Bullet County, U.S.A.

Berlin Alexanderplatz lay open on the table, his cup of coffee next to it, in the café across the street from the police station. It wasn’t even a street, so much as a strip of badly graveled road that the low, one-story building stood on the other side of. In desert country, people raced around on quad bikes, more fit for the terrain, dune and hardpan, and he had seen a few teenagers racing around in the past few hours. He finished what was left and slipped the novel in his jacket, then went out to the road, waited around a few moments until a woman, true white trash in Lynyrd Skynyrd T, came zipping down the gravel, then he steps in the middle of the road, she honked and he pulls her off, in full sight of the cops, and gunned it as the nearest pig, waddling more than running, lunged for him and just barely grazed his jacket.

Berry lights flashed and he took it easy until the cruisers pulled out and were in sight, then he went straight, the road only went one way after that, out the trailer park hamlet that passed for a town with two, another joins them, now three, cruisers tearin’ up after him, like some bad desert chase scene from a movie on TV - he couldn’t help but thinking of an old movie with Rutger Hauer, where that kid from Red Dawn was taking potshots from a colt at the jeeps and chopper pursuing his ass across a desert much like this one - and he just had to keep ’em goin’. He managed to stay ahead of them when the last building of the town vanished from sight over the rise, and from the surrounding hills, dust began to pick up.

The berries, their focus still on the dickweed in front of them, didn’t seem to notice the black quads that had just crested the hills and were speeding down dirt side-roads towards the fast-movin' shit show. Two-person crews atop each Bombardier, a driver and a gunner. The first spray of bullets took down the berry in shotgun in the right-most vehicle, who slumped over, not quite dead. His partner driving glanced over just in time to take a few rounds to the face from a second spray. The quad maneuvered up the side of the hill, dodging the cruiser that sharply careened off the road and beached there.

The middle cruiser, the one behind the other two, now moved into right position and tried to ram the quad that’d fired. It slowed, the cruiser shot past, then they picked up speed again, opening up and shooting out the back windshield. The cop, there was only one in this vehicle, kept his head low behind the wheel. Meanwhile, the left pair made the mistake of shooting out the back tire of the left cruiser, which lost control and skidded to a halt, splayed out all over the road. The quad didn’t brake, collided with the whip, smashing out the cruiser’s right-side taillights, and the two roadside guerrillas roll across. The gunner hops up so quick the cop can’t be sure he didn’t land on his feet, and opens up. A flat-out spray across the vehicle, glass shot out. When the gunner gets up to the window, the cop, lying sprawled across the seat, gets off a couple rounds into his chest. He flops back and driver, crouched low, moves over, picks up the piece and let’s ’er rip, the few rounds left, into the front seat. No one ever told him “hey man, nice shot”, and the cop took only a few in the torso and chest, non-fatal, returns fire, plugs one into his chest, an ass-hair away from the heart, maybe even wings it, he thinks. Driver’s ass stumbles back and around the middle of the road, crazed and done for, most like, then books it to the left, crests a dune and disappears. About half a mile up the desert highway, the quad that made it dukes it out with the cruiser that’s held out this long. The copper’s trying to keep from flying off the road, though he does briefly consider skirting her out into the desert and kicking up enough dust to throw open the door and book it, but of course they’d catch up to his donut-fed ass and plug ’im, so he just keeps ’er steady, unable to fire back while window glass keeps flying around him. The gunner looks back over their shoulder, then motions for the jacked quad up front to turn back and check out the scene behind them. He pulls to the left, then after they pass, does a U-turn and heads back.

They make eye contact at the same time – the pig who won’t go down and took two down in his place, and the lure who brought him out here. The cop, now outside the perforated cruiser, raises his standard-issue, squeezes off a shot.

The last cruiser, still speeding, rams ’em and manages to wing ’em, but slides off into a slim ditch and jams between a metal railing and the higher ground. The black-clad, black helmet, two-person crew pull to a stop, move over to his door before he can reach his piece, pull him out and stomp his ass deep into the pavement.

The sun hovered over this Hills-Have-Eyes strip of American country, blinding the lone ranger, metal slippin’ from his hand, and, it may have been a trick a the light, he couldn’t be sure if his bullet missed or if this leather-clad marauder pulled a bullet-time.

The Score, because even I can’t keep up, and I’m the one relayin’ these events: four cops, three cruisers; five road warriors, three quads - two bombardiers, one jacked. Two pigs dead, one a them flattened by boot-heal into the pavement, th’other perforated, more gaping holes than a bachelorette party, his pardner coughs and weezes in the seat next to ’im, and it ain’t gonna be one a those goddam action movies where the guy everyone thought was done for suddenly shows up and guns down the baddie, no, he’s gonna pop open the door, flop out like a dead fish, flop around a bit and expire. See ’im? There he goes. New high score: Held out longer than Bobby Kennedy.

Four hunters, one lure: one’s dead, the other’s gone off to the desert to die, I guess kinda like Shane minus the grace or the horse or the John-Wayne-Gary-Cooper bullshit, and the pavement-pounders, big beefy dudes, real romper stompers with their platform boots, that Russell Crowe couture, the both a them comin’ back to join the prick who brought the fuzz out here.

The walkin’ talkin’ Khaki uniform thinks if he can move just fast enough, slide over the hood and into the driver’s -- oh, good God, they just plugged his ass; and they di’n’t just plug’im, they went full on Bloody Sam, I mean it’s like they pulled the whole Wild Bunch finale on one person.

The Lure hops onto the sweat-spattered bombardier and guns it, the remaining two-man crew a couple car-lengths behind. They disappear into Manson country.