The gravel pit at Mile Three smelled of wet limestone, dead sumac, and old motor oil.
Dragan backed the catering van into the shadow of an aggregate hopper, cutting the headlights the instant the tires stopped rolling. He left the diesel engine idling at a low, shuddering rumble, the exhaust hose routed through a length of corrugated metal pipe into the brush so the white vapor wouldn’t billow across the cut in the north wind.
“I give you until five-thirty,” Dragan said through the cracked driver’s window, his voice heavy with gravel and smoke. “If you are not back across the creek by five-thirty, the fuel line gels in this ditch, Mara. I cannot push three tons of sheet metal home on a frozen axle.”
“Five-fifteen,” Mara told him, pulling the wool scarf tight against her throat. “Keep the cab heater running. When we bring Mrs. Callow and the children across, we load them straight into the dry benches.”
Dragan gave a single, stiff nod and rolled the glass shut against the stinging sleet.
Mara stepped away from the van into the pitch black of County Road Nine, Gideon at her left shoulder and Luis at her right. The temperature hovered near freezing, the sleet hissing like dropped sand as it struck the blackberry briars in the ditch. Gideon carried a taped aluminum flashlight, keeping the dim yellow beam pointed strictly two paces ahead of his boots to pick out the frozen wagon ruts.
