The next morning proves to be another beautiful, sunny, mid-summer day, and after grabbing a quick bite to eat and some gas, I hit the open highway once more. In all the years we’d lived out west, we had never once made the drive through Canada to get home, always opting for flying once a year. As I make the long trip through the prairies, the yellow canola and purple flax fields roll as far as the eye can see. This country is truly beautiful, and I can’t believe that this is the first time I’m seeing it.
I drive all morning, stopping only for a quick bite to eat and a washroom break around noon. I’m just pulling out of the McDonald’s parking lot when the same crew of Kings of Korruption are pulling in. I can feel Hulk’s eyes tracking me as I approach and I thank God for the visor on my helmet that hides my blush. Just as I drive past him, I tip my head in a nod and keep moving.
I hit the road, intent on making it to my next destination before dark. I had heard horror stories of the moose on this particular highway, and don’t relish the idea of finding out if they are true while riding a motorcycle. I have about two hours to go when I round a bend in the road, just in time to see a truck coming from the opposite direction swerve and make a hard right. The truck flips two times before coming to rest upside down in the steep ditch.
My heart racing, I pull over and jump off my bike, barely noticing a man in the car ahead of me scrambling out of his own vehicle. Checking that nothing is coming, I run across the two lane highway—fear making my blood run cold at what I might find when I get there.
“Hello?” I call loudly. My breathing is ragged as I try not to slip going down the steep embankment into the ditch where the truck lays. I see no movement inside, and the only sounds I hear come from the hot metal pinging and the gravel tumbling from beneath my feet.
Approaching the driver’s side door, I get down on my hands and knees to peer in through the smashed out window. Inside, I see the driver, held in upside down in his seat by his seatbelt, a bloody gash on his forehead. He’s not conscious, and I fear that he may be dead.
“Is everyone okay?” a man calls from behind me as he approaches.
“I don’t know,” I call back. “I only see the one man and he’s not responding. Call 911!”
The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone, and I leave him to the call, turning my attention back to the wreck. With a shaking hand, I reach inside and take the man’s dangling hand, searching for a pulse on his wrist. I feel it there, still pumping proudly, even though the man himself doesn’t wake up.
“Sir?” I call. “Sir, I need you to wake up!”
“How many occupants?” the man yells out from behind me.
“One,” I call back over my shoulder. “He’s unconscious, but has a pulse.”
The smell of hot metal and smoke fill the air as I turn back to the man and shake his shoulder. “Sir, can you hear me?”
“Oh, shit!” the man behind me calls out. “It’s on fire.” I turn and see him slowly backing up the hill, the phone still pressed to his ear as he looks at me with frantic eyes. “There’s a fire under the hood.”
I lean back, ignoring the gravel that cuts through my jeans and into my knees. I see the bright orange flames licking out from under the crushed hood. “Shit!” Not wanting to waste any time, I lean inside the cab, calling out as loudly as I can, praying I can wake this man up before the fire spreads to us. Reaching across his chest, I reach up and struggle with the clasp on his straining seat belt.
Finally, it comes undone and the man falls to the roof with a sickening thud. Flinching, I slap gently at his face, urgency weighing heavy on my chest. I know moving him is a bad idea, but I can’t leave him inside to burn. Scrunching up the material of his T-shirt, I pull and tug, falling on my ass as I try to turn his body so I can pull him out through the window.
Heat beats against my legs as I struggle with the huge man, and I know that I am running out of time. Turning, I search desperately for the man with the phone, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Knowing that I am the only chance this guy has, I grab onto his shirt, plant my feet on the ground, and take a deep breath, pulling with everything I have.
I barely get his shoulders through the opening before his shirt rips and I fall on my ass once again. Tears of fear and frustration pour from my eyes as I scream and slip my arms under his shoulders, giving another strong pull. I would feel victorious at pulling him out to his waist, but the flames have grown and smoke pours from the dash, mere inches from the unconscious man’s legs.
I’m just about to use what has to be the last of my waning strength to give him another yank when three men come out of nowhere, and I’m pulled upright into a standing position, my aching back screaming in protest. “Step back, Holly. We’ll get him.”
I stare up at Hulk in awe. His sudden appearance has me sagging against his body. My whole body aches from exertion as I watch the two other bikers pull the man out of the truck and up the embankment where they settle him on a small patch of grass. Hooking his arm around me, Hulk leads me along behind them, his thumb gently rubbing back and forth across my arm.
“Are you okay?” he asks softly.
I tear my eyes away from the man on the ground and the big burly bikers checking him over. When my eyes meet his, I take a shaky breath and nod.
“That was so fuckin’ brave, what you did,” he says, his eyes searching mine.
I shake my head. “It was being a human being. I couldn’t leave him in there.”
He gives me a squeeze, his angry glare pinned on the man with the cell phone that had refused to help. Sirens scream towards us in the distance, and we both turn to watch the fire trucks as they approach.