Soul of A Winner
Soul of a Winner
Marty Gregory
A BATTERED SPEAKER whistled, “That’s all of ’em, folks. Let’s have a big hand for all these hard-ridin’ boys in the 250 class!”
“Same damn thing again!” muttered a tired and sore Mr. William J. Duncan as he pushed the still-hissing bike toward his pickup. The girl stepped from behind the truck and helped set up the loading ramp for the two-stroke.
“Weren’t doin’ too bad until you went down in that little corner, luv,” she slurred.
“Yeah. That’s hard as hell to do after only two laps!” Willy said sarcastically. “I believe I’d do anything to win a race.”
Silence.
“Anything!”
“Such an impassioned plea shouldn’t go ignored, my friend,” spoke the coverailed man as he stepped around the motorcycle and extended a greasestained hand. “Nick’s the name, Bucko and I couldn’t help but overhear your tale of woe. Mostly due to the tone of voice you used to express your displeasure.”
“It’s my displeasure and I’ll express it as loud as I damn well please!” retaliated Willy.
“Take a break, lad,” laughed Nick. “I just may decide to help you a mite.”
A confused, but suddenly interested Duncan glanced at the strange, smiling man and then at the still-extended hand. He shook it with some hesitation. “Tell you right now, Mister . . . that bike is among the finest machines money can buy!”
After a quick eyeballing of the scooter, the older man said, “I’m not maligning your motor, son. Nor your natural ability. What you lack is a system and that’s what prompts my offer. Why, with your motorcycle and your natural ability and my system, we can show nothing but a rear tire and a gawd awful lot of dirt to the rest of these clowns!”
Willy looked over at Vicki for some sign but she just shrugged her shoulders in addled disbelief. The pair then focused on Nick as if waiting for him to rave on.
He did. “Boy... you would not believe the results of my methods! Things you’re not doing now will seem so simple and so obvious that you’ll wonder why you never saw the light before. My teaching success is only limited by the attitude of the student. You’ve got to want to be a winner more than anything else and. . . .” “Well, I think you came to the right place, man,” interrupted a suddenly enthused Willy. “I suppose that there’s some kind of special rates for this miraculous course of yours?”
“We can discuss the contract and give you a checkout tomorrow at my test track,” said Nick. “Here’s the directions to the place and I’ll expect you at precisely 9:00 a.m. . . . alone.” Turning as he spoke his final word, Nick strode around the pickup and out of sight.
“I think it’s just as well that I have to work tomorrow,” smiled Vicki.
“Let’s get this damn bike in the truck,” said Willy as he studied the directions to Nick’s track and his road to glory.
The following morning found an eager Willy Duncan gulping coffee and pulling on his boots. The footgear was genuine European motocross stuff and, like all of his equipment, the finest to be had. But despite the quality of his gear, despite the speed and power of his machine and despite all of the encouragement Vicki had to offer . . . Willy just couldn’t win.
“We’ll see if that situation doesn’t change,” Willy said to himself as he headed for the door with a piece of toast in his mouth.
It took nearly an hour to fight his way through traffic, and the hour of 9:00 a.m. drew near as Duncan pulled onto the private road marked on his map as the entrance to Nick’s “secret” test track. The place was indeed a well-set-up facility with an oiled TT track, an eighth-mile oval and a beautiful motocross course that ran the circumference of the bowlshaped valley. He was just stepping from the truck and admiring the layout when a voice spoke from behind.
“The old man’s waitin’ inside the clubhouse for ya.”
(Continued on page 86)
Continued from page 84
Willy turned with a start to find a small, dwarf-like man with a leering grin and jagged teeth.
“The name’s Cane and I assume you’re the Mr. Duncan we’ve been waitin’ on,” spoke the fellow with the misshapen dental work. Willy nodded nervously and the pair walked toward the building where Nick was waiting with a jumble of papers on the table and a mug of steaming coffee in his grimy hand.
“Glad to see you want to be a winner, boy,” the old man said as Willy entered. “I think that after some practice laps, we’ll be able to go over the contract to your satisfaction.”
“I ain’t signing anything until I’m sure about this deal!” spoke Willy with shaky conviction.
“Well. . . let’s take a ride and see how you feel then,” Nick suggested as the trio headed for the door.
Outside, the mist hung over the valley like a net and the air was cold and clammy to the fingers as Nick’s helper and Willy unloaded the bike. A couple of stiff kicks brought the two-stroke blatting and sputtering to life. As Willy manipulated the throttle to warm the machine, Nick spoke in a low tone that was surprisingly audible over the noise of the motorcycle.
“Boy,” he said, “this could be the most important lesson of your entire life. The track here is just over a mile in length and you should be able to get around it in about two-and-a-half minutes knowing just what you know now. A few days of my special instruction and you’ll be able to cut that time by one third. Sound good?”
“Well... I dunno . . .,” Willy began as he glanced up at the first hill where a line of pennants marked the rugged track over the crest to the three-tiered stairstep on the downhill beyond. This was the kind of motocross course that would have your average European scurrying back to the pits to change shorts after just one lap!
“Heaven, boy,” Nick piped up. “This ain’t nothin’! Just wait’ll you see the creek bottom section I’ve got for ya!”
“Yeah, I can hardly wait,” spoke Willy in a quivery tone.
The bike was warm enough now for Willy to toe into gear. He charged up the starting line/hill in a big hurry, determined to show his stuff. Nick and Cane stood watching as he flew over the crest of the ridge, bounced from the top stairstep, over the second and crashed in a heap on the third. After struggling to his feet and continuing on his way, Willy began to wonder just what he was even doing on a motorcycle.
It took nearly six minutes and several hard crashes for a very tired Willy Duncan to complete his first lap; when he came into the pits, Nick and the dwarf were waiting with big grins.
“Pretty neat course, huh?”
“Oh, yeah . . . great. . .,” panted Willy as he shut off the motor. “Mister, if you could teach me to go around that track without crashing, and fast enough to win . . . why, I’d just about sell my soul!”
Cane shuffled his feet at this remark and suddenly looked off toward the hill. Nick kind of flinched but quickly regained his composure. He put an arm around Willy as they walked toward the clubhouse for coffee.
In the later portion of the afternoon, after Willy had made several abortive attempts at the track, Nick took him aside and told him that it was time to discuss the contract. The exhausted and slightly uptight Duncan was ready for anything that would get him around that course just once at speed.
“Hey, man! When do I get a bit of this special training of yours?” Willy demanded as Nick shuffled through some papers on his desk.
“Ah! Here it is!” exclaimed Nick, ignoring Willy’s remark and producing a piece of rolled-up parchment.
“Doesn’t look too official to me,” said Willy (although he really had no knowledge of such matters).
“A legal document nonetheless,” Nick said quietly. “Now if we may just have your signature here on this line, we’ll be able to get on with your training.”
Willy’s eyes flew over the parchment. “Well, now hold on here for a second. What’s this stuff at the bottom . . . uh, Clause 13?”
“Oh, that Clause 13!” laughed Nick as he thrust a pen in Willy’s direction. “That’s just a simple insurance retainer with the loss payable in our favor. Sort of the same thing that the bank requires on a loan.”
(Continued on page 88)
Continued from page 87
“Oh. Well, yeah ... I know about all that sort of jazz. What I was wondering about was this one line about ‘the obligor ree-link-quish-ing all mortal rights upon his ull-tee-mutt demise, be the causes natural or otherwise.’”
“I wouldn’t let that legal double-talk keep me from winning races!” Nick said as he pressed the ballpoint into Willy’s hand.
“Winning races” must have been the magic phrase, for the seemingly insignificant words, William J. Duncan, were soon scrawled on paper.
No sooner had Willy signed the contract than Nick snatched it away and blew on the red ink to dry it. Willy noticed that the paper seemed to wrinkle and darken where the old man’s breath touched it and he suddenly felt a queer kind of chill permeate his very soul. There was definitely something bizarre about this deal . . . but if it meant winning. . . .
“Perhaps now you’d like to try my course again,” said Nick as he extended a hand to help Willy to his feet.
“Don’t rightly know what good it’ll do,” said Willy, “but I reckon I can always dig the ridin’.”
The walk from the building to the pit area seemed to occupy only a fraction of a second in the mind of Duncan, and the next thing he knew he was bouncing . . . no, flying! He was sailing across the nastiest of whoopdies and he was going considerably faster than he had ever gone before! It took a little bit to put a finger on it, but Willy quickly deduced that he wasn’t really conscious of the thrill of speed. He just kept going faster and riding smoother and he didn’t know how. No fear. No fatigue. No sweat. It was the most unusual sensation he had ever experienced.
“No perspiration!” said Willy with a big grin as he pulled in after several super-fast laps. “This bike really handles! Did you have whazzhizname wrench it or something while we were inside?”
“Not at all, son,” said Nick. “It’s the result of the technique! As I told you, I have a system that’s flawless. Going fast is mostly in your head anyway. The main thing you need to remember is to just point the bike straight at the best place to cross any given obstacle and keep the wick turned all the way up!”
“Now that’s weird. I felt like I could just dial it on and not worry about a thing when I was out on the course just then. Does that mean I’m learning?”
(Continued on page 90)
Continued from page 88
“You bet, boy,” Nick nodded, “Now get back on that machine and try it again . . . only, this time, don’t go slow like you were doin’! Just gas it hard and the bumps be damned!”
THE WEEKS following that ini tial training session were like a dream to Willy. To his unbeliev able joy, he became a racer's racer: smooth, cool, precise and very, very fast. Damned fast, in fact. He went from Beginner to Novice to Expert on his hometown track in just a few short weeks and was soon traveling all over the coast, racing in the professional events. He saw little of Vicki during these first months of racing and had few thoughts of her because he was too preoccupied with winning.
And winning he was! Well, most of the time anyway. Sometimes he just crashed for no apparent reason and a few times his bike quit running in the middle of a race. Willy himself never got hurt in a spill and the machine always seemed to start up and run just fine after the moto was over. Strange.
Equally strange was his sponsor and coach. Nick had a “certain” smile and a “certain” laugh that Willy found unnerving. That is not to say that Nick’s diminutive sidekick Joe Cane (as Willy had come to know him), wasn’t a little bit weird himself. The plain fact of the matter was that Willy had figured out that the two of them were up to something and were going about it in a manner he didn’t understand. There was, for example, the matter of the hot air balloon.
It was at a race up in Canada that he first noticed Cane unpacking it and Willy just had to ask.
“We use it to scout the course,” came the terse reply.
Willy glanced up from time to time during the day and was always able to see the balloon tied up in a spot from which the entire course could be viewed. Come to think of it, he had never stopped on the track and not been able to see Nick or Joe a short distance away, just standing there and looking at him. He never really noticed whether or not they always watched him while he was riding, but then one rarely takes his eyes from the ground in front of him during a race. Willy cleared his mind of these puzzling questions, went out and blew off all the Canadians (and Americans) in sight on the heavily-wooded course.
It was at the big International affair near his hometown that he ran into Vicki again. She was standing near the pit gate and was looking better than ever with the warm sun bouncing lazily off her brown midriff. She squealed with delight as Willy pushed his machine through the tech inspection line.
“Oh ... hi, Vicki,” Willy said with the newly acquired coolness of a hotshoe MX star. “Haven’t seen ya for a while. Come to watch me crash and burn?”
“Aw, Willy. You haven’t crashed for the last two months and I hear that you haven’t lost a race in a long, long time.” “Yeah, we’ve been pretty lucky.”
At that moment, up walked Nick and Cane and the pit gate swung open for practice. William J. Duncan, the winningest young rider on the circuit, instinctively wheeled his scooter out onto the track without another word.
“Glad you could get out to see our boy perform today,” Nick said to a puzzled and slightly hurt Vicki. He flashed a plastic, funeral director grin at her and walked away to watch practice.
It was a fine day Willy had going for him. He flat won the first moto and was reclining in the pits sipping Gatorade. He had beaten some of the best riders in the world here today and was in tremendous spirits when he spied Vicki looking around behind the large complex of tents and vans that marked the pits of one of the factory teams.
“Hey! Girl!” he shouted. She spun with a smile and came running.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, Willy!” she said as she slid to a stop on the grass next to him. “You’re really something! Running away from all those Europeans like there was nothing to it. I just can’t believe you’ve gotten so good in such a short time! Those ‘friends’ of yours must make you work awfully hard to be so fast.” There was a note of sarcasm in her voice when she said the word “friends.”
“Yeah, it’s hard work all right,” said Willy with all of the modesty he could muster. “Mostly though, it has to do with the system.”
“The system?”
“Yeah. Well, there really isn’t much to it. The chief, that’s Nick, ya know . . . well, he says there’s just a few basic elements to it and never really discusses it with me too much.”
“Would you mind telling me how you go so damn fast without knowing what you’re doing then?” shot back Vicki. There was something about the mention of the old man’s name that brought forth a vestige of anger or, perhaps, jealousy in her.
(Continued on page 100)
Continued from page 91
“All I know is that I win and that’s the thing I’ve been after for the longest time. I don’t care how it happens as long as it does!” He stared pleadingly at the girl, hoping she’d understand. She stared back and didn’t. “I’ve got to get lined up for the next moto now.”
Vicki felt a little lost as she walked around to the first turn to watch the start. The Willy she had known and sort of loved was different. Still Willy all the way, but different. What did those two men he traveled with have to do with it?
The gate dropped and the cream of International motocross racing’s crop came thundering down the straight and sailed into the commotion of the first turn. Willy’s bright red machine rocketed from the comer at an incredible angle on the rear wheel. He’s gotta crash . . . but he doesn’t, and so the race goes around and around and around.
The moto was some 20 minutes old when Vicki spotted old Nick standing in the middle of the infield, hands thrust into his hip pockets, tracing Willy’s smooth lst-position path with his eyes. She hesitated . . . then slowly moved over to where he was standing and stood silently behind him watching her star’s progress.
With a whining noise like the gnashing of teeth, Nick spun to focus his gaze on Vicki who jumped from the sheer suddenness of the move. He stared at her for what seemed to be an eternity. It was actually only a few seconds, but while he stared, Willy Duncan bounced out of a berm, over the snow fence and into some trees.
Willy awoke in a white world. The walls were white, the sheets were white and the nurse was white. The antiseptic smells of a hospital filled his barelyconscious nostrils and he heard a familiar feminine voice.
“How ya feelin’, hotshoe?”
“Whadd I break?”
“Only your collarbone, a couple of ribs and the bike,” Vicki replied. And almost in the same breath, “I want you to stop racing for that man!”
“Whadda ya mean?” Willy slurred groggily.
“I was watching when you crashed and it happened at the exact instant that Nick took his eyes off you! I tell you Willy, it’s uncanny!”
“I just gotta ride! It’s everything I’ve got . . . except for you, of course.”
“Why do you keep fooling yourself, Willy?” Vicki said. “You know that those two are just using you in some kind of bizarre game that neither one of us understands. Look ... I want you to settle down. Maybe we could even get married and all. You could still ride and even race . . . but not for that Nick!” She spat out the name with clear contempt and stood staring at him, waiting for some kind of an explanation. \
“I’ve got a contract,” Willy’s voice trailed off as he rolled over and closed his eyes.
A two-month lapse of inactivity soon passed and the brightest star of the 250 International class was soon back on the track and winning races at his former pace. Nick and Joe Cane were still very much in evidence and, without a bitter and disillusioned Vicki coming around any more, there had been no more serious crashes. Willy won six straight races and his rather legendary domination became something of a paradox.
At Nick’s absolute insistence, Willy declined offer after offer from sponsors, all types of trick machinery and racing products. He shunned the cycling press like the plague, refusing interviews and even photographs. Things were really getting out of hand as far as the ratio of his fame to anonymity was concerned. Something had to give.
WILLY DUNCAN was tired. He'd been on the circuit for eight months straight and had only missed two weekends of racing. His sponsor, Nick, had been driving him hard and Willy was just about ready to throw in the towel and spend his time trail riding. He hadn't seen or heard from Vicki since the words they had in the hospital, and that didn't help his peace of mind one bit. One thing he couldn't complain about, though, and that was the winning!
In the past year and a half, Willy’s collection of huge lst-place trophies had grown so enormous that there was barely room for all of them in his apartment. The money kept coming in and, financially speaking, he was fat. Still, money isn’t everything, and Willy finally got up enough nerve to mention something to Nick about his decaying situation.
“I think I’d like to take a break from the racing,” he said as the team ate breakfast in a roadside diner.
Nick dropped a forkful of eggs onto his plate with a clink and focused his penetrating gaze on a cringing Duncan.
“Just what do you mean by that?” he hissed.
“Uh . . . well ... I just think that it might do all of us some good to relax and enjoy life for a while. I just don’t know how much longer I can handle this pace. I don’t get tired while I’m racing, but this constant driving around the country and all the pressure from the press is starting to get to my head. I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately and I’ve been losing some weight.”
“Less weight equals more horsepower!” grinned Joe Cane from behind his crooked set of pancake-coated teeth.
“Naw. You know what I mean. I just want to mellow out for a while. I mean, I like all the glory and all the trophies and champagne I get. The money’s neat and all those kids who are always bugging me for an autograph. I sort of wish you fellas could see your way clear to let me take a break from motocross and maybe try something else . . . like trials or something. You remember that rep from the Japanese factory who said I could ride anything I . . . .”
“You ride for me!” bellowed Nick, causing other restaurant patrons to turn abruptly. “This contract says so and that’s just the way it’ll be . . . forever!” “Hey!” exclaimed Willy as Nick pulled the piece of parchment from a pocket of his heavy leather coat. “I didn’t know that you carried that silly piece of paper wherever you went!”
“Of course, son,” said Nick in a suddenly gentle tone. “I’ve put a lot of time and effort into your . . . uh, case and I don’t want to see my investment, shall we say, depreciate. Anyway, this contract spells it all out in very clear English. You’ll always ride for me. Always! At least until the day comes when you can actually win a race without me and that’ll be the day you really lose.”
“Let me see that bloody thing for a minute!” said Willy as he grabbed for it.
Nick smiled his “certain” smile and handed over the document to the slightly pale Duncan. Joe Cane chuckled grossly and continued to devour his food.
“This damn contract says that you own me, body and soul! How the hell do you think that you can get away with something like this? Why, you’d have to be the devil himself or something!”
Nick again flashed his smile at the quaking racer and Willy Duncan, the idol of countless motocross fans, passed out on the counter.
Awakening on his pallet in the back of the van, Willy was first conscious of a queasy sensation in his stomach. He tried to lift his head from the pillow to see where he was, but his strength failed him.
“Hey . . . pull over for a minute ... I think I’m going to be sick,” said Willy with all of the strength he could muster.
The sound of his voice was promptly drowned out by an obscene cackle from the front of the truck. “So, you thought you could be a winner without ever having to pay for it, eh? Your blind lust for glory and the All American Dream seems to be forgotten now, Mr. William J. Duncan. We were wondering just how long you could sustain yourself on trophies and champagne without ever asking: ‘How?’ Didn’t you think it strange that a bom loser like yourself could be made to win races without any apparent means, or were you too happy about winning to ever give it a second thought? Well, now you know. You have to keep on racing for me and you’d better hope that I don’t get tired of you because when I do . . . well, you just might have a bad crash . . . one that you may never recover from. Your precious little Sunday school teacher probably told you where you go when you die if you’ve been a bad little boy!”
Cane laughed so hard at this remark that he nearly drove off the road, and Nick turned back around with the last words hissing off his lips. Willy Duncan forgot all about being sick to his stomach and realized a terror that few men ever come face to face with ... at least in this lifetime. What had he done? What was to become of him if he didn’t try to ride? How had he gotten into this unbelievable mess so far and so fast?
Willy was still shivering weakly although it was very warm that day when the big van wheeled into the pits of the race track. He never let his eyes meet those of Nick or Cane during the pre-race preparations; and riding the bike was the farthest thing from his mind. He pushed the machine through tech inspection while the food he had eaten earlier that day was allowing his mind to function on its own again. Willy had surmised that only by keeping a clear head could he possibly think his way out of this unbelievable dilemma.
It wasn’t until after the first moto, which he won, of course, that Willy was able to get away by himself and consider the possibilities. He stole into the back of the van while Nick and Cane were down at the beer stand and took a long, long look at the contract stuffed into Nick’s coat pocket.
It was tight. Willy didn’t understand a lot of the legal jargon on it but it looked extremely binding. He did, however, notice some wording in Clause 15 that gave him an idea. He couldn’t pull it off at a motocross but it might be a chance . . . sometime.
He rode the remainder of this latest series steeped in mortal terror. Every race brought the unearthly fear that the old man might make him crash. Willy wasn’t sure if Nick could do that, but he didn’t want to find out. He just hung on grimly, waiting for any sort of a break in the routine and praying himself to sleep every night.
His “chance” was actually arranged unknowingly by the cycling press through their constant chase after an interview or some candid photos. Nick despised this enterprise and wouldn’t allow any photographers to get near his racer or himself. Those who did try to sneak a shot with a telephoto generally ended up with a fuzzy negative for some reason and there had never been a picture of Willy’s sponsor in any of the magazines.
The pressure finally got to Nick a little (although he would never admit such a thing) and the team ducked out of motocross for a while to run in a big-bucks desert race in Mexico. Feeling this would be his only opportunity to save himself, Willy sneaked away to a phone one night. He managed to get Vicki to hold onto her end of the phone line long enough to hear him out and, after much serious talk, was able to convince her to help him.
HE MORNING of the big des ert race dawned fresh arid crisp, with the dew still clinging to the grass. Willy was very, very ner vous although he tried to hide it from Nick.
Nick was confident in “his property’s” ability and was counting on Willy to come through with a win that would be worth a considerable sum of money. He never told Willy what he planned to do with the money. The team always traveled privately in the van and never spent much on food or entertainment, so Willy assumed that he wanted some cash for the tempting of other poor souls. One way or another, Duncan thought, this would be his last race for the old man.
Joe Cane unloaded the bike, which had been thoroughly prepped and set up for the 400-mile event. Willy Duncan attended to his riding gear and kept quietly to himself as the start drew near. He watched as Nick helped Cane unload a second sled from the van and took the long, deep breath of a man who was about to run the race of his life. He had finally figured out the demonic pair’s “system” for making him win and, today, with the help of Clause 15 of the contract, planned to make it work to his advantage.
(Continued on page 105)
Continued from page 101
Without a Daniel Webster to speak his case to Scratch for him, Willy knew he would be on his own. He had deduced that Nick would have to “shadow” him by bike throughout the race in order to ensure a victory today. The hot air balloon wouldn’t keep up and Nick didn’t have a plane or a chopper. His interpretation of the contract led him to believe that the only way he could ever break the agreement for his soul was to actually win a race by his own ability. That meant that he would have to beat Nick, but he steeled himself for the task at hand and said a final silent prayer.
His plan of battle was fairly simple. He would start out easily enough, keeping Nick in sight behind him. At the final gas check, Willy would really start pouring it on, outdistancing Nick’s machine and, if all went according to plan and if a slight deviation from the course worked out properly, win the race without the ever-present eyes of Nick on him. He knew that any mistake on his part could result in an accident that would sign his soul over permanently, but he was prepared to risk it all for a chance at salvation.
Vicki was to be in the pits at the finish. Her part in the master plan was to provide the getaway car. Willy planned to win the race on his own and then just vanish. He and Vicki would travel through Mexico and find themselves a spot as far away from bike racing as possible. He had quite a bit of money saved up and wasn’t worried about financing his escape. He was counting on his ability to win without Nick’s help to nullify the contract once and for all.
Lined up with the rest of the Experts, Willy glanced over his shoulder to check Nick’s starting position. The jet black bike was two rows back, directly behind him. From behind his goggles, Nick’s leering smile sent a chill up Willy’s spine and he nervously blipped the throttle to warm the scooter.
The LeMans start found William J. Duncan running as fast as he could to get the best jump. He got to his machine before most of the others and started it with a single prod. Once off and running, the two-stroke just sang along at full throttle with Willy feeling completely in control and increasingly confident. During the first half of the race, he glanced back from time to time to check the competition and see where Nick was. The rest of the pack had faded to become tiny dust clouds in the background, but the everpresent drone of Nick’s machine and the specter in black were always right there.
Pulling into the third and final gas stop/ checkpoint, Willy was only about 15 seconds ahead of Nick, who wheeled his bike right up alongside of Duncan’s and glared at him fiercly.
“ Y ou don’t think you’re going to get out of my sight this time, do you?” He cackled. “I’m going to have the money from this race and you’re going to win it for me!”
Willy knew that the old man’s finish wouldn’t count because his fear of publicity kept him from getting a card and signing up properly. He also knew that Nick would be right on his fender for the last hundred miles of the race. “It’s a good thing I scouted the course last week,” said Willy to himself as the pair roared out of the check.
Duncan had it all planned out. There was this little sandstone canyon some 30 feet wide about 20 miles out of the third check. It wasn’t on the course but it was in a place where markings were sparse and Nick would probably follow him if he angled off very gradually. The approach to the canyon was blind, with a large sand dune comprising the lip of the hazard. Willy’s plan was to veer away from the course and head for this jump. He had calculated that it would require a flat-out fifth-gear leap to clear the rocks, but someone who didn’t know it was coming up would, more than likely, slam into the other wall at better than 60 miles per hour. He wasn’t sure if Nick would be killed, or even if he could be killed, but he was hoping that a crash would slow his “sponsor” down enough to allow himself a free ride home . . . forever.
The clump of brush and the angle of the dry stream bed gave Willy his first bearings and he began to turn, ever so slightly, to the left. He was following the natural contour of the land and a quick glance rearward confirmed his hopes that Nick was still on his tail. “Another mile,” thought Willy, “and I’ll have him!”
The approach to the sand dune was a long, flat run through some moderately deep sand. Willy was in fifth and was really wringing it out. His mental calculation and his knowledge of the gearing of his machine put his speed in excess of 75 mph. He hoped it would be enough.
Cresting the lip of the dune, Duncan hurled his bike and body into space. He flew through the air for what seemed to be an eternity and, upon landing with a wheel-slamming thud, was greeted by a sensation of blackness. When his head cleared, he was traveling straight and fast away from the rocks. A look over his shoulder brought a sigh of eternal relief. He didn’t see Nick’s black machine!
Willy Duncan had made it! He had only to finish the race and he would be free! There was a song in his heart and a gleam in his eye as he poured the coal to the bike, although he took care not to overcook it. He thought of Vicki waiting for him. Warm, beautiful and his. There would be many years of contentment and happiness for both of them and he would never, never again give himself over to winning anything.
The final stretch of road leading to the finish breezed beneath his wheels. It would just be a matter of minutes now and he would be free of Nick, Cane and the whole accursed affair. He had won this race on his own and, though he kept looking back for some sign of the black machine, he was alone in the desert. Alone and, hopefully, free.
There was a big crowd beneath the banner that marked the end of the long ordeal. Willy roared into the finish area with a cloud of dust, located the truck and leaned the machine up against it as he stepped off. His eyes searched the area for Vicki.
He spotted her some distance away but she hadn’t seen him pull up. “That’s strange,” he said to himself. “You’d think she saw me come in.”
“Hey, Vicki . . . over here!”
The girl didn’t acknowledge his presence or even look in his direction. Her eyes pointed downward and her hands were covering the lower portion of her face.
Willy glanced around and, to his surprise, no one was looking at him! He walked up to the nearest man and said something to him. There was no reply or even any sign of recognition. Then it came to him. With a terrifying abruptness Willy realized what had happened.
He ran over to where Vicki was standing and grabbed her. His hands had no effect on her posture and she just stood sobbing and staring at the ground. Most of the finish line crowd seemed upset about something and there were several girls in tears.
“Too bad about Duncan,” said one.
“Yeah. If only he’d stayed on the course instead of trying to take a short cut across that sandstone canyon,” her friend tearfully replied.
Willy then noticed a truck coming in off the course amidst the finishing racers. There was a crumpled bike in the back and, when the truck pulled up alongside the waiting ambulance, the attendants helped the driver unload a stretcher with someone on it. There was a blanket covering the lifeless form, but the number on the destroyed motorcycle was his.
Feeling eyes on the back of his head, William J. Duncan turned around to find a terrible face smiling at him. Willy stared helplessly as Nick began to laugh his hissing laugh out loud.
