Chapter Eighteen
The world shifted from a light haze to a brown blur. Wind howled through every crack in the SUV, carrying stinging particles of dust despite the closed windows and their bandanas. Eloise couldn’t see the hood, much less the road ahead. She had no idea how they were creeping forward.
Quinn slowed to a crawl. “Based on my odometer, we should be reaching where Ned thought he saw Danny.”
A loud thump hit the fender. Debris? A bird? She couldn’t tell in the darkness.
Even though Eloise had no idea why under normal conditions anyone would want to magnify their view of the West Texas dust, right now she was thankful Ryan had binoculars to watch the road ahead. “Better stop. There’s something blocking our path,” Finn called from the back seat. “I think it might be a fallen tree.”
“Great,” Quinn mumbled, edging closer until the headlights caught the obstruction. “Is that a….”
“Roof,” Finn finished for him. “Wonder where the rest of the shed is.”
“Especially since there isn’t a homestead anyplace near here.” Quinn shook his head. “We have no choice. We’ll have to move it. I don’t dare go around it, there are a lot of cattle grills on this stretch of road. We could mess up a tire or worse, hit a cow.” Quinn reached for his door handle.
“Wait.” Eloise grabbed his arm. “You can’t go out there alone.”
“She’s right,” Finn reached behind him and grabbed a roll of rope. “We all go. Safety in numbers or we might all be blown to the land of Oz.”
Taking a few short moments to unwind the rope, he handed the end to Quinn who quickly knotted it around his waist before doing the same for Eloise.
“You two climb out, then I’ll step out and tie it around me.”
Quinn nodded.
She was thankful the front seats were captain’s chairs or she would have had a hell of a time climbing over the console. The moment they stepped outside, the wind nearly knocked them over. Stinging particles of dust burned what little skin was exposed.
Hanging onto Quinn for dear life, who hung onto the door handle, Eloise said her prayers as Finn quickly tied the rope around himself and shouted for Quinn to move forward.
With the winds blowing sideways with the strength of a bulldozer, they fought their way to the front of the vehicle. The small roof, twisted with other debris, was just big enough to cause a problem.
Positioning themselves around the top section, Quinn shouted over the wind, “On three!”
Even with three of them, they struggled to lift the first section. All Eloise could think was even if they succeeded in clearing the road, what would stop it all from blowing right back in front of them? For the hell of it, she stopped and shouted into the air, “Danny!” Nothing.
“There won’t be any hearing in this wind. Let’s shout on three. One, two, three.”
“Danny!” three voices echoed in the wind. Again, nothing.
“Let’s get this thing out of here and get on the road.” Quinn turned and gripped the edges again. This time they managed to clear to one side. Fighting the wind, they continued to toss the debris aside.
Just as they cleared the last obstacle, a sudden gust sent Finn stumbling backward.
“Finn!” Eloise screamed, watching a dark blob hurtle through the air straight toward Quinn’s cousin.
Clutching his shoulder, Finn went down—hard.
Rushing forward, Eloise could see a dark splotch—blood—seeping between his fingers. It took another minute to see a shard of metal had caught him.
“Get him in the car!” Quinn ordered.
Together they half-carried Finn to the back of the SUV. Inside, overhead light on, Eloise pulled out the first aid kit and said a fast prayer.
“Is anyone near-mile point twenty-two? Out.” Quinn stared out the window at the swirling mess. He tried one more time. Hearing only static, he gave up and put the radio down.
“How bad?” She gently fingered around Finn’s wound.
“Just a scratch.” But Finn’s pale face betrayed him.
“We need to pull out the scrap.” Quinn was addressing Eloise, but leveled his gaze with Finn.
His face ashen, Finn nodded.
Sucking in a deep breath and blowing it out slowly, Quinn gripped the exposed edge and tugged it out.
Blood gushed, and Eloise pressed gauze against it, putting all her strength into stemming the flow.
Quinn rummaged through a bag and pulled out a shop towel. “They’re clean. We can use this to help stop the bleeding.”
Nodding, Eloise placed the cloth over the bloody gauze, then taped his shoulder. Needing more pressure, she unrolled an ace bandage and wrapped him as best she could. “I’d better stay back here and keep the pressure on.”
Squinting, Quinn froze, staring ahead. “There!” He pointed through the windshield. “Something’s moving. Could be Danny.”
To Eloise, she couldn’t tell if it was her brother, a horse, a scarecrow, or wishful thinking moving ahead.
Quinn was already reaching for his door again.
Eloise caught his hand. “Together,” she said. “We go together.”
“No. You need to stay with Finn.” He quickly untied Eloise and Finn from the rope and leaving a good deal of slack, wrapped it around the driver’s seat.
“Be careful,” Eloise whispered.
Nodding, he smiled at her. “Always.”
It only took a few moments for Quinn’s back to completely disappear from view. How did things get so bad so fast? Still pressing on Finn’s shoulder, she could see some of his color returning. Not enough to be normal, but enough to tell her the pressure was working.
Glancing up, she tried to see any sign of Quinn or Danny. The brown wall was blinding. The rope pulled tight and she said another silent prayer. Please God, I cannot lose Danny or Quinn. I just can’t.
Blast. Quinn squinted in the distance. What he had hoped was Danny, was nothing more than the longest and skinniest piece of tumbleweed he’d ever seen. Gripping the rope to return to the car and wishing he’d thought to grab a pair of work gloves, he struggled to put one foot in front of the other. When he finally reached his uncle’s SUV and grabbed onto the door handle, the wind caught it just right and for half a second he thought the dang thing was going to blow off its hinges.
Slamming the door hard behind him, he looked into Eloise’s soulful eyes, shocked when she threw her arms around him.
“Do not ever do that again.”
Before he could utter a word, overhead a loud crack reverberated around them.
Pulling away, Eloise looked up. “What the hell was that?”
Lifting his gaze to the ceiling, Quinn wished the tumbleweed had been Danny and they were all on their way back to the ranch. “If we’re lucky, lightening.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Hell may be about to come crashing down on us.”
“Hell?” Poor Eloise looked like she couldn’t take any more bad news.
“Sound could be an electrical pole about to snap.”
“We can’t stay here,” Finn ground out. “Either go forward or go back, but we can’t stay here.”
“Forward.” Quinn straightened in his seat and turning the ignition, hit the gas. The car lunged before once again crawling along the dark road at the pace of a sick snail. “Eloise, I want you to tie yourself and Finn to the rope again. If anything happens to… the car and we have to get out in a hurry, I don’t want to lose either of you.”
“Not me,” Finn winced. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not sitting up to tie that thing around me.”
Quinn hesitated. “Fair enough.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll tie it if we stop again.” Her brows buckled, her mouth hung open no doubt ready to protest when he beat her to the punch line. “I promise, first chance we get to stop somewhere safe, I’ll link with you.”
With a grunt and a nod, she quickly untied the rope from the seat, attached it to herself, then reattached it to the seat. “Done.”
“Good.”
As if Mother Nature was laughing at their efforts, a massive crack split the air.
Finn yelled, “Drive!”
Knowing what was coming next, he watched the expression of sheer horror take over Eloise’s face as a power pole seemed to dip in slow motion.
Quinn gunned the engine; whether or not they were on the road, the side, or about to tangle with more tumbleweed didn’t matter, he had to get Eloise to safety.
Pressing harder on the gas pedal, he kept an eye on the rearview mirror. The falling pole crashed down only inches behind them, then, as if it weighed nothing more than a feather, flew into the air again.
What goes up must come down. If pushing the pedal any closer to the floorboard would make the SUV go faster, he would push his foot right through the floor. Only a few yards down the road, the pole came crashing down once again. The pole’s second landing jolted the SUV hard right. Quinn fought the wheel, squinting through the brown haze. Where the heck was the dang road?
Movement caught his eye. Unless tumbleweed had suddenly grown arms, they just might have found what they’d been looking for—someone waving frantically.
“Danny?” Eloise leaned forward as much as possible without releasing the pressure on Finn’s shoulder.
Easing on the brakes, Quinn edged closer. Two figures materialized in the headlights. They were pressed against the back end of a small car. Looking closer, not just the back end, the nose of the car was buried in the ditch and the trunk was at least four feet off the ground. At least he thought it was a ditch. Now he understood why Danny and a young man who looked barely out of his teens were on the road and not taking shelter in the vehicle.
Quinn hit the brakes. The kid with Danny looked terrified.
“Get them in here!” Eloise was already reaching for her door.
“Wait.” Quinn grabbed the rope still tied to the seat, but it was too late, Eloise was out the door, the wind nearly taking her off her feet.
Danny rushed forward, the wind pushing him sideways as he fought to walk a straight line. “El, stay put. The road is washed out!”
“What?” she cried back but the voices were muffled in the wind.
The next gust hit like a freight train. Eloise’s feet left the ground, the rope pulling taut as she slid sideways. Danny lunged for her but missed.
“Eloise!” Quinn flew out of the seat, hanging onto the rope. For one horrible moment, he couldn’t tell if she was still attached. Then he felt her weight, heard her cry out. The rope stretched, threatening to snap.
“I’ve got her!” Danny’s voice carried through the darkness. “Pull!”
Together they drew her back, all three tumbling into the vehicle. The young man Danny had been helping squeezed in behind them.
“When Tim saw the road was washed out and slammed on his brakes, the car fishtailed off the road.”
“That wouldn’t have been so bad,” the young kid’s eyes looked like he’d seen a ghost, “but then the side of the road just seemed to open up. I thought for sure we were going to be swallowed up.”
“We got out as fast as we could.” Danny spoke mostly to his sister. “But we didn’t dare try to actually walk anywhere in this.”
“No.” Eloise shook her head. “You did the right thing.”
“Excuse me,” Finn said through clenched teeth. “We can catch up with each other later. Right now, we need to get the hell home. That pole may not be the only one wanting to dance with us.”
Quinn threw the SUV in reverse, fighting the wind to turn around. Right about now, he would give anything if Scotty could just beam them up.