“Had to set everything up, but I’m back now.”
“I wanna go home, Jack.”
“Just hang on. I’m coming to get you.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bunker took another step, leaning his left elbow against the metal top of the bus, with Stephanie’s shirt in his opposite hand. So far, the bus felt stable beneath his feet. However, he’d just passed the middle row and knew the stakes would rise with each step forward.
If the ground gave way under the bus like before, another shift forward would happen. Even with the rock formation being used as pulleys, he wasn’t sure the belts would hold. If they snapped, the massive weight of the vehicle would take its occupants to the bottom of the canyon.
“I’m almost there, Megan,” he said, after two more rows were behind him. The girl didn’t answer. He stopped and listened, but couldn’t hear her crying anymore. “Megan? Can you hear me?”
She still didn’t respond. He didn’t know if she was ignoring him, in shock, unconscious, or worse.
He resumed his march to the front, picking up his pace.
“Whoa!” Stephanie yelled a second later when the back end of the bus started to lift up a few inches. “We’ve got movement here.”
“Yeah, I feel it,” he shouted back to her, stopping his feet. “How do the belts look? Are they holding?”
“So far. But they’re totally stretched tight and the tree is bending a little. I don’t know about this.”
“I’ll take it slow,” he said to the shirtless woman on top. “If that tree bends any more, you need to tell me.”
“Okay, will do. But something tells me you’ll know it before I do.”
Bunker realized she was correct. If the bus leaned forward any more, the position of the belts around the rocks would change, causing them to rub against the porous surface. If that happened, they might snap in half, or work themselves up and off the boulders altogether.
He moved again, reducing his pace to about half what it was before. After each step, he stopped each time to check the angle of the vehicle. There was a small amount of vertical sway vibrating through his feet—like a soft shudder—but the tilt wasn’t getting any worse.
When he finally made it to the mesh screen behind the driver, he leaned around the seat back and saw Megan for the first time.
The tiny girl was lying on her left side and curled loosely into the fetal position, with her head resting on an outstretched arm. Her feet were facing away from him, and the makeshift splint was only a few inches in front of her knees.
Looking straight down, Bunker could see that her eyes were closed. Her petite, turned-up nose seemed to flare its nostrils each time she took a breath, so he knew she was still alive. She must have fallen asleep—probably a good thing given the stress of the moment.
The dark-skinned tone of her upward facing cheek had a noticeable sheen to it that accented her extra-long eyelashes. If he didn’t know any different, he’d think she was a pre-teen ebony model who’d spent all day in the makeup chair before a photo shoot.
Her black hair had been braided evenly into a series of cornrows that came together in a tight bun near the crown of her head. He guessed she was about ten years old, though there wasn’t much to the girl.
The waistline of her blue jean shorts was very small, and so too was the thickness of her wrists and arms. She looked underweight, but he wasn’t sure if that was normal or not for a girl her age. He was no expert when it came to kids.
Megan’s casual red top looked new and matched her red-colored studded earrings, but her outfit was going to need a good cleaning to remove the obvious dirt when she got home.
He visually studied the condition of her legs to see if he could determine which one of them was broken. Both were bent and stacked on top of each other, but neither had blood showing or any bones sticking out through the skin.
There was one difference, however.
The knee on top was noticeably swollen and much larger than the other. Her free hand was loosely wrapped around it, indicating she’d been hanging on to it before she fell asleep.
Maybe the girl had twisted her knee and didn’t break her leg after all. If that was true, he’d need to use the stick as a two-sided brace and not a lengthwise splint.
Bunker knelt down and shook her shoulder gently. “Megan, it’s your new friend, Jack. You need to wake up now so I can take you home.”
She didn’t respond. He tried again and again, but she never opened her eyes. Either this girl could sleep through a hurricane or she’d passed out. If the latter, then it was probably from the pain or a concussion. Either way, his task was the same.
He grabbed the stick and put its midpoint under his own knee, pulling up on the two ends with force. It snapped in half like he’d hoped.
The girl’s injured knee was still bent when he slid the first half of the broken branch under it. To stabilize her leg, he decided to angle the brace diagonally to connect the inside of her thigh to the upper part of her calf.
He positioned the remaining piece of the brace on the other side of her knee so it would match the angle, then tied it with four strips of cloth he cut from Stephanie’s shirt. With the brace now in place, Megan’s knee should stay bent while he carried her outside.
Bunker put his knife away and got to his feet. He bent over and scooped his arms under her legs and head to pick her up. The moment he straightened up his back, the bus moved again, this time the back end lifting up a good six inches.
Stephanie shrieked.
The change in angle was unexpected and knocked him off balance. He took a quick step back to keep himself from falling over, but the sudden shift in weight from the two of them caused the bus to move yet again. Now the rear was at least a foot off the ground, he estimated, possibly more. And it was bouncing and swaying.
“No! No! No!” Stephanie said from her position on top of the bus.
Those sudden, panicked words caused the video player in the back of Bunker’s mind to flash a short clip of the belts outside, working themselves up the rocks. Then the vision changed, showing him what would happen if the ground under the bus gave way again. He didn’t hesitate, leaning forward to begin his trek to the rear door, planning to retrace his steps from earlier.
With the steeper incline ahead of him and an injured girl draped in his arms, it was much more difficult to keep his balance than before. He soon discovered that he needed to wedge his right shoulder against the side of the bus before stepping forward with his left foot. Otherwise, he would fall to the side.
Once his foot was firmly planted, he bent his right knee and pushed hard with his thigh to shift his weight to his front leg. Then he brought his back leg forward to even out his footing.
Since he couldn’t use his hands to brace himself, this deliberate wedge-step-push process was his only choice to keep from falling and causing more unwanted movement of the bus. It was an awkward traveling motion that slowed his speed considerably, but he was making progress. Two rows were behind him now.
“How’s it going in there?” Stephanie called out, hesitating only briefly before she spoke again. “Bunker? You still with me?”
“Yeah, working my way out now,” he said with diminished breath after another strenuous step. The bobbing motion of the bus seemed to be getting worse with each step. “This ain’t exactly easy in here.”
He expected Stephanie to respond to his last comment, but instead she screamed, “Over here! I need help!” It caught him by surprise.
Bunker kept marching forward, while listening to what was happening outside.
A new female’s voice spoke up. “Quick, get some ropes on that bumper.”
“You got it, ma’am,” a man’s deep voice answered.
Bunker’s heart lit up when he heard the new voices, adding strength to his legs.
“Kids, stay back,” Stephanie said. “Don’t get in their way.”
“Mom? Is Megan okay?” Jeffrey said.
�
�We’re working on it. Now, all of you, back up to the road.”
“But we wanna see,” a young girl’s voice said in response.
“No. That’s not a good idea. I need all of you to go. Now. Back to the road. Right this second.”
Bunker passed another row, stopping for a quick second to take in an extra breath. As he did, the motion of the bus quieted down considerably. The newcomers and their rope must have been helping.
He continued, passing row after row until he could see around the last row of the transport and through the back door.
A pretty brunette woman in a uniform was standing there with an outstretched arm. The badge on her chest was facing Bunker—a deputy’s badge.
Three horses stood behind her, about twenty feet away. Each of them had a rope running from their saddle to the bus. He figured they were tied to the bumper and helping to stabilize the situation.
A tall, well-built man was positioned between the two horses on the left. He was struggling to control them, with his hands on their bridles. Another guy was in charge of the remaining horse on the right. Bunker could see badges on both of their chests, even though they were in street clothes.
“Here, give me your hand,” the female cop said, shaking her fingers at him.
“Nah, it’s easier if I do it,” he said, stepping past the last row of seats.
The cop’s other arm came inside the door when he arrived with Megan. “I’ll take it from here.”
Bunker nodded. “Just watch her knee. It’s hurt pretty bad.”
He waited until the woman’s arms were under Megan before letting go. “I tried to wake her, but she’s out cold. Might have hit her head in the accident.”
“Could be a concussion. We need to get her back to town right away so Doc Marino can get a look at her,” the cop said, easing the girl through the open frame in the door.
“Oh, thank God!” Stephanie said from above as the cop carried Megan away from the bus.
Bunker slid himself out. When his feet found the dirt outside, he felt an enormous pressure vanish from his chest.
He spun and craned his neck to look up, making eye contact with Stephanie, who was on her knees.
She smiled, showing all of her teeth. “For a minute there, I thought I might never see you again.”
“Me, too. It was touch and go there for a bit, but we did it.”
“No, you did it, Jack. You.”
He couldn’t take all the credit. “With a little help from some new friends,” he said, pointing at her and then the horses and their crew. “They just showed up? Out of the blue?”
“Uh-huh. God was definitely looking out for us today. All of us.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he decided to change the subject. “The kids okay?”
“Yeah, I sent them back up to the road. They led the deputies down here,” she said, spinning onto her stomach before climbing down from the elevated position. A second later, her arms were wrapped around him and squeezing tight.
“That has to be the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispered in his ear before kissing him softly on the cheek. She let go and backed away.
“I don’t know about that.”
“It was, trust me. Not many men would’ve done what you just did. That was amazing.”
He blushed, then felt a twinge of dizziness when a wave of tingles raced across his face and neck. He wobbled a bit on his feet, feeling the trees start to move and close in around him.
Stephanie grabbed him by the arm and led him to one of the smaller rocks in the clearing. “Here, sit down a minute. You don’t look so good.”
He planted his butt on the rock and ran his hands across his head and down the back of his neck. “I’m okay. I think I’m just coming down from the adrenalin rush. It was pretty intense in there.”
“Let me get you some water,” Stephanie said before walking away with purpose in her step.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sheriff Gus Apollo tore across the town square and pushed into the horde of citizens gathered in front of Charmer’s Market and Feed Store. The moon was full, showering the faces of the night crowd with a medieval glow while he used his hands and elbows as pry-bars to advance.
Some high-pitched, excited young voices were chanting “fight, fight, fight”, bringing back vivid, painful memories from his schoolyard past.
He could almost feel the warmth of the springtime sun from long ago as he lay helpless in the grass, while the oldest of the King brothers pounded at his chin. The same brother who was close to finishing his ten-year stint in jail for selling meth and would soon be released.
The chant was coming from somewhere ahead of him, leading him to believe a group of kids were watching the scuffle in the front.
“Sheriff’s Office, coming through,” he yelled as each new layer of people presented itself. Some of the citizens heard him and moved apart; others didn’t. He pushed onward regardless. Neither the dense bodies nor the rowdiness of the crowd was going to stop him from doing his job.
When he arrived at the front, he was standing only a few feet from the store’s front door. It had been propped open with a three-foot-tall ashcan filled with cigarette butts, one of which was still smoldering with red lipstick on it.
Inside the market, two women were rolling around on the decorative concrete floor in a tangle of arms and legs. The one on top had long, platinum blonde hair that hung to the middle of her back. The woman on the bottom had shoulder-length hair—mostly gray—except for a patch of pure white strands above the ears.
The blonde had her hands up and was blocking wild punches from the skinny female on the bottom—though the term punches might not have been the best description. They looked more like wild, roundabout slaps, some of them landing on their intended target, while others only caught air.
A broomstick with a patch of blood on the handle sat on the floor next to the combatants. An open, liter-sized bottle of Pepsi was on its side nearby, soda spilling out in spurts from the end.
One of the wire-framed potato chip stands to Apollo’s right had been knocked over, sending at least a dozen bags of chips sprawling to the floor. It looked like some of them had been trampled on, spraying the contents like potato spores. A few of the chips had made their way into the mouths of onlookers, who were munching them like popcorn at the movies.
The stand of produce beyond the bags had also been toppled, showering the store with green apples and broccoli clumps. He also saw a few squashed tomatoes sitting in their own red juices.
His new deputy, Albert, was stationary on the left with his arms folded and resting on top of his generous midsection. He looked dumbfounded as the scuffle between the two women continued.
Next to him was the other member of Team Two—Dustin Brown. The pencil-thin, goofy-looking young man who stood more like a hunched-over stork than a peace officer.
If Apollo had his pick, he’d rather have the athletic members of Team Three watching his back instead of these two. Their size and strength would have come in handy if this crowd decided to turn violent.
Just behind the deputies was a ring of people, some of them wearing store-issued aprons and name tags, while others looked to be customers who’d stopped their evening shopping spree to watch the middle-aged bantam-weight fight.
With the power out, Apollo couldn’t make out the faces of the women beating on each other. The only source of light was from a series of gas-powered lanterns burning nearby, making the shadows in the vicinity dance with every flicker. The moonlight outside was also present, but its effect was limited to the area just inside the door.
The woman on her back had a store apron on, but the rest of her was a mess of tangled hair, grunts, screeches, and hand slaps.
Right then, he heard the powerful smack of several blows landing on skin, mostly on the cheeks of the female fighting from the bottom. Gus needed to end this altercation before someone got seriously hurt.
“All right, break it up!” h
e shouted, wrapping his arms around the waist of the female on top. He pulled back with force, prying her up and away from the other.
The woman on the floor rolled to her side and got up in a staggering motion, then swiped her hair out of the way to reveal her face. She took a breath and charged the other woman.
Apollo let go of his prisoner and jumped between the women to stop round two of this bout from starting. He put his hands out, landing them as stiff arms on the women’s chests. “I said, that’s enough! It’s over!”
He finally got a good look at the store employee in the brawl. It was Grace Charmer, the owner and manager. Her cheeks were covered with a string of lengthy red marks—just short of being scratches. “Grace? What’s going on here?”
She pointed at the other woman, then at the half-empty bottle of soda lying on the floor. “Miss bad dye-job over there was trying to steal from me. So I whacked her over the head with my broomstick. Then she jumped me.”
Apollo turned his eyes to Grace’s sparring partner. Blood was trickling down from a small gash above the woman’s left eyebrow.
When his eyes landed on the other person’s face, he couldn’t believe it. It was Allison Rainey, the waitress he’d been wanting to ask out on a date.
He brought his hand up to his mouth and cleared his throat to cover up his look of shock. “You’re the last person I expected to be in the middle of a fight, Allison.”
“Hello to you, too, Sheriff.”
“Why were you stealing Pepsi from Grace?”
“I wasn’t stealing. I was thirsty, so I opened the bottle and took a sip. Is there some law against drinking soda while you’re waiting in line to pay for it?”
“That’s not what happened, Sheriff,” Grace said, raising her voice and wagging her index finger at the other woman. “She was on her way to the door and was gonna walk right out. I had to stop her.”
Allison threw up her arms and began waving them as she spoke. “I was heading to the back of the line, you stupid bitch. There’s like a hundred people in here. Maybe if you knew how to run a business, you’d have more registers open so customers wouldn’t have to wait around all night to pay.”
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