Thunder Road: Every Journey Has A Beginning ...

From Thunder Road:

“Jesse! Quint! Long-fuses!” I rolled the 50-pound bag off the Talon. “And remember: Straight for the bikes!” (I was referring, of course, to the special fuses we’d made; which—it was hoped—would provide cover after we left.)

“That’s a negative, hombre,” shouted Quint. “I’m fresh out of lighter fluid over here.” He quickly added: “Jesse! Get over here!”

“No!” I barked. “Belay that order! Keep up your barrage ...”

And I was on my way, bounding for Quint and holding up my lighter, shaking it, impatiently, as he turned and just stared at it—disoriented, shell-shocked. (Some of my rockets had—after ricocheting about wildly—blown up right next to him.)

“Take it!” I snapped—even as a ghost-white snout lunged at him through the window, lunged at him and crashed to a halt—snarling, gnashing its teeth; at which Quint spun upon it and clocked it in the nose, hard, and just kept clocking—until it yelped and beat a retreat.

“Okay,” I said, “go, go, go!” And he took the lighter.

And then I could only return to the Talon and snatch it up off the floor, noting its fading color, its waning strength, before swinging it around my head and barking, “There’s never going to be a better time. How much more?”

“Just about,” said Jesse, and continued: “Just—okay! Okay, I’m clear!”

I looked at Quint, who was still lighting. “All right, forget it, let ‘em go …”

He moved the lighter from one fuse to the next. “Hold on,” he said, “just hold on …”

At which we could only watch, rocking on our feet, hopping up and down, until he lit the last fuse and jumped down from the bucket.

And then we were hustling—double-timing it, as they say—up the stairs and out of the diner, where not a single predator could be seen. Then we were scrambling for our bikes; our pinto horses of plastic and steel; which gleamed like salvation even as the long-fused rockets began to explode and the Nano-As, active but in hiding, began to whimper and howl.

That’s when I knew it; when I could feel it in my bones. That we’d passed our first test; survived our baptism by fire. That’s when I knew that our journey would be complete—as we sat on our bikes with our spears canted at our backs (like the bows of Indian braves, I fancied) and, having returned the Talon to its canister, watched the last of the fireworks as they burst and boomed above. Watched, brooding, as they turned the sky first white then green then blue, and finally, a deep, lingering red, after which, taking a cue from our fellow animals, we began to howl ourselves.