extended my legs.
My sneakers touched bottom. I tested.
Terra not so firma. But solid enough so my feet were not sinking.
I stood in stagnant water up to my chest.
I smelled the sour reek of mud and rotten humus, the brown stench of things long dead.
Around me was tomblike darkness. Far above me the sky was a slightly paler black.
I had to get out. But how?
I waded to the point where I thought I’d entered the water. Explored with shaking hands.
The sides of the sinkhole were sharply angled. And slimy with sludge and putrid garbage.
Facing the bank, I lifted a leg that weighed a thousand pounds. Positioned my foot. Stretched my hands high and curled my fingers into claws.
Then I was spent.
My leg crumpled.
I collapsed and lay with my cheek and chest pressed to the mud.
A minute? An hour?
Somewhere, in another universe, an engine sputtered to life.
Gears rattled.
The engine grew louder.
The sinkhole seemed to wink.
I lifted my head.
Twin beams were slicing the darkness overhead.
My brain groped for meaning.
Steel screeched.
The engine churned.
Metal clanked.
I heard rumbling, like potatoes rolling down a chute.
A massive clod of dirt hit my back.
The wind was knocked from me.
As I fought the spasm in my chest, more soil avalanched down from above.
I tucked my head and wrapped my arms around it.
Bogan was filling the sinkhole! The monster was burying me alive!
I was dragging myself sideways along the bank when the engine backfired.
Muffled voices drifted down.
Or was I hallucinating?
The backhoe popped again.
Gears rattled.
The engine groaned, then cut off.
A small beam shot down from the lip of the sinkhole. Was joined by another. The small ovals danced the water, the muddy banks, finally settled on me.
“She’s here.”
“Sonofafrigginbitch.”
Slidell’s voice had never sounded so sweet.
I DIDN’T GET THE FULL STORY UNTIL PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL cut me loose three days later. By then Mark Martin had beaten twenty-to-one odds to win the Coca-Cola 600. Sandy Stupak had finished at number nineteen.
Completion of the Nationwide race had been postponed Friday night due to rain and the possibility of tornadoes. The following day Joey Frank crossed the line at number twenty-seven.
And the sun finally came out.
Katy had visited my bedside daily. Larabee dropped in. Charlie Hunt. Pete, sans Summer.
Hmm.
The sting on my finger wasn’t from a biting insect. Bogan had hit me with an abrin-coated dart. My mobile
