The impact, when it came, was such a shock to Frank that he hadn’t prepared himself. The part of the bumper that he was tied to dug into his back and his shoulders. He also banged the back of his head against the hood of the car. For a few moments, Frank didn’t move. He couldn’t believe what had happened.

Then he felt the car move slightly, heard the crunching of metal on metal and knew that the car was only temporarily stopped, it had caught on the side of a ledge, about twenty feet down. The back too wheels were on the ledge, the front two, however, were precariously balanced. The car could fall again at any moment.

‘I’m not out of trouble yet,’ Frank thought to himself, as he began to carefully work to loosen the ropes that bound him to the tilting car. Luckily, the force of the impact had stretched the ropes a little, and he was able to slowly work himself free. It was a painstaking business though. Too much movement and the car could go, too little and he might be too late.

With quite a bit of effort and not a little pain, Frank wriggled out of the ropes. He stood up, gasping in pain, and he did so. Without his extra weight the station wagon continued its fall down into the yawning black darkness of the canyon. Frank shivered as he watched it fall. ‘That could have been me’

Frank looked up to where he thought Joe and Frazer were standing. The sky was full of stars and the moon was a brilliant white.

‘Now to get back up the cliff’ he thought. There was no way he could climb it, his sore back, shoulders and head wouldn’t let him.

But Joe was up there, alone, with a bullet wound in one arm and a shot gun in the other.

Frank didn’t really think that Joe would do anything reckless, not since they had talked. But then Joe hadn’t thought that Frank was dead.

As the minutes ticked slowly by, Frank felt an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. ‘Well done Frank’, he bereted himself. ‘Yet again, you let down your brother’ He kicked at some stones on the ledge sending them down the canyon.

He could here nothing from the top of the canyon, and had no idea what was happening.

Suddenly there was the sound of a gun going off, and then silence.

"Joe, JOE!" Frank called, looking frantically for way to climb up the cliff. "JOE"

"Joe is dead, he’s dead" The words went round and round Frank’s head as he stood there, helpless.

As he looked up, however, he saw a head look over the Canyon edge, blond hair reflecting in the moonlight, blue eyes looking down at him.

It was Joe.

Neither brother said anything for a while and then Frank spoke. "Any chance you could get me out of here?"

Even in the dark, Frank could see the tears in his brother’s eyes.

Finally Joe said "I’m going to get a rope, I won’t be long"

Frank sat down and gave a silent prayer of thanks, as he waited for his brother to return.

***

Joe told his brother what happened after as they sat waiting for the ambulance and the police to arrive. They sat side by side and Arnold Frazer lay unmoving a few feet away from them.

"I didn’t know what to do at first; I mean I thought you were dead. Then I heard a crashing sound. I knew it wasn’t that far down and that maybe, somehow you were still alive. I had the feeling that you were, although I have no idea how"

"Frazer just stood and laughed. I was so angry Frank, really I was. I wanted to kill him. I really did. He started taunting me, saying that he had done me a favor, that you had almost killed Vanessa, and that really, he and I were on the same side".

"I knew what he was doing, he was goading me. He didn’t care whether he lived or died. Hid eyes were full of madness. I thought about killing him Frank, I had the gun in my hand, ready to fire." "He didn’t care about me, he threw his gun on the ground. He was just standing there, laughing."

Joe stopped and looked up at his brother.

"Its funny, the more he kept saying that you were responsible for what happened to Vanessa, the more I realized that you weren’t, that you never had been"

"I also realized that you were right about me and Vanessa, she wasn’t pushing me away, I was pushing her away. And I decided that I was never going to do it again.

Joe shifted slightly, adjusting the by now grubby sling on his arm before he spoke again. "I could have so easily killed him Frank, it would have been self-defense."

"But you didn’t" Frank’s voice but across his brothers, quiet and reassuring.

"No, I didn’t. I pulled the gun away, and fired into the air. Frazer looked almost disappointed. He started taunting me again."

"I looked at him Frank, standing there, that mad look in his eyes, his son dead, and I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for his wasted life and the life he never had with his son."

"So what happened?" Frank probed.

"I hit him as hard as ever I could, lifted him clean off the ground in fact. It was the most satisfying punch of my life."

Frank smiled too. "For a second, when I heard the gun go off, I thought he’d killed you too, or that you had killed him, although deep down I didn’t think you would"

They heard the sound of sirens in the distance.

"Looks like the cavalry is arriving,"

Frank stood up and walked over to Frazer. "Just how hard did you hit him?" Frank turned to Joe "He’s still not moving!"

Joe grinned and walked over to join him. "Let’s just say he’s not going to forget the Hardy brothers in a hurry"

Frank put his arm around Joe. "He sure won’t little brother, he sure won’t"