Dunston Falls Read Online Free PDF

shoulders and went to the window to look out. The ice was falling faster and heavier than the previous day. Main Street was a skating rink, a glistening sheet of smooth ice.
    After loading the woodstove with logs and igniting a fire, Peck prepared the stainless steel coffeepot with water from the gravity fed cooler and set it on the flat surface of the stove to percolate. By the time he had dressed, the coffee was ready and Peck took a mug to his desk.
    As Peck lit a cigarette, Kranston entered the office.
    “Good morning, Dave. Did you hear that last night?”
    “Only all night.”
    “Must have been a hundred trees came down,” Kranston said as he poured himself a mug of coffee. “It will be a miracle if no one is hurt.”
    In the background, there was the loud crack of another tree giving way to the ice and Kranston looked at Peck. “Make it a hundred and one. Well, at least the paper company will benefit from all this.”
    “Maybe, but it isn’t safe anymore, Ed,” Peck said. “We have to reach as many people as possible today and get them into town.”
    “I agree. If you and Bender could carry my short wave across the street to the hospital, I will run it off the generator and contact Augusta. Maybe we can get some supplies from the national guard.”
    Peck glanced at his watch. “He should be here by now.”
    The door opened and Bender walked in, carrying a paper bag. “I am here, Dave, and I brought breakfast. Compliments of Deb’s Diner.”
    “She’s here already?” Peck said.
    “Not already,” Bender said. “She never went home. She slept on a cot in the diner.”
    “What have you got there?” Kranston said, looking at the paper bag.
    “Egg and bacon sandwiches, corn muffins with jelly and some what not.” Bender set the bag on Peck’s desk and removed the contents. He looked at Kranston. “And she wants to know who’s picking up the tab for all the food the town is eating?”
    “I’ll ask Augusta for emergency funds,” Kranston said, reaching for an egg sandwich.
    “Which is what every town in the state will do,” Peck said.
    “And they will get it from Washington,” Kranston said. “By the time the red tape is cut, it will be spring, but the money will be there.”
    Peck looked at Bender. “Let me have one of the what not, then let’s hit the road.”
     
    One hour after eating breakfast, Peck found himself at the junction of fire road 99. He turned onto the road and drove the snowmobile at a medium speed. According to the tax records, at least two homes were located on the long stretch of dirt road. The first home, a mobile trailer belonged to a widow named Doris White. She was forty-seven years old and worked in the payroll department of the paper company. She lived alone. Peck had never met her, or if he had, he didn’t recall the meeting.
    Suddenly, a tree snapped in half directly over Peck’s head and he gunned the snowmobile as it fell to the ground with a loud crash. It was a tall, thick, White Birch, about a thousand pounds of frozen wood. It missed Peck by ten feet. He brought the snowmobile to a stop, dismounted, and stared at the fallen birch tree. The son of a bitch would have killed him instantly had it found its mark.
    Turning around, Peck spotted the trailer home of Doris White thirty yards to his left. A giant, Pine Tree, brittle with ice had come down and crushed the tiny home under its enormous weight. Peck left the snowmobile and ran to the home. The massive tree was directly over the center of the aluminum roof, separating the home into two parts.”
    An old Ford pickup, maybe a forty-seven, covered in an inch thick layer of ice sat just out of range of the tree. From the thickness of the ice on the windshield, he estimated the truck hadn’t been started in days. Peck went around the truck to the side of the mobile home and peered through an ice covered, dark window, but he couldn’t see inside. He removed the revolver from his holster and smashed the