Page 48 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
“Me?” She gaped at him, the keys jangling in her fingers. “I don’t know how!”
“I’ll walk you through it.” He braced himself against the car and limped to the passenger side. He stood there, staring at her from across the top of the car. “I need your help, Fern.”
She stared at him, her throat aching, head spinning. He could have run back inside when he heard the pops of gunfire and saw that car careening toward them. Instead, he’d thrown her down and shielded her. Fern nodded tightly and opened the driver door. Her hands shook as she sat and gripped the big, thin steering wheel.
Cal dropped into the passenger seat. The blood had spread and darkened. It covered his hand as he clamped it to the wound.
“Ignition,” he said, gesturing to the place Fern needed to insert the key. She fumbled but did as he said. He pulled levers under and on the dashboard, then reached over to the steering column and adjusted levers to the right and left of the wheel, leaving smears of blood on everything he touched.
“Left foot down on the clutch,” he said. “And when I pull the choke, press your right foot on that button on the floor there.”
She followed his directions, and the engine made a horrible roaring, squealing sound before lurching forward and stalling.
“You gotta give it more gas to idle,” Cal said. “Never mind, I’ll drive. Move.”
“No! No, I can do it.” His face was looking waxy, and he was blinking often, as though he were trying to stay awake. Fern doubted he would have been able to drive out of the parking lot before passing out.
She pressed the clutch again. When Cal pulled the choke, she pressed the starter and immediately gave the engine a little more gas. This time, the car sounded right.
“Press the clutch and shift into first gear, thenlet up on the clutch while you’re pressing the gas—” The Roadster jerked forward, and they lunged toward the road. Thankfully, no one was on the sidewalk as Fern turned the wheel, clipping the curb.
“Straighten out, straighten out,” Cal barked, but then groaned, and his head flopped back against the seat.
She glanced over at him, the wheel jerking to the side. “Pay attention to the road,” he said, opening his eyes again.
She did, and within seconds, the engine was whining a high-pitched squeal.
“Clutch. Let off the gas for a second,” he said, reaching over to the gear shift. With a groan, he shifted up, and the engine quit whining. Cal fell back against the seat; the effort had taken everything out of him.
“Where am I going?” she asked.
“Commercial,” he mumbled as the car joined traffic. “Next left,” he directed in a low whisper.
Fern pressed the brake as the turn came up, and the car began to judder and lag. Cal murmured that she needed to downshift to a lower gear, and so she did. Her feet worked at the pedals as her panic over his waning consciousness rose.
“Cal? Cal, wake up. Where next?” They were on a road with lots of brick buildings, and cars kept coming toward them. Behind her, a horn blared. She was driving too slowly.
When he didn’t answer, Fern peeled her eyes from the road. His eyes were closed. “Cal!”
“Up ahead. Evergreen. Forty-eight.”
She shifted into a higher gear as they passed ahandful of streets, none of them Evergreen. She was starting to wonder if, in his delirium, Cal had pointed her in the wrong direction when the sign for Evergreen appeared. Fern slowed, the car juddered, and she shifted down. She took the corner too sharply. Again, the tires clipped the curb. Cal grunted.
“I’m sorry!”
Panicked, she searched the brass number plates attached to the houses along this street. They were above front doors and on columns lining slim porches of bungalows and cottages. An auto backed out of a driveway, and she nearly rear-ended it before slamming on the brakes.
Cal jerked forward, and another horn blared somewhere. Then Fern saw it: No. 48, on a metal post topped with an electric lantern on the left side of the street. The short driveway was empty, so she turned the wheel, letting up on the gas before parking sideways. The engine sputtered and went silent. With shaking hands, Fern jammed the gear shift into neutral, pulled the hand brake, and got out. Her legs wobbled as she went around to help Cal out of the front seat. His forehead glistened with sweat, and the blood stain had more than doubled in size.
“What in the—” A white-haired man with a thin, white mustache opened the home’s front door and stared at the Roadster, which was practically parked on the small front lawn. But then the man stopped, shouted an oath, and rushed down the few porch steps to help them.
“Tell me what you know,” he ordered.
“He’s been shot,” Fern said. “Some men drove by and?—”
“Inside, fast.”
For a moment, she worried the gunners were coming down this road now; she even imagined the squeal of tires and pop of gunfire. They hustled Cal into the house, Fern shoring up his left side, while the doctor—she presumed—draped his bloodied right arm over his short, stout shoulders. A woman in a flowered housecoat, wearing a kerchief over her faded red curls, appeared down a hallway.
