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I never wanted it to end. And it didn’t, not for hours. Sure, I hit some plateaus, flat spots where the road opened, some to allow more cars and more shoulder, but then I was on the winding mountain roads again, and I felt like those tall hills on each side of me cradled me somehow. There was mesh over the rock faces of the places they’d carved through to make the roads. I imagined those huge boulders crashing down on top of the roofs of cars.
Then I’d pass sheer drops that were only guarded by thin pieces of metal and thicker pieces of wood. Neither would do me any good, as my front wheel would hit and I’d fly over the handlebars and soar like the huge raptors that flew around the canyons. Only mine wouldn’t end in the kill of a mouse or rabbit.
Those thoughts rarely gripped me. Offing myself never seemed a true option. I wasn’t religious, raised by a grandmother that had some very select words for a church she detested. It wasn’t God that made me treasure life; it was life itself.
That’s why, when my bike sputtered, then the engine cut-off while I was going around a particularly hairy curve in the road, I felt my heart jump up into my throat, choking me on something that pulsing and tasted bitter.
Pure fear.
I remember that taste in my mouth. Bitter maybe wasn’t the best description, because it was worse than bitter. Bitter could describe a lemon, and I loved lemons. No, this was metallic, harsh, and it spread until I felt like my entire body could taste it.
I downshifted and got the bike pulled over to the shoulder, but again, that shoulder was tight, maybe a foot in width. It was right on the curve, and with the stone wall the way it was, a blind curve.
Was it karma? I’d left the apartment without so much as a note, and I stole a fifty-thousand dollar watch to finance my flight. Would a semi come along and make quick work of me, getting back at me for those things?
Were they ghosts from my past? The men that I’d seen die while I walked away with a simple leg wound? Were they hunting me?
I got off the bike as soon as I set down the kickstand and knelt as closely as I could to the bike, away from the road, checking everything I could think of to check.
The gas tank was half full, as I’d gassed up fully a couple towns back, and all the hoses and cables were connected. The battery had juice, not that it would cause the engine to stop, usually. Nothing was wrong that I could see outright.
I heard a vehicle coming, and my body flew into action, moving to my feet and jumping behind the barrier, though there was only about three feet of ground before the landscape plunged down two hundred feet straight into a river.
My hands gripped the guardrail, the metal biting into my skin I held on so tightly. It was cold, and my mind latched onto that for a hot minute before I saw the pickup coming around the curve, not fast, not slow, at least not until the driver saw me.
The truck pulled over in front of my bike, and I was both relieved and more scared as I knew he stuck out in the road a lot more than my bike.
An older guy in a straw cowboy hat got out of the truck and jogged back to me, complaining, “This ain’t the place to pull off, son!”
I was shaking and just that second realized it. “I didn’t exactly mean to.”
“Broke down?”
“Yeah!”
I was frustrated, scared and my voice was probably a little aggressive because of it, but that didn’t seem to bother the guy, thankfully. “Well, shit. How attached are you to this thing?”
“Pretty attached, being it’s about all I own in the world,” I answered, regretting it immediately. It felt like a whine, but it was the truth, after all.
“Well, shit! Can you hang on for about twenty minutes or so? I can go get some lumber, and we can get this thing on my truck with it. Stay on that side. Folks come around this curve like they’re trying to beat the devil.”
I wasn’t going to argue. “Yes, sir, I’ll be right here.”
“I’ll be back,” he vowed, nodding his head to me, and I felt relief, though it wasn’t complete. He pulled away and I felt vulnerable, scared out of my wits, but better. I believed he’d be back. I believed he’d save me from the fucked situation where I found myself. Why? I don’t know. He could have easily driven off, deciding the ordeal was too much for him, and he could have left me there.
Instead, he was good as his word, and that was the day I met the man that would completely change my life…
Chapter Three
Isatontheground for what felt like hours. Looking behind myself every little while, like I expected the ground where I sat to fall away any second, taking me with it.
When no cars would pass, I could hear the river below, what sounded like pure whitewater. The sound of the water crashing into the big stones tried to lull me, but not much could. As soon as my heart would calm a little, a vehicle would start closing in, and my mind went right to the video in my head of it crashing into my bike, pushing it into me and sending the whole kit and kaboodle soaring over the edge.
It didn’t happen, of course. The guy in the pickup came back in less time than I imagined, as shown by the time on my phone.
My phone. Well, I hadn’t been that worried about having it before, as I was on the move. Even if Harvey called the cops, I was two states away already. But I suddenly got nervous, and so, before the man in the red pickup could finish backing up to my bike, I tossed the phone over the edge of the embankment and watched it fall, end over end, catching the sun when the screen was on top.
Taking my eyes from the phone to the truck parked and the man getting out of the driver’s door, I saw the guy for the first time, at least, I paid attention for the first time.
