Hank had been on ice more times than he could count. Once on I-70, in a whiteout, his first winter on the road in 1981, he had driven forty miles at fifteen miles an hour with his knuckles white and a stranger's voice on the CB walking him through it.
He had never forgotten that voice. Now it was his turn to be one.
"Avery, listen to me. Feet off the pedals for a second. Both of them."
"Hank, I can't..."
"Feet off. Hands loose on the wheel. Loose, like you're holding a bird. How fast?"
"Twenty. Twenty-two. It's creeping."
"That's all right. Twenty is all right. Can you see the right shoulder?"
"There's gravel. And some of that slush along the edge."
"That's your crunch. I want your right tires on that shoulder. Ease over. Don't jerk it. Just lean it over, like you're changing lanes on a Sunday."
He heard her breathe. He heard the wipers go back and forth twice.
Then, under the engine, came a sound he could have kissed. A rough, grinding crackle on one side of the truck. Gravel and slush biting the right tires.
"I hear it," Hank said. "You've got grip on one side. Now, a little brake. Just the weight of your foot. Like there's an egg under it."
Lorraine had stood up from the table. She stood behind Hank's chair with both hands on his shoulders, and he could feel them shaking.
Over the radio, faint and far off, came the freight horn. Two long, one short, one long. The eleven o'clock was coming down the valley to the Lutz Hollow crossing, right on time.
"Eighteen," Avery said. "Fifteen. Hank, the car's right there. There's people in it."
"Keep that right side in the crunch. Let off the brake if you feel it slide, then try again. Pump it soft. You've got room. I know that hill. You've got more room than you think."
He did not know if that was true. He said it anyway, in the same voice he would have used to tell her the weather.
The gravel noise went on and on.
"Ten," she said. "Five."
Then the engine settled to an idle, and the gravel stopped, and there was no sound at all on the radio but rain.
"Bluebird," Hank said. "Talk to me."
"I'm stopped." Her voice cracked right in the middle. "I'm stopped. I'm about a truck length from them."
A second later, the train came through. Hank heard it fill the radio, the horn and the steel and the long roar of the cars going by at the bottom of the hill. It went on for a full minute. Lorraine's hands didn't move from his shoulders the whole time.
When it was gone, Avery laughed. It was a shaky, wet sort of laugh.
"They're okay," she said. "Young couple from Columbus. Their car slid into the ditch, nose out. They're getting out now. Hank, the back end of their car is maybe ten feet from the rail."
"Set your flashers. Put your triangles out behind you. Then get on Channel 9 and raise the sheriff. Earl will have somebody there in twenty minutes."
"Copy that."
Hank sat back in his chair. His back let him know about it.
Lorraine let go of his shoulders at last. She went to the stove, turned on the kettle, and stood with her back to him a minute longer than the kettle needed.
"Forty-four years," she said, without turning around. "Forty-four years I sat at this table with that radio, waiting for your voice to come back on it."
"I know."
"Now I know what it sounds like from your end." She set a fresh cup of decaf in front of him and kissed the top of his head. "Don't you ever throw your back out again, Hank Doyle. I can't take another night like this one."
"Yes, ma'am," Hank said, and meant every word.
The county salt truck came down Lutz Hollow a little after midnight. Earl Whitaker followed it in the Crown Victoria and stayed until the young couple had a ride to the motel in Marietta.
Avery got the turkeys to Grace Methodist at one-fifteen in the morning. Pastor Sam was waiting in the parking lot under the light with six volunteers and a pot of coffee. They unloaded a hundred and twenty turkeys in the rain, and hardly a word was said.
She keyed the radio one last time from the church lot.
"Ohio Valley, Bluebird. All delivered. Every box."
"Good job, Bluebird."
"Hank?"
"Yeah."
"Who was it? The one who talked you down on I-70?"
Hank thought about it. "Never did know. Fellow called himself Kentucky Rain. I looked for that handle for twenty years." He smiled at the radio. "Wherever he is, I hope somebody's talking him home tonight."
Thanksgiving morning, Hank sat at the kitchen table in his robe with his coffee. The house smelled of turkey and sage. Lorraine hummed at the stove. The CB sat at his elbow where she had finally stopped asking him to move it.
At nine o'clock, it crackled.
"Ohio Valley, this is Bluebird. You got your ears on? I'm taking the truck back to the church lot. Route 9's open. Roads are wet, but they're talking."
Hank turned the volume up a notch, closed his eyes, and listened to her tires hiss all the way down Route 9.
