Before She Dies

Chapter 25

“Looks like one occupant.” Bob Torrez’s voice was matter-of-fact over the radio. He’d scrambled down the talus slope like a sure-footed youngster, checked on the two of us briefly, and then continued on.

For a few minutes we had been able to see his flashlight beam slashing this way and that as he traversed the boulder field, but then the trees hid him from view.

“Can you ID?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Torrez said, and I knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it. “It’s Tammy Woodruff.” I wasn’t ready for what he said next. “And she’s still alive, sir.”

“Oh, my God,” I breathed. That option had never occurred to me, and judging from Estelle’s quick intake of breath, not to her either. “Is she conscious, sergeant?”

“Negative. Hold on a minute.” As Estelle and I sat in the dark cold, we could hear vehicles coming up the county road. “Sir, she’s inside what’s left of the cab. It’s twisted around her pretty good. It’s going to take a lot of cutting to get her out of there.”

“Rescue is just arriving now. They’ll be down in a few minutes. Stay with her, Bob.”

“Tell ’em to bring both the jaws and a saw. They’re going to have to cut through a piece of frame to get to her.”

More winking lights lined the road above us, and I stood up and waved my flashlight.

“Sheriff, what the hell are you doing down there?” Sam Gates’s voice was a welcome sound as it crackled over Estelle’s radio.

“Sam, we’re going to need two Stokes. One where I am for a patient with multiple fractures and cuts, and one farther on down the slope. Do you see the deputy’s light?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. And you’ll need both the jaws and a saw. There’s a vehicle down there, and it’s going to be a puzzle.”

“Jesus,” Gates said, never particularly mindful of the FCC. “Occupant’s still alive?”

“Affirmative.”

Bob Torrez interrupted. “Pulse is 130 and ragged. Respiration is shallow and uneven. Hustle it up, guys.”

Estelle moaned a single syllable and then bit it off. I pulled part of the blanket around her shoulders and tried to pad the rest between her back and the rock against which she was leaning. “Just a bit longer,” I said.

She shook her head. “They need to go on down to the truck.”

“No heroics now,” I said. “They know what they’re doing. They’ll have both of you out of here in no time.”

Which, as it turned out, wasn’t the case at all. Cassie Gates arrived first, breathing like a locomotive and carrying enough luggage to stay a week. “Look at this place,” she said, as she searched for a level spot to spread her paraphernalia. “God, how I love it. Sweetheart, couldn’t you have found a steeper cliff to dive off of? Let me see what you did, now.”

I backed away, giving the EMTs room. Cassie was joined almost immediately by two members of the Search and Rescue crew, another young EMT I didn’t know, and Nelson Petro. The last time Nels had been with us was when he ran the cherry picker for Estelle down on the state highway. He looked a little unsure about this mess.

I could see a flow of lights angling down the talus slope toward the wreck below. A gentle nudge from one of the EMTs pushed me farther out of the way. There was nothing I could do but shut up and watch, giving them lots of elbow room. Their efficiency left me feeling all thumbs and stupid.

Cassie had a BP cuff on Estelle, and in short order she was evaluated and immobilized on the Stokes with her lower leg and foot encased in one inflatable splint and her left arm in another. Radio reception back to Posadas was blocked by the mesa, but one of the S and R folks up on the road served as a relay.

Even Velcroed in as tight as she was, Estelle still let out a single gasp and clenched her teeth when the six men picked up the Stokes and the guide rope tightened. It was going to be a hell of a long ride to the top.

Longer still for Tammy Woodruff. By the time Estelle’s litter had progressed to within fifty feet of the road, the first generator fired up. In rapid succession, 500-watt quartz floods snapped on, bathing the hillside in white light. Another generator was on its way down the hill. I watched the four men horsing it down over the rocks and felt a wave of exhaustion. I sat down on a convenient rock to catch my breath.

I heard the boots on rocks behind and above me, but ignored them, content to sit in the dark cold and watch.

“Sir, are you all right?” It was one of the EMTs. I turned my head and watched him crab across the jumble of loose, football-sized talus that twitched and turned under his boots like a living thing.

“Yeah, I’m all right.”

With a cough, the second portable generator sprang into life and more light blossomed. I still couldn’t see the wreck, so I gestured across the slope. “I’ll make my way over that way,” I said.

The EMT glued himself to my elbow, and after about the fourth assist, I felt like an old maid trying to cross a busy street.

“Shouldn’t you be helping down the hill?” I said at one point as I stopped to catch my breath.

“I’m fine,” he said.

I turned and pointed my flashlight at his name tag. “Curtis, I don’t need an escort.”

He grinned. Of course he wasn’t short of breath. “I’d sure hate to be on this cliff by myself in the middle of the night, sir. Think of it as your escorting me.” He was a foot taller than I was, fifty pounds lighter, and a century younger. He could have carried me up the hill and still had that grin on his face when he reached the top. “Cross over to those ropes and they’ll be a help to the top, sir.”

I had wanted to cross the talus slope for a better view of what was happening down below, not to be dragged up the hill. But I realized that what the kid said made sense. They needed me down at the wreck about as much as they needed another broken leg. I stopped and looked up the hill. Those hundred yards were leagues.

“Shit,” I said. “You think they’re going to call a chopper?”

“No, sir.”

I leaned against a rock with my hands on my knees. “Too windy?”

“Yes, sir. For a while I thought they might, but not with the wind gusting to twenty knots. It’s just too risky.”

We’d progressed far enough past the spine of trees that I could see the wreck site down below. The image was surreal, with the artificial white light bathing the gnarled pinon and juniper. A cascade of sparks shot into the sky as the steel-cutting saw chewed into the pickup carcass, and I could hear the scream of it echo off the mesa wall behind us.

“She’s been crushed in that thing for maybe two days, Curtis.”

“That’s what I heard. It’s a miracle that she’s alive at all. I guess that’s another reason Sam won’t ask for a chopper. The odds are pretty stacked against her. It doesn’t make it a good gamble to risk a helicopter crew on a night like this.”

I took a deep breath and pushed myself upright. “Let’s get this miserable job over with, Curtis.”

“Yes, sir. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

I chuckled in spite of myself. “No, Curtis, I’m not feeling all right. Just stick close.” It wasn’t the climb I dreaded so much. Or another sleepless night. It was facing two old friends and telling one of them that his daughter was smashed to pieces…and telling the other that every circumstance pointed right down his son’s tracks.