Just Over The Mountain (19 page)

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 help 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.

“Don’t move him, Johnny,” Tom said. “The ambulance is coming.”

Brent looked up at Johnny. “Am I gonna die?” he asked weakly.

“Naw,” Johnny said. “You’ll make it. Brad’s up on the road already. He’s gonna be okay.” Johnny wasn’t sure there was any truth in what he said, but what the heck.

“I think I’m gonna die,” he said.

“You’re not gonna die,” Johnny insisted. “But you’re gonna be grounded forever.”

“Y
ou’re
what?
” Jim asked June. “I think we have a bad connection.”

“Oh dammit, I swore I wasn’t going to tell you until you were out of that assignment and home free. I’m such a wimp. I just found out about an hour ago.”

“Did you say pregnant?” he asked.

“I did. Are you upset?”

“Upset? Are you upset?”

“Me? No! I’m kind of excited. But that doesn’t mean you have to be. I mean, I didn’t exactly do this on purpose.”

“And you did warn me,” he said, “that you’re a little sloppy about birth control.”

“Oh, Jim, I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry for you. You didn’t have anything to say about it and that’s not fair. Will you ever—” She stopped suddenly. “Wait a sec,” she said. “Uh-oh, this is not good. My pager is going and John knows I need a night off since he just confirmed I’m pregnant.”

She looked at the pager and it was flashing the police department number with a 911 added. At just that moment, her call waiting beeped. “Jim, hold on, please.” She picked up. “Yes?”

“June, we got the Forrest twins in a car accident on 482 about a mile shy of the Toopeek house—both critical,” John said. “I’m taking the ambulance over and the fire truck is en route. If you can, I need you.”

“I can,” she said. “On my way.” She clicked over to Jim. “Jim, I’ve got a car accident out on the highway with critical injuries. Listen, try to call me later if you can. If not, just remember that…that…”

“That what, June?” he demanded.

“That everything is going to be fine. And you be
careful!
”

She hung up. What was she going to do? Whisper sweet nothings to her lover when two kids were bleeding out on the highway? She slipped into her shoes, grabbed her bag and truck keys and said, “You have to stay, Sadie. Be a good girl!” And out the door she went.

The first thing John thought when he arrived at the scene was how much he wished he had Susan with him. She could anticipate his needs in an emergency. Her years as a surgical nurse had fine-tuned her into an assistant who knew what the doctor needed almost before the doctor did. And that was why not only he, but
medicine,
needed her so much. John had a flash of shame at having ever discouraged her.

The ambulance made three vehicles at the scene, all pointed into the ravine, their headlights shining on the surreal image of a scarred yellow Plymouth suspended in the trees, halfway down the hill. Two women, Mary Lou and Tanya, kneeled over a boy on the road and John went to him first. He listened to his heart, palpated his abdomen, shone his penlight in his eyes. “Where’s the other one?” he asked Tanya.

“My dad and Johnny found him down at the bottom of the ravine by the stream. He was thrown from the car. This one, Brad, was hanging in a tree.”

“Jesus,” John muttered. “How’d you get out of the tree, Brad? You fall out?”

“Johnny,” he said weakly. Then he winced in pain as John pressed on his abdomen.

“Johnny climbed the tree and got him out, then carried him up here because the car started to burn,” Tanya said. “My dad got here and put out the fire. They haven’t moved Brent.”

“We’re going to need medevac transport, Tanya. Where’s the nearest landing site?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll call the deputy on Dad’s radio, then turn up the spotlight on the Range Rover so they can see the accident site. They’ll let you know where they can land and you can transport the boys to that site. Maybe our house. It’s just up the road a half mile, and we have a big clearing.”

John smiled at the girl. “You sound like someone who was raised by a police chief.”

“Yeah, it sort of rubs off, doesn’t it,” she said, and
jogged the short distance to Tom’s Range Rover. “Ricky, come in, Ricky.”

“Right here, Tan,” a voice crackled.

“Dr. Stone says he needs a medevac helicopter out here. I’ll turn the Range Rover’s spotlight to the sky so they can make out the accident site. Tell them to let us know where they can land and pick up.”

“Ten-four. I’m on my way.”

She then jogged to the ambulance where John was getting the stretcher out of the back. “I can help you get this down into the ravine, if you want,” she said. He paused and looked at her doubtfully. She reached behind her head, pulled her long silky black hair up and tied it in its own knot. “I’m stronger than I look, Dr. Stone. Plus, I’ve been in and out of that ravine since I was a little kid.”

John rummaged around in the back of the ambulance for rope, backboard, neck brace, portable oxygen tank—all of which he stacked on the stretcher. As he pulled the stretcher out of the ambulance, the wheels popped out and supported it as a gurney. “We’ll collapse the stretcher and slide it down,” he said. “You can show me the way and carry the flashlight.” He transferred his medical bag into a canvas pack that he put on his back. “Do you know the condition of the other boy?”

“No. Dad only yelled up that he was going to wait for a stretcher.”

John rolled the gurney down the rough asphalt toward the ravine’s edge. “He’s alive then,” John said. “Show me the best way, Tanya.”

“Follow me,” she said.

As he passed by Brad and Mary Lou, John said, “When June gets here, tell her to tend this boy. We’ll cover the other one.”

Tanya led him down the ravine slowly, showing him where to brace a foot against a rock or tree trunk, where to grab a branch or shrub. John collapsed the gurney. He let it rest against the small of his back, keeping it in place with one hand, then the other, using whichever hand was free to assist his descent. Most of the way down he was on his butt, bouncing along the sharp edges of broken sticks and rocky crags.

John had been in many emergencies over the years, but they had always involved working in the clean indoor environs of the emergency room or operating room. Never had he strapped a medical bag to his back and shimmied down a steep hill, a stretcher precariously balanced behind him.

Through the thick trees in the distance he could see a moving light. Tanya paused to move her flashlight from right to left to right to left. “There they are,” she said. “It’s not so far. You okay?”

Citified John’s butt hurt like the devil. The strain on his legs from holding the stretcher back so they wouldn’t all go tumbling to the bottom was excruciating. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Tom Toopeek was waiting for them at the bottom. He seemed to pop up out of nowhere, because he’d left his flashlight with Johnny. “Right over here, Doc,” he said, grabbing the front end of the stretcher to lead the way. “Watch your step. We’re crossing the stream down here.
It’s shallow but slippery. Tanya, help him with his footing.”

She held on to John’s end of the stretcher with him. “Follow my steps, Dr. Stone,” she said.

Of course he had the wrong kind of shoes. He should have known by now. His introduction to this little town had had him mucking through about two feet of mud to get to Julianna Dickson’s house where he delivered her fifth child at home. Julianna had a reputation for not being able to make it to the hospital. Not long after that, he and June had performed an emergency Caesarean section in the treatment room at the clinic without the benefit of a general anesthetic. June had told of car wrecks on isolated stretches of freeway, on mountain passes. Now here was a ravine wreck. John had never seen June in a dress, and she always wore boots. She couldn’t take the chance that she’d be called out to some logging site or farm for an emergency, have to climb a hill or slide down an embankment and end up with her skirt over her head.

He was going to get some smarter clothes and shoes, he thought as he slipped on a slimy rock and fell to one knee in the icy stream. He bit back a yelp of pain as his knee made contact with a rock.

Finally at his destination, he knelt beside Brent Forrest. “Can you tell me where the pain is worst?” he asked, directing Johnny’s flashlight as he looked over the boy.

“My knees and legs,” he said. “And my head.”

John put the neck brace on him first, then pulled
bandage scissors out of the bag and cut Brent’s pant legs open from ankle to thigh. Both legs were broken. They bent oddly, but were not compound fractures—a blessing. “We have fractures. I’m going to start an IV, Brent, so I can give you some morphine. Then we’re going to splint your legs and get you out of here.” He gently palpated Brent’s abdomen and the boy’s painful reaction indicated internal bleeding, just like his brother.

“Is Brad okay?”

“He’s okay,” John said. He moved the flashlight again so it shone on the boy’s arm. He had the IV started quickly and the morphine administered immediately. He instructed Tanya to hold the bag of Ringers.

The boy’s pupils reacted and his eyelids fluttered. “Wouldja tell…tell my mom…I’m sorry?”

“You can tell her yourself, kiddo.”

“She’s not…here.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s going to be visiting. Listen, this morphine’s going to make you sleepy, but I want you to keep talking to me, okay? Tell me…who was driving?”

“Brad… He…um…took the keys off the peg.”

“Where were you guys going?”

“Dunno. Just away.”

“No seat belts, huh?”

“I didn’t get the trash out,” he said.

“That’s okay…just this once,” John said. He had the right leg in an air splint, and when it inflated, Brent cried out. “Yeah, son, it’s tough. We gotta do that to get
you out of here.” He applied the second splint and Brent yelped, then dissolved into tears.

“Okay, we’re going to roll you to the right, slip the backboard under you and roll you back. Then we’ll transfer you to the stretcher. Tom, at the feet. Johnny, keep that light steady. On three. One, two, three,” he counted, and they rolled him. When he was on his side, John pushed the backboard under and they let him roll slowly back. “Tanya, hang on to the bag and keep the line from tangling. Tom, let’s lift him onto the stretcher.”

Once Brent was transferred, John secured him with the straps. “Brent? Brent?” he said. The boy didn’t respond. John checked his carotid pulse, pulled back his eyelids and shone his penlight into first the right eye, then the left.

“He’s lost consciousness. Let’s get him up the hill.”

“We got him, Doc,” Tom said. “Our chances of not falling back down the hill are better than yours. You and Tanya light the way.”

Johnny and Tom worked together like professionals. They carried the heavy stretcher up the hill sideways. There were a couple of times they had to lift the stretcher high over a shrub or move around a tree trunk, exchanging places like a do-si-do.

When June came upon the accident site, she found the back doors to the ambulance standing open and the stretcher and backboard both gone, as well as the oxygen and medication bag. She hefted her own bag from her truck to the convergence of Tom’s SUV,
Mary Lou’s car and the ambulance front, where she found Brad.

She looked past the boy into the ravine to see Birdie’s Plymouth halfway down the hill. The front end appeared to hang in the trees. “Dear God,” she said.

“John and Tanya have gone down into the ravine to help Tom and Johnny Toopeek bring the other twin up,” Mary Lou told her. “He says for you to tend this one. They’ve called for the medevac.” Mary Lou stood. “I have to check on the kids. They’re in the car.” June crouched beside Brad. “Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked him.

“I feel like I was shot out of a canon,” he replied.

“Looks like you were,” she said. “Let’s get an IV started and give you something for the pain. Which one are you?” she asked.

“Brad. Hey, is my brother alive?”

“He must be. I don’t think the chief would stay down there with him if he weren’t. Does your grandma know you took the car?”

“She should. We were trying to sneak it out of the driveway, but I smashed up the trash cans. It sounded like an explosion.” He winced in pain. “We’re going to go to jail forever for this.”

“Why’d you take her car?” June asked as the IV started.

“I don’t know. We were pissed at her for something. I don’t know. We’re
stupid.
If my brother dies…”

“Your grandma and grandpa were in a car accident on this same stretch of highway, but on the other side of the valley. Not very long ago.”

“They were?”

“They were.” Mary Lou came back and June handed off the IV bag to her. “Hold this up here for me. Kids okay?”

“They’ve eaten an entire bag of Oreos and are working on graham crackers. They’re in a sugar zone.”

“As long as they stay in the car,” June said. She heard the sound of running footfalls behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Ursula crash through the cars and almost fall over June.

“My God,” Ursula said. She looked down at Brad. “Whose car is that?” she asked.

“The twins apparently stole their grandmother’s car,” Mary Lou explained. “Half your family is down in the ravine with the other twin. Tanya, Tom and Johnny.”

In the distance, they could hear the sound of the approaching helicopter.

“Ursula, I have a cell phone in my truck,” June said. “Call Birdie and Judge. See if someone can find Chris. These boys are going to have to be transported to Ukiah. They may as well get on the road and start driving. If they can find something to drive.”

As the chopper sounds grew louder, Tom and Johnny rose out of the ravine carrying the stretcher. Behind them were Tanya and John, toting the rest of the emergency gear. The helicopter drew in slowly, the spotlight shining down on the accident site, then the craft retreated down the road about a thousand feet to a spot where trees and wires didn’t interfere. There were flashing lights down there, indicating Ricky Rios had blocked the road for the landing.

“If you guys aren’t done in, you can start toward the chopper,” John shouted to the Toopeek men. “Can’t put the wheels down, though. We want to keep from jostling him. Tanya and I can load Brad on the backboard and start down.”

“Done,” Tom shouted above the whacking of chopper blades.

“Is he dead?” Brad asked. “Is my brother dead?”

“No, son, but he’s hurt badly and we have to get both of you to the hospital.” John and Tanya crouched beside Brad, rolled him and put the board under him. “June can’t lift,” John explained in a shout. “I’m treating her for back strain!”