Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [48]
Brittney was nice, but not I-wanna-do-extrachores nice. There was something else to it. Bingo.
“You want to pitch in before DJ comes home, takes over, and gets all the credit.”
“Exactly!”
Sneaky. I sort of admired her. I caught, “—but it’s not as hard as DJ said.”
I ground out my cigarette. “Speaking of butts, where’s Dad?”
She snickered. “Mom took him in to the clinic in Sturgis to get his hand checked out. He had to pull another calf last night and now it’s really swollen. He can barely use it.”
I put the pieces together and found everyone missing except one. “Are you home alone?”
No reply.
“Tell me you weren’t gonna get on that tractor when no one is home.”
“It’s not a big deal. I’ve driven the tractor with Dad lots of times and that haystack isn’t very far away. It’s not like you know anything about driving a tractor anyway.”
“Jesus Christ, Brittney! You know better than 164
that. You’d better not be—”
Click.
The little shit hung up on me.
“Goddammit!” I threw the phone in the seat and sped up. I was gonna wring her scrawny neck if she didn’t kill herself first.
The driveway to the house was cleared. I raced up the steps. Didn’t bother to knock before I stormed inside.
“Brittney? You’d better be in here.”
No sound but the drone of the humidifier.
Back outside I heard machinery running out behind the barn. I threw my truck in gear, then had to get out again to open the gate. Once I’d driven through and closed the gate, I heard the unsteady growl of machinery off in the distance. As I passed the far corner of the barn, I noticed a pile of hay strewn about. Had she been at it a while, way before she’d called me?
I fumed.
Even with my truck in four-wheel drive the path was treacherous. I caught sight of John Deere green against the backdrop of the pearly gray sky and white ground. In the corner of the field, close to the intersecting gravel roads, two fences made a “V” and a blue 165
plastic tarp covered part of the misshapen haystack. Looked like a loaf of golden bread with a huge bite chomped out of the center.
I’d made a mistake driving out here, but with her head start and my smoker’s lungs I’d never catch her if I hoofed it. I couldn’t abandon my pickup in the middle of the pathway and chance Brittney nailing it with the tractor on the return trip. No place to turn around. No choice but to keep going.
I gunned it. Watching the tractor’s back end skid out, not paying attention to my driving, I plowed into a thick ridge of snow. My seat belt jerked me back. The truck came to a complete stop. I dropped the drive shaft into the lowest gear. Hit the gas. The engine whined and mixed with the sound of rubber spinning on ice. High-centered.
“Fuck.” No reason to sit and spin. I grabbed my phone, scrambled out, and slogged through the snowdrifts until I stood in front of my truck. Brittney had to have seen me. Avoiding me was making it worse for her.
She kept zipping along. In fact, she was going fast. Way too fast. Way, way too fast for the treacherous conditions. Out of control fast. Her arms flailed inside the cab.
Oh shit. Oh no. Oh fuck no.
I ran.
The frigid air seemed to sear the airway to my lungs shut. I couldn’t breathe. As my legs pumped, my 166
heart threatened to explode from the sudden exertion. I slipped and slid on the ice but kept going. Somehow, some way, I had to stop that fucking machine. The bucket on the front end bounced. Pieces of hay flew off the spiked tines like countrified confetti. And Brittney was still headed straight for disaster. Hitting that stack wouldn’t be like jumping in a fluffy pile of fresh straw; it’d be like slamming into a brick wall.
I didn’t want to watch; I couldn’t look away. I felt useless and scared shitless that another tragedy was unfolding right before my eyes and I couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop it.
Something must’ve gotten stuck or broke. I
thought of Dad and his piss-poor equipment inspection. Had he neglected to