Killerwatt (17 page)

After trying the front door knob, then ringing the
bell and knocking again, Rhetta eased around to the side of the house,
searching for other doors. She tried the door to the breezeway between the
house and the garage. Locked. After walking around to the sliding glass
basement door, she found it locked as well. No one answered her pounding.
Maybe
he’s just not home. Maybe I’m over-reacting.

She cruised around the house and hopped back up on
to the porch to again survey the surroundings. From Billy Dan’s porch, she had
a good view of the lake. Strange, how every door on the place was secure with
the exception of the fishing shed. That door wasn’t only unlocked, it stood
wide open. Billy Dan must’ve gone fishing, yet he was nowhere around his
property that she could tell.

She scanned the grassy slopes surrounding the lake.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. At the foot of the hill below the house,
the wooden dock stretched a good 20 feet out over the water, an extension of
the stone walkway leading to it. Tied to the dock was Billy Dan’s paddleboat.
Nothing unusual there.

After trotting down the back porch steps, she picked
her way along the rock walk to the lake, studying the ground, the grass, the
dock, the paddleboat. She stepped gingerly on to the dock and walked to the end
of it. The water was so still it didn’t even lap around the pilings. Cupping
her hands around her mouth, she shouted Billy Dan’s name again and was shocked
to hear her amplified voice bounce back to her. Her “Hello-o-o” skimmed across the
water, where it reverberated through the trees on the other side of the lake.

The clouds scudded off, leaving brilliant late
afternoon sunshine in their wake. Rhetta shielded her eyes as she stared
westward across the glittering blue water of the lake. She shouted again.
“Hello, Billy Dan?” No answer.

A faint noise, a bumping sound, floated up from the
water. Following the sound, she spotted an overturned johnboat in the water
close to the edge of the lake. After calling out one more time, she heard another
faint thump, as if in response.

Rhetta exploded into a sprint, shouting Billy Dan’s
name as she ran. She drilled her stare on the overturned flat-bottomed boat.
Billy Dan had to be underneath it. She was sure of it. For some reason, he
couldn’t get out and was answering her shouts by pounding. She pumped her legs
to the max.

About twenty feet from the spot on the shore closest
to the boat, a white oak tree root snagged her toe as she flew by, catapulting
her face first on to the damp grass. For a second, she couldn’t fathom what had
happened until the pain from her ankle shot to her brain. She moaned and cursed
at the same time. Propping herself up on her grass-stained elbows, she
scrabbled backward enough to free her foot. Her ankle began throbbing. Her
right ankle. Her driving foot.

“Crap, that hurts,” she yelped. She hoisted herself
up to her knees, then slowly stood. Her ankle sent a jolt of pain each time her
heart beat. She sucked in deep breaths. Her head swiveled toward the boat. She
heard the faint thump again. She examined her swelling ankle, daring to touch
it. It felt hot and started to swell, and began throbbing as she limped along.

“Billy Dan, hang on. I’m coming,” she shouted.
Another response thump from the boat. “Oww,” she cried when she tried to hurry
and pain shot up her leg.

Reaching the spot on the bank nearest the overturned
boat, she shouted again. “I’m here, Billy Dan, hang on.” The boat bobbed upside
down and was no farther than ten feet from shore. A muffled moan escaped from under
the boat. The groan was followed by a weak tap, tap, tap. “I’m coming out to
you,” Rhetta shouted, and dipped her good foot into the water at the shore,
where the water was ankle deep. The bank sloped sharply the farther she slogged
out toward the boat. Moving carefully so she wouldn’t slip and fall, she slid
along the slimy mud bottom. She cried out again from the pain reverberating
from her injured ankle.

By the time she reached the small boat, she was
waist-deep in the water. Mud had sucked off the tennis shoe on her injured
foot. She didn’t care. This time when she called out to Billy Dan, he answered
her with a groan.

“Billy Dan, it’s Rhetta McCarter. I’m going to get
you out from under there, okay?” She didn’t ask him if he was all right. That was
a stupid question. If he’d been all right, he wouldn’t have been clinging to
the underside of his small fishing boat.

He mumbled something she didn’t understand, but
which she interpreted as a “yes.”

She didn’t have a clue how to get him out.

“Where are you hurt?” she shouted.

Another muffled sound followed by a moan.

“Can you turn loose of the boat and I’ll push it
away?”

“No,” came the distinct reply.

Now what?

She started to tug the boat toward shore. She
stopped abruptly when she heard Billy Dan yelp in pain. “No, stop,” he cried.

All right, go to Plan B. What the
hell is plan B?

She’d never had to rescue someone from under a boat
before. Was there a protocol for this?

“I’m going to push down and try to turn the boat
over.”

“No!” came an even sharper reply.

Of course not
. What was she thinking?
Why
not? What’s wrong with Billy Dan?

The only way to know how to free him was to get
under the boat with him and see what she was dealing with.

She ducked down, bobbed her head under the water,
and came up alongside him beneath the boat. Although sunlight streamed across
the water, underneath the boat was dim. Little light penetrated. She willed her
eyes to hurry and adjust to the dark.

Squinting around to get her bearings, she identified
the streaky dark splotches spattering the underside the boat. Blood everywhere.
Rhetta inhaled sharply. An upside-down portion of the hinged upholstered seat
that normally covered the bait well dangled into the water. The two wooden
bench seats, one in the bow and one in the stern, served to hold the little
johnboat steady after it had turned over.

“Billy Dan, oh my God, what happened?” Billy Dan,
wedged firmly between the stern seat where he’d been sitting, and the middle
seat, didn’t answer. He groaned, his mangled right arm trapped in the bait box
.
His lower body sloshed in the water. The cover of the bait box dangled,
splintered in two. One piece hung loosely into the water, while an enormous
shard pierced Billy Dan’s arm, pinning him to the boat. “Dear God, I’ve got to
get you out of here!” Frantic, she looked around for something she could use to
help Billy Dan.

She had no idea how to free him.

CHAPTER
36

Rhetta ducked back under the water and surfaced on
the other side of Billy Dan. She found herself in the small space next to the
bait box, inches from the middle seat. Billy Dan was hurt. Hurt too badly to
free himself. He clung to the bottom of the boat with his good arm, exhaustion
evident. She could easily see that he was barely able to hold on.

Glancing around, she was unable to determine what
had caused his injury or the boat to capsize. She’d save those questions for
later. Right now, she had to figure out how to get Billy Dan out from under the
boat. She saw that the first thing she had to do was free him from the shard.

“All right, let’s get you loose.” She began tugging
on the wood shard that pinned him to the boat, but stopped quickly when he
cried out in pain.

“I need to figure out which pieces of this thing,”
she said, pointing toward the bait box, “that I can remove to free you.” He
grunted.

If she loosened some of the other pieces instead of
the one in his arm, she might have enough room to maneuver Billy Dan and free
him from his impalement.

She groaned with the effort of pulling an unwieldy
wood slab with one hand, while gripping the rim of the underside of the boat
with the other. She turned loose of the boat, grabbed the splintered piece with
both hands, and jerked as hard as she could. The piece broke loose and she
stumbled backward. Losing her balance, she went under the water again. Flailing
and churning forward, she propelled herself back under the boat. The process
seemed to take forever, like she was moving in slow motion, caught in a bizarre
dream. When she finally surfaced, she sputtered, spitting out muddy water.

Minutes later, she was able to free him. The moment
she loosened Billy Dan’s injured arm, it floated limply in the water. Billy Dan
seemed unable to control it. His head lay against his good arm, as he gripped
the underside of the boat. His strength had waned and he turned loose of the
boat. She feared he was unconscious.

“Billy Dan, can you hear me?” She was inches from
his face. He didn’t respond. His eyes were nearly shut. “Billy Dan, answer me,”
she commanded. His eyes fluttered open and he grunted.

“I’m going to hold on to you and pull you under the
boat. Then we’re going to shore.” She’d figured she’d wrap her right arm around
his waist and pull him downward to clear the boat.

“Uh…,” he mumbled faintly and began heaving himself
outward. His movement, she quickly saw, was a hindrance.

“Stay still and let me get a grip on you,” she
ordered. She slogged up alongside him and encircled as much of his waist with
her right arm as she could reach. Although Billy Dan wasn’t tall, his muscular
build made him a lot larger around than she was. Rhetta’s size—barely five feet
two and one hundred ten pounds—made her feel like she was grasping a giant.

“On three,” she said. “Then let go.” She sucked in a
deep breath. “One, two, three!” With all her strength, she pulled Billy Dan
downward into the water. When she ducked to clear the boat, her painful ankle
gave out. She stumbled backward, lost her balance, and tumbled into the water.
She also lost Billy Dan.

When she righted herself, she began panicking. She
couldn’t locate him. He hadn’t surfaced. He was still underwater.

Oh, God, where is he?

All she saw was muddy water churning all around her.
She’d made most of those billowy mud clouds herself. The boat drifted away, a
sure sign that Billy Dan was no longer holding on to it.

She stabbed the water with both hands, searching
frantically. She couldn’t find him.
Where did he go? How could I lose him in
three feet of water?

She lunged toward the spot she last saw him, but
grabbed only muddy lake water. Holding her breath, Rhetta ducked under the
surface of the water and spotted him a few feet from her, face down, his limbs
floating loosely, and a dark trail of blood oozing from his head. He was
floating to the surface, no longer attached to anything.
He hit his head.
He’s unconscious!

Sloshing toward him, she circled both arms around
his upper torso and propelled him upward until his face cleared the water.
Although it felt like she was wading through quicksand, Rhetta managed to hold
on to him.

She lugged him the longest ten feet in the world to
the shore. When his head lay safely on the grass, she gulped for oxygen. Billy
Dan’s legs rested in the water. After her chest stopped burning, and she was
finally able to breathe, she locked both her arms around his chest and tugged
him up on the bank, clear of the water. Kneeling alongside him, she gasped for
air. Using the last of her strength, she shoved as hard as she could, managing
to roll him on to his back. She propped herself on her elbows and hovered over
him, panting. She’d used up all her strength.

Rhetta crawled into a sitting position alongside
Billy Dan. She was dripping wet, with mud and slime gluing her jeans to her
legs. A now unrecognizable tennis shoe covered in mud stuck to her left foot.
She sloshed whenever she moved. Her right foot was bare. She panted, still
fighting to catch her breath.

Rhetta changed positions and kneeled over Billy Dan.
She tilted his head sideways, then ran two fingers around his mouth to clear
his airway. She began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. After a few agonizingly
long minutes, he sputtered and coughed.

He was breathing!

When Billy Dan came around, he began to moan softly.
Rhetta squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to stop the tears before they fell.

I nearly killed him trying to
save him!

Coated in muck and dripping wet in the hot afternoon
sun, Rhetta’s shaking ratcheted up to earthquake proportions. 

CHAPTER
37

“Billy Dan, can you hear me?” Rhetta panted as she
gripped the sodden man around his shoulders and helped him sit up. After a bout
of coughing, sputtering, spitting out water and mud, his rapid breathing
finally slowed, and he nodded. She sat back on her heels, observing him.

“Thanks,” Billy Dan said trying to talk. He coughed
violently again, unable to finish his sentence.

Rhetta peered at Billy Dan’s left arm, which had
begun swelling around the ugly protruding shard.

“I need to call an ambulance.”

He barely nodded.

“I have to go up to your house,” she said. “No cell.
All your doors are locked,” she added.

“Back porch, key under…the…geraniums.” He managed to
get that out without more coughing.

Rhetta stood, and tugged off the tennis shoe and
dropped it to the ground. She winced as it came free of her swollen foot. “I’ll
be right back. Don’t move. Stay still”

Hobbling barefoot on her injured ankle, she
scrambled up the slope to his house. Sliding on the first wood step caused her
to snag a splinter in her left heel. “Oww,” she muttered, barely slowing down.
Crap.
Now I’m hurt in both feet!

Glancing frantically around the porch, she couldn’t
find any geraniums. Eventually, she spotted a huge pot of red flowers near the
heavy oak back door. It took two hands to shove the pot aside to reveal the key
underneath. After two unsuccessful fumbling tries at the lock, she took a deep
breath, counted to ten, and tried the key again. This time the lock yielded
easily.

Inside the house, the air was cool. The afternoon sun
filtered through the slatted blinds on the large window over the sink, bathing
the spotless kitchen in a warm golden glow. She located the phone, a base unit
with a portable headset, sitting atop the granite kitchen counter. Upon hearing
the reassuring dial tone, she punched 9-1-1 into the keypad.

The emergency operator immediately asked for her
address.

“Address?” she asked, stymied.
Don’t they know
where I am
? “Uh, don’t you have the address on your screen?”

“No, ma’am, this isn’t enhanced 9-1-1. Please tell
me your name, and where you are.” Was that impatience in the operator’s voice?

What did that mean, no enhanced 9-1-1?

“This is Rhetta McCarter. I’m at Billy Dan
Kercheval’s place on County Road 1140, and there’s been an accident. He’s badly
hurt.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McCarter. We know where Billy Dan’s
property is. Hold please.” Rhetta heard the operator dispatch an ambulance and
a patrol car.

The operator returned. “Is Billy Dan conscious?”

“Yes, but just barely. He injured his arm. He’s lost
a lot of blood.”

“The ambulance is on the way. Please stay with him
until they arrive.”

“Of course.” Rhetta disconnected. She glanced around
the kitchen, hoping to find a pair of Billy Dan’s sneakers, or moccasins or
even flip flops that she could borrow. She dismissed the flip-flops. She
couldn’t picture an outdoorsman like Billy Dan wearing either sandals or flip-flops.
Finding not a single shoe of any sort in the kitchen area, she rushed down the
hall to the bedroom, leaving muddy footprints tinged with blood on the wood
floor along the way.

In his bedroom, a large wood four-poster bed, neatly
made, sat against the wall opposite a large window. A matching dresser and a
tall armoire containing a TV filled the rest of the room. A deer head with an
enormous set of antlers graced the wall across from the bed. She shuddered,
thankful that Randolph didn’t hang dead deer bodies on their walls at home.

Stepping into the large walk-in closet, she studied
the orderly rows of clothing items on racks that wrapped around three sides.
Below the clothes, on the far wall, several pairs of shoes and boots were lined
up like soldiers awaiting marching orders. She spotted a couple of pairs of
possible replacement shoe candidates—a pair of blue canvas deck shoes and a
pair of well-worn sneakers. Favoring the sneakers, because she could tie them
on, she sat on the floor, slipped them on, and tied them snugly. They were too
big, but they’d have to do. When she stood, she left a muddy spot on the floor
from her soaked rump.

Snatching an armful of towels off the chrome racks
in the bathroom, Rhetta plopped across the house, down the steps, and back to
Billy Dan.

CHAPTER
38