We didn’t say anything. She knew what to do. She climbed back, and I climbed front. I looked at the wrench under the dash light. It had a few drops of blood on it. I uncorked a bottle of wine, and poured it on there till the blood was gone. I poured so the wine went over him. Then I wiped the wrench on a dry part of his clothes, and passed it back to her. She put it under the seat. I poured more wine over where I had wiped the wrench, cracked the bottle against the door, and laid it on top of him. Then I started the car. The wine bottle gave a gurgle, where a little of it was running out the crack.
I went a little way, and then shifted up to second. I couldn’t tip it down that 500-foot drop, where we were. We had to get down to it afterward, and besides, if it plunged that far, how would we be alive? I drove slow, in second, up to a place where the ravine came to a point, and it was only a 50-foot drop. When I got there, I drove over to the edge, put my foot on the brake, and fed with the hand throttle. As soon as the right front wheel went off, I stepped hard on the brake. It stalled. That was how I wanted it. The car had to be in gear, with the ignition on, but that dead motor would hold it for the rest of what we had to do.
We got out. We stepped on the road, not the shoulder, so there wouldn’t be footprints. She handed me a rock, and a piece of 2 × 4 I had back there. I put the rock under the rear axle. It fitted, because I had picked one that would fit. I slipped the 2 × 4 over the rock and under the axle. I heaved down on it. The car tipped, but it hung there. I heaved again. It tipped a little more: I began to sweat. Here we were, with a dead man in the car, and suppose we couldn’t tip it over?
I heaved again, but this time she was beside me. We both heaved. We heaved again. And then all of a sudden, there we were, sprawled down on the road, and the car was rolling over and over, down the gully, and banging so loud you could hear it a mile.
It stopped. The lights were still on, but it wasn’t on fire. That was the big danger. With that ignition on, if the car burned up, why weren’t we burned too? I snatched up the rock, and gave it a heave down the ravine. I picked up the 2 × 4, ran up the road with it a way, and slung it down, right in the roadway. It didn’t bother me any. All over the road, wherever you go, are pieces of wood that have dropped off trucks, and they get all splintered up from cars running over them, and this was one of them. I had left it out all day, and it had tire marks on it, and the edges were all chewed up.
I ran back, picked her up, and slid down the ravine with her. Why I did that was on account of the tracks. My tracks, they didn’t worry me any. I figured there would be plenty of men piling down there pretty soon, but those sharp heels of hers, they had to be pointed in the right direction, if anybody took the trouble to look.
I set her down. The car was hanging there, on two wheels, about halfway down the ravine. He was still in there, but now he was down on the floor. The wine bottle was wedged between him and the seat, and while we were looking it gave a gurgle. The top was all broken in, and both fenders were bent. I tried the doors. That was important, because I had to get in there, and be cut up with glass, while she went up on the road to get help. They opened all right.
I began to fool with her blouse, to bust the buttons, so she would look banged up. She was looking at me, and her eyes didn’t look blue, they looked black. I could feel her breath coming fast. Then it stopped, and she leaned real close to me.
“Rip me! Rip me!”
I ripped her. I shoved my hand in her blouse and jerked. She was wide open, from her throat to her belly.
“You got that climbing out. You caught it in the door handle.”
My voice sounded queer, like it was coming out of a tin phonograph.
“And this you don’t know how you got.”
I hauled off and hit her in the eye as hard as I could. She went down. She was right down there at my feet, her eyes shining, her breasts trembling, drawn up in tight points, and pointing right up at me. She was down there, and the breath was roaring in the back of my throat like I was some kind of a animal, and my tongue was all swelled up in my mouth, and blood pounding in it.
“Yes! Yes, Frank, yes!”
Next thing I knew, I was down there with her, and we were staring in each other’s eyes, and locked in each other’s arms, and straining to get closer. Hell could have opened for me then, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. I had to have her, if I hung for it.
I had her.