chapter 120
AS TRANCE WAS slowly winched down into the pipe, he yelled, “Hey, do you know this guy?”
“Yeah, sorta. His name’s Jake Crosby,” the warden yelled back.
“How the hell he get in this pipe?”
“It’s a long story, but this really badass dude has wanted him dead for over a year.”
Once the rescuer got near Jake, he was shocked at how pale he was. His head was still leaned back against the pipe, but the water was now below his shoulders. With both hands shaking, the rescuer held his flashlight in his mouth as he tried to stretch the vest around Jake’s arm. He took the flashlight out of his mouth and with his free hand slapped Jake’s face. His eyes slowly opened.
“Jake, I’m here to get you out. Can you hear me?”
Jake’s eyes were not focusing, and he slowly closed them. His body shivered. The water pouring down around them was increasing.
The warden couldn’t see anything but the rescuer’s back. “How’s he doing?”
“We gotta get him outta here quick! He’s out. His breathing’s real shallow, and he’s shaking. He’s dying. And it’s real tight in here.”
“Hurry up!”
Trance was straining. The belt around his chest constricted his breathing, and blood was rushing to his head. His hands shook as he tried to attach the vest around Jake.
Having seen Jake’s face several minutes earlier, the warden also knew that they didn’t have much time. He had dealt with hypothermia before; Jake’s core body temperature would be dangerously low. He hoped that Jake was still just pale, not yet blue and puffy. If they didn’t get his core temperature up, he’d die.
Finally, Trance secured the vest around Jake, but the loop the winch cable needed to hook on kept dropping into the water. It wasn’t visible.
“Jake, can you hold this loop up?” he struggled to ask, trying to put the loop in Jake’s hand. Jake’s eyes cracked open but quickly shut.
“Is it on him!”
“Yeah!” Trance answered with a groan.
The warden rose and yelled at Yancey, by the truck, “Okay…slowly start tightenin’ up! When I drop my hand, that means stop!”
The eight-thousand-pound winch kicked in, and the cable slowly pulled Trance up. The warden dropped his raised arm and assisted the shaking rescuer out of the pipe. Trance quickly unfastened the belt around his chest and looked the warden in the eye as he pulled slack. Even in the pitch-blackness, the warden could tell from his face that he was worried. The warden screamed for slack, and it came to him slowly.
“He looks like he’s given up,” Trance whispered.
“Shit! I was afraid of that!” The warden dropped the winch cable hook into the pipe and started trying to catch the safety vest.
“Dammit! Come on. Come on. Don’t give up on me, Jake! I’m trying!”
The hook hovered in the muddy water where the loop should have been, but after three unsuccessful attempts to hook the loop, the warden was getting frustrated. He heard the radio in his truck announcing that the ambulance had just arrived at the gate.
“Try to the left a bit!” Trance offered. “There! Right there!”
Tightening the cable by hand, the warden felt the hook catch and the weight of Jake’s body.
“I got it! Take up the slack!” the warden screamed, not letting go of the cable. “Okay! Slowly, in short bursts! Start pulling him up!” he screamed.
All three men said silent prayers that Jake’s legs weren’t held too tightly on anything. The winch would easily pull off his legs if they were hung, and they wouldn’t know it until it was too late.
Jake rose out of the water a few inches at a time. His head slumped forward, and it rubbed against the pipe as he was pulled up. As Jake’s waist cleared the water, they could see his wrists zip-tied together.
“Come on, take in more cable!” the warden yelled as Jake’s knees cleared the water, which started draining faster.
The warden was now trying to guide the winch cable, but it was too much to hold. The cable had already cut his hands. They were so cold that he couldn’t feel it.
“Grab him!” the warden yelled to Trance, who had already reached down for the safety vest and started pulling.
“Whoa! Stop the cable!” the warden screamed. Jake was near the top, and the cable was burying into the side of the pipe, threatening to cut into Jake’s shoulder.
“We gotta pull him out from here,” the warden explained to Trance.
They both pulled with all their strength. Jake’s dead weight, coupled with the awkwardness of kneeling on the muddy beaver dam, made the task all the more difficult. Slowly they freed Jake from the pipe and laid him on his back.
“Oh God!” Trance exclaimed when he saw Jake’s lower leg.
“What!”
The rescuer pointed at the leg bone protruding through Jake’s pants.
The warden saw it and grimaced. Jake’s body was limp—lifeless.
“We gotta get him outta here,” he said, unhooking the winch cable from the vest. “Wind it in!” he yelled to Yancey. “Here, get under one arm. Help me carry him to the truck,” the warden said.
Both men wrapped Jake’s arms around their necks, praying they weren’t carrying a dead man.
“Come on, Jake! Hang in there!”
They slipped a few times in the mud but were almost walking on water by the time they got to the levee and laid Jake down on his back. They were breathing heavily, and giant plumes of vapor could be seen in the truck’s headlights, along with the rain.
The warden pointed at Yancey, who was almost finished rewinding the winch cable. “Turn the heater in my truck on high! Let’s get these wet clothes off him fast.”
They started pulling off Jake’s jacket and shirt. He had no color, and the warden touched his neck to feel for a pulse. When he couldn’t find one, he almost panicked, but he caught himself.
“Here, use this knife to cut his pants off,” the warden said, handing the knife to Trance before running to his truck. He had an emergency blanket in his tool box. When he returned, he was dismayed to see Jake’s legs. They were black, and his calves and ankles were swollen so badly they couldn’t see the zip ties buried in his pants and flesh. He noticed something appeared odd but didn’t take the time to look closely. He had to get Jake to the ambulance.
“What’s caused this?” Trance asked in shock.
The warden started wrapping Jake’s wet, nude body in the blanket. Then he took the knife and carefully cut off the zip ties binding Jake’s wrists.
“I’m guessing that the suction in the pipe has sucked all the blood in his body down into his legs. That’s a really bad thing. Open that truck door!” he said as he picked Jake up without hesitation.
After laying Jake down on the passenger’s side, he instructed the others to climb into the bed. The truck had only a single bench seat.
“An ambulance is on the way. It oughta be at the gate when we get there. We’ll get y’all dry blankets there. Hang on!” he said as he jumped in and punched the gas, spinning the truck around.
Once he was pointed out, he stood on the gas pedal and picked up his radio’s microphone. “This is unit Twenty-Two to county dispatch, come in!”
“Go ahead, Twenty-Two,” she immediately responded.
“I got Jake Crosby in my truck! Advise medics he’s unconscious and severely hypothermic, and he’s got an open, compound fracture of his left leg! My ETA is five minutes! Out!”
“Ten-four, Twenty-Two. Copy that.”
The game warden threw the microphone down, reached across, and put his hand on Jake’s chest as the truck bounced in the ruts, saying, “Hang on, brother! I’m gettin’ you outta here!”