Running Blind (29 page)

Panic tightened her chest, making it impossible to take anything other than shallow, rapid breaths. A small tree. Off-center. The least move could send them tilting off their precarious perch. The tree could snap under the weight of the truck. The roots might tear loose. They were basically suspended in midair by nothing more than unbelievable luck and angels’ breath.

Slowly Spencer reached for the console and the radio there, moving only his arm, holding his torso rigidly still. He turned it on, pushed a button, and spoke into the microphone. “Boss, you there?”

Zeke’s deep voice answered so quickly Carlin wondered if he’d been waiting by the radio. “Where the hell are you?” The reception wasn’t great; it broke up a time or two, but it was easy enough to get what Zeke was saying, and to hear the force in his tone.

“We slid off the road,” Spencer said. “We’re just past the bridge on the loop road, right before you get to the turnoff.”

“Is Carlin okay?” The words were hard and sharp.

Carlin
, not Carly. She caught her breath at the slip, the first time he’d done that. She wondered if Spencer would notice the hard end to her name, or just write it off to bad reception.

“Miss Carly’s fine. But get here fast, boss. A tree is all that’s holding us, and we can’t move to get out of the truck.”

“I’ll be right there. Just don’t move, and everything will be okay.”

That authoritative tone was both reassuring and maddening. He said it would be okay with all the confidence
that his orders could countermand both weight and gravity; part of her was reassured simply because he was so confident, and the more sane part of her was infuriated by his arrogance.

Please, please, God
, she prayed,
overlook his arrogance this once and let him be right
.

She and Spencer sat frozen in their seats. There was nothing they could do except wait—wait for Zeke or Death, whoever got there first.

Z
EKE SPOTTED THE
bumper of the truck peeking over the shoulder of the road. The snow was coming down so hard that it had partially covered the truck; if he hadn’t known almost exactly where they were, if he hadn’t been looking, he might have driven on by.

The sight of the truck’s position made his heart thump heavily, but he grimly pushed the surge of panic away; now wasn’t the time to lose it over what might happen, but to deal with what
had
happened—and what had happened was enough to turn his blood as icy as the road. It was a miracle the pickup wasn’t at the bottom of the ravine right now.

He shoved the gear lever into Park and had the door open and was out of his truck before it had rocked back on the springs. The shoulder of the road was pure ice; his boots slipped beneath him as he eased up to the edge of the road and assessed the situation. His back teeth clenched; the situation wasn’t good.

Through the snow that half-covered the windshield, melting from the truck’s heat, he could see Carlin and Spencer motionless in their seats, their white faces frozen and blank, as if they were afraid even to blink their eyes.

He could see the thin tree that had caught the truck’s back bumper off-center, on Spencer’s side of the truck,
bending under the massive weight. It could break at any time, sending them to their deaths.

No, by God.
No
. Not while he had breath in his body. Carlin—

He cut the thought off before it could form, and scrambled back into the four-wheel-drive dual-axle diesel pickup he’d driven because it had a winch on the front. Walt, who had been following, drove up and stopped at a safe distance as Zeke turned the dually around so he was facing Walt. This wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, he wasn’t at all certain he could get the truck out.

Walt met him at the winch, surveyed the situation, and said, “Holy shit,” his tone quiet so Spencer and Carlin couldn’t hear him.

The rest of the hands were on the way, but Zeke estimated Micah was at least ten minutes away, and Kenneth was about five minutes behind them. He didn’t dare wait for any of them.

“We’ll use the snatch block,” Zeke said. They had to winch the truck up from an angle, which the snatch block made possible. The road wasn’t wide enough for him to line up bumper to bumper and pull the other truck up. The winch was rated for ten thousand pounds, so it would handle the weight; the treacherous footing was a problem, and the position of the other truck was a bigger one. He couldn’t hook the steel cable to the bumper, because bumpers weren’t secure; it would pull right off. He had to attach it to the frame or axle. The shoulder of the road was pure ice; getting down to the truck and working his way under it was going to be a bitch. If he slipped and went into the ravine, he would die. If he bumped the truck and tilted it off its delicate balance, all three of them would die.

He had to get the cable around a sturdy part of the truck, ideally the K frame of the engine cradle, as close to center as possible so the truck wouldn’t tilt over on its
side. If he couldn’t reach the K frame, he’d go for the axle or any other part he could reach, as long as it would prevent the truck from toppling down the ravine. He didn’t care if the steel cable ruined the axle. Trucks were replaceable; people weren’t.

Walt eased close to the edge of the shoulder to make his own assessment; he began slipping on the ice, too, waving his arms to regain his balance. “Careful,” Zeke said, grabbing the back of Walt’s jacket and hauling him back to secure footing. But Walt had seen the same thing that Zeke had, and his lined face was worried. Where the truck had gone off wasn’t a straight drop; they were on a sharp slope that became almost vertical a few yards behind the back bumper. Maybe there was a dip in the terrain, but for whatever reason, the front bumper was almost touching the ground. There was no way he could wiggle under from the front. He’d have to go down and work his way in from the side,
without
being able to hold to the steel cable, which he’d have to feed under the bumper first to get the hook in the correct position. Then he’d have to get under the truck and secure the cable.

And he had to do it fast, before a gust of wind blew the truck off its precarious balance, or the spindly looking tree gave out and splintered.

“I’ll do it,” Walt volunteered. “I’m skinnier than you.”

That was true. Zeke was taller and heavier than the older man, deeper in the chest, wider in the shoulders. And Walt was as tough as shoe leather, but it wasn’t a question of toughness, or even of size. “Doesn’t matter,” Zeke replied. “It’s my job.” He simply wasn’t going to risk anyone else’s life. He wasn’t going to let Carlin’s life rest in anyone else’s hands.

“But boss—”

“My responsibility. My job.”

Walt knew that tone of voice and didn’t waste any more time arguing; instead he set about getting the snatch block
ready. Zeke removed his hat and put it inside the cab, and pulled the hood of his coat up over his head. Then, free-spooling the cable, he pulled it to the edge of the shoulder of the road and got down on his stomach in the snow so he could see the best place to feed the hook and cable under the truck. The falling snow had already covered the bumper, and gently Zeke began wiping the snow away with his gloved hand, a little bit at a time, not wanting to hit the bumper. Finally he could see a gap, and he eased the hook and cable through it under the truck.

“Ready?” he called over his shoulder to Walt.

“Ready.”

Zeke didn’t bother getting to his feet. Still on his stomach, he slithered headfirst over the edge of the ravine, sliding on the ice but able to dig in the toes of his heavy boots enough to maintain some control. The slope was steep, littered with rocks and half-buried boulders. The rocks gave him some traction, something rough to grab on to as he clawed his way down. He didn’t have far to go, maybe five or six feet, but he had to control his motion to a maddeningly slow pace or he’d gain too much momentum and go sliding off the bluff. The cold seeped through his jeans and thermal underwear, even through the thick coat he was wearing, snow and ice sticking to his garments and then melting, making him even colder.

He was on Carlin’s side of the truck. He didn’t dare look up, didn’t want to see her stiff, terrified face looking out the window at him. He might lose his concentration, move too fast. There were already enough things that could go wrong without him adding to the list. Hell, if a bird landed on the roof of the truck that could be enough to tilt it off-balance; good thing birds weren’t flying in this weather.

He was farther down the side of the truck than he wanted to be, perilously close to the edge, before there was enough space under the truck for him to slide under
it. Carefully turning himself perpendicular to the truck, he eased his head under the chassis—and almost laughed in relief, quickly followed by what felt suspiciously like the burn of tears. He blinked and swallowed, then blew out a big breath. The little tree wasn’t all that was holding the truck. The transmission block was caught on an underground boulder that stuck just a foot or so above the ground. The truck was solidly wedged; it wasn’t going anywhere even if that tree did break, which it almost definitely would have if the rock hadn’t caught most of the truck’s weight.

That was the good news. The bad was that the bulk of the boulder made it more difficult for him to reach the winch cable. On the balance of things, though, he’d take having a tougher job for himself as long as the vehicle was more stable.

“The truck’s caught on a boulder!” he yelled out to Walt, knowing that Spencer and Carlin would probably be able to hear him inside the truck, and wanting to relieve the stress everyone was feeling. “It’s secure as long as they don’t move around too much.” The last thing he wanted was for them to think they could just open their doors and get out; not only was the ground so icy they might slide right off, but the truck could still be tilted off-balance, and he was still underneath it. He’d really like to avoid getting crushed.

The tight quarters meant his thick coat was now a liability he couldn’t afford. Carefully he backed out from beneath the truck and quickly shucked the coat. The bitter cold immediately bit through his clothing, and snow gathered on his hair, melting and refreezing. Shit! He had to get this done in a hurry before he got hypothermia.

But hurrying was one thing he couldn’t do. Every move had to be deliberate and precise.

He inched forward under the truck again, looking for the winch cable, this time angling himself toward the
front of the truck because the boulder would have prevented the cable from coming any farther back. It was a tight fit, even without the bulk of his coat. Walt would have been the better choice, size-wise, and he still had the option of backing out, climbing back up to the road, and letting Walt do this—but the risk, though much diminished from what they’d originally thought, was still there, and he wouldn’t willingly send any of his men in his place into a dangerous situation when he could do the job himself.

A nerve-racking minute later, he got his hand on the cable. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting it secured without jarring the truck any more than necessary. Sweat broke out on his face and froze, and the pain on his skin was bad enough he had to take a minute and wipe the ice away. He began shivering uncontrollably, so bad he didn’t dare try to attach the cable while he was shaking like that. Instead he deliberately shook and shivered as hard as he could, ramping up his core temperature enough that when he stopped, his body felt warm enough that he could resume without the shivering. He had to do that once more before he had the cable secured around the frame of the engine cradle.

Just as cautiously as he had wormed his way under the truck, he wormed his way back out. God almighty, the cold was biting bone deep, like an animal with its fangs sunk into his body. As soon as he was clear he grabbed his coat and dragged it on, but the fabric was cold, the outer layer covered with snow, and there was precious little warmth he could get from it.

He clawed his way up to the icy shoulder of the road, dragged himself over the edge. Micah and Kenneth had both arrived, and were standing beside Walt, though right now there was nothing they could do.

Looking back at the truck, Zeke caught Carlin’s terrified gaze and gave her a thumbs-up. Maybe she hadn’t
heard him yell to Walt; maybe, when you were in this situation, you weren’t reassured until you were actually
out
of the situation. His own gut had been knotted with fear; how much worse had it been for her, and for Spencer?

As soon as he was on his feet and staggering out of the way, Walt pressed the button on the remote to start the winch. He had everything ready, even the hood up on the dually to protect the windshield if the cable broke, and an old jacket thrown over the cable itself to help smother any backlash. The motor whined and slowly began reeling in the cable. The line pulled taut, metal grating on rock as the pickup began to roll forward, scraping the underside along the boulder that had prevented it from plummeting down the ravine.

A few minutes later, the pickup was on the road. Walt stopped the winch and free-spooled some slack in it so the cable could be unhooked. Micah hurried forward to take care of that chore.

Spencer had opened his door and tumbled out, but Carlin still sat in the passenger seat, unmoving. Was she hurt? Urgency biting into him again, Zeke grabbed the handle and jerked it open. “Are you all right?”

She swallowed. Maybe her lips trembled a little. She said, “My legs …”

God almighty. Were they broken, had she suffered a spinal injury? He barked, “Your legs—”

“No! My eggs.
Eggs!
If the eggs are broken I don’t know what I’ll be feeding all of you for the next week, because I’ll be damned if I’ll go back to the grocery store until the spring thaw!”

Relief roaring through him, he reached in and un-clipped her seat belt, then hauled her out of the truck. Walt and Micah were both laughing, more than a little relief in their own reactions.

Spencer wasn’t laughing. He stood in the snow, his
shoulders hunched, looking miserable. Zeke already knew why. “Damn it,” he growled, bits of snow stinging his face. “Where are the spikes?” If Spencer had thrown them in the back of the truck—a common precaution—he’d have put them on when they turned off the paved road, he wouldn’t have slid off the shoulder, and none of this would have happened.