That he was psychotic with fear and self-loathing didn’t matter to him anymore. He didn’t care. He had no money. He had just stranded (and possibly killed) the only woman who would ever love him. No editor would ever buy anything that he ever wrote. And on top of it, he was stuck out here—
“—in the goddamn rain!!!” He screamed “goddamn” so hard, the veins in his neck bulged, and his throat felt red and raw. He started coughing.
He could hear Angie’s voice in his head. Her pleasant, friendly, underhanded, self-serving. . .
“I’m glad you’re dead!” he roared. “I hope I killed you!”
And then he saw that image of her in his mind: that last image as he ran her down with the ATV. She was so sweet and kind, and she was on her knees crying for him not to leave her, not to leave them, that she loved him. And he was suddenly filled with white-hot rage.
“The bitch!” he yelled.
His hands rose up from the handlebars, and he swung out at the air. He was so filled with rage and self hatred that he wanted to die. His life was an appalling failure—
The ATV hit a bump, skidded around, and raced up an embankment on the right. John fell off of the thing to the left. He heard the whine of the engine, and he felt the wind rush out of him as he hit the ground. The ATV rolled and continued recklessly down the embankment, but John felt mud and the bright stinging pain of broken ribs.
Rain spattered the mud all around him, and he looked down at the headlights of the ATV pointed crazily down the hill.
He thought he saw something move out in front of the headlights. Whatever it was, it was low to the ground, and it moved across the path out in front of the ATV from right to left. John shimmied carefully down the embankment toward the path.
Once he got to the bottom of the hill, the ATV was only about fifteen feet in front of him, and he walked slowly up to it. The engine was still running, and he touched his hands lightly to the back right wheel to see if he could slow down its spinning. He couldn’t. It was still in gear.
He stood up straight and tried to look around him in the forest. He was sure he had seen something, but the rain was so intense and his head was dazed from hitting the ground so hard that he couldn’t be sure what he’d seen.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” he said.
But he didn’t see any sign of the mountain lion, or anything else for that matter. He was soaked through to the bone. The ATV was overturned but probably not inoperable, and he was some fifteen minutes from the cabin.
But every time he bent a little to the right, there was the sharp stabbing pain of broken ribs along the right side of his rib cage. He just wanted to sit down and cry, but he couldn’t because the pain was too intense.
“Oh,” he said. And he staggered out in front of the upside-down ATV, out in front of the headlights.
Real panic began to seize him. He realized that he needed to right the ATV, but he realized too that there was no way in hell that he would be able to ride the thing over this bumpy path for another fifteen or twenty miles. It felt like the broken ribs were pressing in on his lungs, and he was afraid that maybe a rib had punctured his right lung sac. That would account for the difficulty breathing.
It felt like fluid was filling up inside his lungs.
“Oh, man,” he said. “You’ve really screwed up this time.”
And he coughed up a helping of blood. He bent over a little and spat the blood on the ground.
That was when he saw the mountain lion step out in front of the ATV.
John stood about forty feet in front of the upside-down ATV, just at the edge of the headlights, and he saw the mountain lion right in front of the ATV. The mountain lion stood sideways across the path, and it looked down the path at him.
It was large.
The cat seemed a little surprised to see this man standing there. It had obviously been attracted to the sound of the ATV and the crash, but it was only now associating that sound with the human it saw forty feet away from it.
“Nice, kitty, kitty,” John said.
His hands rose up in front of him in a defensive posture, and he backed slowly away. The big cat just stared at him. Because the headlights were directly behind the mountain lion, John could only see the black shape of it as it stood in front of the lights.
He glanced over his left shoulder to see what was behind him. He saw the path continued downhill, but it was so dark beyond the ATV’s headlights that it was difficult to tell much of anything.
The big cat just stood there.
Maybe it would let him go. Maybe the encounter earlier had spooked the cat enough that it would be cautious around humans from now on. John took another two or three steps slowly backwards. The big cat just watched him.
“That’s a nice kitty,” John said. He could feel his broken ribs puncturing his lungs. He coughed reflexively, and his mouth filled with blood. He didn’t want to spit it out, lest it provoke the cat into movement. For the time being, the cat was just standing there, and it may just as soon continue on up the embankment to the left and leave him alone.
John took another two steps slowly backward, and he spat the blood quickly over to his right.
The cat’s head popped up with curiosity. It sniffed at the air. The rain continued to pour. The wheels on the ATV continued to spin, and then suddenly the cat just casually started walking up the embankment to the left. It climbed the hill quickly and vanished into the darkness and trees at the top of the hill.
John took a deep breath and swept his wet hair back over his head.
He stood there for almost a minute, looking up the embankment, waiting to see the cat step out from the shadows. He started slowly back up the trail toward the ATV, keeping a watchful eye on the hillside where the cat had vanished into the trees. John drew within a couple feet of the overturned ATV, still staring hard up the hill in case the mountain lion returned.
“All you got to do,” he said to himself, “is get the damn thing turned over. You can go back up to the cabin. Just apologize to Angie. Tell them it was an accident.”
He could hold up there and wait for the helicopter. Maybe Robert could take the ATV down the mountain in the morning. He could call for help in Grapevine. That seemed like a good option to John. He’d take whatever punishment he had coming. He deserved it. He was sorry. It was an accident.
He leaned over and tried to lift the ATV up on its side.
Sharp pains stabbed at his lungs, and he cried out. He coughed up more blood. He leaned into the ATV again and began to roll it over. The pain was so intense he couldn’t believe it; it literally felt like someone was stabbing him. But he got the ATV up on its side. The wheels caught and the thing lurched forward, knocking John backwards onto the muddy ground with a splat!
And it killed the engine.
John sat there on the ground. The pain in the right side of his abdomen was more intense than any pain he had ever felt in his life.
John was hit with the urge to get to his feet. He could salvage this situation. He could make it up to Angie. Robert would understand; he was a guy. He knew how guys could get. Robert would understand.
If he could just get to his feet, he could get out of this. He would write a novel, and he would dedicate it to Angie. One day he would have a writing desk that overlooked a pretty backyard, and he and Angie would have a couple of kids together who would think their pop was the coolest guy on the block. One day, he would succeed. One day.
Thirty-Three
Robert knelt down and saw that she was breathing. Angie lay flat just left of the doorway into the shed, and it was raining so hard that even though they’d both changed over to dry clothes, they were soaked again. Robert tried to pull her into the shed just to get her out of the rain. She groaned.
“Angie,” he said, “just try and take it easy. Everything’s gonna be alright.”
Angie’s eyes opened like she was waking from a terrible hangover, and she squinted and looked cross-eyed at Robert.
; “What happened?” she groaned, and she reached up and felt her forehead.
Robert looked into her eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “He just sort of ran you over.”
Angie rubbed her face with her right hand and tried to lean up on her left elbow. Her left hand hurt; she looked at it in the dim light and saw that it had been run over. Robert looked up at the sound of the ATV racing away from the house.
“Is anything broken?” he said.
Angie moved her fingers around, flexing them. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I managed to get kind of out of the way.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. He just ran you over!”
Angie coughed and managed to sit up. “I’ll be alright,” she said. “I’ve had guys do worse things than that. The asshole!”
She was angry, and Robert just shook his head. That she could take being run over by her boyfriend and still had plenty of fight was a testament to the kind of person Angie was.
“My head hurts,” she said. “The jerk hit my head pretty hard.”
“It looked like your head bounced off the front of the ATV, Angie,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re not bleeding.”
“Help me up,” she said.
He reached a hand forward and helped her to her feet. She staggered a little bit, trying to regain her balance there inside the shed.
“What did he do,” she said, “afterwards?”
Robert glanced out into the backyard beyond the shed, and then looked back at Angie.
“Well, he sort of drove out into the yard,” he said. “He turned around. And I’d swear he almost looked sorry. I really don’t think he meant to do it, Angie. He couldn’t have. Maybe his hand slipped on the throttle or something, and the thing just lurched forward.”
Angie leaned over and put her hands on her knees. She spat on the ground inside the shed, and she looked like she might get sick. Her head was clearly hurting, but she didn’t whine about it. She straightened herself up, brushed herself off, and said, “Well, we can’t stay out here all night.”
“Maybe he’ll make it down to Grapevine,” Robert said. “Maybe he’ll call for help.”
Angie looked at him and was about to say what she thought—that there was no way in hell John would make it down to Grapevine in this weather, at night, on trails he’d never taken before and did not know—but she resisted the urge to say something so discouraging.
“Maybe so,” she said.
But they both seemed to realize that the odds of that happening were not very good. John had just lost it; he’d gone nuts, panicked, and then in a state of panic, maybe his hand slipped, and he ran over Angie.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of this rain.”
They started out into the rain, across the backyard, back to the front porch and the safety of the cabin.
Thirty-Four
Rain hammered John Crandall, and every time he slipped or slid on the mud, he felt the broken bones in his ribcage pressing and puncturing in ways they were not supposed to. He wheezed and started to moan a high-pitched whine. The headlights of the ATV shined down the path, but the engine was dead and the whole thing was now turned on its side.
All he needed to do was get over on the right side of the thing and push it over from its side onto its four balloon tires. He felt around the handlebars and saw that the key was still in place. Rain spattered up from the metal on the ATV, and he knelt down a little and tried to brace himself into its side. His right hand gripped around the seat, and his left hand was on the ATV’s left foot peg.
He tried to push using his legs, but the ground was muddy and his feet kept sliding.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
He glanced over his left shoulder, up the embankment where the mountain lion had disappeared just a few moments before. He was afraid that the big cat would rush him while his back was turned to it, while his focus was on turning over the ATV. And he was in so much pain, was so injured, that he knew there’d be no way that he could defend himself against that thing.
But, for the moment, he didn’t see it. He readdressed the ATV, placing his left hand on the left foot peg and his right hand just under the seat. He started to rock it a little, and each rock sent a knife-stabbing pain through the right side of his abdomen. He coughed up blood, down his mouth and over his chin, and he gritted his teeth and really leaned into the ATV, trying to overturn it.
The ATV rocked up just enough. John’s feet slid. He roared out in pain, and felt the whole thing falling over onto its wheels, right side up. His hands slipped on the ATV, and he fell face-first down into the mud.
Something stabbed him inside so sharply that his eyes widened, and he gasped. It was so painful no sound came from him.
That the ATV was now right-side up was of no consequence to him, for the moment, because one of his broken ribs had run him through. It felt like someone had stabbed him with a nine-inch hunting knife.
Oh, God, he thought.
And the blood just poured from his mouth. He lay there in the mud, and the realization that he was probably not going to live another fifteen minutes washed over him. He tried to roll over on his back and felt the rain hit his face. That feeling was peaceful, and he made the decision that he would lay there like that and die.
He knew he was going to die, and the only concern he had was that the pain could somehow be minimized and that the peace and cool comfort of the rain falling on his face would continue. Every breath he took was labored as though only about fifteen percent of his lungs were working anymore. He just lay there sorry for all the mistakes he had made, sorry for all the weaknesses he had given into during his lifetime, sorry that he had run out on Angie and maybe even killed her.
“Dear, God,” he whispered, “please forgive me.”
And that was when he heard the mountain lion coming down the embankment. There was a low growl, and each step the creature took displaced mud and water coming down the embankment. John tried to raise his head up to see.
The big cat was walking casually down the embankment. It was about fifteen feet away from him. John’s head fell back, and he only wished that the animal would be quick about it.
The big cat came to him. It stood near his feet and sniffed at him. It seemed to completely realize what a wounded animal he was, and it approached his side. John didn’t move his head, but his eyes looked down over his chest at the head of the mountain lion. It was as large as a basketball.
“Oh, dear God,” he whispered.
The mountain lion cocked its head inquisitively at the sound; its eyes were grayish-brown, almost a golden color like nothing John had ever seen. John looked into those curious eyes, and his lips trembled.
I’m going to die, he thought.
And, at just that moment, the mountain lion’s head lunged down, jaws open, just below his sternum. There was a crunching sound, and John began to scream.
Thirty-Five
Near dawn, Angie stepped onto the front porch and saw the horseman coming through the trees. She heard the horses’ hooves coming carefully up the hill. One man sat up high on a rust-colored horse, and there were two unmanned horses following closely behind him. It looked like they were tethered.
“Robert,” she called through the open front door of the cabin.
Robert was on the sofa. Neither had slept, and Angie knew that he was awake. His head rose up, and he looked through the front door.
“What?”
“Come here,” she said.
As the horseman approached the cabin, Angie saw that he wore a black cowboy hat. He wore a black oilskin duster, and the collar was turned up. She could not see his face well.
Robert stepped out onto the porch and stood beside Angie.
“Sheriff?” she called. She opened the screen door and stepped onto the wooden porch steps.
The cowboy emerged from the trees with the two horses tethered behind his riding horse. The assemblage w
alked slowly up the hill, the cowboy’s face drawn down under his black hat.
The rain had finally let up an hour before sunrise, but the air was damp with moisture. Everything was wet, and Angie saw water fly up from the tall grass at the horses’ legs.
“Doctor Rippard,” the horseman said.
“Sheriff Tucker,” she said. “What are you doing up here?”
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