Force of Nature

by Kim Baldwin

  But on the nights she spent alone, Gable admitted to herself she wanted more.

  And every morning, she started the day with a prayer that Erin would change her mind sometime soon.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On a bitter cold morning in late January, Gable found it more difficult than usual to extricate herself from Erin’s warm body to drive to the pharmacy. There had been an ice storm overnight, and on top of the ice was three inches of new snow. Area schools were closed, and Erin had done her best to convince her to call in sick and stay in bed. She nearly succeeded.

  The roads were treacherous. Snowplows and salt trucks had not made it that far out in the country yet. In fact, no other vehicles were out at all, and just a solitary set of tire tracks showed on the road ahead of her. The tracks fishtailed badly in several places—sliding off the edge of the road, or into the oncoming lane. This is really stupid to be out in this. Maybe you should have stayed in bed with Erin.

  Gable drove at a crawl, especially as she approached the bridge across the wide Pine River, two miles from Erin’s cabin. Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw the broken guardrail halfway across. There was a huge gap in it, and the tracks she’d been following swerved right to it and ended there. Oh my God! That car’s gone in the river!

  Horrified, she pumped the brakes and slid to a stop at the edge of the road. Even before she shut off the engine, she heard screaming.

  She got out and hurried as best as she could to the edge of the bridge and looked over. Twenty feet below her and several feet upstream, a boy of sixteen or seventeen was struggling, trying to pull himself from an enormous hole in the ice, but the ice was too thin to support his weight. He was right in the middle of the river, where it was fifteen to twenty feet deep.

  “Help! Somebody help me!” he screamed.

  “Hang on!” Gable shouted. Her heartbeat kicked up double time.

  The boy’s head swiveled around and his eyes found her. “Help me! Hurry! Please hurry!”

  “Hang on! Was anyone else in the car with you?”

  “No!” the boy screamed.

  “I’ll be right there!” Gable hurried back to the Jeep, slipping and sliding with every step, and switched on her emergency radio. “Dispatch from McCoy. Car off Peterson Bridge at Belknap Road. Driver in the river. Send ambulance and water rescue.”

  She heard the dispatcher acknowledge her as she clipped the radio to her belt and hustled to the back of the Jeep. There was a pair of hundred-foot lengths of sturdy nylon rope there, neatly coiled. She grabbed them both. She also shoved a screwdriver from her tool kit into the back pocket of her jeans.

  The bank was steep to the water’s edge and she skidded down almost on her butt. The teenager had stopped trying to pull himself onto the ice. Now he was fighting just to keep his head above water. His ragged gasps for air sounded loud in the still morning.

  “I’m going to throw you a rope! Try to grab it!” Gable anchored the end of one of the ropes beneath her foot and prepared for her throw.

  “I can’t!” the boy sobbed.

  She tossed the coil of rope, and it fell across the hole in the ice. The boy’s head slipped under, then popped up again. He started hyperventilating, desperate for air.

  “Grab the rope!” Gable urged.

  His arms and legs flailed about in clumsy, jerky movements as he tried for the rope.

  It was then that Gable got a good look at the boy’s hands. They were clubs of ice. Useless. No way could he could save himself, and he wasn’t going to be able to keep himself up much longer. She had to go after him.

  She tried to calm her racing heart with deep breaths as she quickly prepared the ropes. The one across the ice would be the rescue rope; she tied off her end to a large sturdy oak at the water’s edge.

  The other rope would be for her. One end around the oak, the other around her waist. A strong current swept down the middle of the river, and Gable knew that if she fell through, there was a good chance she’d get swept downstream under the thick ice.

  She was quickly out onto the ice, crawling on her belly toward the teenager. The adrenaline rush energized her, and brought all her senses into sharp focus. The boy’s eyes were huge, pulling at her, beseeching her to hurry. His head slipped under again, and when it popped back up he was on the downstream edge of the hole. He coughed and gulped loudly for air. If he went under again, the current would take him under the ice.

  Thirty feet away. Then twenty, halfway between the boy and shore. When Gable was fifteen feet away, she heard a cracking sound beneath her, and her heart began pounding in her ears. She went fully spread-eagle and froze, her face pressed up against the slick, hard surface.

  The ice held. Inching toward him, she shouted encouragement. “Keep your head up! Hang on, I’m almost to you!”

  Another sharp report sounded as the ice cracked again. This time she could clearly see the thin fissure of separation, directly under the right side of her body. Once more she froze, trying to keep her weight evenly distributed.

  The moment Gable actually fell through seemed to take forever. Everything happened in slow motion. One crack became two, then six, then forty—a spider web of fractures beneath her.

  The terrifying cracking sounds got louder and louder.

  She watched in horrified fascination as the bottom dropped out and she was plunged into the icy water, still a body length from the boy.

  The frigid immersion was such a shock to her system that it squeezed the air from her lungs, inducing a long moment of panic as she started kicking. She sucked in air greedily. Pinpricks of pain everywhere, like she had fallen on a bed of tiny nails. Then cold. A kind of cold she’d never experienced before: a numbing cold, relentless. It soaked through her clothing, weighing her down. Damn. Got to be fast.

  She focused on the boy, taking great gulps of air as she fought through the broken ice to reach him, grabbing the rescue rope on the way.

  Though he had seemed to be all done in, the teenager came to life when she got to him. With a final burst of energy he grabbed at her, desperately trying to use her to keep himself afloat.

  Gable went under.

  The boy tried to wrap his arms around her. They struggled, locked together, until she was able to turn him so his back was to her. She grabbed him over his shoulder in a lifesaving hold as she popped back to the surface, gasping for air.

  “Don’t fight me!” she barked at him. “Let me help you!”

  He went limp, whether in compliance or exhaustion she didn’t know or care. She managed to get the rescue rope wrapped around him, but she’d lost the dexterity to tie the right kind of knot. Her gloves were becoming stiff with ice and she was losing the feeling in her hands. She finally got the rope looped around in a couple of half hitches and let the boy’s own body weight tighten it. She hoped it was secure enough.

  Her legs began protesting the lengthy struggle against the current. She felt as though twenty-pound weights were attached to her ankles, pulling her down. She concentrated all her energy on getting the boy up and onto the ice.

  “Try to help me,” she gasped, but the teenager was barely conscious. She got under him and tried to boost him up, but the ice cracked away under his weight.

  She took up the slack of the rescue rope and tried again, and then again. The ice kept breaking, and she weakened with each effort, but every attempt brought them a foot or two closer to shore, and onto thicker and thicker ice.

  Finally, on the fifth try, the ice supported the upper half of the boy’s body, and Gable quickly hoisted his legs up as well. She knew better than to try to haul herself up right next to him. The ice would never support them both.

  She was beginning to have trouble keeping herself afloat. She managed to kick her way to a spot far enough from the boy that she thought it was safe to try. Get out. Get out right now.

  Propping herself up on her left elbow on the ice, she grappled for the rope around her waist that linked her to shore. It was slick and
hard, covered with ice. She got a good look at her hands and her blood ran cold. Oh Jesus. This is bad. Her gloves were stiff with a thick coating of ice too.

  Gable could no longer move her fingers. She couldn’t feel them at all. In desperation, she slammed her right hand against the hard ice repeatedly, trying to regain some dexterity and circulation. She fumbled for the screwdriver in her back pocket so she could gain purchase on the ice, but it was useless. Her hands would no longer obey her. The screwdriver sank to the bottom.

  The current was relentless. The muscles in her arm and shoulder finally surrendered to it and she slipped back into the water.

  Oh shit. Panic was sour in her mouth. Help is coming. Help is coming. Hang on. Swim. That’s it. Just keep swimming.

  Gable couldn’t feel her arms, her legs, or her feet. She looked down and was almost surprised to see her legs still kicking away, albeit in the same scary, jerky way the boy’s had. She was losing control of her body, and finding it more and more difficult to focus. It was all she could do now to keep her face above water.

  The current pulled at her until she was against the downstream side of the hole. She clutched desperately at the edge of the ice to keep from being swept under it. There’s too much rope. She tried to twist it around her arms to take up the slack but she had no coordination left.

  The current was winning.

  Her head slipped under and she sucked in a mouthful of water. It startled her and scared her so much she found the strength for one last desperate effort to survive. She fought her way back up, kicking and failing about with limbs she no longer had power over. She caught a glimpse of the boy, still unmoving on the ice.

  If this is all for nothing, she thought hazily, Erin will be so pissed at me.

  She tried to keep herself from going under by hooking her elbows on the downstream edge of the ice. The current held her there for a full minute or more, her head barely above water, long enough for her to feel a burst of hope she might be able to remain like that until help arrived.

  But the ice she was leaning on abruptly gave way, breaking off and tipping sideways, throwing her back into the water. Gable managed to gulp a quick breath before she went under.

  The current grabbed hold of her and took her under the ice, into the dark void beyond the hole. She drifted until a sharp tug cut into her waist. The rope pulled taut and the current pinned her, face up, against the ice, several feet downstream of the hole.

  Gable opened her eyes, surprised at how well she could see, surprised that it was beautiful—the way the ice reflected the light from above; the bubbles trapped in the ice acting like prisms, shooting rainbows of color in every direction.

  You can’t get back to the hole. You have to break a new one. Her training told her what to do but her body was beyond her control now. Her arms flailed uselessly above her head, waving in the current.

  Time seemed to stop then, and Gable drifted outside herself, no longer aware of her body, the cold, the river, the current.

  How long does it take to die, when you drown? she wondered. How long does your brain keep working? It seemed like forever. She had time enough to think of each of her brothers. Her parents—would they be there at the moment of death, waiting for her?

  Gable closed her eyes and saw Erin’s face. You made my life complete, my love. I just wish we’d had more time together.

  She fought it until the last—that final exhalation.

  When Gable finally did surrender, she had Erin in her mind and in her heart.

  She sucked in water, and then she relaxed. A feeling of euphoria poured over her. Lifting her, surrounding her.

  Her heart stopped beating.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Shouldn’t she be waking up by now?” Gable heard Stewart’s worried voice fuzzily, as if from a distance. Much louder were the regular whooshing sound to her right and the steady beeping that was coming from her left.

  “We need to give it time,” an unfamiliar male voice said. “It’s often hard to predict with these types of cases, because there are so many different variables—the temperature of the water, health of the patient, how long they’re submerged, how quickly CPR is administered. I don’t think we should be worrying quite yet.”

  The river, she remembered. Her head ached. And her chest. She tried to speak. What the hell?

  “How long will she be on the respirator, Doctor?” Erin’s voice, sounding as tense as her brother’s.

  “It’s a bit too soon to say. There could be a buildup of pulmonary fluids—that’ll be our chief concern over the next forty-eight hours. I’ll be able to tell you more after we’ve gotten all the test results back.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Stewart.

  “I’ll check in with you again later,” the doctor said.

  Gable tried to force open her eyes but it felt like heavy sandbags were weighing down her eyelids. Her arms were heavy too; she couldn’t lift them, couldn’t signal Erin and Stewart that she was all right. Just tired. So very tired.

  *

  The next time she awoke, the first thing that hit her was how sore her throat was. She couldn’t swallow. Her chest ached too. But that throbbing in her head was better.

  She became aware of a gentle pressure in her palm. Another hand, holding hers. A gentle squeeze of comfort. Erin. Her eyelids fluttered.

  “Gable? Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart? You’ve never called me sweetheart before.

  Gable opened her eyes. Erin was leaning over the bed. Her eyes were puffy, and she had a gaunt, disheveled look, like she hadn’t slept in a long while. But her eyes lit up and her face registered her immense relief. “You’re awake!”

  Gable squeezed her hand.

  Erin burst into tears and squeezed back. “You’re here with me, aren’t you? You know who I am? You remember?” Her voice shook.

  Gable squeezed her hand again and tried to nod her head. The respirator restricted her movements.

  “Thank God,” Erin said. “I’ll be back in a second, Gable. Swear to God, just a second. Don’t drift off—I’m going to get the doctor.” She bent down and kissed Gable’s cheek, then disappeared.

  Gable glanced around as much as she could. In addition to the respirator, she was on a heart monitor. An IV fed the contents of a clear plastic bag into a needle in her left arm.

  From a distance, she heard, “Stewart! She’s awake! She remembers! Get the doctor!”

  Erin was quickly back beside the bed, and took Gable’s hand again. Tears tracked her cheeks, but she had a smile from ear to ear. “You had us worried there, Gable. Welcome back. I love you.”

  Gable squeezed her hand very deliberately, three times. I love you.

  Erin’s face brightened more, as she got the message. “I know, honey. I know.”

  Honey. I like it when you call me honey.

  “The doctor’s going to be here in a minute, and they’re going to chase me out of here for a while. But I’ll be right outside. Stewart’s here too. He’s been in touch with your brothers.”

  Gable wanted to ask about the boy she’d tried to save but didn’t know how. She squeezed Erin’s hand and blinked her eyes rapidly.

  “Stewart? Do you want me to get Stewart?” Erin asked.

  Gable shook her head slightly from side to side. It was all she could manage with the respirator, but Erin understood.

  “Okay, that’s not it. Are you in pain?”

  Gable shook her head again.

  “Want me to get you something?” Erin tried.

  Gable’s forehead furrowed as she shook her head once again in frustration.

  Erin frowned. “I’m sorry, honey, I don’t understand.”

  Gable pulled her hand out of Erin’s and spread Erin’s palm open so she could use it as a writing tablet. With her index finger, she spelled out b-o-y.

  Erin’s face lit up. “Oh! Of course! The boy! Mike Ester. He’ll be fine. You saved him. He woke up right after they brought him in, and th
e doctors say he’ll make a full recovery.” She bent and kissed Gable on the cheek, then remained like that, with their faces touching, for a long moment before she whispered, “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.”

  She straightened just as the doctor arrived with Stewart. Smiling, she released her hand and retreated a step so that Stewart could take her place by the bedside.

  “Hi, sis,” Stewart kissed her on the forehead. “Glad you’re back with us. The boys all send their love.”

  “Gable, I’m Dr. Erickson,” the doctor began, as he approached smiling from the opposite side of the bed. He was an attractive older gentleman with a gray-streaked beard who reminded her of Sean Connery, without the accent. “You’ve got quite a fan club lined up outside to see you, so we need to get you well in a hurry. Can you understand me?”

  Gable nodded.

  “Good. Do you remember what happened?”

  She nodded again.

  “The rescue squad responded about fifteen minutes after you radioed in, and pulled you out by your rope. They administered CPR on scene, but you didn’t respond until you were en route in the ambulance. We ran a number of tests, including an EEG and CAT scan—and there was no evidence of brain injury. We warmed you slowly, and we’ll keep the Bair Hugger on you for a while longer.” He gestured toward an odd blanket that was draped over her: it looked like an inflatable mattress with holes in it. “Because you swallowed some river water I want to keep you on IV antibiotic therapy for at least another forty-eight hours or so.”

  Gable grimaced.

  “She hates hospitals,” Erin said.

  The doctor smiled. “I would wager you’re going to get treated exceptionally well during your stay with us. Now I want to take you off the respirator, but we have to make sure your lungs are strong enough to stay off the vent. Do you understand?”

  Gable nodded.

  He put a meter on the tubing between the machine and Gable. “I want you to take a few deep breaths, so I can make sure you can pull enough oxygen on your own. Any time you’re ready.”