First Thrills - Lee Child [143]
Until an hour ago, all Jason wanted was to earn enough to set him and Jenny up in an apartment before they broke the news about the baby, or maybe someone’s empty cabin. No way could they live in his parents’ basement. The Finns and the Swedes in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula had hated each other for generations. Jason’s parents hadn’t even met Jenny. Said they didn’t need to; all they needed to know was her last name. A saw that cut both ways, judging by the way Jenny’s parents treated Jason. Anyone who thought Romeo and Juliet would’ve had an easier time in the twenty-first century had never met the Andersons and Niemis.
He bent to make another notch. A breeze kicked up, an early winter wind that swirled wood chips and sawdust in his face. He blinked—
—and came to with an elephant on his chest.
Not an elephant, a log—a big one. Nothing like the puny scrub he’d been cutting—a massive, long-dead maple—a widow-maker hung up for God knew how long in a nearby tree, just waiting for someone like him to come along.
He lay still and waited for his brain to come back to full power. The saw was running, so he couldn’t have been out long. His hard hat was gone. No doubt it was the hard hat that saved him. They didn’t call them widow- makers for nothing.
He pushed against the trunk with both hands, then twisted sideways and shoved with his shoulder, feeling like the beetles he used to pin inside a shoe box when he was little. The tree shifted. He shoved again, letting the trunk rock and settle. Each time it rolled back, it knocked the wind out of him like a sucker punch, but at last he built up enough momentum to carry it past the tipping point. The log rolled down his shins and over his ankles.
Breathing heavily, he sat up.
Bright, arterial blood spurted from his right leg like a fountain.
Holy—The saw must’ve caught him on the way down. He pressed down hard with both hands. Blood gushed between his fingers. Fumbling one-handed with his belt buckle, he stripped off the belt and cinched it around his leg up high near his groin. The bleeding slowed.
He sat back. Wiped his hands on his jeans. Tried not to panic. His cell was in his truck. The truck was a quarter, maybe half a mile away. Reception was always spotty, but if there was a God in heaven, the call would get through.
He grabbed one of the maple’s broken-off limbs and used it as a cane to get to his feet. Blood ran down his leg. He shuddered. Wolves lived in the woods. Not many, but still. Bears and coyotes, too. Normally, they didn’t come around people, but this was about as far from normal as you could get.
He tried a step. It turned out more like a hop. He step-hopped, step- hopped, using the branch as a prop. Hop on Pop. Dr. Seuss played in his head as he got a feel for the cane and his feet found their rhythm. We like to hop on top of Pop. Better than the Brothers Grimm.
Finally, the truck. He hobbled around to the passenger side and took his cell out of the glove box. No service. Okay then, he’d drive himself out. It wouldn’t be easy without the use of his right leg, but he could do it. Eyeing the height of the 4 by 4’s seat, he tried to figure out the best way to climb in.
The keys. The keys were in his jacket pocket. His jacket was out where he’d been cutting, hanging on a bush.
He sagged against the doorjamb. He couldn’t walk all the way to his strip and back, he just couldn’t. Even if he found the strength, it’d be full dark before he made it half way.
But he couldn’t hunker down in the truck and wait for the crew to come along in the morning either. He could bleed out, freeze to death—Jenny might send someone looking for him when he didn’t text her to say goodnight. Or not.
All he could do was suck