Running Blind Read online

  He was on Carlin’s side of the truck. He didn’t dare look up, didn’t want to see her stiff, terrified face looking out the window at him. He might lose his concentration, move too fast. There were already enough things that could go wrong without him adding to the list. Hell, if a bird landed on the roof of the truck that could be enough to tilt it off-balance; good thing birds weren’t flying in this weather.

  He was farther down the side of the truck than he wanted to be, perilously close to the edge, before there was enough space under the truck for him to slide under it. Carefully turning himself perpendicular to the truck, he eased his head under the chassis—and almost laughed in relief, quickly followed by what felt suspiciously like the burn of tears. He blinked and swallowed, then blew out a big breath. The little tree wasn’t all that was holding the truck. The transmission block was caught on an underground boulder that stuck just a foot or so above the ground. The truck was solidly wedged; it wasn’t going anywhere even if that tree did break, which it almost definitely would have if the rock hadn’t caught most of the truck’s weight.

  That was the good news. The bad was that the bulk of the boulder made it more difficult for him to reach the winch cable. On the balance of things, though, he’d take having a tougher job for himself as long as the vehicle was more stable.

  “The truck’s caught on a boulder!” he yelled out to Walt, knowing that Spencer and Carlin would probably be able to hear him inside the truck, and wanting to relieve the stress everyone was feeling. “It’s secure as long as they don’t move around too much.” The last thing he wanted was for them to think they could just open their doors and get out; not only was the ground so icy they might slide right off, but the truck could still be tilted off-balance, and he was still underneath it. He’d really like to avoid getting crushed.

  The tight quarters meant his thick coat was now a liability he couldn’t afford. Carefully he backed out from beneath the truck and quickly shucked the coat. The bitter cold immediately bit through his clothing, and snow gathered on his hair, melting and refreezing. Shit! He had to get this done in a hurry before he got hypothermia.

  But hurrying was one thing he couldn’t do. Every move had to be deliberate and precise.

  He inched forward under the truck again, looking for the winch cable, this time angling himself toward the front of the truck because the boulder would have prevented the cable from coming any farther back. It was a tight fit, even without the bulk of his coat. Walt would have been the better choice, size-wise, and he still had the option of backing out, climbing back up to the road, and letting Walt do this—but the risk, though much diminished from what they’d originally thought, was still there, and he wouldn’t willingly send any of his men in his place into a dangerous situation when he could do the job himself.

  A nerve-racking minute later, he got his hand on the cable. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting it secured without jarring the truck any more than necessary. Sweat broke out on his face and froze, and the pain on his skin was bad enough he had to take a minute and wipe the ice away. He began shivering uncontrollably, so bad he didn’t dare try to attach the cable while he was shaking like that. Instead he deliberately shook and shivered as hard as he could, ramping up his core temperature enough that when he stopped, his body felt warm enough that he could resume without the shivering. He had to do that once more before he had the cable secured around the frame of the engine cradle.

  Just as cautiously as he had wormed his way under the truck, he wormed his way back out. God almighty, the cold was biting bone deep, like an animal with its fangs sunk into his body. As soon as he was clear he grabbed his coat and dragged it on, but the fabric was cold, the outer layer covered with snow, and there was precious little warmth he could get from it.

  He clawed his way up to the icy shoulder of the road, dragged himself over the edge. Micah and Kenneth had both arrived, and were standing beside Walt, though right now there was nothing they could do.

  Looking back at the truck, Zeke caught Carlin’s terrified gaze and gave her a thumbs-up. Maybe she hadn’t heard him yell to Walt; maybe, when you were in this situation, you weren’t reassured until you were actually out of the situation. His own gut had been knotted with fear; how much worse had it been for her, and for Spencer?

  As soon as he was on his feet and staggering out of the way, Walt pressed the button on the remote to start the winch. He had everything ready, even the hood up on the dually to protect the windshield if the cable broke, and an old jacket thrown over the cable itself to help smother any backlash. The motor whined and slowly began reeling in the cable. The line pulled taut, metal grating on rock as the pickup began to roll forward, scraping the underside along the boulder that had prevented it from plummeting down the ravine.

  A few minutes later, the pickup was on the road. Walt stopped the winch and free-spooled some slack in it so the cable could be unhooked. Micah hurried forward to take care of that chore.

  Spencer had opened his door and tumbled out, but Carlin still sat in the passenger seat, unmoving. Was she hurt? Urgency biting into him again, Zeke grabbed the handle and jerked it open. “Are you all right?”

  She swallowed. Maybe her lips trembled a little. She said, “My legs …”

  God almighty. Were they broken, had she suffered a spinal injury? He barked, “Your legs—”

  “No! My eggs. Eggs! If the eggs are broken I don’t know what I’ll be feeding all of you for the next week, because I’ll be damned if I’ll go back to the grocery store until the spring thaw!”

  Relief roaring through him, he reached in and un-clipped her seat belt, then hauled her out of the truck. Walt and Micah were both laughing, more than a little relief in their own reactions.

  Spencer wasn’t laughing. He stood in the snow, his shoulders hunched, looking miserable. Zeke already knew why. “Damn it,” he growled, bits of snow stinging his face. “Where are the spikes?” If Spencer had thrown them in the back of the truck—a common precaution—he’d have put them on when they turned off the paved road, he wouldn’t have slid off the shoulder, and none of this would have happened.

  Spencer looked even more miserable. “I’m sorry, boss. I thought we’d be home long before this moved in.”

  The system had come in earlier than predicted, but weather didn’t punch a time clock and they all knew it. You prepared for the worst, and that way you weren’t caught without something you needed. On the other hand, there wasn’t anything he could say to the kid that would be worse than hanging suspended like that, thinking they could fall the rest of the way if they so much as breathed too hard.

  It was over, thank God, and no one was hurt. But he didn’t know if he’d ever fully recover from those minutes of terror.

  CARLIN PULLED OPEN the back door of the extended cab. Groceries had been flung everywhere, jarred by the impact of hitting the rock and the tree. The floorboard was filled with canned goods, mostly, as well as a large pack of toilet paper. She usually put the meat and anything breakable in the backseat.

  Like the eggs.

  The eggs gave her something to focus on, something to pull her back from the edge of terror, from the sensation of hysteria building inside her. She was not going to break down in front of the men. Not. Going. To. Happen. So she plastered on a pissed expression and said, “Damn it!” as she leaned in and began putting canned goods back in bags, checking the eggs—at least a dozen were broken, maybe more. Now she’d have to think of something else to cook for breakfast for at least a few days, to make the remaining eggs last longer.

  “Leave it,” Zeke said, gripping her arm and pulling her away from the truck. “You’re riding back with me. The truck is staying here until we can get back with some spikes; I won’t risk anyone driving it a foot farther on this mountain.”

  “I can’t leave the groceries—”

  “Spencer will bring them. He can ride back with one of the other men.”

  She looked at him, prepared t