point the road narrowed slightly and was far more curvy. Amos eased back to a real 65. He saw the car ahead of him-a pale yellow vehicle of some kind-approaching in the opposite lane, but he didn’t worry about it-didn’t consider it at all. He saw the approaching car and assumed whoever was in it saw him, too. Bright red Mack gravel trucks are hard to miss.
But then, when he was almost on top of the car-a Honda-it turned left directly in front of him. He saw now that the pale yellow Honda was driven by a woman-a gray-haired woman about the same age as Amos. At the very last moment, she glanced up and saw the truck. In that electric instant, he saw the look of horror flash across her face; saw her lips form themselves into a surprised O; saw her eyes open wide, shocked and disbelieving.
Looking for a way to avoid hitting her, Amos checked the left lane, but now there was another car in that lane, a cop car with flashing lights that was speeding toward both the Honda and Amos’s truck. By then, the Honda was fully astraddle the right-hand lane, directly in the path of the speeding Mack truck. Amos Brubaker had split seconds to make his decision. Between T-boning the seemingly stationary Honda or crashing head-on into an oncoming vehicle, the woman’s Honda presented the least lethal choice.
Almost standing on the brake pedal, Amos clung to the wheel and tried to keep the truck and its add-on trailer on the road. He had dodged enough-or maybe she had sped up enough-that instead of hitting her dead-on, he clipped her right quarter panel. Instead of being flattened under the truck’s front bumper, the Honda spun away. When it hit the soft shoulder on the side of the road, it flipped and flew end over end before finally coming to rest, leaning at an angle, against a barbed-wire fence.
Amos felt the impact and saw the car go whirling away. For the barest of moments, he thought he had made it-thought he was home free, then he felt a sickening lurch behind him. He looked in the rearview mirror long enough to see the trailer swing back across the centerline. In that awful moment he knew what was going to happen. The heavy load of gravel would pull him over. As the wheels of the tractor left the ground, all Amos Brubaker could do was hold on for dear life. Hold on and pray.
J. A. Jance
Day of the Dead
Twenty-Nine
Brian Fellows had heard the expression “watching a train wreck,” but he had never understood the implications until that very moment. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Not wanting to alert Larry Stryker, he had shut off the siren as they entered Oracle Junction. Once they were on Highway 79, he saw the approaching gravel truck. He saw the little yellow Honda. When the Honda’s brake lights came on, Brian assumed that the vehicle was preparing to turn, but when the turn signal didn’t come on, there was no way to tell which way the Honda was going. Then, to Brian’s gut-wrenching dismay, the Honda turned directly into the path of the truck. And through it all, there was nothing-not one thing-Brian could do to stop it.
“My God!” PeeWee shouted. “Look out!”
And Brian was looking. He was searching desperately for some safe haven, somewhere to pull off the road and get the hell out of the way. He saw the speeding tractor slam into the side of the Honda. With one tire bouncing high in the air above them all, the out-of-control Honda spun through the air while the truck careened straight toward them. Trying to dodge out of the way, Brian wrenched the wheel to the right. He managed to miss the bouncing tire and the Honda, but the maneuver sent the Crown Victoria pitching off the steep shoulder and directly into a concrete-bridge abutment, where it slammed to a stop.
For the briefest moment, Brian’s vision was obscured by what turned out to be his deployed air bag. When he could see again, the fully loaded gravel truck and trailer were skidding on their sides along both lanes of roadway, spilling mounds of gravel and raising clouds of dust.
Brian turned to PeeWee. “Are you okay?”
PeeWee nodded, rubbing his collarbone. “I think so,” he said. “You?”
Brian tried the door. The frame was evidently jammed. His door wouldn’t open. Neither would PeeWee’s. They ended up having to shove their way through the shattered safety glass in the windshield.
“You go,” PeeWee said when the hole was wide enough for Brian to slip through. “I’ll radio for help.”
When Brian hit the ground, the Mack truck tractor lay on its side, wheels still spinning, with its signature bulldog hood ornament buried in the broken remains of a crushed mesquite tree. As Brian watched, the shaken truck driver scrambled out through a window opening and crawled across the door. Gripping the running board, he slipped over the side and then dropped the last few feet to the ground.
As soon as the man landed, he took off at a dead run. At first, Brian had no idea where he was going. Only when he looked beyond where the driver was headed did Brian see the wreckage of the smashed yellow Honda. It lay at the bottom of a steep wash, leaning up against several strands of barbed-wire fence. The truck driver ran to the edge of the wash and scrambled down the side. By the time Brian reached him, he was pulling desperately on the driver’s-side door handle.
“We’ve got to help her,” the man was saying. “We’ve got to get her out of there.”
But that door wouldn’t budge, either. Peering through the window, Brian saw the still form of a woman. She was flopped over against the door with blood seeping from a deep cut on her head. When he pounded on the window beside her, she didn’t move.
Leaving Brian behind, the truck driver raced around to the far side of the vehicle, clambered over the fence, and shoved. To Brian’s surprise, the Honda wavered for a moment and then tipped back onto its three remaining tires. Brian had to step back to get out of the way. With what seemed superhuman strength, the truck driver wrenched open the passenger door. He stood to one side, panting with exertion, while Brian scrambled inside. The woman still hadn’t moved. Brian felt for a pulse and found one-weak and fast, but there.
He clambered back outside. “Well?” the driver demanded. “Is she okay?”
Without answering, Brian turned back toward the wreckage of the Crown Vic. “She’s still alive,” he shouted at PeeWee, “but only just. Get on the horn. Tell them we’ll need a medevac helicopter out here. On the double.”
Brian turned back toward the truck driver, but the man was no longer standing. Pale and weak as a kitten, he had dropped to his knees and was quietly puking into the dirt.
Parked on the shoulder, Brandon saw the big red gravel truck bearing down on him from behind and the white car come out to pass. As they roared past him, the passing vehicle was on the far side of the truck. He didn’t see it again until the truck braked as the other vehicle slowed to turn off on Flying C Ranch Road. That was when he recognized the white car for what it was-Gayle Stryker’s Lexus. Why was she coming from the north?
Brandon had picked up his phone to call Brian when he saw an explosion of dust a mile or so farther south toward Oracle Junction. Dust like that had to mean that the speeding gravel truck had somehow come to grief, but that wasn’t Brandon’s concern. What worried him was that Brian didn’t answer his phone. After three rings, the cell phone went to voice mail, giving Brandon no choice but to leave a message.
“It’s me. You’re not going to believe it. Gayle Stryker just showed up from the north and turned into the ranch. I don’t know where you are, but get a move on. I need you here now.”
He waited several minutes, thinking that surely Brian would call him back. Finally, impatient, he punched redial. Again, the cell phone rang several times. “Pick up, for God’s sake!” Brandon grumbled.
“Hello?” Brian said at last.
“Where the hell are you? Did you get my message?”
“What message?”
“I called a few minutes ago. Gayle Stryker showed up. She and Larry are both here at the ranch.”
“There’s been an accident,” Brian said. “My phone ended up under the car seat. I didn’t find it until it started ringing.”
“What accident?” Brandon stopped. “Wait a minute,” he added. “Somebody’s coming down the road. It’s a white vehicle, so it may be…” He squinted into the sunlight. “Yes, it’s definitely a Lexus. I can’t tell which one, and I don’t know how many passengers-if they’re both in there or if it’s only one of them. The vehicle’s almost back to the highway. If there was ever a time for backup, this is it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There’s been a wreck,” Brian said. “A bad one, just short of the junction.”
“But…” Brandon slipped the Suburban into gear and moved forward. The Lexus had pulled up to the intersection now and was turning right onto the highway. “He’s coming out now, turning your way and heading for Tucson.”
