A Serpent In Turquoise. Peggy Nicholson

car clipped his left headlight. Head and shoulders out of the Rover, he clung to the doorframe as it spun counterclockwise.

      Tree limbs crackled; the pine tree groaned like a wounded beast. Glass shattered, metal shrieked. His heart was going to burst right out of his chest and run for high ground!

      Shaking and swearing, McCord lay, staring at the road only inches below his face. He listened for the sound of the other car striking the canyon floor.

      It was a long way down, but still…He blew out a breath. Should have struck by now, and serve the jerk right. Driving at that speed, without his headlights? He struggled to a sitting position. “What the—” Almost afraid to look, he swung slowly around. “Sweet Jeez in the morning.”

      The other car—a topless Jeep—hung at his eye level, wedged in the branches of the pine tree that grew up the cliff face.

      “Good God.” McCord scrambled out onto the road till his knees gave out, and he landed on his butt, contemplating this miracle. “You’re the luckiest damn fool in the—”

      Something cracked. The Jeep settled gradually, rolling toward its left side as it sank. It paused, still cradled by the pine, suspended out there, maybe five feet beyond the edge of the cliff. “Oh, boy.” McCord pulled himself up the Rover’s fender to his feet. That wasn’t a very big tree, and if—

      Another branch cracked. The Jeep listed a few more degrees, allowing him to see the driver, who still gripped the wheel as if he meant to drive out of this mess—or straight on to Kingdom Come. “I, uh, think you better get outta there.” McCord limped closer, swallowing hard.

      “No kidding!” She reached out the gap where a door would be in a standard car to grope for a hold, only to touch thin air.

      It was a woman, he realized, noticing her pale-colored braid now. And what was the matter with her, just sitting there so calm? Was she drunk or stoned?

      Or maybe stunned. He swallowed and said casually, “Got your seat belt fastened?” If the Jeep tipped any farther and she didn’t, she’d better have packed a parachute.

      “Yeah.” She swung her arm again. “What am I hung up on?”

      Another snap of a branch and the Jeep rolled ten more degrees.

      “I’m in a…tree?”

      She’d hit her head, he decided. Was concussed. Maybe in shock. “That’s about the size of it. Now listen, honey, I want you to just sit tight, while I…” Whatever damn-fool thing he did, it entailed going out there and getting the crazy bitch. Or maybe—“Hang on. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He spun, heading for the rear of the Rover.

      “What happens if I move?” she called behind him.

      “You don’t wanna know.” Returning on the run with a rope, he built a bowline loop. “I’m going to throw you a rope now, okay?”

      She grabbed in the wrong direction. It slipped past her fingers and fell away.

      “I’ll try again.”

      And damned if she didn’t miss again. “Um, by any chance, do you wear glasses?” And she’d lost them in the wreck.

      “I’m seeing triple, okay? Now throw me the fricking rope!” An edge of panic laced her husky voice.

      “Sorry. Maybe if you—Oh, jeez!” he yelled as, in a crackle-storm of snapping branches, the Jeep rolled toward him—entirely upside-down. With its wheels turned up to the sky, it looked like a dying animal.

      “Oh, shoot me,” came her voice, from somewhere down below. “I’m off the edge, aren’t I?”

      “I’m afraid so.” He tied the tail end of his rope to the roll bar on the Rover.

      Down below the cliff face, she’d started laughing. “Lost the love of your life? Chased by rabid lumberjacks? No problemo! Come to the Copper Canyons and leave your troubles behind!”

      “Least it puts ’em all in perspective,” he agreed absently as he twisted the rope over his hip and shoulders in a body rappel. He was a firm believer in equality of the sexes; theoretically there was no reason he should risk his neck for a damned woman driver. Not that reason and women mixed very often, in his experience.

      It was her husky laughter that was the clincher. She wasn’t hysterical; she just had a fine black appreciation for life’s little pratfalls, on top of what must be a whopping concussion. Still, if she showed that kind of guts in the face of disaster, what could he do but match her? “Just hang on now.”

      “Oh, believe me, I’m hanging.”

      Paying out rope, he walked down the cliff face, till he was looking up at the Jeep and the Dangling Beauty.

      An ice cube slid down his spine. Only a couple of big limbs remained; the weight of the car had settled upon them. If they let go—when they let go, he amended, seeing the jagged crack in the crotch of the closer one—then down would come the Jeep like a Detroit-made guillotine, on his head. Two tons of dusty steel would ride him and the woman down to the ground.

      “I’m gonna toss you the rope again,” he said as he coiled up its dangling tail. “And this time, believe me, you want to catch it. Now let your arms hang.” She’d never do it, he realized as he spoke. Though the belt ought to hold her weight, instinct would weld her hands to the steering wheel.

      She drew an audible breath, then said in a rueful moan, “Oh, man.” She let go the steering wheel to hang, arms extended, swaying faintly in the breeze.

      “Good girl. Here it comes.” The loop slapped her wrists and she clawed for it frantically, finally capturing it.

      “Now get the loop around your waist,” McCord instructed.

      Somehow she wriggled into it. “Beautiful!” Quickly he explained what she had to do. She had to release her seat belt, but hang on tightly to the steering wheel, and get herself aimed head-up, feet-down. “I’m wedged in right over here, and I’ll take in your slack. When you’re ready, all you do is let go, then I’ll do the rest. I won’t let you fall.”

      She’d swing into the cliff below him and bang herself good, but she ought to hit feet-first, not head-on. It might work. Except that nobody in his right mind would release that seat belt, no matter how much he wanted to live.

      But she fooled him again. Her hand fumbled at the buckle.

      “Oh, honey, we’re gonna do this,” he almost sang. She was one in a million.

      Somewhere in the tree, something snapped.

      “Um, I hate to say this, Tex, but the buckle seems to be jammed.”

      Another branch crackled—and the Jeep settled one foot closer to Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.

      Chapter 4

      N ot a minute to lose, McCord told himself when the Jeep stopped moving. He scrambled back up to road level, then realized what he had to do. Bending low, he called down through the gap between the car and the cliff. “Uh, honey? Guess we’ll have to do it the hard way. You’ve gotta untie that loop and let it drop.”

      “Are you outta your tiny mind?”

      “Trust me on this. Drop the rope.” That loop around her waist must have felt like her last link to life, but if the Jeep fell when he added his weight to it, the line would saw her in half. A half-mile drop would be kinder.

      She muttered something surly. The rope shivered, then slackened, and McCord was amazed all over again as he coiled it and slung it over one shoulder. “Okay, you’re going to hear a thump, but don’t worry. That’s just me.”

      He leaped—and landed dead center on the Jeep’s chassis, flapping his arms for balance as the Jeep wobbled and wood crackled. His ankle touched hot metal and he swallowed a yelp. “Piece of cake.”