Bitch Factor – Chapter 11
“Take it slow,” Dixie muttered to herself, shifting into reverse. “Slow and steady.”
“And light on the gas,” Dann warned, over her shoulder. “ You don’t want to set the wheels spinning again.”
But Dixie didn’t need his advice to tackle this part. She’d coaxed the Mustang out of plenty of mud banks; a snowbank couldn’t be a hell of a lot different. All it took was a firm hand on the car’s power and a bushel of patience to tease the wheels forward and back, until they rocked free of the trench.
She couldn’t see diddly through the sheet of ice on the windshield, but right now she didn’t need to see, only to feel. Bit by bit, the Mustang gained ground. Each time it rocked, the wheels traveled another inch, until, finally, the tires bit into the packed snow and the car lurched backward to the highway.
“Whoa!” Dixie said, relieved. “We’re back in the race.”
Another hard gust whammed the moving car sideways. She thought sure it would spin into another snowdrift. Despite the cold, sweat beaded her forehead. The car straddled the center lane, but at least it was back on the road, headed in the right direction. She turned on the wipers, hoping their friction would clear the windshield. The rubber blades scudded over ice without budging it.
“Got a scraper?” Dann asked.
“An ice scraper?” Dixie heaved an exasperated sigh. “Ask me if I have a high-intensity spotlight in case I need to change a tire at night on a dark highway. Ask me if I have road flares to alert passing motorists, spare cans of high-performance oil. Extra coolant for the heavy-duty cooling system. I have all that But why the hell would I carry an ice scraper in South Texas?”
“Woman, you’re a long way from Texas.”
A damn long way. At this rate she wouldn’t see Houston again before the New Year. She couldn’t even get moving again until she found some way to clear the cussed ice off the windshield.
“Got a credit card?” Dann asked.
“A credit card?”
“Stiff plastic, not one of those paper-thin jobs. It’ll take a few minutes, but you can scrape a hole big enough to see through.
It took more than a few minutes. Her American Express card snapped, she had to finish with Visa, but she managed to clear most of the windshield and a strip across the back window. She decided not to worry about the side glass. They weren’t likely to encounter any passing traffic.
Stiff with cold, yet reenergized by the prospect of moving out, Dixie slid back inside the car. She’d left the engine running, and the little heater had bullied the cold until the car felt downright hospitable. She shrugged out of Dann’s parka, removed the cumbersome gloves, and put the Mustang in gear.
The wind’s constant push assured her she was headed south. All she had to do was step on the gas and tool on down to Watertown.
Step on the gas, Flannigan.
But as long as the car remained stationary, the wind could do its worst and they wouldn’t be flung off the road. The moment she started moving again, the Mustang might skid out of control.
Besides, she felt a certain familiarity with her immediate environment, the cattle smothering one another on her right, the snowbank she had interacted with intimately on the left. Ahead lay the unknown, shrouded by a wailing white tempest.
“Turn on the radio,” Dann said. “Maybe there’ll be a weather alert.”
Startled out of her quandary, Dixie shifted into neutral, punched the ON button, and heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” At least somebody out there was enjoying Christmas Eve. She turned the dial, sweeping half the band before hearing a faint voice. Tried to tune it in. Lost it. Swept past and started over, almost to the station with Rudolph, when-
“- Denver’s DIA reports all flights cancelled until further notice… Greyhound bus routes canceled throughout Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, eastern Colorado, northern Nebraska… North highways closed throughout the Dakotas, check with your local weather bureau for specific routes… Grand Forks airport reports winds at fifty-two miles an hour, temperature at minus two degrees Fahrenheit with windchill pushing that to forty-six below….” Even the wind was going faster than she was.
“No wonder I’ve been freezing my buns off out there -”
“Lady, you better get your buns down the road if you plan on making it to a town. Once they close this highway, we’re stuck.”
“Surely they can’t refuse to let us pass.” She put the Mustang in gear, eased up on the gas and felt the back wheels spin ineffectively.
You sat here too long with the engine running, you shit-for-brains Southerner. Didn’t Dann warn you what happens under the –
Abruptly, the wheels gripped the ice. The Mustang shot forward, sliding as much as rolling until Dixie got the steering under control. With a death grip on the wheel, she barreled forward at fifteen miles an hour.
Parker Dann was silent for the first five minutes.
“How far you reckon we are from the nearest town?” he asked.
“Forty, maybe forty-five miles to Sisseton.” She didn’t want to talk. She needed to concentrate on keeping the car on the road, which was next to impossible with no markers. No lane stripes. No reflectors. Everything covered with snow.
But hey! was that a road sign ahead? She strained her eyes to read it… CHAINS REQUIRED.
“Terrific! Why don’t they tell me something useful?”
Her arms ached from gripping the wheel so hard. Her stomach burned with hunger. Her bladder felt full enough to float her eye teeth. Dann could grouse all he wanted about using a water bottle, but at least he had an option that didn’t involve freezing his ass off.
“How long you reckon it’ll take us to get to Sisseton at fifteen miles an hour?” When she didn’t answer, Dann speculated. “Three hours, the way I figure it. Oughta be slap dab dark in twenty minutes. Storm isn’t letting up any.”
“What’s your point, Dann?
“My point is we aren’t going to make it with you driving.”
“You’re saying you could do better?”
“About twenty miles an hour better – which just might be enough to get us to town before they shut down this highway.”
She wished the radio would quit fading in and out. She could do without the Christmas music reminding her of what she was missing at home, but at least it was a connection to civilization. Without that she felt utterly isolated. They could easily be the only souls in a thousands of miles.
“What happens,” Dann said, “is the highway department swings a steel gate across the road. Couple officers wait around to let stragglers through, but they don’t wait forever. And I got to tell you, most folks up this way have enough common sense to stay off the roads in weather like this -”
“- all flights closed into Denver…” The radio faded in loud again, no change in the weather spiel, except for one cheery announcement: “…record storm sweeping the upper Midwest … worst blizzard in more than a decade.”
Dixie loosened her death grip on the wheel and tried to relax, but the caffeine keeping her awake had racked her nerves. She felt like a piano wire stretched to the snapping point.
Anyone who can rappel a three-hundred-foot cliff, she told herself, has no business freaking out at a little ice on the road.
Once, you rappeled a cliff. Once. And lost your breakfast as soon as it was over.
To be truthful, she didn’t even like driving in heavy rain. During a flash flood in Houston, the Mustang had hit a sheet of water on the freeway and Dixie found herself whipped around, heading back the way she’d come, wrong way in one-way traffic. After righting the car, she pulled off the freeway for ten minutes, shaking. That split-second loss of control had turned her backbone to jelly.
Barney Flannigan had schooled her to view such episodes as challenges, never to accept defeat. She could hear his lyrical brogue as if he were sitting beside her, “Never say ‘can’t’ lass. Tackle the fear head on. Grab it by the horns, and don’t let go till you best it it.”
She’d mastered roller skating, but never learned to enjoy it. After the hydroplane incident, she continued to drive on rain-slick streets, but never without the familiar churning in her stomach. This ice was a hundred times worse, and now was not a good time to test her grit.
Dixie didn’t want to consider Dann’s suggestion to let him drive, but she hadn’t seen another vehicle since the truck’s taillights disappeared, which seemed to confirm that the highway was closed behind. If it was closed ahead, then they were already stranded and it didn’t matter what she decided. But if Dann stood a better chance of getting them to a town before the road closed, maybe she should let him take the wheel.
Hidden behind a false wall separating the trunk from the backseat was a small arsenal. She could retrieve the .45 and cover Dann while he drove. For that matter, a shiv was tucked right here in her boot. She’d never use it unless backed into a corner. She hated knives. She had to admit, though, they were better than guns in close quarters – except for the psychological advantage of a gun, which wasn’t to be sneezed at.
Then again, maybe she was merely psyched after that close call with the deer. If Dann could handle the road at thirty-five miles an hour, she could, too. She was better acquainted with the Mustang’s idiosyncrasies.
lt would help if the cussed wind would let up.
She pushed the needle to twenty. Okay,so far, she thought. Which reminded her of the idiot who fell off a skyscraper and halfway down yelled to some people looking out a window, “l’m all right, so far.”
Ignoring the dread churning in her gut, she pushed the needle to twenty-five. Dann hadn’t said a word since his comment about driving. But his anxiety crackled through the air, fueling her own tension.
The folks at the diner had called it close when they said dark would come by four o’clock. In daylight, the driving snow was worse than a thick fog. Now that the sunlight was fading, visibility ended just past the front bumper.
At twenty-five miles an hour, her teeth were clenched so hard her jaw hurt, her fingers felt welded to the steering wheel, and her stomach felt like getting stuck in her throat. When she thought about going faster, panic rose like bile. But at this speed they wouldn’t make Sisseton for another two hours. She pressed the accelerator and watched the needle inch toward thirty. Okay, so far.
Then the right front tire hit an ice slick. The car whipped into a sickening spin.
Jerking her foot off the gas, Dixie steered into the turn, counting two revolutions before the car shuddered to a stop.
Sweat drenched her clothes. She sat without moving, her forehead on the steering wheel. When she could no longer stand the churning in her stomach, she opened the door and vomited.
Check back right here next week for the next Bitch Factor chapter.
Meanwhile, check out Slice of Life, the latest Dixie Flannigan thriller.
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