Fast and the Furious: Diesel Queen

Chapter 6: Crazy Train (Skid Row)

I am a haul-it-all type of trucker. You call me to do a job, and I will have the trailer and the skills to match it. Today, I had Letty as my co-driver as I was coming back from Tacoma with my cargo of logs. Letty was quiet for most of the trip, but she seemingly decided to speak up when we were going around a turn, "Do you think getting up hills will be a problem with a load this heavy?" Letty asked. I lightly smiled, and paid attention to the road. There was a rig in front of me, A dark green International Eagle 9900I.

"When you have a heavy haul like this, it's not getting up a hill that is tricky, it's getting down, now look at this guy here, he's pulling ahead because he's got a light load, but if he doesn't get that gear at the right time he's going to lose it," I replied to Letty, I know my way around a rig like the back of my hand. Letty nodded back to me. She and I come from two different worlds. As I shifted gears on my Peterbilt, I noticed there was another rig coming up from the side. It was another Eagle, a blue 9900IX, with a reefer.

So far the ride was going smoothly since Letty has not tried to kill me yet. I looked in the side mirror to check on the logs I was hauling, and all seemed to be going like clockwork. I ran over a little bump in the road which caught Letty's attention making her jump a bit from her passenger seat, "What the hell was that?" Letty asked sharply,

"A Prius," I teased, and made her smirk a light smile. I shifted gears, and put some hammer down as we were going up another hill. It was to be expected in the northern parts of the state. A white Freightliner FLD Classic XL was pulling up behind me. I caught sight of him, until something rammed me hard in the back of my trailer full of logs.

"That sure as hell wasn't a Prius," Letty said looking into the side mirror, and I was rammed in the side of the trailer by the 9900IX. I tried to pick up some speed, but the Eagle 9900I was doing it's part of boxing me and Letty in. That Freightliner went in for another ram at the back of my trailer, "Ouch, FUCK!" Letty blasted, shaken by the impact of the angry Freightliner, I had to do something. There was only so much of this I can take. The driver of the Eagle 9900I pulled up alongside me, and rolling down his window.

"Pull over!" the driver demanded of me,

"You'll have to say 'please', Sugar," I smirked back,

His way of saying 'please' was fishtailing me with his reefer unit. We were coming up to a sharp turn, and I saw my chance to fight back. With a quick jerk of the steering wheel, I bumped him off the road as I was going into the turn. He broke through the guardrails, and went rolling down into the ravine with sounds of crunching and twisting metal and steel echoing in the spring air. A few trees stopped the rig from going further down. I turned my focus back on the other jokers. One down, and two more to go.

"Alright mon amie, watch this," I said to Letty as I shifted gears, and sped up to bump the 9900IX in front of me, and I started to push him up the hill. I am thinking the fellow in that rig is starting to panic as he hit the brakes, "There's no better engine than a twin-turbo C-15," I said with a calm smile showing Letty the power I had under the hood.

I was running the risk of burning up the tires, and brakes as we were going into another turn, and the Eagle's reefer trailer started moving to the side, and snapped off the rig. The side of my grill nudged it out of the way. There is a small dent in my grill, and I lost a headlight. Nothing that can't be fixed, "If he doesn't catch that gear he's done,"

As we were going down the last hill, the Eagle 9900IX was picking up speed at a high rate. Not good as there were cars swerving, and beeping their horns at the runaway rig. His increasing speed was a sign that his brakes have failed. I slowed down, and moved into the other lane as the Eagle hit a construction site, and flipped over. It rolled down the road a few times in a bent and twisted mess, "Remember what I told you about catching gears and braking just right?" I asked, Letty whom was sitting back in her seat.

"Yeah, what about it?" Letty asked back,

"What a shame," I teased, now I had to deal with the last rig as he was ramming the side of my trailer. We were trailer to trailer, and neck and neck going down the hill into a small town. A Peterbilt 389 Super 10 dump truck blew his horn to the Freightliner to avoid a head-on collision. The driver of the Classic XL swerved out of the way, and right into a gas station and did himself in. The Freightliner exploded in a fire ball, "Oh, what a mess we made," I commented, and Letty and I got out of this alive, and unscathed.

I looked at Letty, and Letty looked at me. I lightly smiled, and began to chuckle, which soon turned into both of us laughing. If this was Dom's idea of us having some 'girl time', then it really works, "You know, you're not bad, Marina, not bad," said Letty in approval. The logs I was hauling were going to Big Creek Lumber Co. in Half Moon Bay.

"It's what I do, mon amie, and I enjoy every bit of it," I laughed back, and we headed down SR-92 to Half Moon Bay. The redwood logs were dropped off to be turned into lumber at the sawmill, and I got my paycheck from them for my services. Questions were going through my mind. Who sent those rogue trucks after me and Letty, and why?

I had my suspicions that it had to do with that AT64F that the crew and I are now on the hunt for. There was no sign of it anywhere on 92 South, but that attack on my rig suggested that the truck was out there, somewhere. After dropping off the logs, we stopped at a Popeye's for some lunch and headed down the US-101 to head back to Los Angeles to report to Dom what we found, "We didn't find the rig," I told Dom, "but whoever is behind this has their own truckers on the payroll, they know we're out there,"

"Got it, explains why you're missing a headlight," Dom commented as I was fixing the dent, and rods in my angel's grill. I fixed the headlight, and my rig was back in running condition in a few hours. Dom saw that Letty was not hurt while I was behind the wheel. We all knew what we had to do. I was to be back on the road in the early morning, "hey...before you kick it in, I'm going to have Tej riding with you tomorrow," Dom informed me, I nodded a single nod with a smile, and headed to my rig for some sleep.

"Hey I'm cool with it," said Tej with a shrug, "just as long as you don't play country music,"

"Well then, we'll get along just fine then, I can't stand country music," I informed my co-driver for tomorrow morning. Roman was there with his characteristic smile. I got a welcome back from him in the form of a hug, a kiss, and a light tap in the butt. After what happened on the highways of Tacoma, it is like I said. I'm not crazy. I'm Canadian.