The rain had become a downpour. I focused on the road ahead. I failed to glance in the rearview mirror. If I had looked behind me, I would have seen the truck racing up in pursuit.
The impact and the sound—a horrible metal-on-metal crunch—were simultaneous. The jolt pushed my chest forward against my seat belt. My chin bounced off my chest. One hand lost its grip on the steering wheel.
Then came the shriek of the guardrail scraping paint off my left fender as I crossed the westbound lane. I reflexively jerked the wheel in the opposite direction. I might have ended up in the field of ferns that served as a buffer between the road and the forest, but my pursuer had come up beside me now. I caught a quick glimpse of him in my side mirror.
It was a pickup. A big one. Probably riding atop a raised suspension and oversized tires.
Then he dropped back a few feet.
Hiding in my blind spot, he bumped the tail of my Scout to send me toward the cliff. He was forcing me into the opposite lane, keeping me pinned there. My muscles had tensed from the prior contact. My hands now gripped the wheel as if they’d been superglued to it.
My left headlight exploded into shards as the front end sideswiped the steel rail again. Once again, I jerked the wheel away from the precipice.
And once again, my pursuer rammed me back toward the river. He was a hell of a driver, whoever he was. He’d practiced these sorts of maneuvers at speeds that would have left most people vomiting all over their pants.
But I had practiced, too. My reflexes reacted before my brain could transmit signals through my neural network. I pressed the gas pedal to the floor, trying to outrace him, but his engine was more powerful than mine.
Another crunch and another groan as the side of my poor Scout caused the rail to crumple. If I had struck it at another angle, I would have been shooting through space toward the river far below.
There was a bend in the road up ahead. I recognized I was on a collision course with the guardrail. I understood that I was out of chances.
I couldn’t see my pursuer in my side mirror. I gambled that he was still speeding alongside me on a parallel course, three feet off my right fender. I swerved deliberately into the westbound lane and stamped on the brake.
The monster truck shot past. I felt his wake shake the battered chassis of my Scout. I might’ve experienced a split second of relief.
But my tires couldn’t catch hold of the pavement. The pooled water lifted me up and carried me in an arc that seemed slow instead of fast. The front end turned until I was facing the way I’d just come, looking back with one headlight at the shredded remains of the guardrail. Instead of stopping, the Scout continued to hydroplane. The brakes were useless.
Now I was facing the field across the road from the river. I might have been all right. I might have slid off the sandy shoulder and come to rest in the softness of hay-scented ferns. I might have been fine if not for the damned ditch.
When the Scout encountered the flooded trench beyond the asphalt, the sudden loss of balance caused the vehicle to tilt and tumble. First I found myself looking down at the ceiling. Then I was jogged upright again. And then I was rolling sideways like a man on fire who’s thrown himself to the ground.
The truck came to rest on the passenger side. I was suspended in midair, secured only by the seat belt, while gravity pulled me into the next seat. I looked to my right and saw curling green fronds where the window should have been.
Those first seconds of hanging in midair motionless were excruciating. My hands shook as I raised them before my face. My mouth tasted bitter from the iron in my bloody mouth.
Dumbly, I examined my body—my waxed canvas jacket shimmered with broken glass—expecting to find myself missing limbs or impaled upon the stick shift. One tingling hand reached upward for the door handle, but I lacked the strength to pop it open. I tried rolling down the window and got it three-quarters of the way before the handle came loose.
I reached to unbuckle my seat belt. Bad move. The second the strap slid back, I dropped across the passenger seat, plummeted down to earth.
Now I was upside down with my face in the ferns. I brought my knees to my chin in an attempt to rearrange myself, but my ligaments had hardened to steel cables.
Just then, the driver door above me opened. It swung upward, and then a leathery arm was reaching in and, behind it, the rest of the old man. He was crouched atop the side-resting vehicle. He had a bald head, lighter than his deeply tanned face. His eyes were as clear blue as the sky when you climb above the highest clouds.
“Mike?”
“Charley?”
“I thought you were dead for sure.”
My larynx had a catch in it. “Almost.”
“I never would have forgiven myself if something happened to you, son.”
He took my wrists with his two callused hands and pulled with the strength of a man half his age. And just like that, I was free.
34
Breathing hard, I stretched out in the crushed ferns, the sweetness of them overpowering, while Charley crouched beside me. With his knobby fingers, he checked my body for injuries. He was dressed in a mechanic’s faded blue coveralls and combat boots, neither of which I’d ever seen him wear. Rain streamed down his pale shaved skull. From this angle, I never would have recognized him.
“You’re going to have a honey of a bruise from the seat belt, and I expect you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck, but I don’t see any serious injuries. That’s as close to proof of God’s grace as
