by Sharon Sala
It was only later that he opened his gift that she had hidden beneath the tree. Compared to what they had shared in their bed, it came in a distant second, but he would never tell her so. Her joy in finding him a sweater that actually fit his long arms and broad shoulders went a long way toward getting him through the day with in-laws who watched his every move, and the multitude of children who reminded him that he and Toni would soon have one of their own.
* * *
Several inches of snow covered the ground. Icy spears clung to the eaves of the house as well as to the tree branches in the surrounding yard. New Year’s Day had arrived with a blast of fresh winter weather that they were just now coming out from under. Two days earlier the roads had been nearly impassable.
It was with relief that they had awakened this morning and seen that things were starting to melt. Lane had gone to town for groceries, leaving Toni safely inside where it was warm, with no danger of slipping and falling and a promise to be back within the hour.
Only moments ago she’d heard the pickup pulling into the barn and breathed a sigh of thanksgiving that he was back. She felt off center, as if something approached from an unseen angle. And then the quiet within her erupted as her nephew, Bobby, burst through the back door in tears.
“Aunt Toni! Aunt Toni! You've got to come quick!”
The child’s frantic cry was thick with fear. And the shock of seeing Justin’s ten-year-old son come running into the kitchen with blood on his hands and face made her sick.
“Oh, my God! Bobby! You're bleeding! What happened? Did someone have an accident?”
And then everything faded out of focus. She saw the little boy talking, but she couldn’t hear his words. Staggered by the shock of what was happening, she braced herself and leaned against the cabinet while a sharp pain rippled low across her back. “Oh,” she groaned, and cradled her belly. It suddenly felt as if it had doubled in weight.
Lane jumped the steps and entered the house on a run, unaware that the shock on Toni’s face was from pain, and not the sight of her nephew covered in blood. From the barn he’d seen Bobby coming through the trees and knew from the way he was running that something was wrong.
“What happened, son?” he asked, catching the child just as the child spun around and flung himself into Lane’s arms.
“It’s my daddy,” he cried. “You've got to come. A tree fell on him. I can’t get it off!”
“Dear God,” Toni moaned, and pushed herself away from the cabinet. “Where is he?”
“We were cutting firewood down in the hollow beside the old spring. Daddy slipped on the ice just as the tree started to fall. He slid under it. I couldn’t get it off of him. I tried and I tried to pull him out, but I couldn’t.”
“Bobby! Listen to me,” Lane said. “You've got to calm down so we can help your daddy. How long ago did this happen?”
Bobby choked, swallowing his sobs as he swiped at his face with both hands, streaking the blood even worse. Toni tried not to think of her brother and death in the same breath, but it was impossible.
“Just a little while ago,” Bobby said. “Maybe fifteen minutes.”
“Good,” Lane said. “Now, was your daddy talking to you?”
“No,” Bobby groaned. “He’s all pale and I know he’s cold. There’s snow all over him.”
Lane hugged the child and then knelt. “Can you show me where your daddy is?”
Bobby nodded.
Lane stood abruptly and turned to Toni, unaware that she bore the burden of two fears. He was all business.
“Honey, call the sheriff. Tell Dan that we need an ambulance and whatever rescue equipment the volunteer fire department has. I'm going with Bobby now. When the men get to the farm, tell them how to get to the spring.”
She nodded, and bit her lower lip to keep from moaning. She was scared to death to be here alone. What if they were gone a long time? The baby was coming. She knew it. And then she looked at Bobby’s face and her decision was instantly made. She could not sacrifice her brother’s welfare for her own safety. If Lane knew what was happening to her, he wouldn’t go and she knew it. He would wait for the sheriff to arrive and that might be the difference between Justin living and dying. Whatever was happening to her she would deal with after they were gone.
“Take the tractor and a log chain,” she said. “There should be several in that empty granary next to the feed bin, and you should probably take the first-aid kit. I don’t know what’s in it, but you might be able to use something.”
“I'll get it, Aunt Toni,” Bobby cried. “I know where it is.”
Toni clutched at Lane, willing some of his strength into herself as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you, too.”
Lane’s heart leapt. He’d been waiting for weeks to hear her say something like this, and now to be unable to stay and pursue this declaration was painful. But for Justin’s sake, it would have to wait.
“That goes double for me, lady,” he said, and pressed a hard, hungry kiss against her mouth. “You take care of yourself and our baby. Don’t do anything stupid, honey. Call Judy and tell her what happened, then call the rest of your family. Some of them will probably go to her, but make sure that someone comes to stay with you. I don’t want you here worrying alone.”
She nodded, and then they were gone. Her fingers shook as she dialed the phone. But it was not from fear. It was pain. Another spasm rolled across the muscles of her back, ripping through her senses as a reminder that this was only just starting.
When Dan Holley answered the phone, his voice was music to her ears.
“Chaney Sheriff’s Office.”
“Dan, this is Toni Monday. I need an ambulance out here fast.”
Dan grinned. “Is it time, girl?”
She gritted her teeth. “You have no idea,” she groaned, and leaned against the wall to brace herself for what she felt coming.
“Where’s that big ol' husband of yours? I expected him to be the one making the call,” he teased.
“Listen to me, Dan. I don’t have much time,” she gasped, and let the pain roll across her senses. “Justin’s been hurt. I don’t know how badly. All we know is that a tree fell on him while he and Bobby were cutting wood. Lane’s gone back to the old spring below our place to try to help. We need an ambulance and all the rescue equipment you have.”
“Oh, my God,” Dan muttered. “Hang on, honey. We'll be there in a whistle.”
She bit her lip to keep from crying. “And would you send a second ambulance for me while you're at it?”
Dan nearly dropped the phone. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”
“I'm in labor. Lane doesn’t know it. It just started, but it seems like the pains are already pretty severe.”
“How far apart?”
“Maybe five minutes,” Toni said, and hugged herself to keep from shaking. Doing this alone was scary business.
“I'm calling for a mediflight helicopter. Lane already told me about the difficulties you might face during delivery. There’s no way an ambulance will get you safely to Knoxville in time, not if your pains are already that close.”
“I don’t care what you do,” she cried, then doubled over. “Just hurry!”
“For once, make that big family of yours useful and get someone over there with you now!” he said, and hung up in her ear.
Seconds later she’d dialed another number. “Laura, this is Toni. We need help.”
By the time she was through, Hatfields were in motion, but she didn’t care. She was trying to get to a bed. Standing had become an impossible feat.
* * *
“There he is!” Bobby cried, and pointed toward the slough on the opposite side of the creek from where they stood.
Without wasted motion Lane shifted the tractor into low gear and proceeded across the frozen streambed. He stopped on the last level space of grou
nd, aware that if he got any closer, he would be sliding down the incline and right into Justin’s lap, which was exactly what they didn’t need.
“Now if only we’d brought enough chain,” he muttered.
They had not.
“What are we going to do?” Bobby said, and started to cry. “We can’t pull the tree off of him. The chain’s too short.”
“Damn it,” Lane said, then dumped the log chain, and slid down into the slough without giving himself time to think.
The snow felt like ground glass. It was icy and hard, and packed to the point that standing was next to impossible. Lane made the last few yards to the fallen tree on his rear. He knelt beside Justin, then felt on his brother-in-law’s neck for a pulse.
“Thank God,” Lane muttered when he felt the faint beat, then cupped Justin’s face in his hand. “Justin! Can you hear me?”
Justin’s eyelids fluttered. It was all the answer that Lane was going to get. He looked at his watch, gauging the time from when they’d left the house against the time that it would take the rescue squad to arrive, and he knew that they were looking at another thirty minutes at least.
He won’t last.
Lane knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Justin was already in shock. And from what he could see of the wound on his leg, it was a wonder that he hadn’t already bled to death. The cold was probably what had saved him, but it could ultimately be what killed him, too.
Lane stood up, then looked to the hill where the ten-year-old stood, frozen in horror by what had happened to his daddy.
“Bobby, get down here.”
The child quickly obeyed.
“Here’s what we're going to do,” he said. “When I lift this tree up off of your daddy’s legs, I want you to grab him by the boots and pull. Do you think you can do that? It’s downhill enough that I think his own weight will help him slide out from under the tree if you can get him started.”
Bobby’s eyes grew round. He stared down at the immensity of the tree pinning his father to the ground, and then back up at the man towering above him.
“Can you do that?” Bobby whispered.
Lane’s lips thinned with determination. “I hope to hell I can, son. Now come on. Say a prayer for your daddy, and one for me while you're at it. We're both going to need some extra help today.”
Bobby gritted his teeth and sniffed back the last of his sobs.
“Yes, sir,” he muttered, and bent down.
Lane cursed beneath his breath when he saw that Bobby Hatfield’s hands spanned less than half the circumference of his father’s work boots.
“Maybe you could get a better grip on his blue jeans instead,” he offered, and nodded when he saw Bobby get a good, solid handful of denim in each fist.
“Good boy,” he said, bending toward the fallen tree. “Now get ready. When I say pull, you give it all you've got.”
The boy nodded, and when he looked up at Lane with all the trust in the world written upon his face, Lane recognized it as a look that Toni had given him more than once. The thought of what he had to lose gave him the courage to continue. But he was going to need more than courage to move the tree.
The bark was rough against his palms, the snow cold against his knees as he knelt. He had already decided that lifting the tree from a dead squat would be impossible, even for him. It left him with one option that involved great risk for him, as well.
There was just enough space near the root end for a man to crawl under. And if he was lucky, and didn’t slip on the ice and the snow himself, there might be a way for him to lever the tree up enough for Bobby to pull his father out. To do it he would have to use the broad surface and great strength of his size and the back that God had given him.
Lane dropped to his knees.
“What are you doing, Uncle Lane?”
The quaver in the boy’s voice was all the reminder that he needed to hurry, but it was what Bobby had called him that he would never forget. He didn’t want to lose that respect...ever.
And then Justin moaned, and his eyelids fluttered open just as Lane centered the tree directly across the strongest part of his back.
“What the hell do you think you're trying to do?” he groaned, and pushed weakly at Lane’s arm.
“Don’t bite the hand that’s about to free you,” Lane ordered; then he grinned and winked at Justin, trying to alleviate some of the terrible tension of the moment.
“You're a stupid, crazy son of a bitch,” Justin mumbled. “If it slips, we're both dead.”
“Daddy, try not to move,” Bobby said as tears rolled down his face. “It makes your leg bleed worse.”
“Shut up and help your son when he starts pulling you out,” Lane ordered. “Remember, Bobby, when I say pull, you yank for all you're worth.”
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said, and reaffirmed his grip on his father’s jeans.
Before he could talk himself out of what he intended to do, Lane started to lift. The weight was at once unbearable and impossible to budge. He shifted his body lower down the trunk and closer to where Justin was pinned, then repeated the lift, letting most of the weight rest upon the broadest portion of his shoulders.
In spite of the cold, in spite of the ice and snow down the tops of his boots and inside his pockets, he started to sweat. He groaned and lifted himself a little bit higher, using his leg muscles now, as well as his arms, to lever himself higher and higher off of the ground.
A twig on a limb down the trunk snapped. And then another and another, and Lane knew that he must be moving something other than the snow beneath his hand and feet for the branches at the other end of the tree to start breaking.
“You're doing it! You're doing it!” Bobby shouted. “A little more, Uncle Lane. Just a little bit more.”
Lane groaned again, and moved his knees a little closer to his chest, now using his full body weight as a lever against the end of the fallen tree. His muscles bunched, then tightened, then burned, and he knew he was nearly at the end of his strength. He couldn’t look over at Justin and see the fear on his face. But he desperately needed to concentrate on something other than the ground slipping beneath his feet.
He cursed, shifted his weight once again and closed his eyes and thought of Toni.
“Damn it, move!” he cursed, and bunched every muscle in his body toward the weight upon his back, then tried to stand.
The branches that were holding it off the ground at the other end suddenly snapped, and Lane felt the tree beginning to give.
“Now, Bobby!” he shouted, readjusting his position so that the tree would not move with the pull of Justin’s body. “Pull, son! Pull with everything you've got.”
At first nothing happened. He heard the child’s frantic sobs and desperate gasps for breath. He heard the scrape of snow as Bobby slipped and fell backward upon his rear. And then suddenly Justin was sliding out of his line of vision, and Lane blinked rapidly to clear his sight as sweat ran and burned into his eyes.
“He’s out! He’s out!” Bobby cried.
“Keep pulling him,” Lane urged. “The tree might slide back over him when I let it go!”
Justin did what he could to help, digging his fingers into the snowpacked ground, trying to pull himself along. Then a miracle occurred. He started to slide.
“Let me go,” he yelled, and waved his son aside as he tried to get as far away from the tree as possible.
“Let it go, Uncle Lane,” Bobby cried, and ran in front of the tree until he was eye to eye with the big man who had just saved his father’s life. “He’s sliding down the hill by himself. The tree can’t hurt him now.”
“Get back,” Lane groaned, and knew that he had nothing more than a few seconds in which to clear himself from the danger of being trapped as Justin had been.
With his last ounce of strength, he moved the bulk of his lift from an upward motion to a backward one instead, then propelled himself forward, falling facedown onto the icy ground. Snow spewed up into the air
as the tree belly flopped only inches from his heels, and Lane moaned, then rolled over on his back, gasping for breath, and staring up into the gray, winter sky, never so glad to feel cold in his entire life.
When he could breathe without pain, he lifted his head and looked over the tree and down the hill. Justin lifted his arm and waved. Lane started to return the favor, when he realized that Justin was not waving at him. He looked up at the crest of the hill. Help had arrived. And from the trail of blood Justin had left behind him in the snow when he’d slid out from under the tree, it was none too soon.
Dan Holley was first on the scene, followed closely behind by paramedics and a couple of men with chain saws.
“Doesn’t look like we'll be needing the saws, boys,” Dan said, and left Justin’s care to the experts, while he knelt at Lane’s side. He looked down at Lane and shook his head. “I have a feeling I just missed a hell of a show.”
Bobby Hatfield appeared out of the crowd and threw his arms around Lane’s neck. “You did it! You did it! You're the strongest man in the whole world, Uncle Lane.”
Lane grinned and wrapped the boy in a warm but shaky hug. “You helped, Bobby. I couldn’t have done it alone, and don’t you ever forget it.”
“You should have seen him, Sheriff Holley,” Bobby said. “He just lifted that big ol' tree off of Daddy like it was nothing.”
Lane fell back onto the snow with a weak laugh. “Had one of them faked out, didn’t I, Dan? Did you hear him? Like it was nothing.” He covered his face with his hands and moaned before rolling to a sitting position.
“Help me up,” he said, lifting his hand for Dan to pull. “I've just about used up all there is in me.”
Dan frowned.
“I sure hope you've got a little bit left, old son, because if things are still going like they were when I left your place, you're in the process of becoming a father.”
Lane was on his feet without aid in seconds. “Lord,” he muttered as he headed for the ridge where he’d left the tractor. “Turn my back on her and look what she does.”
“I already called for a mediflight helicopter. I didn’t think she could make the run to Knoxville, considering the facts.”
