I sprinted up the gravel incline just as, crack, another gunshot exploded in the air behind me, instantly followed by the sound of dirt puffing up by my feet. He was getting closer. I kept climbing. This was only going to work if I managed to do one particular thing—not get hit by a bullet.
I hadn’t realized how insane my plan was until I was fully exposed on the rock face. I’m sure I looked like the biggest target this wacko had ever seen. Yet there I was, heading up the cliff as fast as I could, in the strategic path of a question mark.
He started running up behind me. He really did. Straight upward, the cheat. And I began to believe this entire ploy might just work.
If he would enter the slide zone, I’d gain about five minutes on him. The rocks would tangle him up. He might sprain an ankle. At the very least, he’d slide all the way back down and be bewildered. I’d be free to make a mad dash. I might even manage to separate him from his gun.
Crack—another shot. Missed, but splattered the dust directly near my hand.
I could see him fiddle with the gun. Because it was broken?—no, to reload it. He was coming up a lot faster than I anticipated. I was just nearing the top and he was already nearing the end of the loose shale, a patch of hillside about the size of a grocery store aisle. He’d already traversed most of it fast, surprisingly without incident. What was motivating this idiot?
The footing beneath him was holding up agonizingly well, and I’d stopped to watch all this, letting him gain on me, assuming I’d have already achieved the desired landslide by now. No such luck.
I’m not sure what I did to give him road rage but now he’d taken it off the road. Was life so bad in the Wild West that people chased after fellow motorists on foot?
“I’m just a mother!” I yelled at him.
He was nearly across the band of “helpful” geology. I was nearly at the end of my safety zone. The rest of my climb was going to put me in a long corridor of easiest targeting. Crack, he fired another shot at me.
And then his foot plunged.
Downward. Deep. I didn’t see it at first but I heard it. I’d ducked down after the last bullet whizzed by my head (note, Miranda, the best time to duck is before the deadly projectile arrives, not after), but I heard something like miniature thunder down below me. I heard, yes, a rockslide. It was like thunder, or a bowling alley.
I looked, and not only was he sliding down the slope, as I’d hoped, but the entire diagonal section of rocks cascaded with him. He was riding a magic carpet of sharp, jagged stones. The avalanche knocked him off his feet—the point a guardian angel should step in—and, dumbfounded, I watched him plummet all the way down to the hard ground of the ravine. Didn’t see that coming.
The only sign of the disturbance was an elongated cloud of dust rising below. But he was down there. In bad shape. He had to have fallen a hundred feet.
I strained to see through the dust and detected a crumpled heap of errantly strewn limbs, lying motionless. His leg was rotated awkwardly outward, probably broken.
Okay, what now? The only route down was to march back past him. But what if he was faking it? What if he was waiting until I got close to shoot me, up close and personal?
I picked up the sharpest piece of shale I could find. It felt heavy enough to do damage, but light enough to throw. Maybe I could spin it at him like a Frisbee.
I started scooting down the hillside, trying and failing to be quiet. He hadn’t yet looked up or moved. Spinning a rock like a Frisbee is ridiculous. What is wrong with you, Miranda? I could see him more clearly as I got closer. He was sprawled, facedown. It felt very likely that I would tumble forward to plummet as he had, and land right on top of him, dead.
I held my rock-weapon up, like a quarterback ready to throw.
“You almost killed my daughter!” I shouted.
I wanted to just throw my projectile at him, but I had some more choice words. “My daughter…she’s four! And you were shooting at me! Why?!”
He really was quite still. I knew I should walk away, continue on to get help for Aaron—every moment counted. But I felt drawn to see him up close—to know what we were dealing with.
“Hey!” I said. “Hey, I’m right here with a sharp rock! You don’t have to pretend to be out! You don’t have to fake it.”
I started to wonder if he was still breathing. I moved between him and his rifle, lying in the dirt about ten feet away. I kept my shale-football-Frisbee-rock-spear held high above me and felt the clichés bubbling to my mouth.
“One false move, buster, and you’re going down in flames!”
Flames? I knelt by his side. I needed to flip him over. Buster?
I steeled myself. He might lunge at me. He might turn out to be someone I knew. He might be someone whose identity made sense and somehow proved to me that Aaron wasn’t a good husband. Every part of my brain started whirling. I pushed at his shoulder and stomach and managed to flip him over.
It was horrible. His face was torn open.
“Are you okay?” I asked in a nice, maternal tone of voice. “Can you breathe?”
This man was certainly no friend of mine. But faced with a dying human, I couldn’t just walk away. I had to do something.
There are so many times I’ve told myself I need to take CPR. So many times Aaron and I decided that to be good parents, we had to be experts in resuscitation. Who knew when we might need to revive Sierra? Or each other? Or our dog? I had read the steps—but here I was, feeling helpless. I knew there was pressing, and counting.…
“Hey, man, wake up!”
In the heat of the moment, I was panicking. I was increasing my anxiety by the minute. I killed this man. I put my hands on his chest. To press.
Step one. Ask, “Hey, are you okay?”
Step two. Check for breathing and pulse. Not breathing. But he had a pulse, though it was weak.
Step three. Chest compressions. I vaguely remembered some trick with the song “Another One Bites the Dust,” which sets the cadence for the chest compressions. Ironic, given the circumstances. Did he even need chest compressions? I killed him. It was my plan to trip him down the mountain.
Step four. Call for help.
If I yelled out for help, out here approximately one billion miles from the nearest anything, no one would come. But if I were to call.…
That’s when the obvious dawned on me. I didn’t have a phone, but he did. He must. More important than his gun, I could take his phone.
Save him first, Miranda.
I would revive him, then find the phone, call 911, and request an ambulance for him and helicopter for my husband. The new plan. I leaned over to start the compressions.
But before I could even touch his chest, he coughed.
He was awake.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, you’re up! You’re okay? Are you? Can you breathe?”
No words came out, just a terrible sound.
“My name is Miranda. You just fell down a mountain.”
He coughed and up came blood. Lots of blood. It was in his lungs. Whatever the problem was, he had ruptured something vital, deep within him. He burbled up a crimson stream that trickled down his chin and cheeks.
“Tellth…” he said to me.
“What?”
“Tell…” he said. He stopped. Then he continued. “Them.”
“Them? Who? Okay, I will. Tell what?”
It took a moment, but he finally answered. “My team…to save me.”
“What team?”
Team? Did he say team?
“Was there someone else in the car with you?” I asked. “Did you ram me off the road?”
I needed to give this man time to respond.
“Why did your team ram me off the road?”
He was dying. Now. Here.
“T-tray…” he said weakly. Was this his dying breath? He looked over at me.
“No,” I said. I would not let him quit. “No way. Stay awake, buddy. Please.”
“Kiss,” he said.
“Don’t give up, man!” How had I gone from a road trip with my family to watching a man I didn’t know die?
“Tray,” he gasped, then started again. “Tray…Kiss…Kilt…” and then a big exhale…
And he was gone.