A Soldier Finds His Way (3 page)

At first, the new road seemed somewhat better than the main road. Cars weren’t whizzing by at high speeds anymore. But, where were the snowplows? Howling wind gusted against the car. She slowed to a crawl and, without taking her eyes off the road, reached into her purse and pulled out her cellphone. No signal.

She followed a pickup truck’s tracks for several miles until it turned onto a side road. Without it in front of her paving the way, the going got tougher. The road on the hilly terrain was getting slippery, and she hadn’t seen any houses or businesses in a while.

“I can’t see anything outside my window anymore, Aunt Audra.” Zoe rubbed the glass and chewed her lip. Her wide-eyed gaze locked onto Audra in the rearview mirror.

“Let’s sing a song, shall we? How about, ‘The Song That Never Ends?’ You start, and I’ll join in.”

Zoe hugged her doll and sang without much enthusiasm.

“Smile, sweetie. Everything’s okay.” Audra joined in with the happiest voice she could muster.

The GPS directed Audra to stay right at the fork up ahead. She took the fork.
Fallen Rock Zone
and
Dangerous Curve Ahead
signs shouted their warnings at her. But there was nowhere to make a U-turn. The narrow road hugged a giant rock wall to her left, and the absence of a shoulder made turning around impossible and left little margin for error. On the other side of the guardrail snow fell into an empty expanse. She gripped the steering wheel tighter.

She had no choice but to continue on the serpentine road where wind gusts shook the car, pummeling it with blasts of snow. With nothing to break the wind on her right side, she was fully exposed to the intensity of the storm.

With the windshield wipers on high speed and caked with ice, she struggled to see the road ahead.

The road curved sharply to the left. Audra hugged the steering wheel and peered forward to see around the bend. Directly in front of her, a mountain of rocks and snow blocked her path. She slammed on the brakes.

Zoe shrieked.

The car fishtailed on the icy surface and flew forward. A series of terrifying jolts rattled Audra’s teeth. The awful sound of crunching metal filled her ears. And then her own screams, as her car went airborne.

“Rise and shine, flea-bitten varmint. Happy New Year.” Edward delivered a gentle slap to the sleeping dog’s rump. She jumped up, trotted to the door and cast an over-the-shoulder look at him as if to ask if he’d mind letting her out.

He pulled the door halfway open. A thigh-high drift stood in a straight line where it had been pressed against the door. Wind whipped a few inches off the top, sending a powdery puff inside. Cricket backed up and took a running leap over the mound and disappeared to do her business. There were no signs of the storm letting up. He shut the door.

Edward bundled up, went outside and cleared the drifts from the windows and the door. Cricket pranced in the snow and jumped gazelle-like over rolling mounds of white. The wind bit his face. “I don’t think we’re in Costa Rica anymore, Toto.” Edward went back inside and dried her off with a tattered towel. When he finished she curled up by the fire.

Edward found a stick near the fireplace and whittled the bark off with his pocketknife. Wind rattled the windows, waking the napping dog with a start. “Relax, it’s just the wind.”

Cricket lowered her head back to the floor. Before long, she was fast asleep again with her legs twitching as if she were running.

“Chase those rabbits, girl.”

The snowshoes he’d made last winter hung on a nail by the door. He pulled one off the wall and tested its strength and flexibility with a few twists. He’d been successful walking in the snow with them last year, although there wasn’t nearly the amount of snow then as now. He’d try them out later.

Cricket woke up with a growl, bolted upright, and looked around with nervous apprehension.

“What is it, girl?”

Cracking and rumbling sounds echoed outside the cabin. Limbs breaking, trees falling, or an avalanche in the distance? He couldn’t tell.

Cricket yipped and pawed at the door. Her whines took on an urgency Edward couldn’t ignore.

He threw on his coat and hat and grabbed the snowshoes.

As he opened the door, the dog bolted out, went a few yards and stopped. Her ears twitched and her head turned side to side as if to determine which way she should go. She looked back at him.

“It’s your call. You heard it better than I did.”

Trees cracked and moaned in the distance. Cricket bounded over snowdrifts and took off down the hill toward the river, barking and begging him to hurry. He followed the path she’d cut through the snow.

A sense of foreboding churned inside Edward as he neared the river. On the far side, a nearly vertical slope of trees and rocks ascended from the water. A seldom-traveled, snake-like road wound its way on top of the steep embankment, and a length of broken guardrail hung out over the precipice.

Bent trees, broken branches, and swept-away snow in a path down to the water gave evidence that something had rolled down the incline into the river. The crashing and crunching of falling rocks tapered off as he approached.

“No. No, it can’t be. Please just let it be a rockslide.” He quickened his pace and came to the river’s edge. A blue Toyota lay on its right side in the river halfway through the ice, slowly sinking.

Cricket paused at the frozen riverbank, barking wildly, afraid to step out onto the ice.

Edward had to hurry. He pulled off his snowshoes and walked onto the ice. The river narrowed at this point, and the car wasn’t far off. Still, the ice could give way at any moment.

He drew close to the partially submerged car, brushed snow and debris from the driver’s window and peered inside. A young woman hung motionless over the steering wheel. Blood trickled down her forehead. In the backseat, trapped by her seatbelt, a little girl strained to keep her head above water, her eyes wide with fright. He had to get her out of there, and fast.

He opened the rear door. “Hang on, kid. I’m gonna get you out of there.”

Edward took out his knife, gripped it in his teeth, and dropped a knee on the doorframe. His added weight on the car caused the girl’s nose to bob under the water. He reached in, cut the seatbelt and yanked the child out of her seat. She came up out of the water choking and gasping for breath and clung to him. Edward carried her to the bank, put her down, and started back to the car for the woman.

With a loud crack, the ice opened farther, swallowing more of the car. He threw open the driver’s door. The car started sinking faster. He cut the woman’s seatbelt and grabbed her arm. With one final lurch, the vehicle slipped into the water and sucked him under. His fingers dug tighter into the woman’s flesh. Frigid water stung his skin. His muscles cramped.

Edward struggled and managed to break the surface with the limp woman. He stumbled and slipped, but found his footing on the rocks and climbed out of the water, dragging the woman behind him.

The child sat on the bank screaming. A good sign. She couldn’t be too badly injured with a set of lungs like that.

The woman wasn’t breathing. He felt for a pulse on her neck. Nothing. Her eyes were fully dilated and fixed in a deathly gaze, despite the brightness of the falling snow. He placed her flat, tilted her head back slightly, breathed two breaths into her then began chest compressions.

“You’re hurting her! You’re hurting her! Stop it!” The girl’s screechy screams grated his nerves.

Edward didn’t have time to reassure the kid. Not now, when he was soaking to the bone and freezing half to death. He had to resuscitate this woman and get all of them into the warmth of the cabin.

Cricket whimpered as if she was worried too.

Finally, the woman let out a weak moan and a cough.

Good. We have a pulse. Fire, we need fire.

Edward forced his snowshoes back on with stiff fingers and heaved the woman over his shoulder.

“Come on, kid.”

The girl continued her loud, piercing cries.

He yanked her onto her feet. “I don’t have time for your screeching and carrying on. Your mom’s gonna die if we don’t get her warmed up. You’re gonna die too. You wanna die?”

She shook her head vigorously. “No.”

He grabbed her hand and started up the hill toward the cabin, but she kept sinking in the snow. Except for a pair of socks, the kid was barefoot. He scooped her up under his arm and carried her as she yelled her head off.

Serious muscle fatigue was setting in by the time he got to the cabin and kicked the door open. Exhausted, he dropped the kid, went to the fireplace, and tried to lower the woman gently onto the floor. She hit the floor a little harder than he intended, but his limbs were numb with cold, and it was a struggle to move.

Before he could take care of them, he had to take care of himself. He began peeling his wet and stiffening clothing off and stood by the fire to warm himself. He was down to his underwear when the kid started crying again.

Boy, did he hate kids. Why couldn’t she shut that big trap of hers for a while?

The woman’s lifeless eyes stared up at him, her mouth agape, and skin pale.

“
No, no, no, no. Aw, come on, lady. Don’t do this to me again.” With two fingers pressed near her throat, he felt for a carotid pulse. Nothing. Once again he breathed into her and began chest compressions.

He checked her neck again. Her pulse throbbed steadily under his fingers.

He removed the woman’s wet clothing while the girl continued to cry and scream. “Hey kid, come here. You have to take your wet stuff off.”

The girl looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. “What are you doing to her? Leave her alone! Don’t hurt her.”

It dawned on him that the little girl didn’t understand what he was doing, him in his underwear, stripping her mom’s clothes off. “Do you know what hypothermia is?”

“No.”

“It’s when you get so cold that you die. Do you understand? When you’re wet and cold, you die faster. You got that? I’m not trying to hurt her. I won’t hurt you either, but you have to take your wet stuff off. Here, go behind the curtain and put this on.” He threw a thermal top at her. “I won’t look. I promise.”

She took the shirt that had landed on her head and went behind the curtain. Her muffled cries continued as he got the rest of the woman’s clothing off and found another pair of long johns to put on her. Once she was dressed, he picked her up and gently placed her in the recliner with a warm blanket on top of her. He quickly got into dry clothing, and his shivering finally stopped. He towel-dried the woman’s hair as best he could. “How are you coming along back there?”

The girl didn’t answer.

He pulled the curtain back.

She stood there, wearing the long john top with her wet clothes in a heap on the floor in front of her. The shirt hung down well below her knees, and the sleeves dangled off of her arms, hiding her hands.

He squatted down in front of her. “You okay?”

She didn’t respond.

“I’m going to fold up your sleeves so you we can see your hands, okay?”

She gave a slight nod and stuck her arms out in front of her.

“You want to sit with your mom and help warm her up?”

“She’s not my mom. She’s my aunt Audra.” The girl went to the recliner and put her hand on Audra’s. “Aunt Audra? Are you okay?”

Audra lay still and didn’t respond.

The child turned and looked at Edward. “Is she d-dead?” Her jaw quivered.

“No, she’s not dead. Look, she’s breathing. She’s got a nasty bump on the head. Talk to her for a while and see if you can get her to open her eyes. That’d be good for her. It would help a lot, okay? I’ll make something hot for us to drink.”

He put a pot of water on the stove to boil, moved the kitchen chairs in front of the fireplace, and hung their wet clothes on them to dry.

The little girl watched his every move.

Cricket lay curled up by the fire, worn out and shivering.

Edward brushed the melting snow from her fur and dried her with an old towel. “If it weren’t for you, we’d have a couple of dead people on our hands. You heard their crash and led me right to them. What a good girl you are.”

“Can you hear me, Aunt Audra?” The girl shook Audra’s shoulder. “Please wake up.”

Audra writhed in the chair and moaned. “Zoe?”

“I’m right here, Aunt Audra.”

Audra blinked a few times and opened her eyes. They immediately brimmed with tears. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“I’m okay. That dog heard our crash and told the man we needed help. You were dead twice, but he made you alive again. The man pulled me out of the water and went back and got you out too. The car went down into the river, but we didn’t die in the car.”

“Thank God you’re all right.”

Zoe climbed onto the recliner and snuggled with her aunt.

Audra winced.

Edward went to her side. “What is it? What hurts?”

“My arm.”

He pulled back the blanket and gently pushed up the long john sleeve. Her right forearm was swollen. He examined it carefully, running his fingers up and down to see if he could feel a break.

She winced again.

“Maybe I should splint that up so you don’t make it worse. Can you move your other arm okay?” he asked.

She lifted it and nodded.

“How ’bout your legs, can you move them? Can you wiggle your toes?”

“Yes, I think so.” She dragged her left hand across her midsection. “I think I bruised my ribs. They ache like crazy.”

“I don’t doubt that. You had quite a wreck. Your car probably flipped a few times coming off the ridge.”

He dampened a washcloth and wiped the blood from Audra’s forehead. “Head wounds bleed a lot even if they’re not serious.” He tried to keep his tone reassuring. “But I don’t think you’ll need stitches for this cut on your head. Here, hold this and put a little pressure on it, okay?”

Steam rose from the pot on the woodstove. Cocoa. Kids liked that stuff. Yeah, that’s what he’d fix.

His new guests chattered across the room.

So much for a quiet vacation. Edward guessed the girl, Zoe, to be seven or eight years old. Audra looked to be in her early twenties. Zoe had long brown hair with curls that sprang out all over her head as her hair dried. She doted on her aunt in such a gentle way that it made him feel a little ashamed of how he’d spoken to her up to this point.