“That right? My name’s Park. I’m sure glad to meet you, Doctor Abington. Heard a lot about you and them petrified animals and things you’ve been digging up. Got the brake off? All right—”
But the best he could do, just at first, was to rock the car a few inches each way. Between shoves he looked over his shoulder. The prisoner apparently preferred the shade of the car to the heat of the sun, and Park soon ceased to worry about him. Midway between Tonopah and Mina would be a poor spot to choose for a walk away, even if the man were free to walk, he reflected.
However desperate he might be, Bill Jonathan was no fool. He knew well enough that Park would shoot at the first hint of trouble. The deputy grunted and turned his attention to the work at hand.
Abington got out and helped claw the hot loose sand away from behind the rear wheels, got in again and steered while Park braced himself and heaved against the front fender. The car moved backward nearly a foot, and the two grinned triumphantly at one another.
“Next time—I’ll get her—Doctor Abington!” the deputy puffed, glancing over his shoulder as he mopped trickles of sweat from face and neck. A thin wreath of cigarette smoke waved out from the prisoner’s side of the roadster, and Park grinned at Abington behind the wheel.
“Hope you’re well fixed for cigarettes!” He chuckled good-humoredly. “Bill’s trying to smoke enough to last till he gets outa the pen, looks like.”
“He’s welcome,” Abington returned, a smile hidden under his pointed black beard. “I’ve plenty more.”
“Just as you say. All right, let’s give her another shove. Gosh, it’s hot!”
Grunting and straining, Park moved the car three feet backward to where a nest of small stones halted it again. Encouraged by the small progress, the two knelt again behind the rear wheels and began to paw a clear path in the gravel. The “hump,” one of those small ridges which characterized desert roads, would be passed within the next six feet.
At the precise moment when Park was kneeling with his back half turned from his own car, he heard his starter whir with an instant roar of the motor just under a full feed of gas.