October skies

The wagon slowly slid in the mush, further over the edge, the fractured wheel creaking alarmingly. The oxen on the left-hand side of the doubled team, seeing the drop right next to them, began to panic, scrambling to the right, causing a spreading confusion amongst the others. The wagon canted still further and Ben could see there was an irretrievable momentum building up that was going to carry it over.

‘For God’s sake jump!’ he shouted at her.

Mrs Zimmerman suddenly turned and clawed at the tightened canvas flap. She screamed something, a warning… as she tried to get inside. He remembered then that the woman had a young daughter, and that she must be inside the wagon. The woman managed to loosen the ties of the canvas flap and was half inside, desperately scrambling to reach for her little girl, when the improvised wheel suddenly shattered with a loud crack.

The top-heavy wagon lost its grip, toppling over the edge, throwing the woman out on to the ground. She landed heavily at the top of the slope only to watch the wagon roll over as it tumbled down the slope, crushing the hickory canvas bows and, undoubtedly, the poor girl inside. The oxen, dragged over the edge with it, followed in its wake, a squirming tangled mass of muscle and hide and flailing legs.

The wagon’s tumbling descent, as one whole, came to a shuddering halt as it slammed into a tree trunk. The wooden vehicle shattered with an explosive force, leaving an avalanche of debris — torn and jagged planks of wood, barrels and boxes and tattered cloth and shattered pottery — to continue its rolling descent to the bottom of the gulch. The oxen followed the same path down, most of their limbs and necks already broken and flopping like lengths of ribbon.

Skittering down the slope a moment later came a length of rope and, attached to it, the axle ripped from the conestoga being used as a winch at the top of the hill.

Ben looked up the trail to see that the wagon had been pulled partway down and turned on its side, leaving a trail of damaged and battered possessions strewn behind it.

Mr Hussein whispered a curse in Arabic.

It was Preston who reacted before anyone else, throwing his broad-brimmed hat to the ground and beginning to scramble down the perilously steep slope, with little apparent care for his own safety.

From the top of the hill, where the men had been working together to winch up the wagon, Ben heard Mr Zimmerman bellowing with grief.

CHAPTER 13

Sunday

Flight UA176

Julian stared out of the window at the fluttering port wing of UA176 and the two very heavy-looking engines that wobbled precariously beneath it.

He hated turbulence — really hated it. The ‘seat belts on’ sign pinged.

‘Great,’ he muttered, gripping the armrest tightly.

The little girl sitting beside him looked up from the game on her phone. ‘Are you scared?’ she asked.

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and knotted his eyebrows sternly as he turned to her, hoping he was conveying both a relaxed lack of interest in the mild buffeting and the notion that right now, he really didn’t need to be consoled by a maternally minded child.

‘Just fine, thanks.’

She nodded, satisfied he wasn’t going to need babysitting and returned to her game. He returned to focusing his mind off the fact he was riding a 350-ton kerosene bomb, 30,000 feet above the ground, kept aloft merely because they were travelling through air fast enough.. for now. He turned away from the window and pulled down the blind. If he couldn’t see those wafer-thin wings wobbling through the turbulence, it might help.

There was news playing on the small dropdown LCD screens; more on the still-distant US election, and the Republican party’s continuing efforts to find a strong partnership to run against the Democrats. It was followed by a quick throwaway item on several independent candidates who had already thrown their hats into the ring. There was the usual array of attention-seeking nuts amongst them, Julian noticed. He decided to turn his attention to work, opening up a folder of printed sheets — the Lambert journal — but his mind swiftly drifted off-piste.

Rose.

What happened there?

In the last few years they’d spent literally thousands of hours in each other’s company, and a few dozen of those, the worse for wear from booze. But nothing like that had ever happened before. On the one hand, there was a tingle of desire, on the other, it felt wrong — like looking at a sister or an auntie in a funny way.

Julian shook his head. Why, all of a sudden, after three years of working together, had this awkward situation cropped up?

Why now, for crying out loud?

Work, Jules… work.