Brother Against Brother Read online

  Frantically trying to outrace the thundering rock slide, Frank dashed for the far wall of the canyon. He scrambled up the steep rocky face on his hands and knees, trying to secure toeholds and handholds. His numb arm slowed him as he dragged himself up.

  Now I know how a target in a shooting gallery feels, he thought as rock fragments pinged off the canyon wall. He tried to pull himself up with his bad arm, but it betrayed him. Frank slipped down. He yanked with his good arm and just cleared the spot where a stone smashed against the wall.

  Frank struggled upward as the rock slide buried the Jeep. Vibrations brought more rocks down— on both sides of the canyon. As he clawed his way to safety, Frank had to hug the wall, covering his head and neck. Minislides rattled over him. Stones tore at his handholds, bashing his body with the force of punches. Rock dust choked him.

  Then, as suddenly as the slide had begun—it stopped. A cloud of dust settled on Frank as he clung precariously to a ledge, waiting for aftershocks. But, after a moment, the night was eerily still.

  Frank dragged himself to his feet, fighting to catch his breath. "That was no accident," he muttered to himself.

  As if to confirm Frank's suspicions, a mechanical noise came from the road above him. A car engine. Frank's rental car? He lay low, just in case a light might pan the ravine below. Instead he heard someone gas the car, rev the motor, and drive away.

  Frank groaned. He was much too far away to make any effective objection to the theft.

  He sat up and started scouting his surroundings. The Jeep at the bottom of the ravine had disappeared, buried under tons of boulders and rocks.

  But Frank now had a suspicion as to why he had found the Jeep empty. Imagine the nerve of that killer, he thought. He's done something to Joe and the girl and driven off in their Jeep!

  Then when the Jeep stalled, he set up a trap, sure to lure any motorist to certain death in the ravine.

  Frank's face went grim as he realized what he had just thought. Joe could be dead!

  But Frank had survived and that gave him a temporary edge over the man.

  "Some edge." Frank snorted. "No flashlight. No map. No car. But I'll have the advantage of surprise if I can run fast enough to catch up with him," he said ironically.

  The killer hadn't even bothered coming down for a closer look. He'd just assumed that the rockslide had done Frank in.

  Frank wished he hadn't dropped the flashlight because the darkness made for a slow climb. Only the dimmest starlight penetrated the deep ravine.

  Carefully, Frank stepped across the still-shifting boulders, which now filled the canyon floor. "This could have been my grave," he muttered. Another climb up the opposite wall brought him to the deserted road above.

  He started walking down the road. In his mind he recreated the map he had left in the car. As far as he could remember, the road got narrower and more winding, until it curved around a flat stretch of private land.

  Concluding that he could save time by cutting across the land, Frank ducked under barbed wire and set off across a patch of grassy flatland. It was relatively easy for him to find his way.

  About halfway across, he heard something large stirring nearby. The rising moon threw light on the scene. He laughed to find himself in the midst of a herd of cows. Apparently he was crossing private grazing land.

  Quietly he moved past the herd, trying not to disturb the beasts. Up ahead he saw some lights. A ranch house? No, the lights were moving. A car. His calculations had been right! By going crosscountry he had saved himself miles of walking.

  Frank broke into a trot, then a run, trying to reach the road before the car passed. He ducked under another barbed wire fence and hid himself in some tall grass by the roadside.

  The car approached, its headlights on bright. Frank squinted, so the glare wouldn't destroy his night vision. The car was almost on top of him before he recognized it. It was his own rental car!

  Frank strained to see the driver, wanting to be able to identify the hit man. The face behind the wheel was revealed by the moonlight — his brother!

  "Hey!" Frank shouted, getting to his feet and running into the road. "Stop! Joe! Stop! Stop!"

  The car's brakes screeched as the wheels locked. It slowed to a stop.

  "Joe! It's me, Frank!" he called, running toward the car.

  The car did a three-point turn and slowly returned to Frank like a lumbering beast. Frank was engulfed by the headlights. The car stopped, but the engine was left to idle.

  Joe warily got out and planted his feet. Instinctively he rose to a defensive position. The face approaching him looked familiar.

  Joe tended, trying to place the face of the stranger walking toward him. He knew he had seen it often—but where? Those confusing dreams flashed again. The dark-haired guy who struggled against him. That grim face, aiming a gun!

  "I was afraid you'd gotten away from me—that I'd never catch up with you," Frank said, smiling.

  That was all Joe needed to hear. He rushed like a charging bull, tackling his enemy before he could pull his gun. Both of them went spilling into a dry gully off the road.

  Joe rode his enemy down, keeping him on the bottom as they slid, choking in the dust. Maybe he'd be able to overpower this hit man, bring him in to justice. . . .

  But when they jolted to the bottom, Frank Hardy managed to twist free. "What are you doing?" he yelled. "Don't you — "

  His words were cut off when Joe threw a handful of dust into his face. Frank clawed at his eyes, and Joe tackled him again.

  Joe knocked his blinded adversary flat. As long as he couldn't draw a weapon, they could fight on fairly even terms.

  But even blinded, this guy was dangerous. Before Joe could pin his arms, his enemy lashed out with a karate blow and knocked Joe flat.

  Joe shook his head once quickly, as another flash of memory came to him. He remembered another blow like that, one that knocked him out as he had tried to run to the burning car where Iola was trapped.

  Joe threw himself at his adversary. He didn't care anymore about hidden weapons. He just wanted to smash that face!

  Frank scrambled backward, trying to block his brother's wild onslaught. Fists, elbows, and knees pounded at him in a whirlwind attack. Frank ducked as a knockout blow grazed his ear instead of connecting with the side of his head. "Have you gone crazy?" he gasped.

  But Joe just kept swinging with lunatic strength.

  "Okay, you asked for it." Frank swept his leg around, catching Joe behind the knees. Joe dropped to the ground, just barely bracing himself on his hands. Frank fell on him and his hands darted to the pressure points on the neck. First he'd get Joe calmed down. Then he'd ask him what was going on.

  But Joe wasn't finished yet. When he felt the fingers clamping down on him, he twisted with all his might, unleashing a right-handed haymaker from the ground up.

  Frank saw the blow coming and tried to block it. But he used the arm that had been injured in the rockslide — the arm that had gone numb. It was still weak, and Joe's punch brushed by it to land right on the point of Frank's chin.

  Joe grinned in triumph as he watched his enemy's head snap back, his legs go limp, his entire body slump bonelessly to the ground. "Get up!" Joe shouted, grabbing his enemy's shirt. "You killed Iola. You killed Rita's father! Get up and fight!"

  He tried to lift his adversary to his feet but the dark-haired guy was dead weight. Joe let him fall hard against the ground.

  He'd beaten him! All he had to do was tie him up, and bring him to the sheriff. ...

  But yet another memory was triggered — Joe charging out of some woods, pistol in hand, stopping when he saw the dark-haired guy sprawled motionless on the rocks, a big red stain on his shirt. Joe remembered how he had felt then—how upset he had been.

  Upset? Over an enemy being shot? How could that be? This guy was a filthy murderer, a killer for hire! In a flash Joe decided there was only one way to stop him from ever killing again.

  Joe picked up
a large, flat rock, raising it over his head.

  "This is it!" he snarled. "This time I'll finish you!"

  Chapter 12

  "What's going on?" a voice called down from the road. "Wait! What are you doing? Stop!"

  It was Rita. Joe heard her slide frantically down the gully, rush to him, and grab his arm. Joe let her pull the rock away, somehow glad for the interruption. His arms dropped to his sides.

  Rita stooped and looked at the dark-haired guy passed out cold. She checked his pulse, shaking her head when she saw the blood on his face.

  "What are you doing?" Joe asked.

  "What does it look like?" Rita snapped. "He's got a split lip and a bloody nose. And I'm trying to help him!"

  "I wouldn't get too close to him, Rita. He could be faking. We know he's a killer!"

  "Maybe he's a killer. We don't know for sure," she said. "And he's still a human being. We can't just let him bleed."

  "I go with 'An eye for an eye.' " Joe wiped the sweat and dust from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  "Look at him lying there," Rita protested. "He's young. He could be your brother. Why, he even looks like you."

  Joe stumbled back a few steps, confused. His mind was a jumble. What was going on here? Why was he relieved that Rita had stopped him from killing the dark-haired guy? Was he losing his mind?

  Rita took a clean tissue from her pocket. She gently dabbed at the guy's mouth and nose, cleaning him as well as she could, making his breathing easier. "We can't leave him here," she said quietly. "He's badly hurt."

  Joe stared at her. "You're not thinking of taking him with us, are you?"

  "Why not?"

  "I'll tell you straight out, Rita, I wouldn't want him behind me in the car while I was driving. He wants to kill us."

  "We could tie him up," Rita suggested.

  "We don't have anything to tie him with." Joe turned and climbed up toward the road. After a moment he turned and saw that Rita had not moved.

  "We're going to leave him," he said. "By the time he comes around, we'll be safely out of here." With that, Joe continued on his way.

  Climbing up from the gully, he reached Frank's rental car and climbed in. He sat, waiting for Rita.

  After a minute Rita silently slid into the car. "Are you really going to leave him down there?" she asked.

  Joe's answer was to turn over the engine, put the car into gear, and drive off.

  ***

  When Frank came around it took him a moment to realize where he was. He lay on his back, his body aching. Above him, the sky was radiant with the full moon shining. He tried to sit up but slipped back, feeling ill. The memory of his recent fight rose before him, and he felt sicker.

  What happened to Joe? Frank wondered. He tried to kill me! Has he been brainwashed? He didn't even know who I was. I was fighting a robot!

  Gingerly, Frank forced himself to sit up, waiting for the cobwebs to clear from his head. "What a mess!" he muttered. "The good news is that Joe is alive. But the bad news is that Joe must think that I'm the hit man!"

  Swaying to his feet, Frank took a few wobbly steps, testing his ankles and knees. They still worked. He climbed up to the road again and set off.

  To take his mind off his pains, Frank concentrated on inventing a new plan for finding and saving Joe. But he had no edge, nothing to work with. Alone in the Rocky Mountains at night, he had only his wits to help him. This was a time when he really could use Joe's help — but Joe, apparently, was on the other side.

  The road began to slope up, and Frank walked for what seemed like hours. He was making some progress, but could never catch Joe on foot. No cars passed for Frank to flag down. No, he was on his own—on foot—whether he liked it or not.

  The road forked, and Frank stopped to decide which way to go. He couldn't remember his map this far along. The left-hand route remained paved and appeared to snake up into the mountains, the right-hand route was dirt-covered, heading down into a large valley.

  From his vantage point, Frank saw a small pool of light on the valley floor — not large enough to indicate a town, but light nonetheless.

  It could be a place where he could find help. Besides, he had to take the easier route. So Frank took the road down into the valley.

  As Frank approached the lights, they became brighter and more distinct. They were from some kind of building off the road in the near distance.

  Frank quickened his pace, breaking into a hobbling run.

  Just before he finally arrived, he stopped and leaned against an old fence to catch his breath.

  He was at an old truck stop, left over from the days when this road had been the only one.

  "I can't go in there looking like this," Frank said to himself. So he took a moment to comb through his hair with his fingers, then dusted and smoothed out his clothing. He wiped the blood off his face. Even with this effort, he still felt like the Wild Man of the Mountains.

  Walking past a couple of antique gas pumps, he headed into a beat-up diner with flickering neon lights. There were no trailer trucks in the gravel parking lot, just an old pickup and a Highway Patrol car.

  Frank entered the diner and smiled in surprise. The place was spotlessly clean. The linoleum floor shone with wax. The counter and stools were polished. Tubes of neon lights raced across the ceiling. Along the window wall were several booths. An old jukebox stood in one corner. Near it was a pool table and a rack of cue sticks.

  The counterman, tall and skinny, with thin hair slicked back, wiped his hands on an apron, eyeing Frank, "Howdy, stranger," he said with a western twang.

  He reached behind the counter for a coffee pot, and freshened the cup for a heavyset highway cop sitting on a far stool. As he leaned forward, he muttered something to the cop, who turned around and looked at Frank.

  Obviously, the patrolman was not impressed by Frank's bedraggled condition. The lips went thin on his heavy face, and he crossed his arms across his chest. A metal bar pinned below his badge indicated that the cop's name was Higgins.

  Patrolman Higgins didn't say a word. He merely glared at Frank as if he suspected Frank were an escaped convict or something.

  Frank was so distracted that he nearly jumped when the counterman appeared before him.

  "Sit anywhere you want," the man said, handing Frank a menu.

  Frank took a seat in a vinyl-covered booth.

  "You just take your time," the counterman said with a grin. "As you can see, the kitchen isn't exactly swamped with orders." With that, he returned to Higgins.

  "You wouldn't believe my night so far," Higgins said. "Just before I pulled in here, I got an all-points bulletin over the radio. Dispatch said keep an eye out for a young guy with blond hair traveling with a girl. And get this—they said there was a hit man, some professional trigger-puller, loose in the area."

  Higgins twisted his stool and gave Frank another hard look. "Didn't hear you come driving in, son," he said.

  "No. My car broke down up the road," Frank said. "I think the clutch went out — the old wreck just died on a hill. So I left it and walked here."

  "Is that right?" Higgins said.

  "Is there a bus coming by?" Frank asked. "I need to get to the county seat." "Bus service was stopped on this route months ago," the counterman broke in. "No profit left. Too bad about your car."

  "What about that pickup out front?" Frank asked. "Could I rent it for a day or two?"

  "Sorry," the counterman said. "That's mine, and I need it to get home.

  "I really have to get somewhere—fast. It's a matter of life and death." Frank looked hopefully at the highway patrolman. "Do you think — "

  "Sorry, son." Higgins didn't sound very sorry at all. "My patrol takes me in the opposite direction. You'll just have to sit tight till morning when a wrecker can help you.

  From the look on Higgins's face, Frank wondered if he might be seeing a posse of local lawmen, first. He didn't dare tell the cop about Joe for fear Joe had really flipped out.
Joe could attack this guy, as he had Frank, and be killed. No, Frank decided. I'll just cool it and find Joe on my own.

  Then he looked up again. "I guess you're right," Frank told Higgins and the counterman. "My old wreck isn't going anywhere." He grinned. "So I might as well eat. How about a steak, baked potato, the works?"

  The counterman went into the kitchen, and Higgins returned to his coffee. Frank stared out the window anxiously.

  A big plate of food soon appeared on the table. Frank tore into the steak. He hadn't realized how hungry he was. "Delicious," he told the counterman. "Mind if I take this outside? I'd like to eat under the stars."

  "Suit yourself," the counterman said with a chuckle.

  Frank picked up the plate and went outside. Glancing back inside, he noticed that the counterman and Higgins were paying no attention to him. There was no place for him to go, anyway.

  Frank strolled past Higgins's car, number twenty-eight, and dropped to one knee, glancing nervously to see if either man was looking out. They weren't. He shoved the baked potato into the cruiser's exhaust pipe. Then, putting the plate on the ground, he walked over to the pickup and climbed inside.

  Ducking low, he yanked at the ignition wires. It was a nerve-racking job, hot-wiring a truck in full view of the owner. If either of the two inside glanced his way — The motor caught, backfired, and finally turned over. Frank leapt behind the wheel. He pushed in the clutch and punched the stick on the floor into reverse.

  The noise caught the attention of the two men inside the diner.

  Just as Frank was backing away, Patrolman Higgins burst from the door, hauling his service revolver from its holster.

  "Hold it!" Higgins yelled, dropping into the classic marksman's firing-line position.

  The gun in his hand looked about the size of a cannon and it was aimed straight at Frank.

  "Stop!" Higgins yelled again. "Or I shoot!"

  Chapter 13

  "Come on, you old piece of junk!" Frank shouted, stomping on the pickup's gas pedal. He spun the wheel and the truck squealed out of the parking lot. A storm of gravel flew from under the tires. Frank hoped the gravel might block Patrolman Higgins's aim.