"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Incident at Lonely Rocks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

The upside-down station wagon didn’t surprise him. Its undercarriage was
scratched and dented, probably from going end over end as it headed toward the
water.
It got hung up on one of the larger lava rocks near the edge of the surf. The
car’s front end pointed toward the sky, the wheels looking oddly vulnerable in the
morning light.
An expensive bicycle had been thrown clear, its frame twisted and flattened,
probably by the weight of the car.
To the car’s right, he saw camping equipment scattered on the cliffside, and
one of those pointed cycler’s helmets hanging from a bush.
It took him another minute to realize that what he thought was a pile of
blankets was actually another human being.
 The bile rose in his throat again. Two dead? How could that happen out here?
“Hey!” he shouted down, mostly out of hope rather than any thought that
someone would be alive after that crash. “Hey! You okay down there?”
His voice sounded faint and ineffective against the surf pounding against the
rocks below. On this side of the parking lot, he would have trouble hearing cars as
they passed. He doubted anyone could have heard him talking to the poor dead guy
in the can, or the beep-beep-beep of his truck as he’d parked.
“Hey!” he shouted again. “You okay?”
The person—a woman?—raised her head. He took two steps backward in
surprise. He really hadn’t thought that person was alive at all.
But, he realized as he went back to the edge, she couldn’t have gotten there by
falling out of the tumbling car. She had to have slipped down the side, or pulled her
way up from the bottom. She was resting on a rock ledge, and the reason he’d
thought she was all blankets was because she had made a nest of her clothing.
She had been there a while, and judging by the claw marks in the loose dirt
above her, she’d tried to climb up more than once.
“Hello!” he shouted. “You all right?”
She nodded but held up hands scraped and filthy, just in case he didn’t get
the point. She shouted something at him.
“I didn’t get that,” he yelled back.
She shouted again, only slower. He read her lips more than heard her. She
said, “The ledge is crumbling.”
Great. Now if he went away and she died, it would be his fault. He had to get
her out of there, without hurting her or him, or killing them both.
He didn’t have rope, but he did have the thick cords, which his colleagues
incorrectly called bungees, that he wrapped around the new portable toilet in the
back. He had extra cords just in case he had to do a pick-up or seal a door on a
malfunctioning toilet until he could come back to it.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he yelled to the woman, hoping she could hear him
over the surf. He ran—he hadn’t run since college; his knees ached, and he suddenly
realized how out of shape he had let himself become—and reached the side of the
truck in what seemed like forever. He could imagine the crumbling ledge in his mind,
the way that the rock shifted, the unsteadiness of it; a slight movement would make it
fall away altogether.
First, breathe. Thank God for Coach Stevens. The man’s instructions were in
his head—they were about football, but they’d have to do. Oscar had never been in
another situation like this.
He breathed. Then he realized he had to test the cords to see if he could hook