When the first layer gave way, he shouted. “Yeah!”
Who says you have to be big to be tough and strong? He sawed with renewed strength, until his fingers, shoulder, and arm ached. One after another, he sliced through the first four, heavy layers of tape. As soon as he got a cut started on the fifth layer, the tape tore itself from the handhold. When it did, his mom and Trish crashed down on him, pinning him against Coach Lamkin. His body pressed painfully into shards of glass, and he struggled for breath again. Other than a few moans from his mom, though, no one made a sound. Since their barely taped wrists had landed near his hands, Perry decided to finish the job while still partially buried underneath them. He sawed with vigor, but the work got harder instead of easier without the weight of their bodies aiding in his efforts. Blood dripped from his fingers. He hadn’t even realized he was cutting into himself with his grip on the glass. For a second, he thought about searching for his glove.
He imagined Trish taunting him, and said the words aloud, just like she would have. “Is that all you’ve got, runt?”
He clutched the glass, bore down on the tape, and sawed through it. He wouldn’t waste any more time.
His breaths were coming in heaving gasps now. He stopped for a breather, but only a short one, then he ripped away the last of the tape binding his mom and sister together. He levered himself around to face their ankles and repeated the process until his hands were so slick from his own blood that he couldn’t see the tape. It didn’t matter. His shoulder was numb. That didn’t matter either. He just kept going.
When he’d finished the last strand, he dug his way out from under them and crawled out the gaping hole where the back window used to be, trying his hardest not to step on them too badly in the process, and kept crawling through the opening between the truck bed and rock. He surveyed the situation. The truck bed had skidded across and gotten lodged on a slanted boulder just above the creek. The world was spinning around him, and every breath was agony. He bent over his knees and tried to think. He had to drag his mom and Trish out. But how?
He peered back through the window. Glass teeth still protruded from its edges. If he pulled Trish and his mom over them, they’d be cut to ribbons. He kicked the glass out the best he could, then he ripped off his coat and shirt and threw them over the jagged shards. Snowflakes pelted his bare torso, but the cold was nothing to him.
He leaned in the window, his belly on his shed clothing. His mom was on top of Trish. Reaching under his mom’s arms, he tried to hoist her up. Her weight pulled him back in the truck, and he tumbled on top of the pile of people. As he caught his breath and righted himself, he noticed a funny sound. A WOOMPH noise. Then a smell.
Something burning.
“No!” he cried. “No!”
He jammed a foot once more against the steering column and braced the other on the dash. With strength he didn’t know he had, he hefted his mom up. All the curls he had done in front of the bathroom mirror and in weight training for football, all the rows, all the front extensions. They may not have made him into the Incredible Hulk, but every rep had made a difference. He strained. Something in his back hurt bad, but he ignored it. Andy Mill had ignored his injury and gone on to ski the race of his life. If he could do it, Perry could, too. He had to. And then, he realized, he had. His mom was high enough that he leaned forward, squatted down, and jammed his shoulder under her bottom.
“Argh!” he yelled.
With a mighty shove and push from his legs, he sent her toppling through the back window. THUD. He hated the sound. Hated that she might have—probably did—hit her head on the rock or the truck. But that was better than burning to death.
The smell of the fire was growing stronger. Hurry up, runt. He grabbed his sister. His back screamed in pain as he heaved. She had crumpled in the floorboard. He couldn’t lift her. He stepped off his perch on the dash and column and worked his feet past Coach Lamkin’s shoulder until they were firmly against the rock the truck was resting on. He squatted low in the cramped quarters. For once, being small was an asset, but he had always shirked on leg work until his ankle weights lately. He regretted it. Forcing his shoulder under Trish’s bottom like he had with his mom’s, he braced himself with his hands out to either side, with his own bottom almost at his heels, then pushed up with everything his skinny legs had in them. He roared like an Olympic weightlifter. His thighs were in agony, like they were going to tear in half, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
Slowly, miraculously, her body rose, until she was balanced above him like they were pairs ice skaters in a bloody, macabre lift. But his angle was bad, and he couldn’t push her through the window. He had to get her higher.
He put his hands against the ceiling. Carefully, he stepped on the inside of the steering wheel with one foot, his body bent over and climbing like it was a stair, until he was standing on one leg. Trish’s body rose, then wobbled, and only the close confines of the seat and ceiling kept her from falling off of him. He brought his other foot into the steering wheel. He squatted again and pushed her toward the window opening, but she wouldn’t budge. Why couldn’t he get her out? The smell of smoke mingled with fire now. A slide show raced through his mind, pictures of exploding trucks, burning trucks, incinerated trucks. He eased a foot up and around the steering wheel, back to the thick column. Then he hollered and stepped up. Her body rose higher still. He slipped his other foot onto the steering column. Standing on his tiptoes, he finally found the leverage he needed.
THUD. Trish followed their mom out.
Perry started to cry. Big cries, with heaving sobs, snot bubbles, and gobs of tears. But he didn’t let it slow him down. He scrambled out the window after his mom and Trish, careful to jump clear of their bodies. Then he dragged them away from the truck, over rocks, snow, and pine cones, all the way to the edge of the stream under a canopy of branches. First his mom, then his sister, lying side by side, still with their wrists and ankles taped.
But alive.
Only when he was done did he allow himself to look back at the truck. He couldn’t see the front end, but he saw the flickering light of fire on the snow. Then he heard a voice from the cab. It was weak, almost buried under the sounds of creek water and crackling flame.
“Help me. Is anyone out there? Help me, please. I’m trapped.”
It was Coach Lamkin.
Chapter Forty-four: Hack
Buffalo, Wyoming
Tuesday, March 15, 1977, 6:45 p.m.
Patrick
“No!” Patrick screamed.
He was out the door of the Suburban the second he ground it into park. Dear God, please let my family be all right, he prayed. He scrambled across the snowy road, past the mangled cougar to the edge of the drop off and peered over. He smelled the smoke and fire before he could identify their source. Then he saw it. Hulking dark metal and an orange and yellow glow twenty-feet below. A rush of hope spurted through him. The truck had gone over at the best possible spot, the upper end of this stretch of canyon, nearest the creek level. Twenty-feet. Only twenty-feet. That’s survivable, right?
“Susanne!” he roared.
But it wasn’t her voice that answered. It was one that was younger, squeakier, and equally loved. “Dad!”
“Are you okay?” Patrick shouted.
“I’m all right. Mom and Trish are unconscious. But I got them out.”
Patrick felt giddy. His family was alive. “Good job, son. I’ll be down to get you all in a second.” He ran back to the Suburban and opened the back end. The judge joined him there.
“What’s going on?” the judge asked.
Before Patrick could answer, a vehicle bore down on them with another in its wake. A virtual rush hour for the mountains. Patrick motioned them around to the right of the Suburban. He grabbed his unwieldy container of emergency supplies, shut the doors, and ran to the shoulder of the road.
He turned to the judge. “Perry said Trish and Susanne are down there. I’m going after them.
”
But as he spoke, the two vehicles pulled to a stop behind the Suburban. Driver’s side doors opened. A man climbed out of each. Closest to them by a sedan, a man in a shiny dark suit slipped and held himself up by the open door.
He shouted, “Renkin, your time is up.”
The judge hollered back. “Leave me alone, Peters. Your threats won’t work on me.”
The second vehicle was a Volkswagen van. There weren’t many of them in the area, and Patrick thought it looked like the one he’d seen parked outside Renkin’s house a few nights before. At its driver’s door, a man with shoulder length hair, bell bottom pants, and a droopy mustache lifted a rifle and sighted it. Before Patrick could process what was happening, the man fired.
The judge’s body slammed into the Suburban’s back doors, his hand gripping his thigh. “I’m hit!”
Another shot rang out. Patrick flinched and closed his eyes, expecting a bullet. When he opened them, he realized he hadn’t been shot.
The judge was crawling on the ground toward the driver’s door of the Suburban, clutching his leg. “Help me. Help me.”
A new set of headlights illuminated the rock cliffs. Silhouetted in the beams, Patrick saw the suited man—Peters?—pistol at his side, and, twenty feet behind him, the crumpled body of the bell-bottomed rifleman.
Peters yelled, “You’re welcome, Renkin. I just shot the lowlife that Kemecke sent to kill you.”
He ran toward Renkin. Renkin moaned. Patrick wasn’t sure if Peter’s plan was to kill the judge, take him hostage, or escape alone, but whatever it was, it didn’t happen fast enough. A sheriff’s department truck screeched to a halt behind the van, and Ronnie Harcourt jumped out.
She drew her gun on Peters. “Drop your weapons. Everyone.”
Peters froze. His gun fell to the snowy pavement, and he put his hands in the air.
Renkin didn’t get up. “I’ve been shot.”
Patrick shouted, “Ronnie, it’s Patrick. I’m unarmed. Susanne and the kids went off the side. I have to get down there and help them. There’s a vehicle on fire.”
“Go,” she shouted.
He raced down the slope with his awkward, heavy load. The terrain was steep and uneven. Smoke from the fire floated into his eyes. It burned, and they watered, obscuring his vision. He tripped over a rock and landed gut first on his equipment box. It was like a mule kick to the diaphragm. He struggled back to his feet and ran on, stumbling twice more but somehow staying upright. When he reached more level ground near the truck, he saw Perry standing beside two supine figures. A strangled sob wrenched free of his throat, and he ran to them with his box. Perry was so bloody, he looked like he’d lost a fight with a wolverine.
“Perry!” Patrick dropped the equipment box and wrapped his son in a fierce hug.
Perry’s body was as tight and strained as a high-tension cable. “Dad, Coach Lamkin is trapped.”
Turning back toward the truck, Patrick saw the glow of the flames. But he also heard a voice.
“Help. I’m trapped. Please, help.”
“She keeps saying that.” Perry wrung his hands. “I was scared to go back and get her. She’s a bad person. She killed Jeannie Renkin.”
Patrick stared at the truck. The woman inside kidnapped his family, had probably planned to kill them, and had killed his neighbor. The truck might explode at any second. Or burn up completely in a few more minutes. If he tried to save her, he could be killed himself. If he didn’t try, she might survive anyway. Or she might not.
What the husband and father in him wanted to do was take care of his family and let events run their course.
But, as a doctor, he was in the business of saving lives, not taking them. And letting Lamkin burn to death while doing nothing was almost the same thing. Right about then, it was like he was fighting to keep his head above water in a bottomless icy lake, with his chosen profession a lead weight around his neck.
He ripped the lid off the emergency container and pulled out his ax. “I’ll be right back. Stay with your mom and Trish.” He stuck the ax through a belt loop.
Perry’s voice was anguished. “But the truck’s on fire.”
He ruffled the hair he was no longer allowed to touch. “It’ll be all right, son.” Then he ran to the bed of the burning truck and peered in the gaping hole where the back window used to be.
Lamkin was crumpled behind the steering wheel. She saw him. “Thank God,” she said, though violent coughs.
“Where are you trapped?”
She lifted her right hand and pointed down. “My hand is pinned. Underneath the door frame.”
Patrick tried to wrap his head around the magnitude of the problem. It was worse than he could have feared. There was no way he could get the truck off of her, not without special equipment that would take far too long to arrive from town and get into position, if such a thing was even possible. He needed a closer look. He stepped into the truck and carefully worked himself into position beside her. He waved away smoke, then tugged at her wrist. She screamed, but it didn’t budge. The hand was jammed in tight. A clock was ticking in his head, loudly, ominously. He was on borrowed time. Every second that passed was closer to an end that might take both of their lives. That might leave his wife and children without him. He had to act.
He pulled his belt off and started threading it around her torso.
“I’m going to try to pull you out. It’s going to hurt.”
She nodded.
When he had the tongue of the belt through the buckle, he wedged his feet against the dash and seat back and pulled upward with all his strength. Lamkin’s screams were ear-splitting, but her body didn’t budge. He released the pressure and glanced at the hood of the truck. Was it his imagination, or was the fire growing bigger and louder?
WHOOMP. Something exploded inside the engine.
Not his imagination.
“Get me out of here!” Lamkin cried.
He was out of time and options. He could only think of one, and it wasn’t pretty.
“I have an ax. If I’m going to get you out of here before the whole truck explodes, I’m going to have to use it.”
“Just do it,” she screamed. “Do it, please.”
Patrick pulled the ax from his belt loop and unsnapped the blade cover. Quarters were tight for an ax, even a small one like his, but he had to try. He jumped to the ground by Lamkin’s shoulder, crouched to get the right angle, and, before he could second guess himself, lifted the ax to his chest, slamming it into the joint between her wrist and hand with all the force he could muster.
Chapter Forty-five: Shave
Buffalo, Wyoming
Friday, March 18, 1977, 7:45 a.m.
Patrick
Patrick held up two brown paper lunch bags. “One PB&J, cut on the diagonal. One ham and cheese with mustard, cut in rectangles.”
Perry snatched the PB&J. His face looked like the winner in tryouts for a job as a punching bag.
“There’s my tough guy,” Susanne said. She was loading the dishwasher, and she didn’t look much better than their son. She had stitches in her chin from her fall on the deck, and one of her pretty brown eyes was surrounded by ugly black and blue swelling.
“I am a tough guy.” Perry swaggered toward the front door. He turned back. “Can we go skiing this weekend? The slopes are only going to be open for a week or two more.”
Susanne rinsed a coffee mug and put in on the top rack. “Possibly. We can discuss it after school.”
Trish collected her lunch bag from Patrick’s outstretched hand. She was a little less beaten up than her mom or brother. “Thanks, Dad.” She kissed his cheek. “Since you’re staying home today, I can give Perry a ride to school in the Suburban, if you want. That way you and mom can have a nice quiet morning without having to run around town.”
Patrick clasped his hands over his heart. “Thank you so much for your sacrifice.”
Trish simpered, eyes sparkling. “I’m all about helping my fa
mily.”
“How is your head? And your other aches and pains?”
She rotated her wrists. “Fine. My headache is gone.”
Lamkin’s tape job and the bracing of Trish’s and her mom’s wrists had kept them from breaking bones in the wreck. Their worst injuries had come from the collision of their heads—concussions. Susanne especially had battled headaches and nausea, since the concussion had just made an already bad condition worse. Patrick was pretty sure that, before Lamkin had snatched them, Susanne had her first migraine, probably brought on by stress. He felt terrible that he hadn’t been there to help her through it. Next time, if there was one, he’d be ready.
Patrick pretended to mull it over, but of course he was going to let Trish drive the Suburban. After she’d survived a brush with death, he was putty in her hands. “I guess it would be okay. Just for today.”
“Come straight home after school,” Susanne said. “I mean it. No matter how badly your friends want to hear about what happened on the mountain or to gossip about Coach Lamkin and what she did or Tara Coker getting fired because of her relationship with Brandon. You’re your brother’s ride.”
“Ugh. If anyone asks me about Brandon, I have an easy answer for them.” Trish held up both hands in a rude and very unladylike gesture.
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