we constantly orbited in and about the house (so there tended to be several able-bodied men about the premises at all times). At least half of everyone described owned at minimum one gun apiece, and knew how to use them.

My parents' place was also pretty busy. We all of us tended to come and go at random, and there was almost never a moment when the house was entirely empty, or everyone there asleep. It would have been difficult to catch us totally unawares.

We were strongly security-minded too. So catching an unmanned, out-of-the-way window or door open or unlocked was virtually impossible. Indeed, the better suited a given entry-way was to stealthy break-in, the more likely that aperture had both an inner and outer version, dead-bolts, multiple latches and locks, and even old fashioned crossbars (sometimes even multiple crossbars on the same entry-way, one wooden and one metal) across its inner side. Basement windows had thick and heavy iron grates over industrial steel-framed glass windows, with screens in-between. Some doors to the outside had locks or latches at both the top and bottom of the door itself, in addition to the traditional lock at the handle or knob.

Though it may sound odd, even with Shadowfast at my disposal, my oldest younger sister likely came to be considered (over time) to be the most dangerous one of our clan, by most locals. I guarantee you lots more of them ended up meeting or hearing of her, than they did me! But that's a whole other story in itself. Maybe someday she'll write up some of her own adventures. But if she does, expect them to be much more gruesome than mine.

Of course my sister had one advantage here, reputation-wise: unlike me, she didn't have to keep her exploits secret. Because she was (and is) the straightest of straight arrows, and always worked from inside the establishment, rather than outside like me.

So anyway, that sister of mine was still living there (or frequently visiting) during this span too; and so represented yet another force to be reckoned with by any attackers (although at this point she didn't yet possess nearly the fearsome reputation she would come to have later).

My parents' place was also pretty close to the middle of town, and only a few blocks from city hall, the court house/jail, and the offices of both the city and county police. I could literally walk from the police chief's office to my parents' front door in about 15 minutes or so.

And lastly, my dad's brother was an important judge thereabouts. Roddy may well have found himself standing before him several times in the past.

So I was safe while I was there.

Shadowfast too was safe there, due to the round-the-clock schedule we kept, and the relatively large number of friends and family which usually populated the vicinity. I learned later that Roddy and his gang had hoped to bypass Shadowfast's tricks by simply stealing him if possible. Or sabotaging him while he was parked and defenseless. But that was tough to do at my parents' place.

Failing that, they tried luring me out to various ambush sites, with phone calls relating to old business ventures I'd once engaged in. But I was pulling convoy duty these days, raking in some good dough, and so had no need of such extra income sources. I didn't think it too odd to get the calls, as occasionally such out-of-date proposals came my way normally. But I did find it unusual to get several in the same week.

Thwarted in most other ways, they were forced to simply keep an eye on me from a distance, and hope to mount a swarming attack on me if and when I left town for some reason. So their chance came when I headed back to work at the end of my hiatus.

As I mentioned previously, Roddy had rounded up everyone he could who had faced me and Shadowfast before, and knew something of my car's trick gadgets and other unusual capabilities. And encouraged them to brainstorm up some counter-measures, and various concepts for traps and ambushes.

The gang then bided their time until observers reported me leaving the house, and then getting on the interstate. At that point, the trigger was pulled for everyone involved.

Unfortunately for that bunch, Shadowfast was at the ultimate peak of his powers then. I'd spent much of my savings from my previous job to add a nitrous oxide system to his already formidable array of road war weapons, as well as made a few other changes for good measure. I may also have been in my best ever driving form personally.

The tip of the iceberg

Keep in mind I was just heading back to work; not setting out on a high-speed run. I was figuring on a leisurely, music-accompanied drive of a few hours, back to my shared apartment, in preparation for a convoy exercise the next day.

I didn't even have my CB antenna mounted. Or my police scanner on.

It'd been a while since my last Roddy-related trouble. And I hadn't noticed being watched at the house and around town; they'd done a pretty inconspicuous job on that. But of course, I'd also been pretty lax alert-wise. Heck: I was on vacation!

It was my 180 degree rear view mirror which saved me.

I'd grown accustomed to checking my wide-angle mirror almost as frequently as I looked out the windshield. For one thing, it was very easy and quick to do. For another, doing so had saved me from an astonishing number of potential crashes and unwanted police pursuits. Basically the mirror gave me near omniscience of the road and countryside around me, usually as far as I could see in every direction (and my CB radio extended my awareness beyond that).

This time I noticed a nondescript car moving up fast on my left in the passing lane, with the guy on the passenger side manipulating something that looked way too much like a gun...

Their over-eagerness gave them away. But damn if it didn't almost work anyway!

For the first car wasn't alone. It turned out that the cars immediately behind me and ahead of me were in cahoots with them. They'd boxed me in, without me realizing it.

My by now deeply ingrained habit of always leaving plenty of maneuvering space between me and the car in front of me had hampered them a bit in the set up. But they tried fixing that by suddenly slowing down drastically ahead of me, just as the shooter came up beside me.

Of course, running ambushes like that are pretty tricky timing-wise.

I'm not sure exactly which enemy move initiated my own defensive maneuvers-- the over-eager passing lane shooter, or the car ahead suddenly trying to squeeze me-- but instead of slowing down as expected, I swerved over into the emergency lane to my right, hit the gas, and shot right past the car in front.

I heard a small explosion, and saw a puff of smoke exist for just an instant outside the shooters' car, in the vicinity I'd just vacated. They'd missed us (Shadow and I) completely.

Once well past my ambushers and straightened out again on the highway, I gave Shadow more gas, and unrolled lots more distance between us and them. I reached up and turned on my CB, to get only static.

Damn! I hadn't screwed on the antenna!

Well, I was probably out of danger anyway I figured, so long as I kept putting more pavement between me and them.

Civilian traffic forced me to weave in and out, switching lanes to get around slow pokes. Given the circumstances, I occasionally used the emergency lane too when necessary. Though in Tennessee in those days you had to be extra careful in the practice. For the emergency lanes weren't meant for high speed use. The width of their useful pavement could fluctuate dramatically in spots, even leaving sharp-edged holes like traps awaiting the unwary. I'd once forced an enemy into hitting such a hole which was well-known to me but not him, in order to end some trouble. But even where the pavement was good there could be errant gravel from the land alongside the highway, or various auto debris like blown tire strips pushed there by traffic flow. The gravel could cause traction and steering problems; the rubber strips that and more, depending on their bulk and composition.

There could also be metal car parts or objects which had fallen off truck cargo beds there.

Luckily at that time I didn't face anything significant of that sort.

I was staying at around 100 to 110 mph, as it didn't appear my stalkers were anywhere near to catching up to me. Heck: they weren't even in sight anymore.

I knew this stretch of interstate almost never displayed a trooper presence. So I didn't switch on my scanner either (my scanner utilized a different antenna arrangement from my CB and AM/FM radio). I figured I'd lay down a bit more distance just to be on the safe side, then jump off an exit to have a bite to eat, while my pursuers had themselves a wild goose chase.

I didn't know that my foes were counting on me doing something very much along those lines. Recall I was dealing with an enemy here who had enlisted help from drivers with previous experiences involving me and Shadow. Put a dozen or so such folks together, and you get a decent idea of my usual strategy and tactics on the road. Yikes!

They wanted me off the interstate, into territory and circumstances they could better control.

If nothing else, they could drastically slow me down, if I was off the main highway. Allowing more of their gang to arrive on scene.

Shadow's distinctive look was also hurting me. It was easy as hell to pick him out at a distance in broad daylight. Combine that with extensive radio-based coordination, and maybe a couple dozen converging vehicles, and you get one surprisingly robust ambush scenario.

Roddy and his gang had been hoping all along to spring their trap in daylight, in order to reduce the effectiveness of my usual tricks and gadgets, as well as make Shadow's blacked out body scheme work against me, rather than for me.

Of course that also meant they badly needed to have me in hand before nightfall.

Alas, none of this was in my thoughts as I exited the highway to hit a fast food joint and relax.

I guess I should explain that little incidents like the pin and shoot weren't that unusual for me in those days.

If I told you the name of my native Tennessee county, and you asked those in the know about what it was like in the 1970s, you'd fast lose any skepticism you might have towards the events related here. Yes, perhaps that's sad and tragic; but none-the-less a fact.

Here's one example among many: one husband-wife squabble would get out of hand in my county some years after my supercar days-- leading the husband to pack so many explosives in his wife's car, that when it blew up later in a discount store parking lot, the authorities literally couldn't find anything left of the woman at all: for she'd been vaporized (the husband still went to prison though).

Anyway, I pulled into a place that offered me a good vantage point from which to watch the interstate (but drivers wouldn't see my car very well from the highway) and walked into the building to get a burger, fries, and shake to go. I figured it'd be a few minutes before the three car pin team went by.

I returned to Shadow and started munching down. Sure enough, very soon after that, here came the vehicles which had tried to kill me. I sat there in amusement, chewing my food as they approached...

...then stopped chewing, when they all every one got off the same exit I had.

What the hell?!

I didn't panic; after all, it could just be a coincidence. They might be giving up the chase, and turning around. Or giving up, and stopping to eat.

But I cranked Shadow back up again just in case. And looked forlornly up at the CB radio in my overhead console, for which I still hadn't remounted the antenna.

I reached back and switched on my hidden police scanner. Luckily it was configured with local crystals, as for my convoy job there seemed little need for such gear.

I then watched in amazement, as the pursuit gang headed straight for my present location, after getting off the interstate.

Hellfire! No way they could have seen me get off there! Or easily noticed me sitting here!

Then it hit me: I wasn't just dealing with those three cars, here. There were others involved; others I couldn't yet identify. And they were talking to each other via radio.

Holy crap.

CLICK HERE to see what happened next.