by Amy Lane
Something else must have given that morning—either that or there’d been a sudden rainstorm higher up in the mountains. Damien didn’t know, but he did know one thing—this stretch of road needed to be passed.
He cantered SnakeEyes through the slow roil of water, dust floating on the top, and around the bend.
“Well, that’s a disappointment,” he muttered as he took in the small lake that had formed in the little valley where he and Preston had first camped. The standing water was wide enough to cross the road, forming a falls down the side of the mountain as it dropped off, and Damien sighted some of the debris swirling around on the top to see if he could gauge how rough the current was. He had to go across that current. Against it was easier, because you could at least keep your sense of direction. Going across would be rough—by the time you figured out the current had dragged you off course, you’d be tumbling down the mountain on the back of a horse, and that would be no fun at all.
At first it looked like it should be easy going—the top debris didn’t seem to be moving that fast, but Damien and Glen had worked more than one disaster zone. He spotted a branch that seemed to be zipping along and squinted against the sun’s glare off the water. Sure enough, it was attached to a larger submerged log that was caught in the undercurrent, and that thing was not playing. He watched as it reached the slight rise that marked the barrier on the side of the road before the cliff drop-off, and shuddered when it hit.
Then he shivered as it punched a hole through whatever soil had formed the rise and catapulted down the side of the drop-off, pulling a big rush of water behind it. As he watched, more of the road crumbled, hauling more water and more debris with it, and the good news was if this went on for any length of time, the short-term lake would be drained, but the bad news was any semblance of road would be gone with the water.
Maybe swimming across the current was the way to go. By the time SnakeEyes got to the trees, they might be on the other side of the wash, and that was where they wanted to be.
Damien stood poised for a moment, locked with indecision. Did he wait out the wash, knowing Preston was waiting and Glen might not have much time? Damien would have been dead in the first twenty-four hours of his crash if there hadn’t been clean water, and that town was boiling water for a lot of people.
Or did he risk it? He used to be able to take those risks, fly that plane in lower than snake shit, land that helicopter where nobody else would go. Those risks were the ones that saved people’s lives, and his belief in his ability to take them had kept him and Glen alive for a lot of years.
Now it might keep Glen alive, period.
Quickly he rooted through his saddlebags, making sure everything was locked down and waterproofed, in particular the satellite phone, because he would need to text Buddy as soon as he was through this wash. Then he grabbed the coil of rope and a carabiner, grateful rope work was something he was good at. Grabbing SnakeEyes’s halter, because he didn’t trust her not to just turn around and run the other way, he took them both to the tree line and secured one end of the rope around the trunk of a decent-sized pine tree and the other to the saddle. They were as far inland as they could manage, and the fifty yards of rope looked wide enough to cross the lake.
With a deep breath and a pulling up of his big-boy panties inside his damned uncomfortable jeans, Damien wrapped SnakeEyes’s reins around his hand and led her into the flood.
A few steps and the water rose to his waist, that undercurrent pulling hard enough that he wondered if the tributary would be washed away forever, forming a new falls down the side of the mountain.
A few more steps and he was up to his armpits and didn’t care. SnakeEyes whickered, threatening to panic, and he gave her reins a hard tug, reminding her that even if they were both swimming, he was still the boss. The water was cold—not the snow cold of the Sierras, thank God, but not bathwater, and he was struggling for breath as he tried to keep his feet on the ground.
Preston. Glen. He had to get across. Fucking had to get across. A branch tapped his weak leg and he went under. Fear washed over him, drowning him as sure as the water, taking his breath, his will. SnakeEyes yanked against his shoulder, and he floundered, knowing, just knowing, she’d drag him under her churning hooves, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. His lungs fought for air, and he fought for balance, the current pushing him and the giant panicky animal he’d dragged into this mess closer to the cliff.
Helpless. So helpless. Exactly like he had been when his helicopter had been smashed against a mountain, and he couldn’t do a damned thing to save himself.
Get up! He could swear it was Preston’s voice in his head.
I can’t!
You can too, you big baby. You know how to swim.
Or Glen’s. With a frustrated push, he found the bottom, bracing himself with all his other muscles, his core, his back, his chest. He got hold of SnakeEyes and flexed his arm, keeping her in place as he pushed up on the one good leg, clearing the water and pulling air into his lungs. Standing on the tip of one toe and willing himself not to move with the current, he almost gasped. They were getting close to the edge there, and it was time to swim for the tree line.
“C’mon, bitch,” he snarled at SnakeEyes. “Neither of us wants to go over.”
They did it. One step at a time, they did it. They swam, they thrashed, they tiptoed, and they waded, but they stayed the hell away from the falls as they did it. They had just gotten to where SnakeEyes could walk consistently without her hooves being swept out from under her, when Damien hit resistance.
The horse neighed in confusion, and goddammit, the rope was too fucking short.
Damien was going to have to cut her loose from the rope and hope they kept making it to the other side.
He seized the rope, which was on her right side and that was too goddamned bad. He used it to steady himself against the flood as he mounted her back, and she was too excited about having all four hooves on the ground to buck him off. Once again he found himself fumbling for his Leatherman so he could saw through a perfectly good piece of tack.
When he had cut through the rope, he spurred the damned horse as hard as he could, seeing they were both sopping wet and he was wearing hiking boots. For once she didn’t care. She took permission as a blessing and took off, her legs churning underneath her as she heaved herself through the water past her chest and then to her knees and then to her ankles, getting free of the hated flood. He had to slow her through the mud or she would have broken a leg, but the minute they hit dry ground, he let her go.
She was tired—they were both tired—but the sooner they put that madness behind them, the sooner they could get down this goddamned mountain.
They were both shivering in the aftermath, but the sun was baking down on them, and in the altitude, the sun had a head start. Damien was good in the mountains as a whole—but he was pretty sure the only reason Preston hadn’t gotten altitude sickness was their slow ascent. There you go—a plus side. Needed that. Keep moving, don’t stop, don’t freeze up, and don’t think about the pain in your leg or the chafing all over your body in the wet clothes, because we’ve got three-quarters of the trip to go.
When they’d both dried out and started sweating a little, he slowed her and gave her some water and half an apple for some energy, but didn’t stop for long. Two more times, some water, a little bit of high-carb horse food for energy, and then they were back on the road.
He was exhausted—his leg cramping up like a sonuvabitch, his stomach cramping too, because the only food that hadn’t gotten soaked and washed away was the apples, and he’d given those to the horse. His upper thighs were on fire where his fucking jeans had chafed from the wet fabric on the horse, and he really regretted giving up cargo shorts out of vanity.
He’d just had that thought when he realized the terrain was leveling out, and recognized some of the landmarks from the first couple of miles of the ride.
Only then did he re
member to try the sat phone to see if Buddy was answering, and right when he was contemplating slowing the horse to a walk again, he rounded the corner and found Buddy, sitting on a camp chair in front of his truck.
“You look like shit, boy.”
Damien burst out laughing and tried not to fall off his horse. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
Buddy grimaced and came up to take the horse’s halter. “Have you ridden her docile? Jesus. What happened?”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Damien took a deep breath and tried to focus. Time. They were running out of time. Glen’s wounds were infected, and there wasn’t enough water. Time.
“Well, I had Miguel track your satellite phone. When I saw you moving down the trail, I took a chance and showed up to meet you. Looks like I figured right—Damie, how bad is it?”
Damien swung off SnakeEyes’s back and almost fell. “Fuck.” His weak leg was absolutely done for the moment, and he could only be glad he didn’t need it to fly. “It’s rough,” he said, trying to shake some feeling back into his leg that wasn’t screaming pain. “There were a couple of deaths in the village and some injuries. Glen’s the worst off—crushed shoulder and feverish. The water’s no good. They’re boiling it—we think someone blew up their dam and probably their water treatment facility, and I don’t even want to know what’s going on with their wells. Anyway—they need food and clean water, and we need to get the injured to a hospital. And that includes Glen and Preston.”
“Here, son.” Buddy shoved a shoulder under Damien’s arm and started walking him to the front of the truck. “We’ve got food, water, and some painkillers for that leg. I’ll tend to the horse and get her trailered—she looks like you plumb took the legs out from under her. You can tell me about the rest while we ride.”
“Where we going?” Damien asked, the idea of sitting on a padded seat the closest thing to heaven he could think of at the moment. His inner thighs felt liquid, and not in the good sexy way either. It had been a long time since he’d spent that much time on the back of a horse, and if there was any justice, he’d be spending twenty-four hours facedown in a spa bed before he had to do another freaking thing.
“We’re going to a miracle,” Buddy told him, gathering the horse’s reins and heading for the trailer. “Given what you just told me, I’m thinking one of you boys blew an angel.”
Damien thought about it. “Probably Glen. That Cash kid’s cute as hell and really sweet. Definitely not the three of us.”
Buddy’s laughter carried back to him, and Damien thought maybe he should eat before he said any more about sex lives and angels.
A HALF an hour later, they were driving back through the arable land at the foot of the mountains, and Damien was trying to get his bearings. “We’re going northeast—is this the guy with the crop duster?”
“Yeah, but we’ve taken the crop duster and done one better.”
“Buddy, we don’t have a lot of time. I need to fly whatever it is to Las Varas, get the chopper, fly to the village—twice—and bring people down the hill. I mean, I was going to have you get a doctor to meet me back where the road ends so we can set up triage—”
“Son, you are not hearing me. I said this was better, and better does not mean you flying all over hell and damnation to get those people out. Better means better—you just have to have a little faith. We’ve been working on this thing since you texted me last night. You’ll be very impressed.”
When Damien first saw it, still dripping from a recent washing, its fatigue-green exterior absorbing the bright Nayarit light and not reflecting it, he thought it was a mirage.
“Where in the fuck—”
“It was in the guy’s hangar, where he kept the crop duster,” Buddy said, sounding insufferably proud of himself.
“Does it even work?”
“It flew out of the hangar to land by the side of the road,” Buddy said. “But it’s not all sparkly. See the bent prop on the tail? It lists to the right—a lot. You are going to have to fly the thing practically sideways to get it over the mountains, and the earthquakes have made the air currents a mite unpredictable, so tell me right now if you can do it.”
Damien stared at the decommissioned Black Hawk helicopter in awe. He and Glen had one much like it back in Napa, but theirs had been taken apart and put back together to look like a limousine for the injured, with a complete medical bay and sound insulation and a cabin that separated the guests from the two guys in the cockpit. Their Black Hawk could handle six or seven people comfortably, and that included the two med-techs who worked Gecko Inc. as a side job.
This one was just as stripped down as a field-ready chopper should be. This piece of art could take eleven fully armed soldiers, complete with armor and grenade launchers and parachutes.
Or six or so earthquake victims plus a pilot and a doctor and Preston’s favorite dog.
“Is it fueled up?” Damien asked, his heart beating fast with hope—and a little bit of fear. That bent prop was no joke, and landing this thing in the village and then taking off and flying toward the big hospital in Guadalajara was no picnic. “Can it make it to the village and then to the hospital? Or do I need to come back here and bus people to a field doctor?” He thought of Glen, barely holding it together. “I don’t know if Glen’s got another ride in him,” he admitted, which was something he hadn’t wanted to say in front of Preston, but he figured Glen knew.
“Nope—if you can ride this thing when she’s bucking worse than SnakeEyes, we can get your people to the hospital in one goddamned go.”
Damien spent the last ten minutes telling Buddy about his adventures and shoving more of Martha’s beans and rice down his gullet with the help of homemade tortillas.
“You up for playing medic on this one?” he asked, because Buddy had some field medicine, and that was about all they had time for.
“I am,” Buddy said. “But let’s talk to our new friend Arturo—he’s the one who’s going to take SnakeEyes back to Las Varas for us. He may need a wee bit of recompense for using his chopper. And, well, for spending all night working on the engine so it didn’t explode into a smoking pile of rust when we moved it out of the hangar.”
People had to eat. Damien got it. “Tell him I’ll buy it,” he said. “Glen’ll be fuckin’ thrilled.”
Buddy laughed. “You stay here and rest up some. I’m going to go drive a bargain.”
Damien nodded and took him up on his offer. As he melted into the dusty front seat of Buddy’s truck, he mentally prepped himself for getting in that relic from the ’80s and pushing it all the way to medical service.
He did the math in his head, the vectors he’d have to fly in order to hit his target, practiced the compensation he’d have to do for hours in order to get his friend and his lover to medical care.
When Buddy returned, pleased as punch with his negotiating capabilities, Damien opened his eyes and looked at the chopper again, his ride through the flood with one pissed-off horse still fresh in his mind.
“You ready for me, you old bitch?” he asked, sizing up the vehicle with the eyes of someone who was licensed in almost every small aircraft known to man. “’Cause I don’t care if the hand of God reaches down to give you a finger bang—you and me are going the distance or we’re going to die trying.”
The Black Hawk didn’t do anything, of course. Just dried in the sun, looking vaguely menacing and only a little bit like it wasn’t going to crash into the side of a mountain and kill them all.
But that was okay, Damien thought. This time, he was ready.
The Cavalry
PRESTON put his hand on his brother’s forehead and shuddered. So hot. They were using cold water now, on his forehead, the back of his neck, trying to get his fever down as night closed in.
Glen wasn’t bitching anymore, and Cash had taken to singing—mostly pop hits from Cash’s own band, Preston assumed, but sung low and sweet and a cappella, they sounded more like, well, love ballad
s.
Glen had taken to humming in counterpoint, probably because he was too sick to know that was what he was doing.
Preston’s wrist was swelling under his bandana. Cash had told him to keep it still—had been shocked to hear that it was broken, actually, and his collarbone too. He’d fussed over Preston until running that cold water on Glen’s forehead was about the only thing Preston could do, which was just as well.
His body felt like shit. Glen was burning up with fever, and Damien had disappeared down the trail about half an hour before the people in the village had heard a loud explosion, followed by another whoosh of water down the hill.
“Secondary dam,” Cash said. “Either it broke or Tranquilizer Piss blew it. I have no idea.”
Preston managed to laugh a little. “Tranquilizer Piss—good one!”
“Well, Damien was right. Calling him that ridiculous name gave him this… this authority he didn’t deserve. But he was paranoid; I saw that after a week. He could have blown the dam. I don’t even know what it would do for him but make him feel safer.”
Preston looked around the village, at the families tending to their injured and to the few dead who were being prepared for burial and being mourned. “These people don’t care about him one way or the other.”
Cash sighed. “No. They’re just trying to survive.” He sounded so dispirited, Preacher whined at him and begged for pets, which was pretty shameless, but Preston let him do that when someone was sad.
Cash fondled the big dog’s ears and scratched his ruff. “Your dog is magic,” he said, and he wasn’t smiling or making fun.
“I know,” Preston said, looking to the sky for the thousandth time. “We should put out landing lights, you think? The sky is darker now.”
