Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [39]
“There he is!” screamed Nadine.
Bouncing as it disappeared behind the trees, the truck reappeared on the same stretch of road where they’d seen Giancarlo. If there was one thing Zak could tell even from this distance, it was that Scooter had never fully regained control of the Ford, which was slewing wildly over the lower washboard sections. Moments later the truck zipped across the concrete bridge and shot up the road a quarter of a mile, trailed by huge pillows of dust that enveloped the finish-line observers in a sheet of brown and gray as tall as a house.
“How much did we win by?” asked Fred.
His brother stood on top of a nearby boulder and got on his walkie-talkie. “Race start to race finish. It was my truck, right?”
“Negatory,” came the response on his handset. “Negatory, big buddy. The bike won by three seconds.”
“Three seconds?” Fred said. “Three seconds? That’s bullshit. If Chuck had been driving…Scooter doesn’t know how to handle that rig. Did you see him?”
“Whooee,” Hugh said, leaping from one rock to another. “I’m rich.” They straggled back in three distinct groups, the white Ford, the Porsche, and Giancarlo pedaling alone up the mountainside in bike shorts, his long pants slung around his neck. The Jeep group was visibly morose and somewhat dumbfounded over the results, while the girls seemed to think it was marvelous that a man on a bicycle had outraced a truck. Zak continued to sit on the lookout rock while everyone except Nadine went back through camp to greet the returning racers. Nadine touched Zak’s shoulder and said, “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?”
Zak watched the colors in the sky. The sun would sink in another hour, but right now, squatting above the horizon in the haze and lacking the cookie-cutter crispness it usually punched in the atmosphere, it was simply a large, pale, unfocused yellow gap in the purple western sky.
By the time Zak and Nadine got back to the camp, Fred, Chuck, Kasey, and Scooter were huddled together. The girls were in a clump talking and watching Hugh perform a victory dance, slapping his mouth, whoo-whooing, and generally making an ass of himself.
“Shut up, you fucking retard,” Scooter said, rushing over to Hugh and slapping him across the bicycle helmet four or five times in quick succession. Hugh cowered and raised his arms to protect himself. Before anybody could get close enough to stop Scooter, he’d slapped Hugh across the face and knocked his glasses to the ground. Hugh started crying, or giving a pretty good imitation of it, then dropped to his hands and knees, where he searched ineffectually for his glasses.
Nadine rushed to Hugh’s side, followed by every woman in camp.
“Geez, you’re a dick,” said Jennifer Moore.
While Hugh was being pampered by the women, Giancarlo stepped closer to Zak and said, “He better watch himself.”
Hugh, bolstered by the women’s attentions and clearly feeling invulnerable now that he had the camp’s sympathy, skipped over to Scooter and held out his hand. “Pay up, big daddy.”
“Fuck you, you moron.”
“Gotta pay,” Hugh said, glancing around uncertainly. “That’s my thousand dollars in your wallet.”
“You deaf or something? Get away from me, fucker. That was a fluke. It would never happen again in a million years.”
“It was no fluke,” Zak said. “Giancarlo could race you down that hill all night and you’d never beat him.”
“So what’s Giancarlo, some sort of downhill prodigy? You bastards. You threw in a ringer, didn’t you?”
“Calm down,” said Kasey. “It’s not like your driving didn’t suck.”
Scooter turned to Zak and said, “You talk tough when your friends are taking the risks. Let’s see you get on the bike and try it.”
“Pay Hugh and I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll race me if I pay the moron?”
“You pay Hugh, I’ll race.”
“Another thousand?” Zak was surprised at how keen Scooter was to engage in a second wager after losing the first. “Or are you chicken? Tell you what. I’ll drive with