by Nick Pirog
“We need to slow this thing down.”
“I don’t know how.”
“We need to get rid of all the dead weight.”
“The sandbags!” I shouted.
There were eight in total, each weighing thirty pounds. Wheeler and I started picking them up and heaving them over the side.
The wind whipped us violently, and I rammed my side into the top edge of the basket. Blinding pain shot through my torso.
“You okay?” Wheeler asked.
“My ribs.”
I gritted my teeth but forced myself to my feet. I checked the altimeter. Seventeen hundred feet.
I counted until we hit twelve hundred.
“Five hundred feet in sixteen seconds.”
“That’s over twenty miles per hour!” Wheeler shouted. “Why are we going faster?”
I didn’t know. Maybe the wind.
I looked down at Jerry. He probably weighed 150 pounds.
“Stand up,” I said.
He gazed up at me. Shook his head.
“Stand the fuck up!”
He wouldn’t so I heaved him up myself.
I turned and looked at Wheeler.
She fixed me with a panicked stare.
I turned Jerry around and pushed him up against the basket wall.
“No!” he screamed, whipping his arms back and forth. “Think about Patrick and Tyler! They need their father!”
His words gave me a half second’s pause, but that was long enough for a gust of wind to send the balloon nearly sideways. I was tossed to the other side of the basket and I smashed into Wheeler, who went down in a heap.
I wasn’t sure how many seconds passed since I last checked the altimeter. I pushed myself up and glanced over the side. Trees and houses were much bigger than the last time I gazed down. I guessed we had fifteen seconds at best. Ten at worst.
I started to count.
One.
Directly below us was a field. Better than a rock quarry, but we were still gonna hit hard.
Two.
I hauled Wheeler to her feet.
Plenty of people survived impacts going faster than twenty miles per hour. Most of those people were in cars and had seatbelts on and airbags, but yeah, most of them survived. At the same time, a lot of people died in impacts going much slower.
Three.
If we could keep ourselves in the basket, we had a much better chance of surviving.
My instinct was to hug Wheeler as tightly as possible, but logic told me to keep my distance. At twenty miles per hour we were each other's biggest threat.
Four.
I pushed her toward the corner nearest me and screamed, “Try to hold onto that rope! Use your legs as shock absorbers!”
She nodded.
Five.
I grabbed the parachute rope with my hand, dug my feet into the bottom of the basket and bent my knees.
Six.
I locked eyes with Wheeler.
She was crying.
Seven.
“It’s gonna be okay.”
Eight.
“Bend your knees!” I yelled.
Nine.
“We’re gonna be just—”
I never made it to ten.
“Were you really gonna do it?” Wheeler asked, holding her arm to her stomach. “Were you really gonna throw him over?”
We were sitting on the ground, leaning against the hot air balloon basket, which was on its side, the parachute billowing in the light wind that remained from the storm. I had a huge gash on the side of my head and my left knee was hurting, but I’d escaped serious injury.
“I’m not sure,” I said, answering Wheeler’s question.
When Jerry had mentioned his children it had given me serious pause. I had to weigh that burden with the prospect of Wheeler’s and my own survival.
But as fate would have it, I never had a chance to make a decision one way or another.
“Let me see your arm,” I said.
She held her left arm up with her right. There was a giant lump halfway up her forearm.
“It’s broken,” she said.
“How would you know?” I said. “You’re a veterinarian.”
She smiled weakly, then asked, “Are you gonna go check on him?”
I let out a long exhale and pushed myself to my feet. I couldn’t put much pressure on my left leg—I was guessing my knee was badly sprained—and I began limping toward Jerry’s body.
With Wheeler’s and my combined weight on one side, the basket had hit the ground at an angle. This turned out to be a blessing as Wheeler and I had both somehow stayed in the basket. Jerry, on the other hand, who had been clutching the high side of the basket on first impact, had been flung into the air.
As I limped toward his body, I could hear a soft moaning.
He was alive.
At least for the time being.
When I finally reached him, I cringed.
He was a mess.
A bone splintered through one of his shins, his hips seemed out of line with the rest of his body, and his head was caked in red.
A siren slowly began to intensify, and I turned and glanced back over my shoulder. Two ambulances were driving through the field, kicking up dust. Someone must have seen our balloon plummet to the ground.
I knelt down next to Jerry.
His body started to shake.
I reached out and gently touched his arm.
I don’t know if he knew I was there. And I don’t know if he deserved to have someone by his side when he took his last few breaths.
But he was family.
Chapter Thirty-One
September 19th, 2016
Tarrin, Missouri
* * *
“That is some good looking corn,” Randall said, twirling a golden cob in his hands. “Man oh man, is that some good looking corn.”
According to Randall, it was his best harvest to date. Nearly 160 bushels per acre, which was right on par with the yields of GMO corn.
Randall had already sold our entire harvest, save for a few bushels, which we would eat, give away, feed to the pigs, and use as seed next summer. As for the sorghum, Randall wanted to wait another couple weeks before harvesting, but he had high hopes for that as well.
Presently, we were celebrating. Both the harvest and that, as of two days ago, the Humphries Farm finished probate and was now officially mine.
Randall and I were manning a large grill, roasting about fifty ears of corn. Alexa was on another grill, cooking up enough hotdogs and hamburgers to feed the seven adults, four children, and two pigs.
Wheeler’s arm was in a cast, but she was doing her best to help Joan set the two picnic tables delivered the previous day. So far, Joan had put on a brave face, even cracking a smile here and there. It must have felt good to get out of the house for a few hours, to take a break from waiting on her husband hand and foot.
Turned out that Jerry didn’t die. Though he probably wished he had.
He broke his spine in two places. He was a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his days. He would need a full-time nurse to feed him, to bathe him, to empty his colostomy bag. He couldn’t talk, but according to Joan and the straw Jerry blew in to communicate, he had all his wits about him. I couldn’t think of a worse suffering. He was locked in a biological prison. A skeletal Alcatraz.
Which was why, after the events of the balloon crash, Wheeler and I had decided that Joan didn’t need to know what Jerry had done, didn’t need to know that her husband was responsible for the deaths of six people. It would only make her life that much harder. And I didn’t want Patrick and Tyler to know their father was a murderer. I didn’t want them to carry that burden the rest of their lives.
Like Jerry’s wife and children, the town of Tarrin would also continue on without knowing the truth. For most of the town, the wounds had healed. Nothing could be gained by divulging the real motive behind the Save-More murders.
As for Mike Zernan’
s murder, it would remain an open investigation, though without any family to champion his case, it had already faded from most of the town’s consciousness.
I glanced over my shoulder to where Patrick and Tyler were running around with Randall’s twin girls in the dirt. The four of them were chasing Harold and May—now each weighing close to sixty pounds—who were squealing in delight.
The remaining adults were Bree and her boyfriend, Billy.
After stalking him for nearly nine months, true to Bree’s plan, Billy and his girlfriend had broken up, and she had slid right in.
But that wasn’t all that Bree had been up to over the course of the past month. She’d also been busy uploading the recording she’d taken at Simon Beach and posting it to a website called Reddit. She’d cut and spliced the recording so that it was only Chief Eccleston, Mayor Van Dixon, Greg Mallory, and David Ramsey talking about the cover-up. She eliminated anything said by Wheeler or me, as well as anything related to the Save-More murders. Then she anonymously uploaded the file with pictures of the four and titled it “Lunhill rBGH Cover-up.”
The post quickly gained traction and within a few days, the mainstream media jumped on the story. By week’s end, downtown Tarrin was teeming with news vans from all over the country. It wasn’t long after that when the FBI took notice.
The story dominated the news cycle for the next few weeks and so began the fallout:
Both Chief Eccleston and Mayor Van Dixon resigned from their posts and were under investigation for a slew of different charges, including government fraud, kickbacks, and of course, public corruption.
Greg Mallory was also under investigation, but having not held a position in government, he would probably receive the most leniency of the bunch.
As for David Ramsey, after Lunhill stock plummeted 45 percent, the board of directors voted him out as president and CEO. His stock options were worth $670 million, which would come in handy when hiring a team of lawyers to fight the onslaught of lawsuits that awaited him.
As for Lunhill, there were rumors swirling that pharma giant Bayer would buy them out by year’s end.
But the person facing the most serious charges was Victoria Page. An FBI forensic accountant had sifted through twenty years of her work as Tarrin comptroller. He uncovered that she had not only laundered nearly $20 million in payoffs from Lunhill, but she’d also siphoned off another $13 million from Tarrin taxpayers.
She’d been indicted on seven different charges and, if convicted, would most likely spend the next twenty years behind bars.
Jerry’s involvement in the embezzlement scheme, setting up bank accounts and trusts, and moving money all over the globe, had yet to surface. But it was only a matter of time. At some point in Victoria’s trial, or should she plea, the story would come out.
But hopefully, in the wake of Jerry’s tragic hot air balloon accident and that he would need help wiping his ass for the remainder of his life, they would let him slide.
After we ate, I grabbed two beers from the fridge and made my way toward Randall. He was sitting between his wife and Wheeler.
I handed him one of the beers and said, “Take a walk with me.”
He glanced at me suspiciously, shrugged, then took the beer.
Wheeler tried to fight back a smile.
Randall stood up and the two of us started toward the charred remains of the barn. I never did find out who burned it down. It could have been Chief Eccleston. Or it could have been Matt Miller. There’s even a chance it could have been started by a wayward firework from one of the neighbors.
I would never know.
“What’s going on?” Randall asked.
I ignored him and just kept walking.
A few feet later, there was a soft pitter-pattering and I turned around.
It was Harold and May.
I crouched down on my haunches and let the two attack me with kisses. “Hi, guys,” I said. I gave them each a long rub, then a kiss on the snout.
“The looney bin, I tell you,” Randall said with a laugh.
I stood and wiped away a bit of moisture on my cheek with the back of my hand.
“Are you crying?” Randall asked.
Again, I ignored him.
I continued walking, Randall following next to me in silence. We pushed through the now earless stalks of corn, walked for a good ten minutes, until we came to the fence that signaled the far edge of the Humphries Farm.
I took a sip of beer, then pointed with the bottle at the farm next door.
“What do you see?” I asked.
Randall cocked his head at me and said, “I guess I see a four-hundred-acre farm.”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I handed it to him.
He set his beer on the fence post and unfolded the paper.
I said, “No, that’s your four-hundred-acre farm.”
He blinked, his head shaking from side to side, then exclaimed, “What? How?”
“Let’s just call it reparations,” I said, then added, “from our friends at Lunhill.”
The $2 million that David Ramsey had given me in exchange for my silence—and true to my word, I had destroyed everything that Darcy Felding had given me—had covered the cost of the farm, a remodel of the farmhouse, and two brand new tractors.
Randall leaned forward and pulled me into a giant hug, then he lifted me off the ground.
“Be careful,” I wheezed, “I’m not as big as I used to be.”
After nearly four months, I was finally back to my original weight.
Randall set me down, wiped his eyes, and said, “I can’t believe this.”
I smiled, then said, “And you’re gonna have to rip down this fence.”
He looked confused.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
“What?”
“This isn’t me. I’m not a farmer.”
I’d come to Missouri a broken man. But the Humphries Farm, Randall, Wheeler, Bree, Harold, and May…
They’d healed me.
“What about Wheeler?” Randall asked.
“She knows.”
I’d told her a couple weeks earlier. She made no plea to come with me and I made no plea for her to join. I think we both understood what the relationship had been. A treasured summer. Never to be forgotten.
“What about these guys?” He looked down at Harold and May.
They were both sitting down on their rumps staring up at me with their big brown eyes. I think they sensed something was happening.
I shook out my arms, took a halting breath and said, “I was hoping you would look after them.” My voice carried a slight quiver.
“Of course I will. And the girls already love them.”
Then he asked, “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where are you gonna go?”
“France.”
Lacy was all the family I had left. But she was also all the family I needed.
I said, “My sister is pregnant.”
Randall smiled. “Uncle Thomas?”
“Yep.” I grinned. “Uncle Thomas.”
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Author’s Note
The idea for this book came to me in the last days of December 2015. I live in South Lake Tahoe, but I’d spent Christmas (and my birthday, which is on Christmas) with my family in Colorado. I have two dogs, so instead of flying, I’d driven the grueling sixteen hours. I left Colorado to return home on Dec. 28th, but I didn’t want to do the drive all in one fell swoop, so I stopped at a hotel in Primm, a town near the Nevada/California state line, about thirty minutes from Las Vegas.
A couple hours after arriving at the hotel—a grimy, less than desirable room in a dingy casino—my stomach star
ted to gurgle. You know that feeling, the “Dear God, please don’t let this be what I think it is” feeling.
But it was.
Food poisoning.
I spent the rest of the night “sick” and slept on the floor in the bathroom.
It was, in a word, awful.
The next day, still seven hours from Tahoe, I pondered trying to drive home. But I couldn’t go fifteen minutes without getting “sick” and I still had to drive through Death Valley, which is more than a hundred miles without services. There was no way I was going to make it.
So I got on the internet, and started searching for a room at another hotel. The thought of being “sick” in the room I was currently staying in for another night was terrifying. I was able to get a room at a four-star hotel in Las Vegas for $150, which wasn’t all that bad. At least I would be sick in a nice room and I could take a bath. (I like baths.)
But first I would have to drive thirty minutes to Vegas without getting sick. It was a close call, that’s all I can say. Seconds separated me from getting “sick” in my car and getting “sick” in the hotel lobby bathroom.
Long story short, I ended up getting the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. I’m not sure if it was food poisoning or the flu, but I spent the next FIVE days confined to my room at the hotel. I was so weak and my stomach cramps so severe that I could barely lift myself off the bed. And I was far too sick to try to drive to a cheaper hotel, so I continued to pay $150 day after day.
But, here is the worst part: I had my two dogs with me!!
So I had to force myself to take them outside to go to the bathroom four or five times a day. I can just imagine what some of the people who saw me thought. Me walking my dogs, doubled over, Lamaze breathing because my stomach was cramping so badly, yelling, “Just poop already!”
So from Dec. 28th until January 3rd, I was confined to a bed in a Las Vegas hotel.
It was a nightmare. (A nightmare that cost me almost $1000.)
But two good things did come out of the experience. While sitting in my hotel bed, I came up with two great book ideas. One was for Speed of Souls, the book I will be writing next about a dog that dies and comes back as a cat. And the other one was Show Me.