Code 61 - Donald Harstad [170]
He looked down.
“Out that way,” I said, pointing to where he'd come from.
“No.” He was already starting off toward the other cubicles.
I left Huck and Sally, and worked my way into the yard wide area behind the cubicle where Dan Peale had pitched the forceps. I shone my flashlight on the ground, and sure enough, there they were. My relief was a palpable thing. I holstered my gun, and bent down to pick them up. As I did, my light moved, I became aware of a fine trickle of sand sparkling its way down onto the floor about six feet ahead of me, alongside the bare wall of the chamber. I picked up the forceps, bracing myself for a blow to my back. Nothing. I straightened up, and held the forceps up, over the cubicle wall.
“Sally, here you go,” I said.
A moment later, I felt her take the forceps from me. The primary mission was accomplished.
I drew my gun, and took one more step away from the falling sand. Then I turned, abruptly, and shined my flashlight straight up into the darkness above the level of the fluorescent lights.
There he was. About twenty feet up, in the clear area between the pillar and the drop-cloth ceiling support, clinging to God knows what with his hands and feet.
“Hey, Dan!” I hollered.
He looked down. Those damned fangs glistened, pressing into his lower lip. He was gripping tightly with both hands, with one foot parallel to the pillar's face and braced against a small bump in the surface. The other foot was nearly perpendicular, with the toes wedged into a crack. I could see a dark spot on his lower left side, toward his back. There was a trickle of blood running down from there into his shorts. It looked like I'd hit him.
“You need any help gettin' down?” I yelled, unable to resist.
Two things happened at once. Byng and Borman came flying around the far end of the cubicles, looked up, and Byng said, “Damn!”
At the same time, Dan Peale just pushed himself away from the wall. For the life of me, I thought he hung up there, suspended in space, for an instant. I think in that moment, we were both wondering if he could really fly. Then he plummeted twenty feet to the sandy floor. I guess he was prepared to fly, because he did absolutely nothing to break his fall, or roll with it. He hit feet first, arms outstretched to his sides, with a jarring thump that seemed to send a visible ripple upward from his ankles to his neck. His legs went all weird between the ankle and hip, and he collapsed onto the floor of the mine.
I sent Borman up the elevator to get help. Byng and I tended to Dan Peale. Along with a gunshot wound in his back, he had a compound fracture of his lower right leg, an obviously broken or very badly sprained left ankle, and I feared some internal injuries as well. He was silent, never uttering a word of pain or complaint. Meth combined with ecstasy, they tell me, will do that sometimes. I met his gaze a couple of times as we put toweling over his fracture. He never blinked. I really think he would have tried to escape by crawling, if we hadn't both been there.
We kept clear of his teeth.
Borman returned, with a paramedic, who was being followed by two more. He told me that Lamar and the others had finally gotten in the main mine entrance, and should be up our way very soon. They could easily drive an ambulance up to us, as soon as they figured out which chamber we were in.
I left them, and went back to Huck. She was asleep, and Sally was just standing there, staring at her and adjusting a trauma blanket to try to keep the younger woman warm.
“She's wiped out,” she said.
“Yeah. Who wouldn't be? The last ten or fifteen years have been long ones for her.”
“Peale alive?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but pretty well busted up.”
“Did you hit him with that shot?”
“No doubt.”
“Attaboy,” she said.
There was a commotion in the outer chamber, followed by Lamar and our reinforcements arriving. They'd brought an ambulance with them.
“Sorry we're late,” said Lamar, after hearing my verbal report. He looked around the area where Huck was lying, and saw the tubing and the basin