She nodded hard.
“Yes, yes, they said they’re coming.”
“How many people?”
“Three,” she said. “My husband and my sister and my grandson.”
That got my full attention. I turned back toward the truck. The boy’s voice was the one I’d heard screaming.
“Help! Help us!”
“I’m here!” I shouted. “Don’t move if you can help it!”
The rain was coming down steady now, soaking through my cammies in seconds. I climbed onto the side of the truck, boots slipping against the metal. The windshield was cracked through like a spiderweb, but not broken enough to get anyone out through it. I aimed my flashlight into the cab. A man was slumped against the steering wheel, bleeding from the forehead. In the back seat, a teenage boy was twisted awkwardly against his seat belt, and beside him, an older woman was conscious but dazed, trying to push herself upright. The engine made a sharp popping sound. That decided it.
“Listen to me,” I yelled through the broken seam near the window. “I’m getting you out one at a time.”
The boy looked right at me. Rain and tears mixed on his face.
“Is it going to catch fire?”
I didn’t answer him directly.
“Can you move your arms?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Stay with me.”
I looked for the best access point and saw that the rear window had cracked almost completely out. I braced myself, kicked at the loose glass at the edge with my boot heel, then reached in carefully, clearing enough to make space. The older woman was closest.
“Ma’am, I need you to come toward me,” I said.
“My leg,” she said, breathing fast. “I think it’s stuck.”
“Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s good. We’ll work with good.”
People don’t always need grand words. Sometimes they just need a sentence sturdy enough to hold on to. I climbed higher, reached farther in, and found the buckle of her seat belt. My fingers were numb from rain and cold, but it gave way after a few seconds. She gasped as her weight shifted.
“Okay,” I said. “On three, I’m pulling. You help me.”
The truck hissed under us.
“One, two, three.”
She cried out, but her leg came free. I got hold of her under the arms and dragged her across the broken frame of the rear window until she was halfway out. Then I slid backward off the truck with her weight against me and lowered us both into the wet ditch. The woman outside the truck reached for her sister immediately.
“Oh, Lord, Denise,” she said, sobbing.
I pointed to the shoulder.
“Take her farther back. Now.”
Then I climbed back up. The boy was next. He was old enough to understand danger and young enough to be terrified by it. Maybe 14. Maybe 15. I’ve never been great at guessing ages.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Tyler.”
“Okay, Tyler. Look at me.”
He did.
“You’re doing fine. I need you to unbuckle on my count.”
He swallowed.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
The horn had finally gone quiet. That somehow made everything feel worse.
“Tyler,” I said again, slower this time. “When you unbuckle, you’re going to drop. That’s all. I’m right here.”
He nodded once. We counted together. He dropped harder than I expected, letting out a sharp cry, but I got hold of him by the jacket and pulled him toward the opening. He was shaking all over by the time I dragged him out. He clutched at my sleeve with both hands as I helped him down.
“My granddad,” he said. “Don’t leave my granddad.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
His grandmother, at least I figured that’s who she was, was praying under her breath a few yards away. I climbed up for the third time. The driver was still slumped, breathing, but not fully awake. He was a big man, maybe late 60s, broad shoulders, thick gray hair darkened by rain and blood. I cut his seat belt with the folding knife I kept in my pocket and tried to pull him upright, but dead weight in a wrecked vehicle is a whole different kind of heavy.
“Sir,” I shouted near his ear. “You need to wake up.”
He groaned. Good enough. The smoke thickened again from the front end. Not flames yet, but close enough that I didn’t want to waste another second. I hooked one arm under his and pulled with everything I had. He shifted an inch, then another. The metal under my boots gave a little, and for one wild second, I thought the whole truck might roll again.
“Come on,” I said through my teeth. “Come on.”
There are moments in life when you don’t feel brave. You just feel busy. That’s what it was. Not courage. Not nobility. Just the next thing that had to be done. The man coughed, which helped more than anything. Living people can help save themselves even when they don’t know it. I dragged him far enough to get his shoulders through the opening, then braced my feet and hauled him out the rest of the way. When we hit the ditch, the impact drove the air out of both of us. A second later, I was pulling him by the collar through wet grass toward the shoulder. We’d just cleared the edge of the road when flames finally licked up from under the hood. Not a movie explosion. Not some giant fireball. Just orange fire taking hold where it had been threatening to all along. The family stared at the truck. So did I. Then the sirens came. First a sheriff’s deputy, then EMS, then the local fire department from Jacksonville. Once they took over, the whole thing became lights and questions and wet reflective jackets. Somebody wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Somebody else asked my name three separate times. I answered what I needed to answer. A paramedic checked my hands for cuts.
“You family?” he asked.
“No.”
He looked up at me.
“Then why’d you stop?”
I remember thinking that was an odd question.
“Because they were there,” I said.
