Hank kept calling for ten minutes. Nothing came back.
He stood at the workbench and made himself think like a mechanic instead of a scared old man.
A funny noise, then silence. Not the radio dying. The engine. She was probably low on gas, and when the engine sputtered she'd panicked and turned the key off.
And a lot of old truckers, when they put a CB in the family car, wired it to the ignition. Key off, radio off.
Which meant the radio wasn't broken. It was asleep. And the minute she got scared enough, she'd turn that key again.
Hank grabbed the hand mic off his pickup's dash radio, checked the chains on his tires, and called Earl back.
"The train," Hank said. "Trains blow their horns at road crossings. That spur only crosses a road three times in this county. Feed Mill Road. Hollow Creek Road. And Lutz Hollow, out past Walt's."
Earl was quiet for a second. "You sure?"
"I loaded boxcars on that spur every summer in high school, before I ever drove a truck. I'm sure."
"I'll take Feed Mill," Earl said. "You take the other two."
The roads were worse than Hank expected. The plows hadn't been out past town yet. His old pickup crawled along at fifteen miles an hour, chains clanking, wipers losing the fight.
He kept the CB on channel 9 and keyed it every two minutes.
"Betty, this is Ohio Valley. If you can hear me, turn your key to accessory and talk to me."
At the Hollow Creek crossing, nothing.
He turned onto Lutz Hollow Road. The trees closed in on both sides like a tunnel.
At 11:52, the radio crackled.
"...Hank? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the engine started shaking and I turned it off and I couldn't..."
"I hear you, Betty. You did fine. Keep talking."
Hank watched the little needle on his radio's signal meter. It jumped. Three bars. He drove another quarter mile. Four.
She was close.
"Betty, turn on your flashers. And tap the horn for me."
He rolled down his window and the cold hit him like a slap. He listened.
There. Off to the left, down the hill. A weak little beep, beep. And through the snow, a faint orange glow, blinking on and off.
The car was a twenty-year-old Buick, nose down in the ditch, snow up to the door handles. Hank slid down the bank on his backside, which at sixty-six was not his finest moment, and pulled the passenger door open.
Betty Kowalski grabbed his coat with both hands and wouldn't let go.
In the driver's seat, Harold sat with a bloody handkerchief pressed to his temple. He was big and gray, with a Pittsburgh Steelers stocking cap and eyes that were working hard to stay open.
"Told you somebody'd answer," Harold mumbled to his wife.
Earl's Crown Victoria came sliding up the road four minutes later, lights flashing blue and red against the snow. The squad from the county was ten minutes behind him.
While the paramedics checked Harold over, he kept squinting at Hank.
"Ohio Valley," he said slowly. "I know that handle."
"Lot of folks around here use it."
"No." Harold shook his head, then winced. "January of '81. I-70, east of Cambridge. Whiteout. There was a kid on the radio, first winter on the road, jackknifed half across the westbound lane and scared to death. Said his handle was Ohio Valley."
Hank stopped breathing for a second.
He had been twenty-one. He remembered the cold. He remembered his hands shaking so hard he could barely hold the mic. And he remembered a voice that talked to him for four hours, until the wrecker came. Steady. Patient. Telling him stories about his trucks.
"Steel City," Hank said.
Harold grinned, blood and all.
"Took you long enough to pay me back, kid."
Harold spent two nights in the hospital in Marietta with a mild concussion and seven stitches. The Kowalskis had been driving to their daughter's in Kentucky for Thanksgiving. They made it, three days late.
On the way home, they stopped in Pine Hollow.
Hank and Harold sat at the counter at Dot's for three hours. Dot kept the coffee coming and pretended not to listen. Betty and Lorraine took a booth and traded stories about being married to men who talked to strangers on the radio.
When it was time to go, Harold stood up, cupped his hand to his mouth like he was holding a mic, and keyed an invisible button.
"Ohio Valley, this is Steel City. You got your ears on?"
Hank keyed his own.
"Loud and clear, old buddy."
Outside, the snow had stopped. And somewhere out past the glass works, a train blew its horn for the crossing.
