CHAPTER 1: THE EDGE OF THE MUD
The diesel exhaust hung heavy in the humid air, smelling of burnt oil and wet iron. Beneath the steel tracks of the CAT 320, the bank was giving way, churning into a thick, gray-brown paste that sucked at the grousers.
Jesse Vance kept his right hand resting flat against the boom lever, feeling the tremor of the hydraulics through his palm. Ten feet ahead, where the gravel boat ramp melted into the murky water of Lake Oconee, the nose of a silver SUV sat buried to its bumper. The lake was rising, brown ripples lapping against the lower rim of the front wheel well.
“Get that machine away from my car, you’re making this worse!”
The voice was sharp enough to slice through the idle of the engine. Jesse didn’t flinch. He looked down through the cab’s side window.
Brenda Hollings stood ankle-deep in the mud, her bright pink top a harsh stain against the dull gray of the washed-out shoreline. Her shoulder-length brown curls were damp from the mist, but her posture was stiff as rebar. She leaned forward, one arm extended toward the excavator’s steel bucket hovering six feet above the water, her index finger jabbed like a weapon.
Jesse lowered the throttle a notch. The engine dropped to a low, throaty hum.
“Step back, I’m getting the car out,” Jesse said. His voice was flat, carrying the mechanical calm of a man who had spent twenty years moving dirt for County Public Works.
“You touched it!” Brenda shouted, chopping her hand down toward the waterlogged front tire. “I saw you! You brought that bucket down and pushed the frame into the silt! You’re destroying my vehicle, Jesse, and the county is going to pay for every square inch of bodywork!”
Jesse didn’t answer right away. He reached across the console, grabbed two heavy, creosote-soaked wooden wheel braces from the footwell, and pushed open the cab door. The humid heat hit him like a wet blanket, thick with the smell of overturned earth and rotting algae. His dark work sneakers sank two inches into the clay as his feet touched the ground, but his grip on the timber blocks remained solid.
Across the mud, three park visitors who had been forced off the upper trail stood near the rusted, half-buried restricted-equipment sign. They watched in silence, their phones raised, capturing the confrontation.
Jesse waded directly toward the submerged front tire, ignoring Brenda as she stepped into his path, her face flushed red with rage.
“Did you hear me?” she demanded, her voice rising an octave. “Don’t you touch that wheel!”
Jesse leaned down, the weight of the creosote timber heavy in his arms. He wedged the first brace deep into the mud right behind the rubber tread, feeling the tire bite against the wood. He set the second brace on the outer flank, locking the wheel against the undertow of the lake.
He stood up, wiping a streak of grease from his palm onto his khaki shorts. He looked Brenda squarely in the eyes. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, her hand still trembling as she pointed toward the road where the flashing strobe of a sheriff’s cruiser cut through the tree line.
“I didn’t touch your bumper, Brenda,” Jesse said softly, his voice dropping into the quiet space between the lap of the water and the idle of the machine. “And you know it.”
Brenda pulled a folded, water-stained piece of paper from her dark pants pocket, her fingers digging into the paper until the edges tore. “We’ll see what Deputy Miller has to say about who owns this bank.”
