Murphy's Last Ride

By Wayne Wood

Every boy has a hero, I guess. When they're little, most boys look up to their dad... A dad is a boy's first hero.

I never really knew my dad. He was killed in a helicopter crash when I was an infant, leaving my mother alone to raise me.

So, I guess if you asked me who the one man I looked up to most as a child was, I'd have to say it was my Uncle Roy.

Roy Cochran, is the larger than life subject of numerous family legends; World War 2 Navy frogman, musician, adventurer, romancer of Hollywood starlets, brawler. "...if Uncle Roy had lived one hundred years earlier there would have been books and movies about him..."

For eighteen-year-old Scotty Pierce, the opportunity to go to work for his boyhood hero, his Uncle Roy, is the dream of a lifetime. It is 1974, the country is in a turmoil; there are few jobs for experienced and trained workers, much less inexperienced kids straight out of high school in a strange town with no friends or connections.
Uncle Roy gives Scotty a new hope. He brings him into his world. He gives him a job, teaches him a trade, and takes him into his confidence. Though Scotty is street smart beyond his years he soon finds the world he's entered, his Uncle Roy's world, is a world painted in shadows and highlighted in shades of gray. It is a violent world where people don't call the law, but settle matters personally - either with fists or...

Roy shares his dream of returning to Las Vegas.

"One soon learned with Roy that the only thing stopping him from doing anything was his getting the idea to do it."
He sets out on his uncle's big adventure to recapture his past that waits for him in Las Vegas, not realizing that past is waiting for him, Scotty is about to learn a lesson about dreams: that many dreams go unfulfilled, other dreams are only realized after much pain and sacrifice, and some dreams are nightmares.

All I could see in front of me were the taillights of the car ahead of me and the walls of the mountains, which in the darkness seemed to stretch endlessly straight up into the sky. It was Friday and the highway was almost bumper to bumper with traffic; weekenders with cash burning holes in their pockets, traveling up Hwy 95 from Arizona to lighten their loads at the craps tables and slot machines awaiting them.

Then the taillights ahead of me disappeared, as did the ground ahead. Before me stood a sight that still awed me - in spite of the fact I'd seen it so many times before and every night this week - the Las Vegas skyline. It was beautiful to look at in the dead of night, to be sure. However, I was wiser now than when I'd first seen it a few months before. I knew now the beauty was an illusion, a trap. I knew that when the sun rose in a few hours, those beautiful colors would fade.

A horn honked behind me; a sucker who couldn't wait to lose his money. I shrugged and inched the vehicle over the sharp drop, down the road, trying to ignore the splendor of an illuminated Hoover dam and the dark, seemingly bottomless chasm to my immediate right.

I was trying to stay focused on the job ahead. I thought about the .45 I had in the gym bag on the floor in the back stashed amidst my changes of underwear and socks. It was Punky's pistol. I still had it after all this time. Tonight, I was going to put it to good use.

Murphy's Last Ride by Wayne Wood Goodreads

Other books by Wayne Wood: All the Way And Then Some: A Cold Warrior's Journey; The Danny Baumer Series: The Homestead, Unhallowed Deceiver; Murphy's Last Ride, and Jezebel Dezire

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F88JZJMT
• ISBN13: 9798283275130
• Release Date: May 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"