When push came to shove

I worked half a day on my construction job, taking off at lunch to go get my Texas driver's license and Shadow inspected. It'd been a week since I'd helped Briggs play hidey-hole with his cruiser, and it was now close to the deadline I'd been given for getting all this paperwork put away.

I'd practiced my speech about police harassment in case Briggs' buddies showed up at my trailer in regards to the incident, but nobody ever did. It seemed odd, but I'd seen odder.

I found the proper building in town, went in, and asked for a test.

"Don't you want to read the manual first?" the woman trooper sitting at the desk asked me.

"No thanks," I responded.

"I really think you'll want to read the manual," she told me.

"Can't I take the test without reading the manual?" I asked. Heck: I knew how to drive! And I'd passed the Tennessee test just fine. What reason could there possibly be to read the manual?

"Yes," she replied.

"Well that's what I want to do then, if you don't mind. I've got to get my car inspected today too, right after I get my license." There was a gas station certified for doing inspections only a block from here that I planned to visit afterwards.

"All right," she said, with a skeptical look. Ha! She didn't know who she was dealing with, I thought, smug from my wealth of road experience.

She gave me the test papers. I sat down at a small desk nearby to whip through it. If I could get this and the inspection done quickly enough, I'd have an extra hour or two of freedom today!

The very first question on the test was something like "How many people were killed on Texas highways last year?" Holy crap!

So I sheepishly went up and asked for a manual. I had to return the test, too.

If I recall correctly, the manual was over a hundred pages long; practically a novel! And now I knew I had to not only try reading it, but also memorizing it from cover to cover. In the next hour.

Luckily, I'm pretty literate. And have a knack for certain kinds of text absorption. But this job demanded something closer to photographic memory!

I did the best I could under the circumstances. There was some time pressure from the fact that inspection services might be closing at the nearby station soon.

I finished the manual and returned it to the supervisor, asking for the test back.

She surprised me with a version completely different from the first one I'd seen-- much like a school teacher might have done. The highway deaths question wasn't on it at all.

But I still passed the test (by the skin of my teeth).

Next came Shadow's inspection. We motored over to the station.

I'd gotten hold of a list of things which had to pass inspection maybe a week back, and thought I'd done everything required. Including building a mock exhaust system under the car, partly out of some flexible metal tubing and many soft drink cans with both ends punched out, with the result being painted all flat black to appear more substantial.

You see, the inspectors wouldn't look kindly on a system composed solely of straight-through glass pack mufflers, attached to header collectors. I didn't have the money or time to have a true, complete dual exhaust system installed. Plus, I didn't want such a thing on the car any longer than it had to be there to pass inspection. Hence, the drink can conglomeration. Yeah, it was so flimsy that parts would burn through in mere weeks of use (or less). But all it had to do was look okay, for a few minutes here.

I'd also of course 'disarmed' or unloaded and/or better disguised many of Shadow's normal road defenses, as I was afraid the inspectors wouldn't look kindly on items like cable-released tire poppers, crash bars, and similar things. I expected they'd have Shadow up on a hydraulic lift, affording them a view of his supercar underside rarely allowed to strangers (my native Tennessee had no such inspection requirements).

I was sure I'd taken adequate measures against unwanted discoveries here. So I felt ready for the inspectors.

But as I was waiting in line at the gas station I was made aware of some additional items that for some reason hadn't been on my own prep list. Holy crap! Luckily, for the trek to Texas I'd stocked Shadow with just about everything we might possibly need along the way: like his major tool and spare parts kits. And I was no slouch on automotive improvisation and quick fixes myself. So I was not wholly unprepared.

In the time I spent waiting in line I managed to get my horn working again. It'd quit maybe a month earlier. I also rigged up my back up lights to work more like they were meant to, rather than the bright strobes they normally performed as in anti-pursuit measures. Holy Crap, the sequel! The hurried strobes switch was a bit more difficult than the horn fix. I was lucky on this last one, as I'd left in place the original wiring, and merely moved the original bulb sockets back behind the small tail panel which held the bezels. So basically I just switched all those items back around and made sure the dim factory style bulbs still worked. One didn't, of course, requiring me to clean some corrosion from the socket and replace the bulb from onboard spare parts. But that was all easy, compared to the universe of other possibilities which might have transpired. Heck: if I'd had no spare bulb for that, the service station might have sold me one.

It was mostly sheer luck which had prevented me from ripping the original wiring from the car. So this was a close shave. For the original circuit depended upon a switch on the transmission shifting mechanism, which might have taken me too long to find and tie into otherwise, underneath Shadow.

Did my fake exhaust system fool the inspectors? Yep! Did my last minute fixes pass the tests too? Yep!

Believe it or not, the inspectors didn't even ask about the underside gear relating to the crash bars and tire poppers. I guess because their true function was unclear when unloaded. The inspectors also didn't seem to fiddle around with my stealth lighting switch, siren, or other questionable items inside the cockpit, which I had no practical way to render completely secure from such an examination (aside from simply disconnecting them so that the switches and levers seemed dead or unused). In the case of the siren, I figured I could get by with the truth: that it was part of an anti-theft system I hadn't completed installation on just yet. But it never came up.

So Shadow and I both made it through that particular gauntlet in one piece.

Of course I had to re-do my strobes, reconnect the switches and levers, reload my defense systems, and tear off the fake exhaust system afterwards to get back to normal.

Unfortunately, I postponed some of those tasks for a time.

Eight days after Shadow had passed inspection, I still hadn't gotten around to reloading his anti-pursuit defenses. My store of tire poppers and crash bars were stashed away in a closet in my trailer.

They weren't going to be reloaded today, either. Instead, I was heading to Houston to see my friend Steve, as I'd been doing every Saturday for the past few weeks now.

Apparently Briggs had been keeping tabs on me, and knew my routine. Sure, I'd detected him (or the possibility of such shadowing) a few times. But low level harassment by cops had been a fact of life for me long before I came to Texas.

So I mostly kept my nose clean where I knew my watchers to be.

Briggs also hadn't bothered me again since the pit incident. Hadn't even sent any of his pals to my place to shake me down, slash my tires, whatever. Nothing. Just watched me, it seemed.

So there I was on the interstate heading for Houston. It was a bit rainy off and on, but not sopping wet. The sky was maybe 50% to 80% overcast.

I was running around 75 mph, which was actually slower than some of the traffic around me. Texans on average seemed to drive considerably faster than my fellow Tennesseans. Despite this being a risky move due to the spotty nature of their highway quality. Some stretches would be pretty nice, while others were cratered with potholes or semi-patched potholes-- some dangerous enough to bust a tire or otherwise throw you out of control at normal interstate speeds.

Having made numerous trips this way by now, I was familiar with the locations of the good and bad stretches.

We were about to hit one of the better lengths of asphalt, when I noticed something unusual in my rear view mirror.

A full-sized car was making its way up through the staggered autos in the lanes behind me, in a manner even more hurried than typical for Texas drivers. There were no blue lights on it, and it was actually a red four door with black vinyl top-- but it bore the front end signature of a slightly dated police car. Then I saw the enormous vertically standing black bumpers, jutting out like fangs before the main bumper and grill, and knew it for an unmarked police vehicle.

I quickly slowed down to be well within the locally posted speed limit, as I wanted to avoid altercations if possible.

I hoped he'd just pass me by. But instead, he maneuvered in immediately behind me.

A minute or so passed without him making any indication he wanted me to pull over, and I figured maybe he was checking me out over the radio or something. Though I couldn't actually see any related antenna. Which was odd for a police car of that era. No spotlight either. Now that I thought about it, I'd never before seen an unmarked cop car with a vinyl top, or such a flashy color paint job as this one. Unmarked law cars of this period usually stood out for their dullness. And yet, there were those enormous cop bumper bars in the front.

The odd vehicle eased up ever so slowly until it was finally and definitely tailgating me.

I sped up just slightly to match the local speed limit, but the other guy did the same. I figured there couldn't be more than a foot between my rear bumper and his front.

This was getting very annoying. But I wasn't going to give him a reason to pull me over. If he was a cop, I mean.

I figured I'd just ignore him, and maybe he'd get tired of the game and move on in a little while.

He was close enough now that I could see his face and shoulders. He looked familiar.

Then I realized it resembled Briggs, only in civilian clothes and wearing a baseball cap. Oh brother.

Well, there was nothing to do but ignore him.

That didn't work though.

He bumped me!

Not a hard bump, meant to make me lose control and run off the road. But a teasing bump, to let me know he was here to ruin my day.

I recalled my anti-pursuit measures were all empty. But of course I wouldn't have used them for the current circumstances anyway. It was just that I was beginning to think he might have much more in mind than a tentative bump or two.

I'm not sure how much interaction Shadow and I had had with police cars of this particular model before. This was partly because I didn't usually let them get this close.

But the local Texas cops knew me now because of that earlier car thief take down incident, and I wanted to stay in Texas at least a little longer. So I didn't want to get into a scrap with this guy. Not for a third time. Not after all the trouble I'd gone to only a week ago to get a Texas license and Shadow passed inspection! Grr.

But Briggs did want a scrap.

He bumped me again. This time a bit harder, causing my rear wheels to briefly lose their hold on the road.

I easily corrected for it, being no amateur at such pranks. But I was starting to feel like obliging the guy.

No, the escalation was still nowhere near calling for things like blowing his tires. But I would have felt better if my defenses had been loaded.

He bumped me again. I corrected. And sped up a little beyond the speed limit. If he was going to pull me over and give me a ticket I wanted to get it over with and go on with my trip. Bastard.

But he only bumped me again. This time staying connected. Double-bastard.

So I let off the throttle and starting slowing down, Shadow's rear bumper protesting a bit at holding off the big fang bumpers of Briggs' red and black stealth pursuit car. For that's what I figured it was now. Briggs' personal vehicle, rather than a true government car. He'd basically bought a civilian version of a high performance police model, and added the extra aggressive front bumpers himself. Plus maybe added other items too. But Briggs had stayed stealthy for the most part. Yes, the bumpers were a dead giveaway, but there was no alternative for those if you wanted the power to push people around on the highway with impunity.

Well, this was a disturbing development: rather than slow down too as I did, Briggs actually began pushing me! Whoa!

I pushed back a bit by lightly touching the brakes, and that just seemed to make things worse, as he applied a bit more gas to compensate. A crunching noise emanated from Shadow's rear.

Yikes! This guy wanted to rumble!

If I'd had any tire poppers with me I would have been sorely tempted to use them in that moment. But I was empty.

So he wasn't going to let me stop, huh? Well, give the man what he wants, I reckoned. I floored it.

Shadow leaped ahead. Briggs fell behind. But not for long, I was surprised to see in the rear view.

Briggs' car must have had something mighty under the hood, for even floored we only put around twenty or thirty yards between us before the distance stabilized and began rapidly shrinking again.

Yikes! Shrinking! This guy was catching up to us!

I kept it to the floor. It took only a second or two for both cars to reach the 100 mph mark. Then 120. At which point Briggs' car eased up and bumped Shadow again(!) Grrr!

Just another teaser, though. Showing me that I couldn't get away. At least that's what I thought at first.

But he stayed connected. And kept on accelerating. My own speedometer was already past its maximum markings. I still had Shadow floored. We were doing the best we could, and it was not enough. I'd never ever had Shadow's gas pedal pushed as far as it'd go for this long a stretch of time. It was unknown territory.

Briggs was pushing us faster and faster, and if I let up on the throttle I feared my rear wheels would break loose and I'd be out of control. Much in the same situation as a rank amateur civilian would be after being nudged by a trooper-- only here our extreme speed would make the results much more calamitous. And my lack of extra capacity in the acceleration department would likely make it near impossible for me to regain control.

But I also knew that if Briggs had a higher ultimate top end than us, I'd soon be out of control anyway.

Braking was out too. For in this situation it'd only be another route to catastrophe. For Briggs surely had the heaviest car. And plenty of muscle to add to its inertia. No way I could stay straight in Shadow pulling an all out stop from this speed, even if our brakes didn't warp from heat and explode first, sending me careening into limbo that way. All Briggs would have to do in that case was twitch his steering wheel a bit, and I'd be a goner.

Super-bastard! No, he didn't want no stinking ticket. He wanted me dead, and Shadow destroyed.

This cop had gone off the deep end.

And here I was with no tire poppers or crash bars! One yank to release either of those, and Briggs would be the one out of control! But I had none to give him. Damn my laziness! Now it was going to get me killed!

As weak as they were in the daytime, even my strobes might have helped a little. And unlike the other defenses, I had restored those since inspection. But they were out of Briggs' line of vision, hidden beneath his stealth monster's front end. Useless.

And for the first time ever, we had no extra capacity in the speed department! Agh! And were trapped on a straightaway too, with no curves to save us!

I'd never ever anticipated anything like this. Had Briggs maybe done this before, to others? His car sure did seem set up for it. Keep pushing a victim until their motor blew and/or they lost control, then swerve away or do a hard brake as circumstances warranted, to avoid what came next.

Another thing Briggs could do was ram us into a car ahead. Ruin my front end and the radiator inside, just as Shadow's engine needed cooling the most. Instant fried motor! I no longer possessed sufficient maneuverability options to avoid such impacts-- without losing all control at the same time.

But at least the traffic was light at the moment, offering Briggs few opportunities for giving me that particular kind of end.

I turned on my siren, all my forward lights, and my emergency blinkers too. Partly to warn innocents ahead to get out of the way. But mostly to stave off the ramming possibility, as well as maybe get somebody to put the word out on CB that something horrific was going on here. Perhaps we could get some good cops in on this thing! My own CB was useless, as I'd removed the antenna from my rooftop, not expecting to need it. But even had it been working, it would have been awfully scary taking a hand off the wheel at that moment to make a call.

Plus, I knew my fate would be decided long before any such aid could arrive. 'Time was fleeting' now in every sense of the word. Urgency was the order of the moment.

As our combined speeds pushed ever higher, Shadow began showing signs of distress. It was painful to behold. His engine temperature was rising fast, and his oil pressure spiraling downwards. His ignition was starting to cut out and miss too.

And every time Shadow's engine missed a beat, the whole car shuddered as the inexorable push from behind got a little closer to ending us.

I couldn't stand this! But what could I do? I'd never been in any situation like this before!

Sometime afterwards I'd learn that Briggs had most likely been driving a 1969 Dodge Polara pursuit car with a 440 Magnum motor, which held the record for top end speed for a generation in America (150 mph). Many swore its true top end was higher still. And that was without any after-factory mods whatsoever.

Shadow and I were about to die at the hands of a madman. If I didn't do something right-now-this-minute, we were going to meet our doom. Shadow was coughing horribly now, like he couldn't catch his breath. Every cough was instantly followed with new vibrations from Briggs' monster chewing on us from behind. Truly eating us alive. Tears of fear and frustration welled up in my eyes, and I had to blink them back to clear my vision.

Then I saw the construction site coming up ahead. It looked bad. But at the moment everything was bad.

The construction mess was actually on the other side of the interstate, which meant traversing the median and crossing opposing lanes of traffic at horrendous speed. Luckily the grassy median was almost flat there. But the wet grass would be slippery. I'd have to go for it way ahead of time to make it. Sort of like leading a moving target with your gun sight-- only in reverse. Where you're playing the part of a bullet trying to return to the muzzle from which it came.

But that wouldn't be the worst part.

Shadow was on his deathbed. He couldn't get us loose from Briggs and his man-eater. His strength was spent. It was all up to me.

My timing had to be damn near perfect.

I suddenly let off the gas completely and nudged the transmission into neutral.

Shadow's engine let out the most horrific sound I'd ever heard from him, and a terribly long puff of blue smoke surged out around all the outer edges of the hood, as Shadow briefly revved to obscene heights due to inertia of moving parts alone-- having been suddenly freed from his staggering burden.

I hoped I hadn't blown him up.

Now the Briggs monster was our sole means of propulsion.

Just as I'd hoped, Shadow's straining motor had actually been holding us back. Freed from that drag, Briggs' monster inadvertently propelled us forward faster than before, putting a foot or so of open space between us for just an instant. I felt the release come and made my move, swerving Shadow into the grassy median at the steepest angle off the straightaway that I dared. If we tipped and rolled, Shadow's roll cage was about to get its biggest test ever. But in that case it probably wouldn't matter if we survived the tumble. Briggs likely couldn't afford for me to live beyond this meeting. And not just for the legal implications.

I was sure Briggs had a throwaway pistol in the monster with which to finish me off, if it came to that.

We couldn't afford a crack up here.

As expected, we slid sideways a considerable distance down the median, but managed to make some headway towards the opposing lanes. Shadow's wide tires on the slippery grass at God-awful speed-- even over virtually flat ground-- made it feel like a boat ride in heavy chop.

I had no experience to speak of, driving Shadow without power to the rear wheels. Even at normal speeds. But here we were maybe doing 140 or something at release. It was scary as hell. We maybe turned 360 degrees a couple times too before getting to the other lanes.

Our siren was still blaring, all our lights burning and our emergencies blinking.

I prayed to God I wouldn't hit anyone in the cross-over.

I was driving with inertia alone, Shadow's tortured motor simply winding down and possibly quitting altogether, for the very last time.

I knew from experience my transmission governor wouldn't allow me to re-engage the engine again at any speed near what we were currently traveling. But I was also hoping to use the engine again in just a minute or two. So I tried to keep Shadow from dying with some attention to the throttle, even as I was having to concentrate on maneuvering us to safety in our long and wild spiraling spin across the median. The landscape swept across all Shadow's glass windows slow enough so that I had some idea of our progress, and could try to make what corrections I dared.

It all smacked of some nightmares I'd had before.

If the engine quit, I was sure it wouldn't start again. And if we survived the cross-over, a dead motor would leave us still at the mercy of that crazed cop.

It was a rough ride across the median, despite it being nearly flat. And really scary hitting the pavement again in-between passing traffic. I had to try my best to use the brakes as little as possible for many reasons, but mostly to give us our best chance for escape from Briggs.

Hitting the pavement again was wrenching, but also somewhat of a relief after the median: because Shadow's handling was more predictable on asphalt. By some miracle we and the other cars managed to avoid smashing into one another. We struck the new pavement in a left broadside, with the much greater friction of the asphalt compared to the grass cutting our last spiral short, leaving us to basically scoot across the interstate lanes while slowly turning towards the left, and mostly presenting our front end towards oncoming traffic.

This was actually a good thing, in that it made us the smallest possible target for head-on collision while we sped sideways across the lanes. Not counting any cars actually caught in our moving path, that is.

And just like that we were off the road and into the rough again. Where the 360 degree spins tried to pick up the pace once more. But luckily our speed had decreased quite a bit by that point.

The construction site was a meandering thing. I'd been unable to discern many details before taking the leap.

Now I could finally use the brakes almost at will, and did. All the time babying Shadow's gas pedal to try keeping him awake. I didn't dare look at any engine gauge but the tach. I was sure the oil pressure would read zero, and the water temperature be off the scale. I couldn't take seeing that. And there was nothing I could do about it anyway at the moment. We weren't safe yet: of that I was certain. The reason I was glancing at the tach regularly was because it was hard to hear the engine's beat over the other noises of the circumstances, especially since I was trying to just keep it at a fast idle.

And yes, I was using both feet on the pedals here. I always did. Left foot for brakes, right for gas. Although everybody had always warned me against it, saying it was too easy to get confused. For me it worked, and gave me a slightly bigger safety margin in some situations. And was downright necessary in circumstances like these. But this was how I'd drove from the beginning. Someone switching over to this method late in the game might not fare so well.

I pumped the brakes heavily on the left and pumped the gas pedal lightly on the right, revving the motor just enough to prevent dying.

But I also wanted NOT to rev any higher than absolutely necessary, in order to give Shadow a chance to recuperate (if that was even possible).

I needed a place to hide. I didn't know how much farther Shadow could go. I felt that if I could just stay out of Briggs' sight long enough, we might make it.

My thoughts strayed to my 38 Special revolver. Hidden in my closet at home. My shotgun too. Rats!

Unfortunately, the construction site was one huge wide open space. This had helped with the reception of a wildly careening automobile, as well as the braking, but wasn't conducive at all to hiding. There were a few big earth-moving machines we could hide behind, but Briggs would find us there just by driving around a bit.

We finally got down to a speed the governor would let me re-engage the engine again, and I did, revving a little to try to synch up more smoothly.

There was a small jolt, and we had our own power of movement again.

My eyes strayed to the engine gauges before I could stop them.

Well, at least I still had a little oil pressure left. And the temp gauge wasn't completely pegged out (there was still one more lonely notch to go). If Shadow could rest a bit now, he might just make it.

To give him what small help I could (and myself relief from the awful racket which was suddenly much more noticeable), I shut down all our lights and the siren, which all together accounted for a fairly hefty electrical drain.

But where to hide? There seemed to be only one choice. A deep ditch that looked like it ran quite a ways through the site. Briggs would have to get pretty close to the edge to see us traveling down there. Yeah. And maybe by the time he checked it out, we'd be out of sight entirely, causing greater uncertainty for the villain.

We ran over to the ditch and down its side; I didn't want to waste any time. Briggs had now had about what time he needed to pull an emergency stop, turn around, cross the median and opposing lanes, and come looking for us.

We skidded down the surprisingly steep grassy slope of the ditch, and settled at the bottom. Then we gradually began accelerating. Gradually, because it was a bit muddy down there.

We'd gotten up to around 55 mph when the rear view alerted me to Briggs and his red and black monster sliding into the ditch maybe 100 yards behind us. Damn him.

Our cover blown, I tried accelerating a little too fast and actually slowed down: the mud was a problem. So I went back to my original slow and easy method.

Apparently Briggs' monster was encountering the same problem for itself, as it looked to have made little progress in the mirror. Fountains of muddy liquid and clods streamed skywards perhaps 30 feet high from the monster's rear tires. Briggs was impatient, and it was showing.

But after fuming for a moment he realized the stratagem necessary for the environment, and began inching forward again.

Shadow and I managed to put some more distance between us and the monster for a while, gradually working our way up to 65 mph in the strange deep and meandering ditch. We're talking maybe thirty or forty feet deep here. And as the sides were grass covered, it'd been here for a while. It was a strange place.

The ditch had its own curves and corners, which prevented me from seeing a long ways ahead or behind. But I knew Briggs would eventually catch up to us. What worried me most was his tire size advantage: the monster with its narrower tires could surely get a better purchase in the muck than Shadow, as time went on.

So I began trying to escape the ditch. No go. The sides were too steep and slippery.

Then we rounded the next corner, and there was the longest straight I'd seen so far in the channel. Maybe a continuous half a mile. With a tiny dark spot at the end.

We needed to get out of this ditch on this straight. The sooner the better. Otherwise Briggs might get us after all.

So I made more efforts to scramble out of the V-shaped channel. I tried several different tricks, all to no avail. And every attempt robbed us of a little more of our head-start over Briggs. Despite the long straight allowing us to attain a higher speed than the previous sections.

Crap! I couldn't get out of this giant ditch! Every time I tried to run up the sides I slid back down again! Even at the roughly 70 or 80 mph I was running!

The dark point ahead grew into a gigantic round opening. Some sort of huge drain pipe? I wasn't sure. But soon I could see a spot of light inside marking the far end. The light seemed sort of high up though. Maybe the pipe was inclined upwards a bit? I didn't have much choice but to try it-- even if all I'd do was slide backwards down the chute after a ways.

Hmm. It figured that the more speed I possessed upon entry, the better shot I'd have at overcoming any backsliding afterwards. And so could maybe leave Briggs behind in that fashion.

So I gently pushed our acceleration a little harder, mindful of the ever present muck effect.

I was really uncomfortable going at such high speed in slippery mud. But the steeply angled walls of the ditch pretty much guaranteed I'd stay on track at the bottom.

It was then that the red and black monster appeared behind me at the mouth of the straight.

Immediately after that encouraging sight, I entered the relative darkness of the great pipe. I looked at my speedometer for an instant. I think it said around 95 mph.

Shadow's engine roar was amplified many times inside the cavernous pipe, to become downright uncomfortably loud.

It wasn't terribly dark in the pipe. And the daylight outside was somewhat muted due to significant cloud cover. I also automatically pulled on my headlights switch as I entered. So my eyes adjusted pretty quickly to the new environment. Thankfully! Because it was then that I saw it: the pipe was partially blocked in the middle with an enormous, very solid-looking pile of debris. Much bigger than Shadow himself. Big enough to stop us in our tracks, I was sure.

The mound of debris partially blocked the bottom view of the pipe's far end. So the pipe was actually horizontal, just like the ditch. Not inclined. The pile blocking the light from the bottom of the far end had simply given me the wrong impression.

I was probably almost hitting 100 mph at this point. The pipe was long, but not endless.

Quite a lot happened in the next couple seconds or so.

I knew I couldn't stop. There wasn't room. Even if the concrete under my tires hadn't been wet and coated with slippery mud. Not to mention the imminent threat of Briggs and his likely weapons of criminal intent behind me.

I was sure I'd total Shadow and get badly injured if I ran head-on into the debris pile. I'd had experiences with debris piles before, and knew them to frequently be deceptively solid in nature.

At that moment I fervently wished I could simply stop and surrender. But Briggs had already made it obvious that would be a mistake. And there wasn't sufficient time and distance left anyway.

There was only one thing to do: what I always did in such situations. Swerve around the obstacle. Or try to, anyway.

But here the roadway went vertical and then even upside down in a major swerve!

But what choice did I have? I immediately began as gradual a swerve around the pile ahead as I judged the remaining distance and tire slippage factor would allow. I also began applying more pressure to my gas pedal as fast as I dared, given the circumstances of the water, mud, and wide tires. I was trying to marshal and direct my momentum without breaking my tires' grip on the concrete-- or whatever might be under my wheels at that moment.

If I hadn't been so tense I might have marveled at the amusement park-like ride I experienced in the next second or so.

Shadow quickly climbed up the side of the pipe in a great curving motion, at a velocity of 100 mph or more.

I could feel the tires slipping a little here and there. I did my best to correct for it as I could. I was worried that the higher we went the worse the slip would become, and we'd end up on our top or worse.

But the slippage actually decreased the higher we got. I suppose because the surfaces there were drier and easier for the rubber to get a purchase on.

For an instant it seemed I was sitting at 90 degrees removed from my usual orientation. Then I was actually somewhat upside down. Not totally: but significantly beyond the 90 degree point.

Keep in mind I wasn't after an acrobatic stunt here: I was merely trying to avoid an imminent crack up.

I only went up and around the inside of the pipe so far as seemed necessary to clear the debris. As it was my roof clipped the top of the pile. But that wasn't enough to knock us loose as we drove around it.

I kept expecting us to fall off the wall or roof or whatever you'd call the tubular interior surface we were scrambling over, but we ended up swerving back down again just as we'd swerved up-- once past the obstacle-- without skipping a beat.

Shadow had done it! I couldn't believe it! For years afterwards, every time I recalled that moment my eyes would tear up with pride. For I'd designed and implemented most of Shadow's custom performance modifications myself. And they really paid off in moments like this one.

But at the precise instant we finished that maneuver I couldn't take the time to appreciate it. For coming back down again into the muck trail marking the bottom of the pipe was no picnic.

I wish I could lay the blame on something more substantial or unexpected, but I can't. It was just the same problem of plain old mud, water, and wide tires from before. With an added pinch of speed and curving momentum, of course.

We made it down to the muck again, only I guess way too suddenly, because we slid up the opposite side in reaction. I turned my front wheels into the direction of the skid to regain control but then had to turn them back down again immediately. After all, we couldn't afford to get near upside-down a second time.

The pipe was relatively short for the type of high speed maneuvering presently underway. I sure as hell didn't want to shoot out the pipe some twenty or thirty feet in the air and upside down! Yikes!

I'd seen quite a few cars stranded like turtles on their backs in the past, their wheels often spinning uselessly in the open air. I hoped Shadow would never ever be seen that way. Especially by Briggs.

I think the curves of the pipe actually helped me in that moment by making it harder for Shadow's rear end to come around-- for that would have put us on the roof again-- and maybe completely out of control.

Shadow's engine-heavy front end helped a lot too. But still, it was a scary moment.

We shot out the end of the pipe as if from a cannon. Fortunately almost exactly where we needed to be, ground-wise.

I'd hoped I'd get a better opportunity to exit the pipe's host ditch at some point-- and here it was: the high sided ditch in which the pipe rested was much shallower at this end than the other.

But you know, sometimes you might should be hoping for something else entirely.

For before I could slow down very much I found Shadow and I launched into the air, as we emerged from the now upwards angled ditch. The pipe and the ditch on the entry end had been horizontal. But here the ground was inclined.

The sun broke through the clouds at that moment, sort of emphasizing our predicament.

The entire area ahead was a vast torn up landscape of muddy construction, apparently deserted. There were some large earth moving machines and dump trucks here and there. Thankfully none directly ahead of our present course!

We landed a bit hard on maybe the only somewhat dry space around: a small hill or rise which had so far been spared from the construction digging, and separated the ditch from which we'd just exited from another very much like it on the other side.

We'd popped up and out of the now upwards-angled great ditch only to be confronted with its mirror twin in the way ahead. Holy smokes!

I slammed on the brakes, glad that it wasn't muddy here. But there was still some wet and slippery grassy spots, and our speed too great and our grand plumbing future too near. So we skidded down into the opposing ditch. Damn!

Ahead of us yawned the enormous mouth of a second gigantic horizontal pipe, apparently exactly like the one from which we'd only just escaped.

I couldn't swerve around the thing; for we were in another V-shaped ditch! So I turned us to facing the on-coming pipe mouth broadside, then stood on the brakes, hoping that somehow Shadow wouldn't roll over and that we'd stop short of entering the pipe-- even if only by catching one end of the car or the other at the structure's edge. In the meantime either end of the car may have occasionally been catching on the earthen ditch walls-- though not enough to contribute much to our deceleration. There would be some grass and mud jammed in and around various fixtures of the front and rear afterwards.

I think we had about twelve or fourteen feet of clearance left from the pipe when we finally stopped. Hallelujah!

I got my bearings and immediately piloted Shadow back out the way we'd come rather than struggling with the grassy walls. But I tried to be quick about it, as Briggs and his monster might shoot out on top of us from the first pipe at any moment.

I made a 90 degree turn after exiting the ditch and headed for cover: there was a smattering of homes and rural roads in the vicinity leading away from the construction site. I eased my way in amongst them, found a decent, somewhat hidden vantage point with a couple of different and convenient getaway routes, and watched for Briggs to emerge from the ditch-- or maybe surprise me from a wholly different direction. I still kept Shadow running, since we weren't necessarily out of the woods yet, and I still feared he might not start up again if he died. His temperature was coming down, and his oil pressure stabilizing (I hoped, anyway). I remembered I still had my headlights on and pushed the switch off.

After waiting for several minutes there'd still been no sign of Briggs. Surely he hadn't rammed the debris pile inside the pipe?

Or maybe he'd tried my same maneuver, but with a much heavier car and too little forward momentum? And way worse aerodynamics. Yikes!

Maybe the bastard's dead, I thought. Pretty much hoping that that was the case.

Still, I was torn about what to do next. Sure, the bastard had just tried to kill me, and surely deserved dying. But what if he was just badly hurt in there? So far as I knew, no one else could have seen us down there. So if I didn't alert someone to his plight-- and he died-- that really might be murder (of a sort, anyway). On my part rather than his.

Plus, you never knew. Maybe he'd learn a lesson from this and never hurt anybody again. Maybe this was his first real attempt to kill someone, and he wasn't the habitual murderer I suspected him to be. And maybe he had a family that needed him, too. Agh!

My raising had made me entirely too kind-hearted and forgiving for my own good.

I'd never seen a telltale radio antenna on the car, so maybe he had no way to call for help himself. Even if he was physically capable. And assuming a signal could get out of that pipe.

So I checked engine status via gauges and gingerly letting off the throttle to see if it'd keep running on its own. I gave it a minute or two to make sure Shadow didn't start giving out on me. For the moment it seemed the motor was capable of idling without help.

Now that I finally dared take my foot off the gas pedal, I hauled out my CB antenna from storage and affixed it to its central roof mount. I didn't usually attach it unless I was expecting trouble, as it was sort of long and unwieldy for many circumstances. And I plain didn't like how it looked on top of the car.

I contacted a semi-truck driver and told him that I'd seen someone in possible trouble at the pipe location, and they might need an ambulance. Could he pass the word? He could. I didn't tell him the guy was a cop, as I figured that might have reduced the chances of the call for help being relayed. At least among some of my fellow outlaws out there.

Briggs never showed at that end of the ditch, and I never went back to personally investigate. Though I'm sure some of my hometown buddies would have urged me to go back and make absolutely certain Briggs could never come after me again.

Don't get them wrong: most of them weren't nearly as cold-blooded as that might sound. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have done that either. Not really. Most of them.

After I left the area of the ditch I stayed off the interstate for a few more hours, just in case. For what if Briggs had back-tracked after losing me in the pipe and was now patrolling the highway looking for me? His only "rabbit" that ever got away?

I took a side road for around ten miles, then turned into a sleepy little town that looked like it hadn't gotten the news about the Moon landing yet-- much less more recent events.

I found a little cubbyhole we could park in and slept for a while, letting Shadow get his own well-deserved rest too. I figured I'd kept him running long enough. If he couldn't restart later I'd just have to look into doing some serious repair work on him.

My little nap may sound strange to some out there. But often after you go through something like this you will find yourself close to exhausted afterwards, and in need of some rest before undertaking anything else. Plus, laying low for a while seemed almost a screaming necessity for the circumstances, anyway.

Sometime later (after dark) I checked Shadow's vitals via flashlight, gave him some fresh oil from a trunk stash, and we resumed our trip to Houston to see Steve. I figured that might be safer than returning to my trailer that night, where Briggs or buddies might be waiting.

As we'd pretty well squeezed all we could from the present oil supply I did a complete change of Shadow's oil at Steve's place the next day, after picking up a filter and sufficient quarts along the way. I was relieved to see no signs of blown heads or bits of metal in the drained oil, and the gauges reading normally once again.

Darn if Shadow didn't have more lives than a cat!

Even the rear end damage wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected. Briggs' vertical bumpers had put several small dents right in the main outward projecting crease of the rear bumper, but as that bend was the bumper's strongest point it'd held up pretty well otherwise. There were a few other spots punched into the steel here and there where apparently parts other than Briggs' vertical bumpers had struck Shadow, but basically I could just replace the whole bumper with one from a junker and that would be that! Except for also straightening out the bracket underneath that I'd bent before, of course. Shadow's Mach One gas cap did have a portion of the running horse and vertical stripes emblem scraped off its center point too. But heck: such a battle scar as that which not only didn't hurt performance but actually improved it some (lightening the car via the removed metal) I wouldn't mind keeping!

I never saw or heard of Briggs again. No cops came calling at my trailer door. I never (for certain) saw him shadowing me in town or on the interstate again, in either his personal Polara or an official patrol car. I honestly don't know if he even survived the pipe. Yes, there could have been something in the local papers about him, but I didn't check those. And at that time I had no TV, but only an AM/FM radio-tape player-- and rarely listened to news from it. But I did put out that call for help for him, despite his evil deed. So I feel no guilt or remorse over the incident.

I did for a while feel a little paranoia though. Wondered a few times if he might still be alive and stalking me again. But that faded over time and distance.

If you're still out there Briggs-- and reading this-- I'm glad you decided to call it a draw!

Above can be seen the original Texas inspection for Shadowfast. I've blacked out certain info here that I consider privacy sensitive.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Some readers have expressed skepticism about the laws of physics allowing such a maneuver as described in this story. But they definitely do, and you could even repeat it yourself with the proper conditions. Indeed, Top Gear took a not very aerodynamic, underpowered, tiny foreign car at much too slow a speed through a much smaller tunnel than described here...unfortunately the BBC forced Youtube to take down the video.

But here's other evidence links (which still worked, at last check): Walls of Death in Amusement Parks: A Brief History, The Well of Death: India's Automobile Centrifuge By Chris Wyman Oct 15, 2010, and Fifth Gear Loop the Loop. END NOTE.