All of a sudden Jesse shouted, “Stop the car! Stop the car!”
Aidan slammed on the brakes, making the car fishtail before coming to a stop. Before Bowie and Aidan knew what was happening, Jesse was out of the car and running.
They got out and followed him, grabbing him before he got too close to the edge of the cliff.
“Jesse! What the hell’s wrong with you?” Aidan shouted.
“It’s gone!” Jesse cried.
“What’s gone, Jesse?” Bowie asked.
“Can’t look. Can’t look,” Jesse muttered.
“Can’t look at what?” Bowie asked.
Jesse pointed over toward the cliff side of the road.
“The fence is gone. It was there, and now it’s not. Someone’s dead like Daddy. Can’t look.”
Bowie stared, unable to believe they hadn’t noticed, and then he saw the broken cable in a tangle off in the trees.
Even though he understood the ramifications of the broken cable, he wouldn’t let himself believe it had been Talia who’d broken it.
His heart was pounding as he ran to the cliff’s edge and looked down. When he saw the back end of a blue car plainly visible among the trees below, he had a brief understanding of how his mother must have felt finding Stanton.
“Oh my God! Aidan! It’s Talia. Call 911. Get an ambulance. Get a wrecker. She went over the cliff.”
Without waiting for Aidan to answer and without thinking about the danger, Bowie stepped off the edge of the mountain and took the fast way down in a running, stumbling slide.
Talia couldn’t be dead. God wouldn’t let that happen.
Aidan grabbed his phone to make the calls, and while he wasn’t looking, Jesse took one giant step out into space and followed Bowie down the side of the mountain.
Bowie couldn’t focus on anything but getting to the car.
He lost his footing countless times and started sliding down on his back. Then he dug in his heels and began grabbing at saplings to slow his descent until he could regain his footing.
As he neared the car, he kept hearing a strange dinging sound. By the time he got close enough to see, there was no movement inside the vehicle and no one shouting for help. He was almost on top of the car before he realized the dinging sound was because the car door was ajar on the passenger side and the keys were still in the ignition.
He scooted sideways until he reached the car. Seconds later rocks began rolling down at his feet, and he looked up to see Jesse less than ten feet away with an intent expression on his face, waiting for orders.
Bowie was stunned that his brother had made it in one piece. He didn’t know whether to be glad Jesse had followed him or worried that he was going to have two people to get back up the mountain instead of one.
“Grab a tree,” Bowie said, and Jesse did. “Just stay there a minute and let me see if I can get to her.”
“Staying here,” Jesse said.
Bowie gave him a thumbs-up and began inching his way from the back end of the car to the driver’s-side door. His first sight of her was heart-stopping. She was slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious, and bleeding from the nose and from a cut he could see above her forehead. There was no way to tell what kind of internal injuries or broken bones she might have, and he was just praying for a pulse when he leaned in and felt her carotid artery. To his everlasting relief, it was strong.
“She’s alive!” he yelled.
Jesse raised his arms in jubilation.
“Alive! Alive!” he yelled, and waved at Aidan, who was staring down at them in disbelief.
Bowie tried to open the door, but it was jammed. He thought about circling the car to the open door and getting inside, but he was afraid his added weight would cause the car to start sliding again. And he hesitated to move her for fear he would make bad things worse. All he could think to do was pray the rescue units would get there soon and make those decisions for him.
“Talia, can you hear me?” he asked, and put a hand on the back of her neck. “Talia, baby, it’s me, Bowie. Can you move? Can you feel your arms?”
She moaned, and the sound was such a relief he almost cried.
“Baby, I need for you to wake up and talk to me,” he said.
She moaned again, then moved one hand toward the steering wheel.
Seeing that much motion was a relief of sorts. At least now he knew her neck wasn’t broken or she wouldn’t have been able to move her arm. She could, however, have a spinal fracture, and a wrong move there could cause permanent damage.
He was debating with himself about what to do when the car slid a few feet forward, followed by a sudden explosion. Bowie fell backward, and Jesse jumped a good foot in the air and then hit the ground looking for cover.
Within moments Bowie saw that when the car slid forward it had rammed into a broken-off sapling, which had pierced the tire like a knife. He got to his feet shouting, “Jesse, it’s okay! It’s not a gunshot. The tire blew out. It’s just a flat tire.”