Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [50]
Time passed in a blur of nothingness. I was cold, I was scared, and I could do nothing about either. I 171
talked to Brittney until my voice became hoarse. Screaming hadn’t done my vocal cords any favors. I needed to move, to keep the blood flowing. My gaze locked on the body downhill. The second body I’d found today. And sad to say, but finding two bodies in one day wasn’t even a record for me. I started toward the legs, out of more than morbid curiosity. It’d save the sheriff time if I identified the person beforehand. Although why I was still looking for ways to make the sheriff ’s job easier was beyond me.
When I reached the corpse I couldn’t see the face, or the upper half of the body. I’d have to move it slightly.
Don’t do it.
I placed my palm on the denim-covered shin and pushed hard. The cardboard rigid body toppled over, leaving the man prone.
“Shit, oh Jesus, that’s fucking nasty.” I jumped back from the gruesome sight. The man’s head wobbled as if it was only attached to the body by the spinal cord. Dark splotches covered his face and I couldn’t tell if it was blood or mud.
The tractor had ripped chunks out of flesh, in a couple of places, like a cleaver slicing away frozen meat. Were the holes in the cloth puncture wounds from the tractor tines? Or was the body too hard to pierce?
He wore the typical rancher wear: a flannel shirt and jeans. No coat. Yellow cotton liners layered under 172
stained leather work gloves. The boots were a hybrid between hiking and old-fashioned rubber galoshes. I had not a clue who this dead man was. But he was seriously fucked up.
The sound of approaching vehicles made me glance up and scramble back to the tractor. Not an ambulance, or patrol cars, or the volunteer fire department’s extraction van, but two pickups. The men parked alongside the road climbed out. My dad’s buddies, Don Anderson and Dale Pendergrast. Evidently they’d been listening to the police scanner again.
Dale rummaged in his truck bed while Don
shouted, “Julie? You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Emergency folks oughta be here soon.”
I didn’t answer.
They started toward me, each holding a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters. In no time flat they had the four remaining sections of the barbed-wire fence cut and rolled out of the way for easier access for the emergency crews. Huffing and puffing uphill, they finally reached me. The concern on their usually stoic faces made me jabber. “Brittney’s still in the tractor. I don’t know how bad she’s hurt and I didn’t want to chance moving her—”
“It’s okay. You did fine. They’ll get her out of there an’ fixed up in no time.”
Dale’s gaze dropped to my bare hands. “Girl, 173
where are your gloves?”
“I-I’m not sure.”
“Losin’ your gloves is a damn good way to lose your fingers. Here.” He tugged off his gloves and passed them to me, then grunted and lumbered back to his truck.
I almost wept when the warmth from the fleecelined leather seeped into my hands.
“What else can we do?” Don asked.
“After they get her out of there . . .” I swallowed. My mouth was bone-dry from yelling and raw from the cold wind. “While I was chasing after her, I highcentered my truck. I’ll probably need a winch to get unstuck.”
“No worries. You got chains?”
“Yeah. I carry a little of everything in my truck bed.”
“Smart.”
Sirens wailed ever closer.
“Is your daddy on his way?”
I stared at him like an idiot. “They don’t know. Brittney was home alone when she called me. When I found out she was climbing on that tractor by herself, I sped out here. Then this happened . . . and I didn’t think.”
“S’okay. We’ll let ’em know. I got the number right here.” Don dug his phone out of the front pocket of his bib overalls.
“Will you tell him it’s not my fault? That I’d never 174
do anything to hurt her . . .” My throat closed and I couldn’t finish.
Don’s beady eyes narrowed on mine. “If it weren’t for you, who knows what woulda happened to that little gal. If your daddy cain’t see you saved her, then he’s a bigger fool than I thought.”
The ambulance screamed up, followed