After the car goes off the road and crashes down through the trees, Eddie Triplett tells nine-year-old Daphne Zabriskie to check whether she can move her fingers, toes, and neck. They quickly realize the situation is serious: Eddie has likely broken his ankle, Daphne is bleeding from the head, and Abigail will not notice they are missing because she is staying overnight at the hospital with Leda. In the darkness, Daphne and Eddie calm each other by talking through what happened and by discovering that they both want to become novelists.

When Daphne releases her seat belt, she falls onto Eddie and intensifies his pain, but Eddie still focuses on stabilizing her. Using his handkerchief and tie, he bandages Daphne’s head as best he can and asks her to search the wrecked car for anything useful while avoiding his injured foot. Daphne carefully gathers ice, chicken tenders, tissues, her hat, and books, showing that she can stay practical even while frightened.

Daphne then climbs into the back of the overturned car and finds the emergency duffel her father, Buddy Zabriskie, always kept in the wayback. The bag materially improves their chances: it contains a working flashlight, extra batteries, first-aid supplies, matches, flares, a transistor radio, a space blanket, and frozen bottles of water. Eddie uses the medical supplies to clean and rebandage Daphne’s head properly, but he decides they cannot do much more that night and will have to wait in the cold car until morning.

Wrapped together under the space blanket, Daphne and Eddie listen to animals moving outside and admit that they are both afraid. To keep Daphne from fixating on whether they will die, Eddie tells her about a manuscript proposal he read that day: Mary Carter, a Wyoming ranch woman, rode her beloved horse Whistler to search for an escaped horse named Nutmeg, fell during a storm, and lay badly injured for three days. In Eddie’s account, Mary is visited by the dead people and dog she loved most—Sparky, her friend Susan, her father, and her dead son Jeffrey—who comfort her as she waits.

The story reaches its turning point when Jeffrey tells Mary to whistle for Whistler. After repeated attempts, Whistler returns, lies down so Mary can climb on despite her broken body, and carries her home. By the time Eddie finishes, Daphne is crying, but the story has had its intended effect: she understands that Eddie is trying to tell her they are not going to die in the wrecked car. The chapter deepens the bond between them by showing Eddie’s honesty, tenderness, and ability to steady Daphne through fear.