Chapter 4
It was the pain that woke Hardcastle, and even in those first few moments of consciousness, he thought that fact ironic, as it had probably been the pain that had caused him to pass out in the first place. God, how it hurt, and it wasn't only his belly now, although he couldn't understand just yet why the right side of his chest hurt so badly; broken ribs without a doubt, at least two if not more, but how had they come to be broken? He happened to be lying on that side – of course, that would be the side that gave him some relief from the abdominal pain – so he rolled to his back, and the agony the movement kindled almost caused him to pass out again.
He was cold, too; it was bitterly cold, wherever he was right now, and he had no idea where his overcoat had gone. He lay still, breathing heavily, eyes closed tightly as he tried to gather himself together. Then he opened his eyes to a darkness so intense that if it had not been for the luminous dial of his wristwatch barely visible at his side, he might have thought he'd been blinded.
Feeling dazed and bewildered, he struggled to herd together scattered fragments of memory, trying to figure out why he now found himself sprawled on some sort of silky material that did nothing to disguise the hardness of the surface beneath, when only a few minutes ago he'd been lying under his overcoat on the back seat of the Edsel, head resting against the pillow McCormick had miraculously produced out of the trunk. His last clear remembrance was feeling the gentle bump of tires as McCormick had carefully eased the Edsel across a long old wooden bridge, the kind he remembered all too well from his Arkansas childhood. Bridges such as those were to be found on old back roads across the country, crossing constantly flowing streams of water that had carved deep paths for themselves over the hundreds of years of their existence, although it had seemed odd to come across one here in the middle of modern California.
Hardcastle had been wide awake by the time they had reached the bridge, curled on his right side because the pain wasn't as pronounced in that position. Still, he was completely unprepared when, just as it seemed they were finally to the other side, the bridge had suddenly collapsed beneath them. He remembered hearing McCormick cry out a terrified, "Oh, my God, Judge, look out!" just before he himself began rolling onto the seat back in an abrupt slide toward the rear window. Instinctively he'd grabbed for the underside of the seat, clinging tightly for fear that the glass would give way under his weight if he allowed himself to fall that far.
His grip had held as the car had come crashing against the side of the riverbank – a very deep riverbank, or so it seemed, as the car had become completely perpendicular, hanging only by the front wheelbase that had barely cleared the bridge before disaster struck. Then, slowly, the car slid down the bank for what seemed like forever, picking up speed in obvious freefall until it crashed to a sudden bone-breaking stop, so brutal in its violence that, despite the padded cushioning on which he still lay, he felt a sudden searing stitch in his side and a violent rekindling of the pain in his abdomen. His fingers lost their grip and he began sliding helplessly toward the glass, but now the car was falling, falling, crashing backwards down with a splash into water rushing over rocks and sand, so that he rolled right across the glass and onto the upended roof. And that was where his memories ended, in a swirling mist of terrible pain and uncomprehending terror ...
But now his mind was clear, with a complete recollection of where he was and how he had come to be there, and immediately he was overwhelmed with an alarm every bit as intense as his unrelenting pain. Where was McCormick? He lay still, listening, but there was no sound that could not be accounted for by natural elements: the strangely muted rushing of river water, overhead a fierce staccato tapping on metal that, he suddenly realized, could only be the pounding of rain. When had that begun? He had a memory, just before the car had crashed, of a full moon surrounded by a few clouds, silver-lined in the moonlight, visible through the back window on the driver's side. Just how long had he been unconscious? How long had it been raining, and just what effect would it have on the river they were currently trapped in? And where the hell was McCormick?
Tentatively he called out in a gentle whisper, because that was as loud as he thought he could handle right now, "Kiddo?" There was no answer but the rushing water and the falling rain. He tried again, a little louder, "McCormick?" Still no answer, so that he lifted his head, becoming aware of an incipient headache, and tried once more, somehow mustering up the strength to make it a full-fledged yell, "McCormick!" But his voice was the only human sound to be heard.
He laid his head back again, conscious of a faint aroma of gasoline, and he wondered if that might be the source of his headache. He brought his watch up and focused on the hour and minute hands that both stood straight up, one in almost perfect alignment with the other: midnight. So he had been out almost ... an hour? Shaken, he realized there were still a few pieces missing, for surely the pain alone could not have kept him unconscious for that length of time.
Ah, well, it didn't matter, he was awake now, and he had things to do, if only he could make his beat-up, pain-filled body cooperate. First of all, he had to find McCormick. With that thought lodged firmly in his mind, he thought about his next step. Finally, with a vague plan of action in place, he remained on his back – he didn't think there was any way he could do this on his belly – as he brought his feet up and slowly began to push himself toward the front of the car, his hands trying to find some sort of purchase against the smooth material of the headliner on which he lay. He was alarmed to feel the roof shift beneath him, a slight swaying motion that revealed just how precarious their anchorage actually was, but he shoved that knowledge to the back of his mind. He had no time for that now.
He had been lying crossways, in alignment with the seats overhead, with his head away from the driver's side of the car, and he had to angle a bit as he painfully wriggled his way backwards toward the area below the front seat, a thin film of sweat beginning to coat his forehead. Almost immediately he came to a stop as his right hand, scrabbling blindly for a handhold, hit something solid that seemed to sway a little at the sudden contact. Cautiously groping, he touched something relatively smooth, its surface a little gritty against his fingertips, and reluctantly he brought his hand up and around the unknown object, only to discover that it was too wide to be encircled within his grasp. There was a slightly nubby texture to the side beneath his fingers, and his heart came up in his throat as he realized just what he was holding: a leather shoe, hanging loosely beside him with the toe caught against a fold in the headliner, the dead weight of the foot it encased keeping it more or less secured.
Sickened and appalled, Hardcastle released the shoe, his heart pounding against his ribs as he tried to absorb this unnerving discovery. He steadied his breathing, sternly reminding himself that he had once been a traffic cop, a professional at this sort of thing, although it had been at least twenty-five years since he had had to crawl into overturned wreckage to check for survivors. He had found them, too, more often than not, and he told himself firmly that there was no reason to panic at this point, despite the disturbing memories that had immediately crowded into his mind at his first recognition of what the shoe signified.
Grimly forcing himself to remain calm and detached, he once again began to inch his body toward the driver's side of the car. He had only moved a few inches when something brushed against his face; he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he reached for this new discovery, already knowing what he would find: a hand, its curled fingers just brushing the roof beside his head, attached to an arm dangling limply from somewhere overhead, still clad in a jacket sleeve that Hardcastle could see in his mind's eye even now, in a discreetly-patterned dark gray.
That's when his detachment deserted him once and for all – or at least, that's when it should have. But Hardcastle was made of sterner stuff than that; for McCormick's sake alone, he could not afford to let himself fall apart now. Moving forward a few inches so that the arm hung suspended directly beside his chest, he slid his hand down the sleeve until it came to rest against the bare flesh of a wrist. Hardcastle took a deep breath as his fingers searched delicately, fearfully, for a pulse – and he nearly passed out with relief upon finding one, strong and regular, beating steadily against his fingertips.
Swallowing with difficulty, Hardcastle brought his other hand up, casting around in the frigid air until his fingers connected with a mass of curls, where they remained entangled for a few brief seconds as Hardcastle grimly tamped down his emotions. Then the gently probing fingers followed the hair toward the flesh of the forehead, stopping as they came across a lump the size of an egg somewhere above McCormick's right eye.
Hardcastle brought his hand down abruptly, and thought hard for a minute. Then he took the hand that still hung limply beside him and pushed up the sleeves of both jacket and shirt, the shirt cuff button popping off in the process. He gripped the forearm tightly, and with his other hand, he took a substantial portion of flesh and pinched as hard as he could, his fingernails digging deeply into the skin and underlying muscle. There was a definite flinching, an involuntary reaction to the sensation of pain, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Then, sliding back to his earlier position, he tried the same test on the leg hanging there, with similar results. He rested for a minute, panting, as he gathered his strength; now that he had some idea of what he was dealing with, it was time he moved on to the main event.
He laid his head back against the headliner, thoughtfully considering what his next move should be. It was clear that McCormick was trapped in his lap belt, bent double from the waist, hanging down as dead weight from the driver's seat. Hardcastle's own admittedly unreliable testing seemed to indicate no obvious back or neck injuries, but without any light, there was no way to be sure about other damage, such as broken bones or cuts. Still, he had felt no signs of dampness, as might be expected with any bleeding, and everything seemed to be in one piece. None of it really mattered anyway, since McCormick had to come down now, regardless of any injuries, hidden or otherwise, that he might have sustained. He'd been in that position for far too long already.
Hardcastle swallowed once more, this time in anticipation of an extremely unpleasant thirty minutes or so, and carefully positioned himself so that he was lying directly beneath the area between the front seat and the dash – or at least where that area must be, judging by where McCormick's body was hanging. It was all so difficult, trying to maneuver in the darkness like this, when even the slightest movement produced more spasms of intense, increasingly lancet-like pain. He was just about to vent his frustration in strong and colorful invective, when the line came into his mind about how it was better to light a candle than curse the darkness. And then he remembered the flashlight in the glove compartment.
As far as Hardcastle was concerned, both candle and darkness could be cursed if the circumstances warranted, and a single exasperated "Dammit!" echoed through the car's interior as he began the tedious process of sliding himself closer to the other end of the dashboard. Rolling to his left side, he stretched his right arm toward where he estimated the windshield to be, and was startled to find his hand going straight through to land against cold, solid, rain-lashed rock. He began to feel around, carefully negotiating his way around jagged, broken pieces of glass that rimmed the windshield's metal lining. Reaching down past the edge of the lining, he found his hand plunging into icy cold water, lapping freely just below the edge of the upturned roof. There could be no more than a few inches clearance between the water and the roof of the car, which bode them no good if the river should rise above its current level.
Heaving a depressed sigh, he dried his hand against his shirt, then rolled onto his back and reached up with both hands to where he was reasonably sure the glove compartment was located, ignoring with difficulty the protests both his ribs and his stomach were making at the effort. He found the latch, carefully releasing it so that its contents would not escape through the broken windshield and into the water, and reached in for the flashlight, still wrapped in the folded map. Tossing the map toward the back of the car, he flicked on the flashlight, aiming its reassuringly strong beam up to where an unconscious McCormick dangled from his unyielding restraint.
Hardcastle studied him carefully, the way his jacket had become twisted in and around the seat belt so that the latch was nowhere to be seen, the almost blood-red flush that suffused his swollen face as a result of his head being suspended beneath his body for such a long period of time. Then Hardcastle reached into his pocket and fished out his Swiss Army knife, thankful that it had not been lost during the accident. He winced at the motion, and then set his mouth into a grim line; that was the last time he could afford to think about the pain. No doubt this was going to hurt, what he was about to do, but he could only allow it to affect him once he had McCormick safely free and down, not before. Finally, with great deliberation, he lay down the flashlight and began to roll himself over and up onto his knees.
Hardcastle could not later recall just how he had managed to accomplish what he did. He did remember making it to his knees, his head in firm contact with the seat above him. He remembered trying to hold McCormick's upper body against the seat so that he would not fall headfirst when he was released from his nylon-and-metal restraints. He remembered the way the power cord from the radar detector had inexplicably become entwined in the seat belt, the detector itself swinging to and fro between them. He remembered a curly head lolling helplessly against his shoulder as he reached up to cut the seat belt. Finally, he could remember McCormick's limp body slamming down against him, an explosion of agonizing pain, an impression that he was falling a great distance – and nothing more, for a long, long time.
When he came again to his senses, he was on his left side, his overcoat pulled haphazardly across his body. He hurt dreadfully, but not as badly as when McCormick had collapsed into him; after a few minutes spent in regaining a tenuous self-control, he was able to take note of his surroundings. He became aware of the flashlight that lay beneath his right hand, and he picked it up, tentatively sliding the switch forward and wondering as he did so just when he'd had the sense to turn it off. To his surprise, the flashlight shone full strength; he aimed it in the direction he was facing – and there, clearly illuminated in its beam, was McCormick.
It was as it had been the night before, when he had discovered McCormick sitting against all expectation in the desk chair in the den at home. The difference, of course, was that this time, McCormick was unconscious, lying on his back near where the back glass met the roof, his head slightly turned toward the front of the car. The blanket he had retrieved from the car trunk hours ago had been carelessly flung over him, and the pillow on which his head lay was slightly askew, but at least he was warm, and dry, and well out of harm's way, for now at least. He could only have arrived at his makeshift bed through Hardcastle's own efforts, a feat so unbelievable that it seemed to Hardcastle nothing short of a miracle.
Hardcastle took a few minutes to scrutinize his friend, noting the gentle rise and fall of his chest; the drawn paleness of his face, so different from that swollen ruddiness of before; the darkening bruised-looking knot plainly visible over his right eye. There was a sudden spark of memory, the frightening dream from the night before, complete with red shards and trailing red and blue streams of light, but there were still no signs of cuts or blood on McCormick's face, or anywhere else on his body, as far as Hardcastle could see from such a cursory examination. At least slightly reassured by what he had observed in the beam of the flashlight, Hardcastle turned it off and closed his eyes, the intense pain he experienced now fighting a losing battle against the comfort of knowing that, no matter what happened next, at least at this point in time they were somehow still alive, still in one piece, and still together.