by Frank Perdue
Joanna wasn’t mad. God, she thought, he can just turn me on at will. Maybe I’m a nymphomaniac. But only with Jake.
Her body was returning to its normal temperature. Her mind was clearing. It was back to the business at hand.
“Okay. Maybe we can run by Anna’s place on our way to Tahoe. I have her new address, but her phone won’t be connected until Friday.” She and her new boyfriend had just moved into an apartment.
Jake agreed. It would be out of their way. But they could pick up the freeway at Highway sixteen, east of Woodland, where Anna and what’s his name (he could never remember) lived. They were both on the physical education faculty at San Francisco State.
Neither of them slept well that night, their chastity being forced and all. By the time dawn came out of the east, they were ready for their day of destiny. They each knew that January sixteenth, nineteen seventy was a day that would change their lives forever.
They left the San Francisco apartment before ten. They were both uncharacteristically nervous and quiet. They hardly spoke all the way to Woodland. The fog was becoming thicker.
Neither Anna nor her boyfriend were at the apartment they shared. Joanna left a note announcing their plans and expressing her remorse at missing them. She attached it to the doorknob of the couple’s front entrance. They were back on the road just before noon. Visibility was near zero.
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When Milt Yamaguchi arrived at the Forecast Office in Redwood City, Bob Brodinski was still in the bathroom. He walked to the Lead man’s desk and began the routine of briefing himself. He asked the Aviation forecaster where the graveyard man was. He pointed to the lavatory. Yamaguchi didn’t think anything of it at the time. The Aviation guy, whose name was Bill, showed Milt the hourlies, which pointed out the strong north-south pressure gradient developing in the northern Sacramento Valley.
Skies were already beginning to clear from the Shasta foothills into Redding. It was six- thirty AM.
By the time Brodinski emerged from the bathroom, it was six forty. Milt Yamaguchi had continued to brief himself, and verify that the forecasts would have to be amended. It would have accomplished nothing to admonish his co-worker. He simply said “You’re relieved” to make the transition official, and went back to the task at hand, which was issuing a Special Weather Statement to update the current forecasts. Bob Brodinski and his throbbing head went home, not even realizing how he had botched things.
By transposition the new Lead Forecaster determined that the wind would reach the Sacramento area at noon, a good two hours before the published forecast stated, and the fog would dissipate rapidly thereafter. The correcting statement he issued was on the wire by seven-thirty AM.
The Interstate system in California is generally east-west or north-south, with even-numbered roadways assigned to the horizontal, leaving the odd numbers for the vertical, or north-south. There are a few exceptions. The maze of criss-crossing freeways in Los Angeles County can not be defined in any one or two directions. And part of southbound Interstate five just south of Woodland in the Sacramento Valley curves briefly east headed to Sacramento. The Sacramento Metropolitan Airport is north of an elevated freeway in that area.
Prevailing winds in the area blow either from the west-southwest out of San Francisco Bay, or from the north or south, sweeping down the Sacramento Valley, or up the San Joaquin Valley. The winds can be moderately strong in each direction due to the natural funnel effect of the canyon. Adjacent to the north-south runway, and just east of the airport property is the ranch that belonged to ‘Rence Hostetler.
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Over at radio station KYBA in Sacramento Brent Beane was anticipating the end of his broadcast day. It was station policy to do the weather forecast every half hour right after the traffic report. At eight-o-five, after the news and traffic, he interpreted the forecast, but he didn’t bother to check the teletype, where the Special Weather Statement was hanging untouched and unread. He simply put a new spin on the old forecast. He tried to do it differently every time so as not to bore the listening public.
“Don’t give up hope. The Sun will pop out and spray us with light by late this afternoon. And the weather folks over in San Francisco have assured me that tomorrow will indeed be a better day. It’ll be a little blustery this afternoon, but we can handle that, can’t we?” Some broadcasters have a tendency to become gun shy if a change in weather is expected imminently, and it hasn’t yet occurred. Many of them would like the public to think they themselves are responsible for the accuracy of good forecasts. So they tend to hedge, and actually change the wording, and therefore the meaning, of official Government issuances. Of course, if they’re wrong everything is blamed on the Weather Service. Brent Beane fell into that category.
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Tomas Acuna hoped that Mister Gallardo would be pleased with the way in which he accomplished his work that day. He finished only a little behind schedule. He had been slowed by the fog.
Now he strained against the seat belt that the big Italian had installed on the driver’s side, trying to see even a few feet down the concrete highway. The restraints were uncomfortable, and he had heard that many of the drivers refused to use them. Tomas was an obedient employee. If Mister Gallardo would go to the trouble to put the belt in, the least he could do is wear it.
Suddenly the fog lifted. Visibility increased dramatically. He could see a large stand of eucalyptus trees on his left. The fog was now above the trees, which stood nearly a hundred feet high. Traffic ahead of the big truck speeded up. Tomas was excited. Now he could make up some time, and please his boss even more. He pressed the accelerator toward the floorboard. The truck shuddered but responded slowly. The speedometer inched slowly upward, and soon it was past fifty.
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Sophie Collins woke to find their car engulfed in fog. It was as if they were the only two people in the world. There was hardly any sound, just the purring of their own engine.
“Where are we?” she murmured, looking at her husband.
“I think we’re near the Sacramento Metro Airport, but I’m not really sure. We’re on Five.”
“I remember you saying you were going over to the Interstate. I fell asleep right after that.”
“How’s the baby doing?” He reached over and put his hand on her stomach.
She covered his small delicate hand with her large puffy one. “I don’t feel anything. It must be sleeping.” Then she moved her huge frame upward so that she might kiss Daryl’s cheek.
“Watch it” he said impishly. “We have to get home. This fog is taking all my attention.”
Just then, as if on cue, the visibility improved dramatically. Ahead there were three cars then a big white truck. They were all pulling away from him. Another car passed him on the left. His foot instinctively pushed on the gas pedal.
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‘Rence Hostetler loved Brent Beane. He always listened to KYBA. So when he heard that the fog wouldn’t lift until late afternoon, he made his decision to go ahead with his plan. He lit the fire. As the flames and smoke began to rise, so did the fog. His face was illuminated in the intense glare. A look of disbelief contorted his features as he understood that he had made a miscalculation. In his mind, the error was in the fact that he might be caught. He realized the rest of it when the wind suddenly swept in from the north, pushing the smoke, which had only risen about twenty feet, toward the freeway.
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The cars in closest proximity to the big milk truck were able to accelerate faster, leaving a large distance between the vehicle Tomas Acuna was driving and those ahead of him. Another car, a Cadillac, was attempting to pass when the thick black acrid smoke swept over them, immediately reducing the visibility back to zero.
Tomas right foot found the brake pedal of the old truck. He applied as much pressure as he could, all the time straining in vain to see the highway through the windshield. The right front fender hit something, sending the truck car
eening to the left.
The Cadillac almost made it by the milk truck, but not quite. Tomas’s left fender caught the big car in its rear passenger door. The resulting collision spun the Cadillac out of control. A Ford coming up from behind skidded into the luxury car and broadsided it, sending the bigger vehicle tumbling over and over like the pictures you see of a spectacular wreck on a racing speedway. Gasoline spewed from the Cadillac and ignited when touched by sparks caused by the metal grating along the concrete highway. By the time the big car stopped rolling it was fully engulfed in flames. Two of the four occupants of the Cadillac had already been ejected when the vehicle caught fire.
When the Ford struck the bigger car, it came to a stop. The black smoke was still billowing across the freeway. It had fanned out some, and covered the equivalent of a half city block. Another Ford came hurtling through the smoke, hitting the first one full in the rear at a speed of nearly forty miles an hour. The gas tank of the front car ruptured and exploded sending a fireball into the car that had impaled it.
Tomas could not regain control of his big truck, it too rolled over on its side. Tomas hit the side of his head on the window before the truck lay over. He also hit his forehead on the steering wheel. The second blow caused him to pass out. His restraint kept him from incurring fatal injuries, but it also held him captive. Before long, flames would lick at the big rig that was no longer shiny white.
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Daryl Collins prided himself on his driving. To him it was an art, and he really studied its nuances. Years ago when he played Little League baseball, his coach stressed that every person in the world would find something that he or she really excelled in. It would be that one thing that they should really concentrate on, and it would make them feel good about themselves. Of course it was the man’s way of taking pressure off the kids who were not really good at baseball. There was some truth to it too. Daryl was not yet the world’s best plumber. That would come later. So driving was his thing. He did not follow too close. He tried to drive at the speed limit and stay in the right lane except when he was passing. He was also conscious of the surrounding traffic. He didn’t want any surprises. None of his skills would help him on this day.
Daryl saw the cars in front of him disappear into the black smoke. He had plenty of time to apply his brakes and come to a stop before entering the inferno, but there was a car in the left lane next to him. A commercial semi truck had been coming up rapidly behind him, and had just swung into the second lane behind the passenger car beside Daryl and Sophie. The car, which appeared to be a Dodge, began to skid, turning slightly to the right. Daryl also turned to the right trying to avoid a collision with the Dodge. There was no way the trucker could stop in time. He yanked his steering wheel to the left, trying to avoid the traffic. Of course his load went over on its side. Newton’s laws of motion caused the huge container to skid down both the outside lanes pushing everything in front of it, which included the Dodge, and Daryl and Sophie’s Chrysler, right into the smoke filled area of the freeway.
When the container struck the two cars, it was with such force that Sophie’s head slammed into the passenger side window, rendering her immediately unconscious. Daryl’s left arm whipped against the steering wheel as he was reaching for something to steady himself so as to not hit his pregnant wife with his own body. In so doing he cracked his humerus, or upper arm bone. The other cars were far enough back that they were able to stop in time.
In all, seven vehicles collided that day, all on Southbound Interstate Five. Most were on fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One car not involved in the inferno on Interstate Five was a red Chevrolet four door. However, Jake Gentry and his fiancee Joanna Thomas saw the smoke, and heard the ensuing chain reaction crash.
Through a quirk of fate, they were adjacent to the collision scene on a frontage road that runs parallel to, but south of that particular stretch of freeway. Jake immediately pulled onto the shoulder of the roadway and stopped his car.
“I ‘m going up there! Take the car and go back to the gas station. There must be a phone there.”
Joanna nodded affirmatively as she slid across the bench seat to the driver’s side. “Be careful,” She pleaded, but he didn’t hear. He was already half way up the hill.
He had to scratch and claw his way to the top of the ridge. The hill was grass covered, and the moisture from the fog had made it very slippery.
The first thing he saw as he climbed over the small railing on the side of the highway was the truck that held Tomas Acuna. It was on its side, with smoke and flames coming from underneath near the back of the vehicle, perilously close to the gas tank.
Jake climbed up to the driver’s side door and peered into the cab. Acuna was dangling in the seat. He opened the door, which was intact. He groped for his jackknife in the left pocket of his jeans. Finding it, he pulled open the blade. It was becoming warm in the cab. With his right hand he grabbed the little Mexican by the left arm just above the elbow. With his left he cut the strap that was holding the driver prisoner. He threw the knife back onto the highway, clutched the unconscious driver with both hands, and pulled him through the open door to safety. He lowered Tomas to the pavement cautiously, having to release one hand to stabilize himself.
After jumping back to the concrete, he focused his attention on the Cadillac, which he hadn’t seen at first. It was becoming fully involved in flames. It was obvious that he couldn’t help the people inside. There appeared to be two of them, and because of their scorched bodies, he couldn’t tell if they had been men or women. Nearby were two other bodies; both men. One’s head was turned at an unnatural angle. There was no blood. Jake reasoned that he must have died on impact with the pavement. The other was draped across the highway siderail. The body was cut just above the waist, and almost severed.
Suddenly a man screamed. The ear-piercing noise was coming from the west. Jake retrieved his knife, then ran toward the sound he had heard.
Daryl Collins saw the flames and smoke around his car. He was able to get out with little trouble, though it was obvious that his arm was broken. He felt litle pain though because his mind was occupied elsewhere.
The passenger side door was jammed. Sophie was unconscious. He tried unsuccessfully to pull his very large wife across the seat to safety, but her legs appeared to be stuck near the engine firewall. Maybe with help he could free her. He began screaming. He was still emitting a screeching noise when Jake arrived on the scene. “Do you have a Jack?” Jake asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“They usually have a crowbar for the hubcap. Maybe we can use that to pry the passenger door open.”
Daryl Collins pulled his keys from the ignition, and opened the trunk, which luckily was not jammed and still cold to the touch. Sure enough there was a crowbar with the jack.
Jake took the bent iron instrument from the incapacitated man and immediately went to work. In less than a minute the door popped open. It took slightly longer to free Sophie’s legs, and pull her gently from the car. Once she was clear of any more danger from fire or explosion, Jake moved on, heading farther west toward the numerous vehicles parked on the side of the Highway.
As Jake Gentry slowly made his way to the rear of the wreck scene, the Highway Patrolman charged with restoring order to a scene of complete disorder, hurtled recklessly down a highway now devoid of fog. He occasionally glanced at his speedometer, from habit more than a concern for how fast his vehicle was traveling. For, after all, his patrol car lights were flashing, and its siren was wailing. The last time he looked the needle was on the high side of eighty-five. There was a gradual left-hand curve just ahead. He didn’t slow down.
The smell of smoke was in the air, but John Hunter couldn’t know that it was from a combination of burning car upholstery, and splashed fuel from gasoline tanks, and brush from ‘Rence Hostetler’s rice field, and burning flesh. The crash scene was hidden from his view by a stand of eucalyptus trees just off the
highway to the left.
When the call came in from Patrol dispatch, Hunter was nearing the end of his shift. He was impatient to get home and settle an argument he had had with his wife the night before. It was the same old tired heated discussion they always had. Their son John Junior was being allowed too much free time in his father’s opinion. It was time that could only lead the teenager in the wrong direction toward the temptations of drugs and alcohol. God knows the movies Hollywood was cranking out those days added fuel to the fire, glamorizing that poison. The kid already smoked. His mother had found a partial pack of cigarettes under his bed, after smelling the smoke on his clothes.
John Hunter was a big man by almost any physical standards. He stood six feet two inches tall, and weighed about two forty. His waist measured forty inches, and in uniform, it seemed like his chest was about to burst from his shirt. His brown eyes were set deeply in his skull and were guarded by huge bushy dark eyebrows. The hair above a forehead higher than it was just a couple of years ago, was dark brown and wavy. His nose was large and bent downward in the middle, compliments of an errant nightstick blow across the bridge of it that had required a trip to the emergency room of the local hospital. It had to be reset, and his whole face hurt for about two weeks.
It happened when he was with the City Police on foot patrol a few years back, and he took a ribbing for it at the station house for a long time. Not too many cops get in the way of their partner’s baton. He took it good-naturedly. What else could he do. He would have had to take much more of his fellow officer’s jibes if he had reacted negatively. But inside, it galled him enough that, when he had the chance he applied to the Highway Patrol. His record was good, and his driving skills, though not legendary, were adequate. The opening he hoped for came up in less than six months, and at the age of thirty-five he resigned from the Police Force.
John Hunter was not a dumb man, but he did have a temper. Those times when he couldn’t control it, was when he got in trouble. This was one of those times.
