• • •
Inside the cab of the sanding truck, Dutch was rapidly losing patience. “You can do better than this, Cal.”
“I could if you’d stop yelling at me.” Hawkins sounded close to tears. “You’re making me nervous. How do you expect me to drive when you’re cussing me out with every breath? Forget what I said about your old lady, about if she wanted to be rescued. Didn’t mean to make you mad. I was just asking.”
“Lilly is my business.”
Hawkins mumbled something under his breath that sounded like “Not anymore, she ain’t,” but Dutch didn’t address it because, factually, Hawkins was right. Besides, they were approaching the road’s second hairpin curve, the one that they’d been unsuccessful navigating last night. He wanted Hawkins to give the switchback his undivided attention.
He downshifted, and as he did, Dutch noticed that the man’s hands were shaking. Maybe he should have allowed Hawkins one pull on a bottle of whiskey. From his own heavy drinking days, he knew that sometimes even a small hit could make all the difference between having the shakes and a steadier hand. But it was too late now. Hawkins went into the turn.
Or tried.
The front wheels followed the command of the steering wheel. They turned to the right. The truck didn’t. It continued going straight, heading unerringly for the drop-off, which Dutch knew was at least eighty feet.
“Turn it!”
“I’m trying!”
As the treetops loomed large in the windshield, Hawkins screamed and reflexively stamped the clutch and brake pedals, then let go of the steering wheel and crossed his forearms in front of his face.
Dutch was helpless to stop the momentum of the skid. The plow on the grille struck the guardrail, which crumpled and gave way to several tons of momentum. The front wheels went over the edge and seemed to hang there for several seconds before the rig tipped downward.
Dutch remembered the movie Duel, where during the climactic scene, an eighteen-wheeler went off a highway and plunged down a mountainside. The sequence had been filmed in slow motion. That was what this was like for him—watching and experiencing their inexorable descent in agonizingly slow motion.
Vision was a blur. Everything ran together. But the sounds had a stark clarity. The windshield shattering. Boulders knocking against the underside of the chassis. Breaking branches. Tearing metal. Hawkins’s terrified screams. His own animalistic roar of disbelief and defeat.
Actually, the trees probably saved their lives by slowing them down. Had the slope not been so heavily forested, their plunge would have been swifter and therefore deadly. After what seemed like an eternity, the rig came up against an immovable object with brain-rattling force. Inertia propelled them forward, although they went no further. The truck surrendered and came to a shuddering standstill.
Miraculously, Dutch’s brain hadn’t been instantly liquefied by the impact. He was sentient, and was surprised to realize that he was alive and basically unhurt. Apparently Hawkins had also survived. Dutch could hear him mewling pitiably.
Dutch unbuckled his seat belt and, putting his shoulder to the passenger-side door, shoved it open. He rolled out, landing several feet below, in snow that came almost to his waist after he struggled to his feet.
He tried to get his bearings but was blinded by the wind-driven snow that seemed to be aimed at his eyes. He couldn’t even see what had stopped the truck’s descent. All he could make out was a forest of black tree trunks against a field of white.
However, he didn’t have to see it.
He heard it.
He felt the vibration of it in the ground, in the trunk of the tree he had propped himself against for balance, in his balls.
He didn’t bother to shout a warning to Hawkins or try to pull him from the wreckage to safety. He didn’t attempt to run and save himself. Defeat had robbed him of initiative, immobilized him.
The futility of his life culminated in this single moment. He would just as soon die here and now because his hope of reaching Lilly had been crushed.
• • •
Wes watched in disbelief as the sanding rig disappeared over the ridge.
He leaped from his car and stood in the wedge of the open door, as though being outside would give him a clearer understanding of how this had happened.
He could hear the rig plowing its way down the slope. A tremendous crash was followed by what sounded like a metallic sigh, the truck’s death rattle. Following that was an eerie silence that was even more horrific. The hush was so absolute, Wes could hear snowflakes striking his clothing.
The quiet was broken by Begley and Wise, who approached as quickly as the slippery incline of the road would allow. Their vehicle had been far enough behind Wes’s that they hadn’t had his vantage point. Begley reached him first, huffing and emitting plumes of vapor from his mouth. “What happened?”
“They went over.”
“Holy shit.”