He removed his right foot from the brake pedal and the car instantly started to trickle forward. He let the car idle up to the entrance to Rosen’s drive and swung the big wheel to the left. The car bumped in and out of the rutted tracks as it crossed onto the well-worn driveway. For a big V-8, the car hardly made a sound, just a soft burble from its twin exhausts as it swept stealthily nearer the ranch house. The trees and brush fell back as Ed entered the wide frontage of Rosen’s home. A black and white 1957 Ford four-door Police car was parked lengthways outside the main house and to the left, the beat up old Dodge pick-up truck that he had encountered on his first flashback was tail into the barn. Ed pushed the actuator button for neutral on the dash and the car rolled to a silent stop as he turned the ignition off. He pulled up the chrome door lever and eased out of the car. The only noise now was the slow ticking from the car as the engine cooled, and the screeching high above in the early evening deep blue sky as a bird of prey stalked its next victim. There was a small click as Ed pushed the door gently closed. He didn’t think there was much need for being covert as the black DeSoto was in plain view of anyone that walked out of the house or barn, so he quickly made his way towards the side of the barn nearest to him. As he neared he could hear the rhythmic crunch as a spade entered the earth and a grunt of exertion as it was pulled out. He made his way along the side of the wood panelling towards the front of the building and poked his head around the front. The left barn door was closed but the right was pulled wide open and the back of the old pick-up was just inside the structure with its tailgate down. He peeked over the side and into the bed to find to his relief it was empty. The shovelling noise stopped abruptly so Ed jumped back out of view with his back to the closed door. There was some more distant grunting then the digging continued. Ed crouched down and slipped around and into the barn. Long shadows stretched across the hard-packed earth. Three bare light bulbs hanging at intervals along the main roof beam struggled to spread light into the long disused stalls on either side. He could smell and almost taste the fading aroma of old leather, hay and lubricating oil of the old wooden structure. In the backs of the stalls, loose pieces of hay lay in small clumps, vying for space with the cobwebs and spiders, but other than a rusty oil can and the odd blunt farming tool, the stalls all seemed empty. Working his way stealthily from stall to stall, he made his way towards where the noise was coming from, the very back of the barn. He was very glad to see there was no velvet curtain hanging from the back wall and no wooden stage or alter. Ed was in the second to last stall on the left but still couldn’t see anything except the workbench at the back and to the right. There was no digging going on over there so he swiftly ran to the other side of the barn and crouched down into the opposite stall he had come from. This gave him a clear view of the back left-hand side of the building. The last stall was double width and in the center was a sturdy wooden trap door that measured some four-foot square. The clean, new pine contrasted with the darkened old wood of the barn wall that it lent upon. Stacked upright in the very corner was half a dozen hessian sacks full with what Ed could only imagine was the contents of the hole. A flickering light emanated from the access that the trap door covered, along with the grunts and sounds of earthworks. Slowly, he tiptoed towards the opening in the ground until he could just about see into the cavity. It looked to go about twelve foot down but seeing nothing, he came a little closer to the edge and looked down to see a youthful Johnny Rosen looking straight up at him.
Deputy Rosen felt dirt fall down the back of his collar. He swung around and looked up at the lip of the cellar to see if a rat or something had disturbed the dirt there. He was amazed to see the silhouette of a person looking down on him. With the bulb from the roof hanging almost directly above and behind whoever it was he couldn’t make out any details of the intruder, but it wasn’t a rat, it was a man for sure, a man he didn’t know, and who definitely shouldn’t be there.
“Son of a bitch!” he bellowed as he threw down the spade and started to climb the wooden steps out of the dig. Before he was even halfway up, the trap door slammed down on top of him almost hitting his head, quickly followed by the thud of something heavy being dumped on top. He put his shoulders into the trap door and pushed up. The door moved but dropped back. Pure fury gripped Rosen and through clenched teeth, he roared as he shoved with all his might. The door lifted enough that the bag of earth that had been dropped on top of it slid off and Rosen pushed it the rest of the way. He skittered up the remaining rungs of the ladder and ran the length of the barn. The intruder wasn’t in sight but he hollered after him “When I catch you, boy, I’m gonna’ whup you like a redheaded stepchild!” Seconds later he exploded out of the barn to see the man jumping into a black car on the other side of his drive. By the time he was halfway to it the car had roared into life and was spinning up dirt and dust as the be-finned tail flicked around. He ran on a few more paces but was quickly losing ground to the car with now only its rocket-like triple-tower tail-lights in view through the dust cloud. He veered left back towards his house and the patrol car sitting out front. His Ford was fitted with the supercharged 312 CI Thunderbird Special V8 motor that gave him at least 300 horses. But Rosen had had this engine modified and super-tuned so there wasn’t a bootlegger in the county that could outrun it. He turned the ignition, rammed the manual shifter into first and hit the gas.
Saunders was quite a way ahead and going fast. The powerful V8 motor was now roaring as he steered the big car along the narrow lanes heading for town. The torsion-bar suspension made the best of a bad job and helped to smooth out some of the smaller holes in the patchwork of blacktop and gravel. The tall trees either side formed a tunnel over the lane, causing the dappled sunlight to create pools of light and dark; hiding some big potholes and illuminating others but comfort wasn’t a concern for the driver right now. Getting away from Rosen and getting back to modern day was his priority now. He glanced every few seconds at the rear-view mirror screwed to the side of the dash but saw nothing so far. Then as if from nowhere, the big grinning chrome face of an old Ford came screaming up behind him. The speed at which it came on unnerved Ed quite a bit, he didn’t think cars in the 50s and 60s could go that fast. Visibly shaken, he looked down at his own speedo and saw the needle touching nearly 50mph, way too fast for a small lane like this, but he hit the gas harder and the big Mopar surged forward even faster. He checked behind him and saw that the Ford was gaining, quickly! It was now only about twenty yards behind and when the sun shot bars of light into the Police cruiser, the skeletal figure of Rosen could be seen hunched over the steering wheel, a manic grimace pasted to his face. Both the cars accelerated as they raced precariously towards the main road on that side of town. Up ahead the sun was being extinguished, brought on prematurely by the tumultuous black clouds rolling in from the west, obliterating the skyline. Ed didn’t hear the shot but he ducked instinctively when his left mirror exploded in a storm of shattered glass. Rosen had his service revolver out of the side window aiming for another shot. Ed twitched the car to the right a little as another shot sailed by. His speedo was creeping up to nearly 85mph and he was struggling to keep the car in a straight line.