Page 103 of Edge of Danger

“Think it runs?” she asked.

“Doubtful,” he replied as she hoisted herself up onto the seat. She pushed and pulled at clutches and throttles, and turned the key, which was conveniently in the ignition. Nothing. He was not surprised.

He was surprised, however, when she jumped down and moved to the cowling at the side of the engine, lifted it in a cloud of dust, and pointed the flashlight from the backpack at the motor. “You know diesels?” he blurted.

“You’ve met my father, right? Of course, I do.”

He moved over to stare into the engine compartment. He knew a little about diesel engines, himself. “There are a bunch of tools over on the wall and the ones in the backpack. Thing we might be able to get it running?” he asked.

“Worth a try. Riding it to town sounds a hell of a lot better than hiking. And this doesn’t look to be in that bad a shape. I think we’ll need to blow out the fuel lines and clean the distributor cap at a minimum. Help me turn this shaft manually to see if it has seized or not.”

He grabbed the thick steel shaft she pointed at, and between the two of them they got it to move about a quarter-turn.

She nodded eagerly. “I think this may be salvageable.”

He poked around and found a lantern. A little kerosene sloshed around in the bottom of it and he got it going with help from the fire starter built into Harness Guy’s jackknife. That guy was going to be pissed to have lost this gear. But that’s what the bastard got for shoving them out of a damned helicopter.

“How about you start working on this while I go looking for water?” he said to Piper. Where there were people and animals, there was bound to be a water source of some kind.

She got to work pulling fuel lines and patching them up with a roll of duct tape she’d found, working by lantern light. He noticed Piper blinking hard from time to time like her vision was fuzzing out or she was fighting back severe head pain. They had to find water, soon, whether or not this tractor got running again. No telling if it had enough fuel in it to make it to the nearest town, and they couldn’t withstand another day in the killer heat without water.

He moved outside and spotted a broken-down windmill. A rusty trough stood beside it. The windmill must turn a well pump for animal drinking water. He examined the windmill, and although most of the fan blades were destroyed, the rest of the apparatus looked relatively intact. Awkwardly, he climbed the old, wooden tower some thirty feet up in the air. It was awful having to use his shoulder like this, but what choice did he have? Piper needed water.

He gritted his teeth against the throbbing pain and pushed on. He grabbed a broken fan blade awkwardly and gave the thing a good tug. It gave a loud squeal and turned sluggishly. He grabbed a higher blade and pulled again, groaning aloud in his agony. Another quarter turn.

Slowly, slowly, he managed to get the wheel turning. It was risky poking his hands between the jagged ends of the blades to continue turning the windmill, but he ignored the splinters and cuts and got the thing spinning at a reasonable clip. Anybody’s guess if turning this thing would actually bring up some water to the trough. He figured he turned the windmill for upward of ten minutes—long enough for both of his shoulders to be screaming and for his resolve to be wavering badly when he heard another sound.

A splash.

“Piper!” he yelled. “Quick. Bring the tarp!”

She came running and stopped in shock when she spotted him high off the ground.

“Catch the water!” he called down to her.

She darted forward, draping their plastic tarp under the spigot that was trickling water into the trough. “It’s nasty,” she announced.

“Pipes are probably rusted. Iron won’t kill us, and we can filter it before we drink it.”

“Do you need me to come up there and help?” she offered.

“No!” he replied sharply.

Working together, him turning the blades and her holding up the cupped tarp, they captured several gallons of red, ugly water. But it was water. And he was trained in all kinds of methods for making water safe to consume.

Exhausted, he climbed down the scaffolding. Piper pointed the flashlight at the water and he grinned broadly. “That’s just flakes of rust. If we give it an hour or two, the sediment will settle to the bottom, and we can skim the clean water off the top.”

“You’re assuming the water has no bacteria in it that would kill us or make us deathly ill,” she replied. “Not that I care at this point.”

“I think I can set up a distilling apparatus with the junk in the barn. In a few hours, we’ll have drinkable water.”

Piper made a sound suspiciously close to a sob.

“You’re holding up great,” he encouraged her. “Hang in just a little while longer.” He was used to giving pep talks to his men, but it was different with her. He hated that she was out here suffering with him. As she moved past him toward the barn, he held his arms out, and she turned into them gratefully. She belonged in his embrace, her body plastered against his like this.

When, exactly, had they become a couple? He’d been working alone when he met her, and she’d declared herself a lone wolf from day one. Now that he thought back, from the moment he’d spotted her spotting him back in her rifle sight, they’d been irrevocably linked. Stubborn, the two of them were. It had just taken a while for them to figure it out.

Jeez. He must be more dehydrated even than he realized if he was spinning off in these hyperboles of romantic reverie. They had work to do before they both keeled over. “I’d kiss you, but our lips would crack and bleed,” he murmured into her dusty hair.

---