Chapter Four

In the last few months, I’d found Carson was a great excuse. An excuse to indulge in chocolate—a nursing mother needed the extra calories, after all. An excuse to turn down unwanted invitations. An excuse to sing silly songs and watch Sesame Street. Sure, he didn’t even pay attention to the television yet, but personally, I’d never stopped enjoying Grover. And he loved it when I sang “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” along with Ernie.

Right now, he was an excuse to get me out of the house alone for a minute. Carson needed diapers, so after careful directions from Erin—and turning down her offer to accompany us—we were back in the car on the highway driving toward Ron’s Grocery. I hoped. Carson finally stopped screaming, and he actually fell asleep within 15 seconds of me starting the car: a new record. I drove slowly, obeying the speed limit for once. Originally, I thought I needed to get some time away to think, but I found myself trying not to think—trying very hard to keep my mind in a Zen-like state of nothingness.

Beheaded.

My stomach lurched and I veered onto the gravel at the side of the rural road. Leaving the car sprawled diagonally, I pushed open the door just in time.

After several minutes of absolute misery, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and realized sharp rocks dug painfully into my knees. I sat back, hugging my legs to me, glanced into the car to make sure everything was okay, and gave in to my thoughts.

I couldn’t get the picture of Mac out of my mind. Mac, beheaded. I tried to hang onto my real memories of him: Mac sprawled across my bed and whistling as I came out of the shower; Mac laughing when he first saw my inherited collection of ceramic chickens; Mac one brow raised in mock confusion as I confessed I hated dark beer. But my imagination kept sending me grisly images of Mac’s head flying through the air, of his eyes glazed and fixed on nothing. The pictures were pure Hollywood, since I’d never actually seen such a thing. Intermixed with it all were flashes of headless chickens, of blood spurting from an empty neck. I considered the brute force required to cut off someone’s head. Some sick, morbid part of me wondered what it sounded like, chopping through someone’s spine. What it felt like. My stomach rolled again, and I wished fervently to turn off these obsessive thoughts.

I cast back in my mind, trying to latch onto a happier memory.

Like the day we picnicked at Applegate Lake. I put together a delicious spread: fresh strawberries, triple-cream brie, sourdough bread, roasted red peppers, and an assortment of olives. Mac loved olives. He could eat a whole container in a sitting; black, green, pitted or not, stuffed with pimento, garlic, feta, whatever. His favorite, stuffed with jalapeno peppers, came from a little roadside stand in northern California. And, of course, I’d brought wine, a bottle of chilled white wine. What kind of wine was it? I scrunched up my eyes, trying to bring back every detail. A local pinot gris, maybe from Weisingers. Yes, that was it. We spread out my old picnic blanket, its multi-colored plaid soft with age and many washings. I remembered Mac lounging on one elbow, popping olives into his mouth. His hair had been on the long side, ready for a trim. I leaned over and brushed it away from his eyes. He caught my hand and pulled me down with him, to lie against him. God. I remembered the warmth of the sun on my back, the smell of lake and green things growing, the taste of olives and wine and berries and Mac, the sound of a woodpecker somewhere nearby. I’d craned my neck this way and that trying to find the bird, but gave up and just listened. I remembered at the time trying to lock every element of the afternoon into my mind so I could always feel the vividness of that moment. That perfect moment.

Followed by a less than perfect night, which, unfortunately, remained more vivid than all the rest of it. After our picnic, after returning home to impatiently shuck off each other’s clothes, after lying together in twisted sheets and talking about everything and nothing, Mac got up to leave. To work, he said. On a Saturday night. After a Saturday afternoon like the one we had spent together. Oh, I’d been so mad. I felt the anger, the hurt, even now. I yelled. I cried. I accused him of not caring, of being utterly selfish, of being cold. Of using his job as an excuse to shy away from intimacy. Finally, at the end, I practically pushed him out of my house, telling him to get the hell away if he couldn’t be there with a whole heart, if he’d rather work on God-knew-what.

And I remembered waking up the next morning, eyes swollen, parched and lonely, wishing to take it all back. Wishing I didn’t always have to push and push and push. Wishing I could respect his boundaries and his needs. That I could love him without trying to cage him. I called him over and over and over again on his phone until he finally picked up.

Now, I wondered: had it been a full moon?

The Wyoming desert was quiet, except for the skitter and pop of grasshoppers moving through the brush. I stood up, brushed off the seat of my jeans and ran fingers through my curls. Mac. God, it hurt.

****

The long summer evening drew to a close as I drove home from Ron’s Grocery, diapers and baby both safely ensconced in the backseat. The two-lane highway was nearly empty, and the setting sun turned the brush into long, slanting shadows. I kept the windows down to smell the sharp tang of dust and sage. Behind me, a lone car approached and I automatically slowed a bit to allow the car to pass in the other lane. The road stretched out straight in either direction, no other vehicles in sight. The car—a blue sedan—swung out to pass. Then suddenly it veered and crashed into my fender.

Metal shrieked and the steering wheel bucked in my hands. The car spun with the impact and I fought back, instinctively trying to regain control. Before I could straighten the car, before I could even understand what happened, the other car hit again. My car jerked violently as the other car crashed into us, this time against the side of my poor car. My tires left the road, hit the gravel, and skidded into the dirt before the front end hit a shallow depression and the car jolted to a sudden halt. I slammed against the steering wheel, then the seat.

Heart pounding in my ears against the silence, I finally found my voice enough to yell, “Shit,” and then found my head enough to scream, “Carson!” I jerked my rigid arms from the steering wheel and turned around, straining against the seatbelt before unlatching it, half climbing into the backseat to inspect my baby.

Carson opened his mouth in a terrific scream and my pulse skipped, then hammered away in sheer panic.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. Are you okay?” I fumbled into the seat next to him. I ran my hands along his arms and legs, checking for injury, moving him gently. No obvious breaks. No blood. He thrashed about, a good thing, I told myself. Sobbing now, I unlatched his belt and carefully lifted him out, cradling his head and neck carefully, using one hand to poke and prod a bit.

“I think you’re okay.” I closed my eyes and sank my nose into his hair. “You’re okay. Thank God you’re okay. Holy shit. What the fuck was that?”

Shaking, I opened the door and got out, holding Carson tightly. He continued to voice a few hiccupping sobs, but quieter now. He butted his small head into my shoulder like a kid goat. I rubbed his back and bounced him on rubbery legs, looking around and trying to get my thoughts in some sort of order.

Off the road ahead of us, the other car loomed ominously in the fading light, and a jolt of adrenaline ran from my core to my fingertips. The blue sedan’s engine suddenly stopped, and I took a step backward. For a frozen moment, I was only aware of myself, my frightened baby, and the dark shadow of the man behind that wheel. I glimpsed something metal, a flash as something reflected the setting sun, some movement in the car. Then our standoff was interrupted by a distant susurrus that at first sounded like the ocean and quickly resolved into a pickup truck approaching on the highway. The blue sedan came to life, spun its wheels, and bolted down the road to disappear into the distance.

I came out of my daze as the pickup truck approached. I had an irrational flash of panic as it slowed, before I registered the concern on the driver’s face. For the first time, I turned to look at my little compact. My car was in sad shape: the back end smashed, a huge dent in the driver’s side, nose down in a small ditch, entangled in brush. It looked like at least one tire was toast.

“Fuck. Fuck! Holy…shit.” I took a deep breath, trying to gain some measure of brain activity—not to mention a less profane vocabulary.

“Are you okay?” A lean, weathered man jumped down from the red pickup. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

“Yes. I mean…yes. I think so.” I focused on breathing.

“Here, why don’t you sit down?” He gestured to the passenger seat of his truck and then guided me there with a warm hand on my shoulder.

As soon as I sat down, I started shaking uncontrollably, suddenly freezing. Carson twisted in my arms to watch the rancher as he walked around my car.

“Whoo-ee,” he said, as he came back over. “What happened?”

“I’m n-not sure,” I said, “A c-c-car h-hit me. Us.” I was afraid my shaking arms might drop Carson.

The rancher walked to the back of his pickup and came back with a blanket, slightly worse for wear. “Here,” he said, “I think you’re in shock.” As I nodded, he settled the blanket around us.

“Ma’am.” The rancher’s eyes squinted in concern. “Can I call someone for you? Do you want me to call 911? Do you need an ambulance?”

“N-no, not an ambulance. I’m sta-staying with Erin and L-Liam MacGregor. Um. I have their number in my cell phone.” I gestured to my purse, still in the front seat of the car, and he brought it to me. He took the phone from my shaking hand.

“Okay, don’t you worry about a thing.” He smiled kindly, then took a few steps away and made the call.

****

Erin and Liam arrived in under ten minutes.

“Julie,” Erin cried in dismay, leaping out of their SUV almost before it came to a full stop. “Are you really okay? What happened?”

I explained to the best of my ability, and their faces grew grim.

“Describe the car again?” Liam said.

“A dark blue sedan, kind of medium-sized. That’s all I noticed—I really wasn’t in much of a state to pay attention to the details and I’m not much of a car person.”

“You didn’t see the driver at all?” he asked.

I screwed my eyes shut, trying to remember. “Male. I’m pretty sure it was a man. Dark hair, I think. But that’s all from glancing at him in my rearview mirror…and from a distance, when he stopped over there.” I pointed, then shrugged in apology. “I’m a bad eyewitness.”

Liam walked over to where I had gestured and cast about in the dirt at the side of the road. After a minute or so, he shook his head and walked back over to us.

“Don’t worry about it,” Erin reassured me. “No one would have gotten a good look in those circumstances. I just wonder…” She trailed off, with a quickly averted glance at the man who’d stopped to help me.

I sat up a bit straighter and smiled at the rancher. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid after all of this, I didn’t even get your name. I’m Julie. Julie Hall.”

“Thom Gardiner.” He nodded. “I’m from Worland; headed back there tonight. Do you folks need any more help? If not, I’ll take myself off.”

“Thanks, Thom.” Liam shook his hand firmly. “I think we’ll take care of things from here. We appreciate all of your help.”

After sincere thanks from all of us, Thom headed back down the road. The three of us—four, counting Carson—sat for a moment in silence, letting the emotion of the moment subside.

“Should we move Caron’s car seat into the SUV? We can send a tow-truck to pick up your car and bring it to a shop. I think it’s going to need some work.” Erin put an arm around my shoulders.

I nodded. “Yes. I need to get a new car seat, though—I don’t think you’re supposed to use it if it’s been in an accident.”

“We’ll do that tomorrow. We can drive into Sheridan.”

“Right.” A haze of exhaustion blanketed me.

“Julie, I think it would be a good idea to have a doctor make sure you and Carson are okay.” Liam’s brow creased in concern. He reached out to touch a rapidly rising bump on my forehead. I flinched, feeling the injury for the first time. I must have hit my head on the steering wheel when the car stopped in the ditch. Various other minor pains started to surface, mostly muscle aches from being wrenched about in the car. Poor Carson, did he feel the same way?

Erin nodded in agreement. “There’s a hospital in Basin, about fifteen minutes away.”

****

Two hours later, Carson and I left from South Big Horn County Hospital. The smallest “hospital” I’d ever imagined, by the way, with only a dozen or so patient beds. After clean bills of health, an admonition to come back if I felt dizzy or nauseated, a prescription for muscle relaxers, and both adult- and baby-strength painkillers, out the door we went. I’d already prophylactically dosed Carson and taken a double dose of ibuprofen myself. I’d also made a report to the Greybull police, though I couldn’t give much information about the man or the car that forced us off the road. I was bleary-eyed as we drove back to the MacGregor’s house. The combination of high emotions and the car accident had depleted my energy.

When we reached the house, Erin showed me to a room and I used all my remaining strength to put Carson into his pajamas and to make sure the bed was safe for co-sleeping. The bed rested against one wall, so I made sure Carson couldn’t get stuck in the crack, moved the pillows and blankets away from his side, and gratefully climbed into bed, still wearing that day’s t-shirt. I fell asleep without even brushing my teeth.