Free KS13.5 - Wreck Rights by Dana Stabenow Page A

required amount of shelter. It rolled downhill twice more until a grove of pines slammed it to a halt. Its sides tore like paper and pallets broke open and cases of canned goods went everywhere, a box of mandarin oranges nearly braining Jim when he stuck his head up to take a look.
    The front trailer teetered on the edge of the road about fifty feet down the hill from where the rear one went over. Jim thought it might have had a chance if the snow berm had been higher. As it was, inertia and momentum took charge and over it went, rolling at least half a dozen times, the doors bursting open and more pallets breaking apart and more boxes flying everywhere to explode upon impact. Cans of soup and green beans and tomato paste, bags of pasta and popcorn and potato chips, sacks of rice and sugar and flour, six-packs of juice and pop, bottles of vanilla and soy sauce and red wine vinegar, boxes of Ziploc bags and Equal, packages of toilet paper and paper towels, it all tumbled down in a runaway landslide of commercial goods.
    Jim, watching from the safety of the ditch, said in an awed voice, “I’ve never really appreciated the phrase ‘bombs bursting in air’ before.”
    “It is kinda like Da Nang,” Hazen agreed.
    When it appeared certain that the semi tractor was going to stay on the road, Jim and Hazen climbed out of the ditch and over the berm. The tractor was jammed against the side of the hill out of which the road had been cut. The motor was still running, the headlights still on. Hazen climbed up and opened the passenger side door. “Hey, you all right in there?”
    A low moan was his reply. Hazen climbed inside the cab. “She smacked her head pretty good,” he said, “but I think the rest of her’s okay. Get on the horn, why don’t you?”
On suddenly shaking legs Jim walked to his vehicle and raised the Ahtna emergency response team, who didn’t sound thrilled about a fourth callout in as many hours, especially one in which no bodies were involved.
    At dawn, Jim was even less happy to be able to supply them with one.
    · · ·
     
    As usual the news hadn’t taken long to get around and by the time the sky lightened to a pale gray the hillside was swarming with Park rats picking over the detritus.
    “They’re like seagulls,” Jim said.
    Hazen yawned, resettling his cap against the steady drizzle. Traffic swished by on the damp pavement behind them, vehicles slowing down when they saw the police vehicles pulled to the side of the road. The semi was long gone, towed to Ahtna. Hazen had taken the driver to the hospital there, along with the victims of the previous accident, and returned to the scene before daylight.
    Hazen grunted. “Except they don’t shit all over everything. You talked to the shipper?”
    Jim nodded. “Yeah, I called Anchorage. They called the store in Tok. I think they’re trying to decide whose insurance company is liable for damages.”
    Hazen jerked his chin at the swarm on the hillside. “Think we should stop them?”
    “Think we could?” Jim said.
    “Probably not.”
    “Not wading around in hip-deep snow that’s mostly ice by now anyway,” Jim said. “They’d be gone before we got down there. Besides, the shipping guy said not to bother.”
    “Not like it hasn’t happened before,” Hazen said, nodding.
    “They’re performing a public service. Cleaning up the mess so the shipper or the state don’t have to.”
    “What about the trailers?”
    Hazen snorted. “What about them? Couple of Budds, straight haul, look about thirty years old. You could pick up a couple more just like ‘em off the Internet for seventeen, eighteen hundred dollars.” He saw Jim’s look. “I did some driving, back when. Anyway, the tires might be worth something, but like you were saying, you’d have to be willing to climb down and wade around to get them. Not to mention haul them back up. Easier just to buy ‘em new and already on the trailer. Hitch up and go. No missed deadlines that