Another glance into the mirror. The police car was out in the middle of the highway, easing to the left, to pass and force him off on the right. It was coming at terrific speed, the policeman evidently thinking their superior speed the cause of their gain.
Tommy gritted his teeth savagely, touched the brakes and made a wild left turn off the main highway onto the secondary road. His tires screeched and he fought wildly to keep control of the wheel. He finally straightened out the car and looked into the mirror.
The police car had been coming too fast; his turn had caught them by surprise and they had overshot the road. It would take them precious seconds to stop the car, turn and come back.
Disregarding the message of the little needle on his instrument panel, Tommy again gave the Buick everything. On the rough, secondary road he brought the speedometer needle up to 80, 88 and finally to 90. He slowed briefly for a rather sharp turn, then gunned the motor again to take a grade. He looked back and saw the police car almost a mile to the rear.
He made another sharp turn and there, a hundred yards ahead, was his salvation, a widened cut in a hillside and beyond it a narrow ravine.
He braked, almost overshot the cut, but skidded off it and hurtled into the rocky ravine, the car bounding and clanging as it hit rough ground. He brought it to a stop and began turning it furiously.
He had just completed the job when the police car shot by on the highway. Hoping that they had not seen him, Tommy waited a moment until the car had vanished around a turn, then came out upon the highway and going downhill toward Highway No. 6 again let out the Buick.
He slowed down for Highway No. 6, made the turn — to the right, toward Palmdale — and looked off up the secondary road.
The white police car was nowhere in sight.
Tommy eased his car down to a modest 65, drove into Palmdale and picked up Highway No. 138, that led to the east. Leaving the city limits of Palmdale he saw ahead of him a road entirely free of traffic and eased his speedometer up to 75, a speed too high for safety with the condition of his water pump or radiator, but fast enough to give him distance.
Ten miles from Palmdale he pulled into a tiny village and drove into a gas station. He stopped the car and steam enveloped the engine. The filling station attendant whistled.
“Got a leak in your radiator, mister!” he observed.
Tommy got out of the car and raised the hood. One glance at the water pump told him that his original suspicion had been correct. It was corroded and undoubtedly “frozen.” Yet this was no time to repair it — if a repair were possible.
“It’s the water pump,” he said.
The filling station man whistled again. “You can’t drive with that busted — crack your cylinder block.”
“I know,” said Tommy, “but these cars can take a lot of abuse. It’ll have to do me until I get to San Berdoo.”
“That’s a long way from here.”
“I’ll fill it up with water in every town. If I drive slow, I think I can make it.”
The man shrugged. “It’s your car.”
He got the water hose and sprayed water over the radiator, cooling it off. Then finally he took off the radiator cap and squirted water into the radiator. It was sloshed around inside and he added a little more water, then deeming it cooled off sufficiently, he filled the radiator.
Tommy had him fill the gas tank with gas, although he fretted over every moment that was used in the operation. But finally he paid for the gas and got into the car.
He drove cautiously until he was away from the filling station, then again let out the car. He held it at seventy-five, passed through another tiny village and came to a fork in the highway. He took the left road and traveled over a miserable section of road; it was paved but pockmarked with chuckholes and several times when he hit especially big ones Tommy expected the axles to break. But the only flaw in the car was the water pump, and the axles held.
He was engrossed in watching the road, when he suddenly became aware that he had passed a graveled road and, braking the car, put it into reverse and backed to the road. He looked ahead and to the rear, saw no other car in sight, and turned off.
The road, although graveled, was actually an improvement over the paved one he had left, and Tommy sent the car hurtling along. A fork went off to the right and Tommy, keeping to the left, had to slow the Buick down to forty miles an hour. A mile or two further and a fork went off to the left and Tommy, taking the right this time, found himself on a mere trail that didn’t seem to have been traveled in a week.
The motor began to wheeze and Tommy was aware of the hissing of steam. The water he had put into the radiator has vaporized. He stopped the car for a moment and the violence of the steam issuing forth alarmed him so that he started driving again.
