Chapter 13
Thirteen
Mackenzie was holding her jacket cuffs to the heater vent so the warm air would blow up her arms. She looked like a kid, and Gideon suppressed a chuckle. Considering that the tension was still simmering between them, she might take that the wrong way.
Why couldn’t she hear what he was saying? It had to be crystal clear that she was heading for disaster. Out of pride? No, the need for vengeance had obscured everything else.
They finally edged past the glut of traffic and turned onto the only remaining passable road that would take them to the airstrip.
Gideon mused as the Jeep’s wheels sluiced along the sodden asphalt.
Clearly this was not the preferred route, as it was cracked and marred with submerged potholes.
No matter how carefully he drove, he seemed to hit every one, which reminded him his shoulder ached like mad.
Was the airstrip really still open, or had that been a comment dropped by the clerk to encourage Mackenzie to go there?
Great place to murder someone, seemed to him.
Too many witnesses to complete the job in town.
Could the assembled force of enemies be lying in wait at their destination?
The thoughts did not help him feel better in any way, but the heater and food were blessings.
And the company, even though she was fuming.
The farther away from town they got, the worse the conditions. The route was flooded in some places, and he gritted his teeth as he sailed the Jeep on through, praying the tires wouldn’t lose traction or the engine sputter.
They continued their climb. While he drove, Mackenzie kept watch for Jerry or Al in places that looked suitable for ambush points.
What they would do in such a situation, he wasn’t sure.
He was armed now with the redhead’s weapon, but a revolver would be a poor defense against a long-range rifle.
The seat belt strained to keep him in place as he navigated around mucky holes and spots where the road had begun to slough away at the edges.
“Clerk say anything else that might lead you to believe Lorraine’s boyfriend is still at the airstrip?”
She shook her head.
So they were still working off a very slim lead. Gideon held on to the hope that if the guy wasn’t there, Mackenzie would consent to depart with him. There would be no other reason to stick around unless she came up with another scheme.
“I’m beginning to get real sick of rain,” he said.
“Me too.”
At least on one small point, they agreed. He sensed a thawing in the air between them. If he could just maintain the peace. Step one, keep mouth firmly closed. Step two, avoid driving into an ambush.
The precipitation alternated between drizzle and downpour at any given moment, burdening the already stressed dam. He could practically feel the floodwaters hovering, ready to swallow them up.
The road dropped to one lane as it twisted along.
One side was a sheer cliff that had already dumped piles of stone and dirt in spots.
The other was a wooded slope. A chunk of rock the size of a bread loaf suddenly broke free and rolled in front of the Jeep.
He hit the brakes, and it missed the front fender by inches as it hurtled across and down into the trees.
He slowed to a crawl, trying to examine the trajectory the rock had taken, but it was all a swirl of rain-washed brown. A sound, or maybe it was a vibration, had him rolling down the window.
Mackenzie gripped his arm. “Did you hear something?”
He listened. “I thought I did.”
She craned to see out his window, her damp hair brushing his chin. “Helicopter?”
“Nothing, I guess.” He rolled the window back up.
But he heard her soft breathing, felt the warmth of her shoulder against his chest, and for a slender moment he forgot their perilous situation. Mackenzie Bardine had some sort of hold over him that he’d be hard-pressed to explain in any rational way.
She returned to her position and sighed. “Is it too early for more Fluffernutter crackers?”
He opened his mouth to reply when a rumble shook the car.
The dam.
It must have failed.
She gripped the armrest. He pressed the gas, waiting for the wall of water he knew was coming, and clutched the wheel against the vibrations.
The flood didn’t appear.
His mind was still groping for explanations when the landscape around them shuddered. The cliff to their right was changing.
A giant mass of brown mud and rocks broke away from the face and moved as if it were a single unit.
“Landslide!” he yelled.
Mackenzie paled, mouth pinched in fear.
There was nowhere to turn off. On one side a sliding mountain, on the other a steep grade interrupted by thickly clustered pines.
Gideon stomped on the gas. Outrunning it was their only hope.
The liquified ground rolled toward the Jeep with sickening speed.
They weren’t going to make it.
Grimly, he kept going as the rush swallowed them, inch by inch.
****
Mackenzie felt a scream bubbling up, but the onslaught impacted the Jeep like a detonating bomb.
Stunned, she held tight to avoid having her head slammed against the door. Through a curtain of brown debris she was able to discern the Jeep was being swept sideways off the road. Gideon still held the wheel in a vain attempt to control it, his arms iron taut, jaw clenched.
In a whoosh of movement the slide picked up the vehicle and sent it tumbling sideways over and over as they were pushed into the trees.
Leaves, branches, mud, and sky whirled. Her vision blurred and she lost all sense of equilibrium. Gideon reached for her hand and she clutched at his, the torrent raging around them until her ears rang.
They’d be buried alive. How long before their bodies would be discovered?
Her mother’s face appeared in her scattered thoughts. Another child to mourn. Or maybe one who would simply disappear. An even greater anguish for her parents to live with. Questions that would never be answered added to the ones they already had about Aaron’s death.
A great smash to the front slapped her hard against the seat. The airbags deployed with a pop.
Without warning, all motion stopped. The sound continued, growing fainter and fainter until it tapered off.
Mackenzie found herself staring into the sky, the Jeep having come to rest on the driver’s side.
She struggled for breath, and when she had the strength, she turned her face and whispered.
“Gideon?” Her sight was fuzzy from the violent shaking, the deflating airbag filling her view.
Was his hand in hers? For a moment, she couldn’t be sure. His squeeze to her palm left her giddy with relief. “Gid, are you . . .”
“Present,” he croaked. “Status report, Zee?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Yeah. I need one too.”
They held hands and breathed, taking stock as their faculties returned.
Gideon’s window was shattered, the needles of the pine they’d impacted poking through the fractures, cold air numbing her cheeks.
If she craned her neck, her sideways view framed a canopy of overhead branches and a patch of steely sky.
“I don’t think I’m injured much,” she said finally. “Just put through the blender. You?”
“Fit for duty, ma’am.” He let go of her hand and unbuckled his seat belt. With a lot of squirming and batting at the airbags, he positioned himself to unbuckle her and help her into an awkward crouch on the passenger seat. No unusual pain to any body part, she noted. Yet.
Gideon peered through his broken glass. “My door is crushed flat to the ground. We’re going to have to exit via yours.”
She tried the handle and shoved with her shoulder. Gideon helped but it was a wasted effort. The door was immovable, having been smashed and bent out of shape.
“Window?”
He confirmed with a nod. Reaching around her, he used the hand crank to lower the glass.
“Perks of an old-school car,” he said.
When it was opened, she stuck her head out like a gopher scenting the air.
The oozing ground had settled all around the Jeep, filling the space and cementing the vehicle in place as if it were a brick mortared into a wall.
She swallowed, feeling suddenly very small in the upheaval, and very grateful not to be dead.
Thank you, Lord.
She uncoiled herself and threaded her torso through the open window. If any more of the mountain came down, they’d be smothered. She decided to move slowly, which worked fine since her legs were quivering.
“Watch yourself,” Gideon called. “Everything’s unstable.”
“Story of my life.” When her pack was on her back, she put a foot on the open window edge and eased herself upward.
“I’ll grab whatever essentials I can reach and follow you,” he said.
She hoped the peanut butter and marshmallow supplies would be on the essentials list. It required all her power to heave herself from the Jeep and onto the most stable surface she could find, an overturned maple tree that had broken off and lay like a bridge atop the sludge.
She shimmied along its length. Gideon followed and joined her there, frowning at the landscape.
All around them was oozing, bubbling mud.
“Upward is no longer an option,” he said.
That was an understatement. What had been a steep hillside was now an even sheerer drop that looked as if it would unload more material at any moment.
She followed his pointed finger in the other direction.
He swiped at a pine needle that floated down into his hair. “I don’t see that we have much choice. We’ll have to skirt the debris as best we can and recalculate once we’re clear since we don’t have access to a vehicle anymore.” His gaze drifted to the smothered Jeep behind them.
She saw the sad pinch of his mouth. “I’m sorry about Fluffernutter, Gid.”
He shrugged. “Just a car. I’ll get another.”