Castillo Linda - Outsider

“Katie, about what you saw—”

I raise my hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

He tightens his mouth, looks away, then turns his gaze back to mine. “It was my doing. Not hers.”

Half a dozen responses dangle on my tongue. I want to caution him about Gina and her charms. Let him know that his attractive and fun-loving visitor has a talent for sucking the unsuspecting into her life. But Adam is a grown man. He knows his mind. And this is likely none of my business.

“You’re a gentleman, Adam.” I run my fingers through the horse’s mane. “Gina is … complicated.”

He nods, thoughtful. “In that case, I’ll just finish harnessing the horses and we’ll get those vehicles pulled from the snow.”

Fifteen minutes later, both horses are harnessed. The children have emerged from the house, bundled in coats and scarves and hats. The harnesses jingle as Adam leads the team of horses toward my Explorer. An uncharacteristically subdued Gina falls into step beside me.

The wind pelts us with drifting snow as we make our way down the lane. We find the Explorer partially buried in a drift.

“A few more inches of snow and we might not have found it,” Adam says as he brings the horses to a halt.

I motion toward the western horizon. “If those clouds are any indication, we’re here just in time.”

Beside me, Gina groans.

Hitting the fob, I slog through three feet of snow to the rear and pull the nylon tug strap from my equipment box. I’ve hauled enough vehicles from ditches to know it’s going to entail my tunneling through the snow beneath the vehicle to secure the tug-strap hook to the frame. Grabbing the folding shovel from the rear, I close the hatch, make my way around to the front, and jam the shovel into snow.

Gina stands back, shivering. “Sorry, Chief, but I’m not going to be much help with this loused-up arm.”

“I’ll dig!” Sammy exclaims. “I’m good at building snow tunnels. I built an igloo once.”

The boy’s eagerness makes me laugh. “I think your datt is going to need your help with those horses.”

While Sammy stomps over to where Adam is turning the team around, Annie and Lizzie begin to scoop snow into their mittened hands and engage in an impromptu snowball fight.

At the front of the Explorer, I stab the shovel into snow and then toss the snow into the ditch. After a few minutes I settle into a rhythm. Jam. Withdraw. Toss.

Sammy and his father chat as they send the horses into a side pass and then back them to the front of the Explorer. The horses are frisky due to the cold, tossing their heads, snorting, and shifting restlessly. When the animals are in place, Adam calls his son over to hold them, then approaches me and usurps the shovel.

“This is going to take all day at the rate you’re going,” he says with a smile.

“I won’t take that personally.” Smiling, I relinquish the shovel.

I stand back and watch as he digs a pseudo-tunnel beneath the front bumper, tossing the snow out behind him. When he’s finished, I position the tug line on the ground between the vehicle and team of horses. Taking the hook end, I get down on my belly and scrabble beneath the Explorer. Upon reaching the frame, I loop the nylon strap around the frame, hook it, and back out.

Adam stands behind the two horses, holding the lines, looking back at me. Sammy stands at the animals’ heads, watching. I’m covered with snow and freezing cold. Quickly, I slide into the Explorer, start the engine, and shift the transmission into neutral. I roll down the window. “Ready!”

Adam faces forward, snaps the lines gently against the horses’ rumps. “ Kumma druff! ” he says to them. Come on there!

Sammy tugs the lead lines. “Pull, Big Jimmy! Come on, Jenny! You can do it. Pull!”

The horses surge forward, pushing against their collars, haunches bunched. The tug line jerks taut. The horses strain against the weight, veering left and then right as their might meets resistance, breaths puffing from flared nostrils in great white clouds. The Explorer shifts. The vehicle lists at a slight angle, so I turn the wheel slightly so that the tires follow the direction of the horses.

“ Kumma druff! ” Adam says.

“Look at Big Jimmy go!” Lizzie exclaims.

Bearing witness to these magnificent animals pulling a nearly five-thousand-pound vehicle from several feet of snow is an awe-inspiring sight. Hooves slipping and sliding and digging in, heads down, the horses drag the vehicle several feet. I put the Explorer into four-wheel drive, touch the gas pedal. The vehicle slides sideways and moves forward until it’s out of the drift, and finally sitting in the lane.

“Whoa.” Adam stops the horses, and backs them up a couple of feet. The tension on the tug strap relaxes.

Even Gina is in awe. “Wrecker service, Amish style,” she murmurs. “That is seriously badass.”

“Don’t underestimate the old ways,” Adam says.

I park the Explorer in a wind-scoured area of the driveway and let the engine purr. Getting out, I go to the horses and run my hands over their thick winter coats. “Nicely done.”

“I have no idea where I left the truck,” Gina tells me. “That night is a blur.”

For the first time Adam looks at her. “I know where it is. Not too far.”

Adam and Sammy lead the team of horses up the lane. With Gina, the two girls, and me bringing up the rear, we pass through a gate near the barn, and then we’re in an open field heading toward the back of the property.

“The children and I took the sleigh this way that morning.” Adam gestures to the fence line that parallels the township road. “The truck is just ahead. There’s a gate.”

The sleigh tracks have long since been erased by the wind and covered with snow, so we follow the fence line to the rear of the property. Sure enough, the bed of an older F-150 pickup truck protrudes from the snow at a cockeyed angle. The hood is completely buried, an ancient bois d’arc tree jutting from a massive drift about where the bumper is located.

As I approach the vehicle, the first thing I notice is the half dozen bullet holes in the rear windshield. I struggle through hip-deep snow. The driver’s-side door is slightly open and buried up to the window.

“Going to have to pull this one out backward,” Adam says.

“That’ll work.” I unfold my shovel. Using it for balance, I make my way to the driver’s-side door and dig. When Annie comes up behind me with an offer to help, I grab a palmful of snow, form a snowball, and toss it onto the top of her winter bonnet.

The girl squeals in delight. As I dig to free up the door, Gina and Adam join the fun and before long everyone is throwing snow at everyone else. That the kids are having fun seems to make the work easier, and makes me forget that my feet and hands ache with cold. I’m relieved the children haven’t noticed the bullet holes, which would surely generate questions no one will quite know how to answer. I work as quickly as I can, sweating beneath my coat now. Within minutes, I’m able to open the door.

I slide behind the wheel, trying not to notice the blood frozen on the seat. I turn the key, but the engine doesn’t make a sound. “It’s dead.”

Gina pushes her way through snow, the sling hampering her balance. “I tried starting it after I hit the tree, but it was dead right after the accident.”

“Maybe the impact caused the battery to shift and become disconnected,” I say.

There are a half a dozen things we could check, but it’s too cold to take the time. The windchill is nearly unbearable. At the moment, our priority is to haul the truck out of the ditch and get it back to the farm so it’s out of sight, and the children can get inside to warm up.