Just Over the Mountain

  June and Sadie went home. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone home from the clinic at a reasonable hour to spend an evening relaxing by herself. The best she could do was rush home at six on Tuesdays for meat loaf with her dad, but she always felt as if she was on the run. On this night, this very special night, she wanted to celebrate what she’d done. She was having a baby. She would love to have spent this time with family—her dad, her aunt, maybe the Toopeeks—but there was no way she could keep her news inside if she did. And she needed a little time to figure out how she was going to tell them…and tell them soon.

  She warmed herself some chicken noodle soup, remembering not so very long ago when she’d come home to find Jim, injured from his flight from the bad guys. She’d warmed soup for him that night, but he’d fallen asleep before he could eat it, so she had put it on a tray and, while she watched him sleep, she had eaten his soup.

  Until he was home from this assignment—home free—she wouldn’t tell him about the baby. She’d keep it under wraps until she could get an ultrasound and learn exactly when this baby would come. Then she would have to tell those closest to her. But she would not tell Jim until he was safely home. It was the only kind and sane thing to do. She couldn’t have him upset or worried while undercover.

  The early-October night was crisp and shivery, so she built a nice cozy fire. She drank tea, reclined on the sofa and smoothed her shirt over a belly that had seemed to grow since John examined her at four o’clock. She waited patiently for movement, but it didn’t come. She talked to the baby. “If I can take Sadie with me everywhere, I can take you. I don’t know what kind of work your daddy is going to do—maybe he’ll be one of those stay-at-homes… No, I don’t see him as a stay-at-home. Frankly I’ll be happy if he stays around.” But there were plenty of excellent people in Grace Valley for child care, including Elmer.

  The phone rang and she thought it might be Elmer or Myrna, or even John or Susan checking on her. In fact, she found herself wishing for the latter so she could talk a little about having a baby. If it’s Elmer, she told herself, take all traces of motherhood out of your voice!

  But it was not Elmer.

  “Hi, gorgeous. I miss the hell out of you.”

  Him.

  “I want to be with you more every day,” he said.

  “Jim!” she said, breathless. “I’m pregnant!”

  The Forrest twins were not happy in their new digs. Their new house was barely habitable and their dad was completely inept at those homey little touches. Oh, he was a good enough carpenter and handyman, but life had gotten real rugged since moving out of their grandmother’s house. While they were relieved to be free of Grandma Birdie’s nagging, life was more comfortable than this in the jail.

  Chris had picked up a couple of cots, blankets and some kitchenware at the army surplus in Rockport and borrowed a card table and chairs from Bob Hanson. When they asked what they were supposed to do for a TV and stereo, he told them to read. He was in a badass mood.

  “You’re uncomfortable?” he asked them. “Live with it. If you hadn’t been so damn ungrateful and insolent at your grandparents’ house, you might still be sleeping in a soft bed and eating a hot meal!”

  “Hey man, she had us arrested!” Brad protested.

  “You stole from her!” Chris yelled back.

  “We did not!” Brent insisted.

  “Yes, you did,” Chris accused. “You know you did.”

  “Hey, Dad, she was just hallucinating. It’s probably that blood pressure medicine she takes or something!” the other twin claimed.

  “She doesn’t take medicine, but you’re going to take yours. I want you home after school. I want all your clothes folded up in neat little piles. I want the trash hauled out to the end of the drive—it only gets picked up once a week. I want your homework done so you can help me tonight. As soon as I get the baseboards finished, I get carpeting, so you’ll have to help. And I’ll bring dinner home.”

  “You don’t believe us, do you?” Brent wanted to know.

  “No. I don’t believe you. You’ve been lying to me for a long time and I’m done being your patsy.” And with that, he left for work.

  Brent and Brad were steamed. They’d spent a whole night in that poor excuse for a jail before their dad could convince his old pal, Chief Toopeek, to let them out. And all this over a few bucks that their grandparents didn’t need anyway.

  School sucked, too. They weren’t sure if someone was talking trash about them, someone like Johnny Toopeek, or what, but there were fewer people interested in hanging with them than before. They were potential football stars, but the girls hung around the varsity guys, the goody-goodys, and the only people they had to eat lunch with were losers who smoked under the bleachers and were just about flunking out.

  They didn’t even talk about it long. Most of their decisions, like stealing eggs or taking Grandma Birdie’s cookie-jar money, they came to impetuously.

  “Who’s she think she is? God?”

  “Grandma God?”

  “What’s a couple bucks? Ought to show her real stealing.”

  “Take the jewels. Or the car.”

  “Yeah, the car. That big old Plymouth.”

  “Think she’d miss it?”

  “She hardly drives it. She walks everyplace in town she can.”

  “I could drive that big old Plymouth,” Brad said.

  “Yeah, but you couldn’t steal it. You don’t know how to hot-wire nothing.”

  “Don’t need to hot-wire nothing. I know where the key is—on the peg right inside the back door.”

  And that’s exactly how petty thieves and vandals became car thieves. They got such a rush out of planning to steal their grandmother’s car, to show her, to get even with her, that they never even discussed what they were going to do besides drive it. They didn’t talk at all about the possible consequences, such as, if you could spend a night in jail for stealing seventy dollars, what could happen to you if you stole a car?

  Football practice lasted till five and there were two buses for kids who stayed after for sports. One dropped kids in town, the other dropped them on the west side, which was where the twins should be going. Instead of taking the school bus to their new but unfurnished house, they jumped on their old bus, as if they were going to their grandparents’ home. They walked casually to the Forrest house, book bags slung over their shoulders. The sun was setting earlier and earlier as fall deepened, and dusk would soon be falling.

  Brent stood in the driveway holding both book bags. Brad sashayed up to the back porch and peeked in. Birdie was in the kitchen, chopping something, getting dinner ready. The news was on in the living room and it was turned up loud to be heard in the kitchen. She moved back and forth, from the kitchen counter to the living room, to catch a little piece of the news. On one of her trips to the TV, Brad slipped a hand through a barely opened screen door and lifted the car key off its hook. He then sashayed confidently back to the yellow Plymouth.

  The twins exchanged grins. This was too easy. They looked around; there was no one on the street. Birdie was in the kitchen, in the back of the house, and wouldn’t even hear the engine start. Brad got behind the wheel and Brent threw their bags into the back seat. He started the car, put it in Reverse and hit the gas. The car jerked into high speed and they blew the garbage cans all over the street.

  “Way to go, dipshit!” Brent said.

  “It wasn’t my fault, man!”

  “Who’s driving, dickhead?”

  They looked behind them. They had hit the cans so hard they’d flown down the street and emptied in the process. There was trash everywhere and the cans lay on their sides, badly dented.

  In that moment they became acutely aware of how little time and energy they’d spent on planning for contingencies.

  “Let’s go then, dumb-ass!” Brent ordered.

  And Brad, who had never actually driven a car before, spun out and laid rubber all the way out of town.
West. Toward home. Though they had no idea what they were going to do.

  Johnny Toopeek got home a little after five. His mom wasn’t home yet and his grandma had dinner started. Tanya was baby-sitting and would be home by six, three Toopeek kids were at the table doing their homework and the house was quiet and smelled good. Johnny kissed his grandma’s cheek.

  “I don’t have homework, Grandma. Can I fish for half an hour or so? Till dinner?”

  “Your mama likes you to study something,” she said, but she had a real soft spot for Johnny. He was handsome and sweet and doted on her.

  “I’ll study something after dinner. I might catch you a breakfast trout or something, huh?”

  She patted his cheek. “Not very long, Johnny.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  He passed his grandpa on his way out to the shed. Lincoln was sitting on the back patio, whittling. “I’m going fishing for half an hour, Grandpa. Wanna come?”

  “No, Johnny, you go. Unless you need me to help you pull it in.”

  “Hah!” He took his bike, his pole and his tackle box. He rode down the driveway to the road that led to their house, then down that road half a mile to Highway 482 and along 482 another half mile. He left his bike leaning against a tree. The terrain was steep, but he’d traversed it a million times. The river at the bottom of this ravine was deep and fish were plentiful, especially when the weather was cool, like now. Before he reached the bottom of the ravine, he could see his breath.

  He’d only fished ten minutes when he got one. It wasn’t big, but his grandma would act as if it was a whale and would fry it up for him. He strung it and let it float in the stream. Another ten minutes brought another fish, this one just a little bigger. The sun was going down. Another ten minutes passed and it occurred to him that to be late for dinner would be stupid, especially since he probably shouldn’t be fishing at all. His mother was not as easy on him as his grandma was. If she’d been home, he would not be fishing and he knew it.

  Just as he would have started up the slope to fetch his bike, he heard the roaring engine of a racing car in the distance. He was frozen, listening. It came closer. It sounded as though someone was careening down 482 out of control. He could hear gravel flying, tires squealing and maybe even screaming. It was growing dark, and as he looked up toward the road all he could see was the darkness of tree trunks. Then suddenly the lights of a vehicle strafed the trees and exploded through them like a bomb. Johnny dived to the right as a vehicle crashed through the trees to his left. He rolled against the rocks of the stream; his pole flew from his hand. When he came to his feet he began to run away. Behind him he had the sense that the car was still plummeting into the ravine.

  The trees were thick and the car slowly came to rest wedged between them. Johnny saw that it was on its side, the underbelly facing him, the front end suspended in the air, held there by thick branches. The hood was lying halfway up the ravine, the front bumper had torn off and lay up in some tree branches. It was smoking; the smell of spilt gasoline was pungent in the air.

  “Hey Injun,” a hoarse voice beckoned. Johnny looked around but didn’t see anyone. “Help me down, wouldja?” He ran toward the car. “Up here,” the voice croaked.

  He looked up. Dangling from the branches about ten feet off the ground was one of the Forrest twins. “Holy Jesus,” he said.

  “Get me down, Toopeek,” Brad begged, his voice little more than a gasp.

  “I’ll go get my dad,” Johnny said, starting up the hill. But then he stopped and ran back. What if the branches broke and hurled the twin to the ground. “Okay, I’ll get you down. You alone? Brad with you?”

  “I’m Brad,” he said. “Brent. Brent’s here. In the car.” He winced. Every word tore out of him as though his chest was on fire.

  “Okay, you first,” Johnny said.

  The tree leaned downhill and Brad was captured by two branches that formed a V, hooking him under the armpits and hanging him out over the ravine. Johnny shimmied up the tree behind him. When he got even with Brad’s armpits, he locked his legs around the trunk and leaned around. “Where’s it hurt, man?” he asked Brad.

  “Heh. Everywhere.”

  “Okay, I don’t think this is gonna feel good. Help me if you can, just don’t buck against me, okay? I’m gonna pull you backward.”

  He wove his arms under Brad’s armpits, locked his hands together in front of his chest and, with a slow, powerful pull, dragged him through the V of the branches upward till he sat at the V rather than hung there. While he did that, Brad issued a low painful moan. Johnny gave his legs a little rest, then locked them tightly around the trunk again, again reached under Brad’s arms and pulled him all the way out of the branches. He hung there, nothing between Brad and the ground but Johnny’s arms, as Johnny slowly let himself begin to slide down the trunk one miserable inch at a time. The bark tore at his inner thighs, but he hung on until Brad’s feet touched the ground. At that point he could gently lower him and climb off the tree.

  Brad slumped softly to the ground and Johnny jumped down beside him. “Can you walk, man?”

  “Walk? I don’t think I can roll over.”

  He lay there, limp, as though paralyzed. Johnny didn’t want to think about that, though a vision of Brad the Bad in a wheelchair, typing on a computer by holding a straw in his teeth, came instantly to mind. He pushed the image away by saying, “Let’s get you up to the road so I can try to find your brother before—” He stopped as he saw a little poof of smoke ignite into a small flame on the underbelly of the car. “Okay, pal.” He reached again under Brad’s armpits. He counted to three, hefted him over his shoulder and began to climb out of the ravine.

  Tanya Toopeek was being driven home by Mary Lou Granger, the young mother she occasionally baby-sat for. In the back seat, tucked into their car seats, were the little kids. “Look at this,” Mary Lou said to Tanya, indicating skid marks and tire treads in the gravel at the shoulder, first on the right, then on the left, then again on the right.

  “Looks like someone needs driving lessons,” Tanya said. Then she saw the piece of metal at the side of the road and recognized it as her brother’s crushed bike. “Mary Lou! Stop! That’s Johnny’s—” Just as they might have passed the crushed bike, they could see the mowed-down trees at the road’s edge.

  “Oh God,” Mary Lou said. She put on her emergency flashers and pointed her high beams into the trees. About halfway down the ravine, balanced and crushed between the trees, was a big sedan, turned on its side and hanging in the trees. “Oh God,” she said again.

  “Johnny,” Tanya whispered in prayer. She opened the door. “Keep the lights on! Let me see if I can see him down there!”

  Tanya jumped out of the car and began down the ravine, screaming her brother’s name. “Johnny! Johnny!”

  “Tan!” he called back. “Here!” He came slowly into view, pulling himself up the hill by grabbing on to thin tree trunks and low branches, Brad hanging limply over his shoulder.

  Tanya rushed to him and helped pull him the rest of the way up. “Are you hurt? Did the car hit you?” While she questioned him, she helped him lower Brad to the ground in front of the car, in the headlights. In the distance they could hear the sound of a siren.

  “I was fishing,” he said, breathless. “It came through the trees like a rocket.”

  “Look, Johnny,” she said, pointing to his bike. “You know what I thought.”

  But he didn’t have time to think. Though out of breath and nearly out of strength, he ran to the car window. “Mrs. Granger, pull up about three feet. I gotta go back down there and I need the headlights.” He stepped away and marshaled her forward, then gave her the stop gesture. “Stay with Brad, Tan. Brent is still down there somewhere and I saw the car spark.”

  “No!” she screamed. “No, don’t go! What if it explodes?” But he was already on his way, sliding down the hill as fast as he dared. “Johnny!” she screamed at his back.

  Even with the hel
p of the high beams, it was too dark to see clearly in the ravine. If the car hadn’t been turned sideways, it would have been too far off the ground for Johnny to look inside. He went nearly underneath to the front of the car and checked inside. “Brent?” he called again and again, but there was no answer. He could see into the front seat easily, since the windshield was gone, but the back seat was dark.

  Remembering where he had found Brad, he looked up and called Brent’s name. Nothing. He went past the car, lower into the ravine, down toward the stream. He had to assume the twin was unconscious and couldn’t answer, so it was up to Johnny to just look carefully. Behind him the car made a loud popping sound and erupted in flames.

  Back up on the road, Tom Toopeek pulled up next to Mary Lou Granger, lights flashing. He jumped out of the Range Rover, shock drawing his features down when he recognized his daughter standing next to an injured Forrest boy.

  “Daddy, Johnny’s down there looking for the other one, and the car has caught fire!”

  He didn’t waste time. He grabbed the fire extinguisher from his SUV, the flashlight from the door, and headed down. “Tanya, call the fire truck and ambulance. Use the radio. Hurry.” Then he was skidding down the hill toward the fire, trying to keep from sliding down on his face. Within seconds he was standing at the undercarriage of the Plymouth, spraying extinguisher fluid onto the fire. He kept spraying as he went around the car to the front and drenched the exposed engine.

  When the fire appeared to be out, he shone the flashlight into the trees. “Johnny?” he called.

  “Dad! Over here!”

  Tom slid the rest of the way down the ravine to the stream, shining the light again.

  “Over here!”

  Down the river about thirty feet, and on the other side, Johnny knelt next to Brent. He held a hand firmly over a head wound that had been gushing blood. Tom dropped to his knees at the water’s edge and put the light on Brent’s face. He squinted painfully in the light, but then opened his eyes.