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“Use a heating pad when you get home.” Obviously, she, too, thought it was time to drop the subject.
After that fun-filled conversation I stayed quiet. I didn’t need any more talk in code. Or talk, period. Since the road twisted and turned for ten miles following the banks of Hyalite Creek back to town, I wanted Goldie to think my silence was due to my focus on the driving. Which in part, it was. With a camper, top speed maxed at thirty-five going down due to having to deal with the steep decline and narrowness of the road. Take in lack of guardrails and potentially falling rocks, I kept both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road.
The Colonel followed behind us in his truck, blissfully unaware of my ridiculous conversation with Goldie. I couldn’t tell either of them the real reason I was sore. The last thing I needed was for them to go off the deep end about someone trying to hurt me.
The boys were in the back staring out the open windows. The gnomes, brought along for the weekend, were in the middle between Zach and Bobby, the lap belt securing them in place. The hot breeze blew the hair on their sweaty heads. They were both in almost vegetative states after a weekend of camping funand hours of fishing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell asleep before we got home.
A few minutes later, Goldie piped up. “Whatever happened the other night with Ty? At the demolition derby.”
“Mmm?” I tried to remain mute, but I knew it would be impossible. She wouldn’t shut up until she’d wheedled it out of me. And the last thing I wanted to bring up was the other night. I’d end up blurting out about the derby car and possible death. That would not be a good thing.
We came around a right turn and hit a small stretch of straightaway. I felt a thunk and took it for a pot hole.
Goldie turned to look at me, settling in for a good long chat. “Don’tmmmme, missy. You know very well I gave you an opportunity and I want to know if you grabbed the bull by the horns.”
I smiled to myself thinking of grabbing Ty by the….
“Holy Mary, mother of God!” Goldie pointed out the driver’s side window in utter disbelief. Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide. What on earth could make Goldie speechless?
“Mom! What’s the camper doing over there?” Zach yelled.
I yanked my head to the left. There, moving parallel to the car, was the pop-up camper. All white and shiny. Even the black pin stripe down the side was clearly visible…since it was only four feet away.
I shifted my eyes off the camper for a split second and back on the road.
I was going straight.
The camper was going straight.
The road curved to the right.
“Holy crap!”
My brain finally kicked in and I yanked the wheel to stay on the road. Both feet slammed the brakes. All four of us, as well as two gnomes, whiplashed in our seat belts and watched, stunned,as the camper rolled right past us, off the road, across the dirt shoulder and over the edge into the creek.
11
“What the—” Ty yelled as he stormed through my backyard over to the patio. The Colonel was here. So were Goldie and Paul. We’d just finished a late dinner, the dirty dishes still on the table in front of us. He wore his fire uniform with a pager and walkie-talkie still clipped to his belt. Obviously, he’d come over directly from work.
I cleared my throat and tilted my head toward the boys playing in the sandbox with their gnomes.
“—heckis going on? We’re wrapping up a gas leak on Durston and a county sheriff tells me this insane story about a call he just came from. It was a runaway camper up near Hyalite. I started laughing as it sounded so insane, hilarious even, but then I got this crazy feeling.” He ran a hand over his face as if trying to remain calm. “I asked him if the camper by any chance belonged to a woman named Jane West. The sheriff starts laughing. You know what he said?” His voice started to get even louder. I’d never seen Ty so flustered. “He said I sure know how to pick a girlfriend!”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Goldie’s brows go up. I ignored her.
“Girlfriend?” I squeaked. I never knew he thought of me as hisgirlfriend.
Ty shut his eyes. I guessed he was counting to ten. When he opened them, he said, “You. Only you would pick out that word from everything I’ve said.” He swiveled and pointed at Goldie. “Okay, maybe you, too.” He shifted back to me. “Your camper disconnected, ran off the road and into the creek!”
“If I hadn’t been there and seen it first hand, I wouldn’t have believed it either,” the Colonel said. “I think I’m calm in most situations, say, war for example, but I tell you, when I saw that camper alongside their car, I almost had a heart attack. Jell-O?”
The Colonel scooped up his lemon and whipped cream concoction onto a plate and held it out to Ty. For about five seconds, Ty just stared at the yellow and white jiggling glob. He had no choice but to take it. He dropped down into an empty seat and started shoveling it in. With a full mouth, he couldn’t do a lot of talking.
After a few bites, he pointed his spoon at me. “How does a pop-up camper with only two wheels manage to stay upright long enough to do”—his wrist rotated his spoon around in circles—“whatever it does to roll down the road and into the creek?”
“That’s the part that bothers me,” Paul added, holding Goldie’s hand. He’d switched his on-call shift with another doctor after he heard of our camper fiasco and stuck like glue to his wife’s side. “Jane said she raised the wheel jack and connected the safety chain to the hitch on her car before they pulled out of the campsite.”
Ty looked at me and I nodded.
