Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

The roaring sound of the truck’s exhaust preceded it. As it lurched through chuckholes like an awkward elephant, great gouts of yellow dust were splashed up and over it. It came on and on, and when it stopped, the radiator was right up against Randolph’s vehicle.

The only occupant of the cab was a skinny man with an olive complexion and shiny black hair and busy dark eyes. He wore black coveralls, and resembled a ghoul in work clothes.

“Suarez?” Randolph said. The man fit Gomez’ description.

Burkett acted as though he knew exactly what he was going to do. He jerked open the truck door and covered the driver with his shiny, short-barrelled revolver.

The only thing was — the driver knew what he was going to do, too. He held in his hand the kind of push-button used by bed patients in hospitals. Two thin wires extended from it back into the truck.

He spoke English, not so poorly that he couldn’t be clearly understood.

“I am Suarez,” he said proudly.

“Put the gun at my feet.”

When Burkett hesitated, he lifted his hand high, so they could see his thumb quivering a fraction of an inch above the push button.

“Now!” he commanded.

There on the yellow ribbon of San Manuel road through the green mesquite country, all time stood still.

To Randolph, who was eight feet behind and to the left of Burkett, unarmed, came the sound of the slow wind sobbing through the trees, carrying up from Mexico the warmth and perfume of hundreds of miles of sun-soaked earth, oak knolls, and pine canyons. The whirling columns of dust devils danced sedately in the blue distances.

From the Santo Tomas road there came the faint sound of a passing automobile engine. It was only a whimper, but it served to remind Randolph that he and Burkett were not alone with this madman.

A world full of people could feel, in one way or another, the result of whatever action took place here on this lonesome southern desert. A global war could conceivably be started. Or stopped.

A sense of destiny welled strongly in Randolph. So must it have been with Burkett.

The burning question in Burkett was whether to call this man’s bluff, gambling that he would not commit suicide in order to kill them; whether to shoot him, gambling that the bullet would reach him before he could energize the bomb; or whether, by capitulating, to gamble that greater forces could surround and stop the truck before it left this vast, sparsely populated, desert country where it could do little damage even if it did explode.

Burkett took the last alternative. Even as he bent to lay the gun at Suarez’ feet, Randolph’s lips were forming the words for a great shout: “Shoot him Burkett!”

For by Randolph’s calculations, only Burkett, Randolph, and Suarez knew that the bomb actually existed in this truck. Therefore it was mandatory for Suarez to eliminate them.

In the space of time that it took Burkett to realize his mistake and belatedly reach for the gun, Suarez scooped it up and shot him. Burkett fell against the truck and then slumped, into the dust.

Randolph had begun his move even when Burkett was reaching for the gun. The revolver blasted its bits of blinding, burning powder into his face. The bullet struck into the top of his shoulder, emerged under the scapula, and hammered him to the ground.

Falling partly across Burkett, shocked and numb, he lay wholly still. Blood streamed warm into his clothes, dripped into the yellow dust to mingle with Burkett’s. Faintly, as through deafness, he heard the sound of his car’s engine. It labored, and its wheels spun deeper in sand as it was driven off the road and out of sight, no doubt, and finally the engine died altogether. Then there was a long time of nothing, then he sensed that Suarez was studying him, and he held his breath.

Then strong wiry hands grasped his wrists and pulled him through the dust, to be unceremoniously dumped at the base of a mesquite beyond the edge of the road. These things seemed to be happening to someone else, while he himself huddled in a dingy corner and nursed his pain. Instinctively, he did nothing to show the hurrying Suarez that he still lived. His breathing slowed and almost stopped.

A heavy weight held him pinned. The truck’s idling engine roared. Randolph heard the crunching if its heavy wheels in the road, the open-mouthed bark of its exhaust. He got hands under his chest and pushed mightily, the pain in his shoulder like a streak of fire. Strength within him surprised him; he was also surprised that the weight on him had been Burkett’s body, which now slid off and lay limp, mouth and eyes half-opened.

A few yards away, glimpsed through the close leaves of the mesquites, the truck moved slowly on as it passed through the low range of gears.

Randolph took a few stumbling steps forward. In motion, despite the pain in his shoulder, he could feel better. And he could run.