Chapter 93

Jason Benton knew the slope was unstable several seconds before it gave way. He was slopping down the hillside as fast as he could when the rumble turned into a roar and the ground under his feet started to move. He tried to run with it and stay on top. If this mud buried him, he'd suffocate. His foot hit a rock on the retaining wall, and the mud yanked his other foot out from under him. Pain engulfed his knee as it twisted.

He spit out several four-letter words, and then the mud swept him right into a tree. It was just a sapling, but it gave him something to climb. Jason got his arms as high up the branches as he could, and tried to lever himself out of the mud. The tree started leaning from Jason's weight and the mud.

The mud stopped moving. "I'm sorry about all that swearing, Heavenly Father. Thanks for the tree," Jason said. He pulled at the branches, but the mud was clinging to his legs and he couldn't get free. He couldn't hear anyone else; just the rain.

"Help!" he hollered. "Help!"

No one answered. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. The pain in his knee was gone in the adrenaline rush. He wanted to get out of the tree before he could feel his knee again.

"Hey!" he yelled again.

Through the dimness, he could see small flashlight beams bobbing, but their light couldn't reach him. He heard someone yell, and he yelled back.

"Hang on!" someone yelled.

"Well, yeah," Jason said.

It seemed like forever before a flashlight beam came closer, but when it did, it was suddenly a lot closer. They weren't excavating the mud; somehow they were putting a bridge over the top. "Are you all right?" someone yelled.

"I blew out my knee! And I can't get my legs out of the mud! I'm holding on to the tree!" Jason yelled back.

"We're getting another board!" the person yelled.

Jason put his head down and concentrated on breathing. A dull ache started up Jason's leg. A huge smack sounded right next to him, making the mud vibrate, and then a flashlight was shining right on him.

"Put some men on the other end so this thing doesn't over-balance," Kevin Daley ordered. "Hold the flashlight."

Kevin reached out both hands to Jason.

"I'm stuck in the mud," he said as he wrapped both hands around Kevin's wrists and felt Kevin do the same to him.

"It's solid mud; it isn't as liquid as you think it is. If you can get one leg free, you can pull yourself out. Which leg is your good leg?" Kevin said.

"My left leg," said Jason.

"Take it slow," Kevin said.

For Jason, the next few minutes lasted an eternity as he alternated pulling and resting with Kevin. Every so often he heard Kevin pass an order back over his shoulder, but he was too exhausted to understand what he was saying.

At last he got his left knee on the board and managed to pull his injured leg free. Pain flared out from his knee as he yanked his foot out. He collapsed face down and let the rain muffle the sound of a couple sobs of relief. That had been a lot harder than he was ever going to admit to anyone.

"I'm fine, just give me a minute," he said when Kevin tried to pull him up.

"Lean on me. If you can hop a bit, I can carry you," Kevin answered. "We're on a six foot by ten foot sheet of plywood, so you've got some room to wobble around."

Jason nodded and let Kevin pull him up, slinging his arm over Kevin's shoulder. He hopped and gasped his way down the first sheet of plywood. At the gap before the next sheet of plywood, another man reached out to almost carry him across. On the other side of that sheet of plywood, two more men formed a seat with their arms and carried Jason out of the shallow mud and stopped on the front lawn.

Someone wrapped a blanket around him and Jason clutched it to his shoulders.

"Do we call an ambulance?" someone said.

"No, it's just my knee. Nothing's broken. Take me home. My wife's a nurse," Jason said. He wanted to hear Nicole yell at him for being so stupid, because that would mean he was going to be fine. If it was a serious injury, she'd be really nice to him.

"Put an arm around my neck, and the other one around his neck," someone said. Jason looked to both sides and saw his neighbors, Brandon and Brian, bending down to him. They linked arms behind his knees and behind his back and lifted him up. "Let's get you home."

---

Brandon helped load his injured neighbor, Jason, into the back of a pickup truck because that was the vehicle least likely to jostle his leg. He accepted another blanket from a man in the darkness and put it behind Jason's back.

"Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten," he told Jason.

"What's ten?" Jason said through clenched teeth as the truck started to move.

"You'd trade your firstborn child for a shot of morphine," Brandon answered.

"Four," Jason said.

"That's all?"

"I like Jayden."

The truck stopped in front of the Benton's house. Brandon and Brian eased Jason out of the truck. A teenage boy whose name Brandon couldn't remember ran ahead of them and pounded on the door.

Brandon and Brian reached the porch just as the door swung open. It was Amanda.

"What are you doing?" she asked them.

"Jason got hurt when the entire hillside slid off the mountain and into the Baker's backyard. We're bringing him home," Brandon said. He was glad to see her there, and felt guilty that he hadn't once wondered how she was doing this evening.

Her eyes went wide and she stepped out of the way. Behind her, several people jumped up.

Brandon squinted at the light in the living room. The faint blue glow of the LED lantern wasn't bright, but it cast considerably more light than the occasional flashlight. He and Brian moved towards the couch.

"Don't you dare!" ordered Nicole. "Stop right there!" She ran upstairs with a flashlight.

Bewildered, Brandon and Brian stopped, still supporting Jason, who tried putting some weight on his right leg and then picked his foot back up.

"Daddy!" Jayden shouted, making a beeline for Jason and hugging his legs before anyone could stop him.

"Hi there, sport," Jason said with a gasp. "Were you good for mommy?"

"No," said Jayden. He let Brian pull him around to hug Jason's left leg.

Nicole ran back downstairs with an arm full of bedding. "Can you take his pants off?" she asked, tossing a sheet to Amanda, and a blanket at Tracy Nesbitt.

"Uh," Brandon said, glancing sideways at Jason and Brian.

"Never mind. Step on the sheet," Nicole said. "Jayden, let go of daddy's leg, and don't touch anything."

Amanda and Tracy covered the couch with two blankets. Nicole spread another sheet over the carpet. Brandon rolled his eyes. You bring home a woman's crippled husband, and she worried about getting a bit of mud on the furniture. It was just like the time he'd taken that bad spill off his mountain bike on Slickrock Trail in Moab, and Amanda wouldn't drive him to the hospital until she'd put towels down to keep the blood off the seats in her Honda.

Brandon and Brian got Jason arranged on the couch. Jayden climbed up onto his chest and sat down.

Nicole cast disapproving looks at their clothes. Brandon glanced down. He was so wet he was dripping, and caked with mud solidly from the chest down, but they'd been in a rainstorm and a mudslide. What else could you expect?

"Let's take a look at his knee," Nicole said.

"All right," Brandon said, stepping back.

"You do it. I don't want to get covered in mud," Nicole said.

Brandon tried not to be judgmental, but he did give her a look.

"I have to nurse the baby in about twenty minutes, and I don't have time to shower before then," Nicole explained.

"Oh, right." He'd forgotten about the babies. "Where's Sophie?" he asked Amanda.

"Having her first sleepover with Chloe," Amanda said. "They're best friends already."

He smiled and turned back to Jason, who was trying to get Jayden off his face.

"You're going to have to take your pants off after all. I need to see your knee," Brandon told him.

Brian started inching towards the front door, leaving solid footprints of mud on the sheets. "I've got some first aid kits. I'll be back." And he was gone.

"Downstairs, girls," Nicole ordered Abby and Ruth. "Take Carson and Jayden with you."

"I'll come too," Tracy Nesbitt said. She picked up Jayden, who howled at being pulled off his dad.

Brandon turned his back as Jason inched out of his mud-caked pants. Nicole threw him another sheet. After a few minutes, Jason said he was ready.

Nicole held the flashlight while Brandon gently handled his knee.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I was coming down the hillside pretty fast when the mud caught up to me. My foot got stuck on something. It kind of twisted a bit." Jason jumped a bit and grabbed the couch as Brandon swung his leg from side to side.

"Did that hurt?"

"Yeah," Jason said, voice tight.

"Good. It means your collateral ligaments are all still attached. Your cruciate ligaments seem intact too. Are you feeling stabbing pains or a dull ache?"

"Just kind of everything."

"I don't see any discoloration, do you?" Brandon asked Nicole.

"It's hard to tell by flashlight, but it doesn't look like it," Nicole answered.

"Let's wrap it, ice it and elevate it tonight. You need to get into an Instacare tomorrow," Brandon told Jason.

"Let me shower first, and then Nicole can wrap it," Jason said.

Brian Anderson let himself back in the house, carrying a large cardboard box. "Here, I've got some first aid kits. Take whatever you need."

Brandon looked in the box and whistled. "Were they having a sale on first aid kits at Costco or something?"

"Something like that," Brian said.

"Let's wrap it, then you get cleaned up, then you can wrap it in dry bandages. There's no shortage of bandages," Brandon said, picking out several first aid kits. He pulled the Ace bandages out of them and started to wrap Jason's knee.

Someone knocked on the door and then pushed it open.

"Come join the party," Nicole said. "Oh! Hi, bishop!"

"Hi, Nicole. How is Jason?"

"He's going to limp for a couple weeks, but it doesn't look like he did any permanent damage," Brandon answered.

"Glad you were there to help," Bishop Bones answered. "Nicole, let Sister Nixon know what's going on, and the ward can arrange some help with meals and child care. You'll have your hands full with a newborn baby and an injured husband."

Brandon hadn't thought about that. Amanda would rip his head off if he'd gotten injured and couldn't help with the baby. "I can take Jason to the Instacare tomorrow," he offered.

"Thanks, that would be really helpful," Nicole said.

The bishop added his thanks and then said, "when you're done here, could you come look at another injury? Gary Baker felt something pop in his shoulder and he can't move his right arm very much."

"No one else was caught in the mud?" Jason asked.

"Everyone is accounted for. You were the only one that far up on the hillside," the bishop said.

"What were you doing up on the hillside?" Nicole asked Jason.

"Uh, you know," Jason said vaguely.

"I'm done now. I'll go with you," Brandon said, standing up. "Or would you rather go?" Brandon turned to Amanda, who had just come back upstairs after Jayden. Jayden was back on Jason's chest already.

Amanda glanced around. "I'll stay here. Our baby is upstairs." She shrugged.

"Sure, honey." Brandon took more first aid kits from Brian's box and joined the bishop. Bishop Bones swung his Coleman lantern high to illuminate the dark steps.

"How did Gary Baker get hurt?" Brandon asked.

"He was trying to get a box out of their basement, and twisted the wrong way. The mud broke their basement windows and the water is coming in. He wanted to save some of their belongings," Bishop Bones said.

"It was probably a stress injury that got started when he was throwing sandbags," Brandon said. "How bad is the house?"

"The tree that Jason climbed is leaning against the house. That and the broken basement windows seem to be the only damage to the house. Of course, they've got a yard full of six feet of mud too, but at least the house is still on its foundation."

Brandon shook his head in sympathy. Then it hit him that the last time he'd seen the bishop, he hadn't even been civil, refusing to shake the bishop's hand as he stomped out of his office. And with the memory, Brandon's sense of connection and camaraderie from the evening disappeared. He wanted it back.

"Hey, bishop. I'm sorry about the last time I talked to you. I owe you a handshake at least," Brandon said.

"Don't mention it," Bishop Bones said, swinging his Coleman lantern to the other hand to accept the handshake.

And just like that, the fun he was having this evening came back. He grinned in the dark. That wasn't so bad.

"What did you decide to do about your daughter's blessing?" the bishop asked.

"My brother-in-law is going to bless her when he blesses his son," Brandon said.

"All right. We'll make sure you've got all the correct paperwork. Is it coming up soon?"

"No, the baby they're adopting isn't even born yet. Then they have to wait six months," Brandon said.

"I see," the bishop said.

They reached the top of the street and turned the corner into the cul-de-sac.

It was silent between them.

"Hey, bishop, if I come see you again, is there a chance I could bless my baby sometime before then? I mean, if I cancel my registrations on those Internet sites and stuff like that?" Brandon blurted out.

"I think we could work something out," Bishop Bones said.

It was pitch dark, and Brandon couldn't see anything outside the circle of lantern light, but he would have bet good money that the bishop was grinning from ear to ear. Except Mormons don't gamble.