Ghost River by Jon Coon (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

he would have had an impossible fight to stay in place, get leverage, or move. When he’d caught his breath and was oriented, he asked Jim to send down the body bag and striker frame. The striker fame, with deflated lift bags and small air tanks, came down the crane line. Now all Gabe needed was a truck and a body.

He found the plastic nuts holding the com wire, twisted one loose, and pulled that wire clear of the helmet. His prayer was more visual than spoken. He whispered, “Amen.”

“Okay, here we go. Clayton Mayweather, awake!” His voice boomed through the darkness. Gabe waited.

Light flashed. Ahead and below him he could see the truck. It had landed on its side when the span broke free, and he could look through the windshield into the cab. He moved down to the truck, climbed up to the top, and pulled up on the door. As when he rescued the driver, it wouldn’t budge.

Frustrated, he dropped off the cab, found a basketball-sized chunk of concrete with a piece of rebar sticking through it, climbed back up the cab, and smashed the windshield. Mayweather’s soul had begun to collect itself, floating just above the blanched corpse, which had slid mostly to the cab floor. The ghastly incarnation lacked the luminescence of a healthy soul, taking more the color of diesel exhaust from an engine with bad injectors.

“What?” Mayweather’s ghost gasped.

“Sorry, pal. You didn’t make it,” Gabe answered.

“I’m . . .”

“Afraid so. We don’t have much time, and I need answers.”

Nothing. Mayweather was still in shock.

“Tell me about the bridge scam. What was going on between McFarland and Jewels Peterson, and what’s wrong with this bridge?”

Mayweather hesitated but had no choice other than to answer honestly. “It’s the footings and piers. They’re plenty strong, but they’re not to specification on the original plans. Peterson created two sets of plans. He had a deal with McFarland. The plans we got were for a cheaper bridge. The competition’s bid had to be higher because they were building a different bridge. That’s all I know. We build good bridges.”

“Interesting comment, considering your ‘good bridge’ just killed you!” Gabe said.

“Well there is that I suppose,” Mayweather said, frowning as he contemplated his fate.

“Who was Wilson Corbitt? What happened to him?”

“Corbitt was an engineer with the demolition company. Somehow he figured it out. He was going to talk.”

Gabe could hear thunder coming down the river and knew what was about to happen. “Quick now, what happened to Corbitt?”

“Peterson called him back to check something on the old bridge the day before they were going to shoot it.”

“And?”

“He and Rogers blew the bridge. Fired just enough charges to drop the lift span on Corbitt’s workboat.”

“How can I solve it?”

Thunder and a ghastly howling now made it nearly impossible to hear.

Gabe shouted, “How can I prove it?”

“Don’t let them take me!” Mayweather screamed as the hounds, just smaller than bulls with grossly oversized, massive heads, frothing jowls, and sabertooth-tiger teeth, charged. Their ember eyes glowing, they circled and crouched. Grotesque and terrifying, they played him. They climbed the truck. They looked in through the busted windows.

“Where is Corbitt?” Gabe shouted. He dropped down beside the door, not wanting to be confused with the evening meal.

“He’s still in the river,” Mayweather screamed, as if the truth, in a final act of desperation, might save him. But the vicious creatures moved in for the kill. “Save me! For God’s sake!” he screamed. But it was too late. The hounds were on him. They came through the windshield and the door window. They ripped Mayweather’s soul with snarls and snaps. Then, as though on command, like wolves with hungry cubs to feed, they turned back to hell, howling into the darkness, carrying away shredded trophies of their kill. Mayweather’s soul-less body lay on the cab floor like a ruptured balloon.

Gabe was exhausted. Teeth and claws had been inches away. The howls and screams were unbearable. He fell back against the truck, gasping for breath. He reached to the side of the helmet and opened the air valve to full volume. Cool air rushed in, and he drank it in like cold water after a hard run. When his breathing slowed, and he’d regained enough composure to talk without gasping, he reconnected the com wire and said to Jim, “I’ve got a problem: The body’s here, but the door’s jammed, and he’s too big to come out through a window. I tried pulling him out the windshield, but it’s not going to work. I guess we’re going to have to bring him up in the truck after all. Ask the barge hands for two choker cables I can use to rig the truck.”

“Roger that. Stand by.”

Moments later two, one-inch diameter steel cables with eyes spliced in both ends came down the crane line to Gabe. Working by feel, he crawled under the truck, rigged the wires around the front wheels, and hooked the top eyes into the pelican hook on the crane cable. Working the thick cable was tiring. When he was done he told Jim, “Pick up easy, and let’s see if it will hold.”

The utility truck was larger and heavier than an average pick-up, and as the crane lifted the cab, the truck slid farther down the bridge span. As it slid it snagged Gabe’s umbilical, and suddenly he was being dragged under the truck. He yelled, “All stop!” But the grinding of the steel frame on his hose cut through the com wire and then through his airline.

Gabe was lifted under the truck, which moved erratically as it came off the bottom. He could hear metal tearing as the cables cut into the fenders, and he knew if the cables failed and the truck fell, he’d be crushed beneath it. He grabbed the severed umbilical, which still had him hanging from the truck, and jerked until it pulled free and dropped him back to the bridge. He landed hard on knees and hands,