THE STRAY

THE STRAY

The windshield wipers on my car beat a steady tattoo and I could hear the raindrops falling loudly on the roof. It reminded me of when I would lie in bed in the loft of my small cabin and hear the rain hitting the metal roof. 

 I was heading there now …  to the cabin. I had four weeks of holidays due and meant to spend every possible moment there. It was my escape, my retreat, my all-about-me time. Most of the time, my life was a clutter of “be here and be there” or “do this or do that.” The proverbial hamster in the wheel type of life that many of us face weekly, if not daily.

I had my car loaded down with books, bathing suits, towels, books, buckets of suntan lotion, and still more books. My only firm intention for my holidays was to read. It was my passion, my joy, my bliss. During the weeks, my job consumed me.

I occasionally got time to get away on the weekend and head to my cabin, but a recent promotion meant that cabin time had been put on hold while I figured out what was going on job-wise. Now, there was extra study time on weekends to find out what the heck I was doing. I was grateful for the big boost financially and for the confidence that the company held in me, but I knew I was way out of my league.

 I wanted to prove to them that I could do the job and excel in it. That's just how I was raised, with an “always do your best” motto literally nailed over the door frame. Every time you exited the house, BAM, it hit you in the face. My mother had painstakingly lettered the plaque and painted it to coordinate with the surrounding decor, and my father had nailed it up in its place of honour with pride.

The storm was getting worse the farther north I drove. It was dark, not city dark, where there is always a soft glow around you; but country dark where usually you can see a million stars that you forgot were even there. The country had no soft glow from thousands of nearby streetlights, billboards, houses, apartments, and commercial and industrial lights. But tonight, dark angry clouds hid even the stars. The wind picked up, and the gusts kept blowing my car from side to side. I had a death grip on the steering wheel, several clicks back I had turned off the radio as even it proved to be too much of a distraction. I wanted to pull over but was afraid that someone might ram me from behind. I wasn't even one hundred percent sure where I was. I think I had gotten off at the right turnoff that led to my cabin. It was a paved road up until the old wooden bridge that spanned the Maple River; on the other side of the bridge it was all gravel, and then just a rutted trail down to my cabin.

I was driving as slow as a snail crawls by the time I got to the bridge. I could barely see. And the wind was blowing gale force. I slowly made my way across the bridge. It was making strange creaking noises. I mean, it always made creaking noises, it had to be at least eighty years old. But on this trip, the noises seem louder, more disturbing. I found myself clinging to the steering wheel. I'm sure my knuckles were white and the expression “white-knuckling it” now made perfect sense. I offered up a prayer, with my eyes wide open, not daring to take my eyes off the centre of the bridge for even a second. A sudden violent gust from behind pushed me right onto the far end of the bridge and onto the gravel. I couldn't see the gravel, but I could feel the difference in the beat of the tires on the two different surfaces. I had no sooner rolled onto the gravel than the bridge collapsed behind me. A scream ripped from my throat. Even above the gale-force winds, I could hear the tortured wood and steel girders that held the bridge in place as they plunged into the gorge below. I drove a few feet forward so I, too, wouldn't be pushed by the wind or dragged by some unseen hand into the valley.

I sat sobbing for some time. I'm not afraid to admit it. Having escaped certain death so closely has that effect on one's emotions. I also repeated Thank you, God! Thank you, God, about a hundred times. When my emotions calmed down, I dried my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt, put the car in drive, and crept forward. I was almost at the turnoff onto the rutted lane that led to the cabin when my high beams picked up the tail end of a dark sports car nose-deep into the ditch. The tail light still gave off a glow, so I knew that the accident had happened only a short while ago. I put on my flashers out of habit, for who in their right mind would be out here in the storm, other than the idiot driving my car and the idiot driving the sports car in the ditch? I grabbed the flashlight that I kept under the front seat, scrambled out of my car, and headed to the driver's side. Luckily, the door wasn't locked, so I was able to open the door.

 It was a male, and he was unconscious, slumped over the steering wheel. I played the flashlight around the interior of the car and it looked like he was alone. My first thought was to turn the car off. Smoke was coming out from under the hood. I found the correct button and soon heard silence except for the rain and wind. At least we aren't going to blow up, I thought inanely. I turned back to the man. I felt for a pulse and found one. I carefully eased him back off the steering wheel and, by putting the flashlight in my mouth, I was able to use both hands to assess the damage. There was a lot of blood coming from his head, I couldn't see any cut, so I figured it was somewhere in his hairline. I had to get help. I tried my phone but as I expected, there was no reception. Even on the best of days, there was no reception at the cabin. It was one of the things I loved about it. Escape, with a capital E. There were only a few properties in this vicinity and most of them were not habited full time. It was up to me. Not only that, but the bridge was out, and it was very apparent seeing the bridge was now a pile of rubble at the bottom of the ravine that it would be for a long, long time before there was any help coming. I couldn't just leave him there, that was very obvious.  

I wouldn't have left a stray cat or dog out there in these elements, let alone an injured human. It was, therefore, up to me. I wondered how I would get him to the cabin. He looked like a big guy and I certainly couldn't carry him. I certainly couldn't even lift him into my car. Then the thought hit me. My toboggan. I had this ugly black sled that I used in the wintertime to pull behind my snowmobile. I used it to load up my stuff from my car and fetch firewood.

I pushed my head into the wind to get to my car and drove the distance to the cabin. I quickly unlocked the cabin door and flipped on the lights. Offering another word of thanks when they came on. I flipped the switch for the heater, then I ran to the shed that adjoined the cabin and dug around in the shed for the toboggan, an old blanket, some rope, and a tarp then headed back to the car in the ditch pulling the sleigh through the wet grass and mud. I was soaking wet, wet to the bone, a sodden mess,

 I know that when someone is in a car accident, you are supposed to keep their spine and head aligned and not move them so they won’t get paralyzed, or something like that. But getting the man out of the car, and into the toboggan, covered with a blanket, tied on, and tarped, was a feat of unparalleled determination on my part, to put it mildly. Not only was he wedged in between the seat and the steering wheel, but the car was on a steep slant since it had landed in a ditch. My entire body was shaking with cold, wet, and exhaustion by the time I got him back to the cabin. Luckily, the toboggan was the kind with sides and last season I had added holes on each side so that I could strap down my firewood without losing it.

 I staggered down the laneway buffeted by the wind and rain, pulling my passenger with his dead weight on the toboggan, down the rutted lane, across the rain-slick grass. I opened the door and pulled him into the cabin, thankful there were no stairs and only the lip of the door to contend with. The bump over the threshold was probably the least of his worries, and mine. I fell to the floor and rolled over. I forcibly slammed the door shut with my foot. The crash didn't bother him a bit, he was still totally out of it. I lay there on the pine floor, panting for a while.

At last, I rose to my feet and started the arduous job of unlacing him from his cocoon or chrysalis of a makeshift bed, drying him off, wrapping him in a warm dry blanket, and tending to his injuries. I can't say I did a good job of it. I did discover several things during the proceedings. One, I can't stand the sight of blood, but who else was there to help him? Two, underneath all the blood, was a very handsome hunk of a man, Three, I can't stand the sight of blood no matter how handsome he was. Four, the package of chocolate chip cookies that I had eaten on the trip here, tasted a lot better going down than coming up. I was not cut out to be anything in the medical profession.

 I finally determined, after throwing up a few times, that his only injury seemed to be the cut on his head. It probably should have had stitches but my sewing skills are a lot worse than my nursing skills, so that wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, there was a first aid box under my sink in the bathroom and I managed to disinfect the wound, pack some gauze on it, put a clean washcloth on top, and then used a tensor bandage to keep it all in place. Luckily for him and me, he remained unconscious till the end.

 After finishing the job, I pulled the toboggan which he was still on, close to the fireplace, and lit the firewood that I always leave ready to light.

The cabin was getting toasty when I slid him carefully out of the sled and covered him with another warm blanket. I once again braved the elements and unloaded my car and then took the toboggan and unloaded his car. I locked it and took the keys. There wasn't too much there, a suitcase, a gym bag, a briefcase, a cell phone and a wallet. I dumped my loads on the floor inside the cabin door.

I didn't want to be nosy, but I felt I should try to find out who my uninvited guest was and if there was anyone to notify if I could ever get the chance to find a place where my cell phone or his, had any reception. It could be a long time before people were out to fix the bridge that had fallen into the river below.

I learned from the license in his wallet that his name was Brian Evan Brock and he was almost exactly two years older than I was. There were a few business cards in his wallet with his name on it and he was a freelance photojournalist. There were quite a few credit cards, mostly gold or black cards, and an impressive stack of cash tucked away in the secret portion of his wallet that everyone knows about. 

      There were a few old photos, which are a rarity in this day and age of cell phones. One was a family picture of a mother, father, and three children. Brian was obviously a middle child with two sisters. On the back, in neat printing, it read: Mom, Dad, Katie, Brian, Eva, and the date some ten years earlier. The whole family was genetically perfect from the looks of the picture. The clothes and hairstyles were a little dated, but wow, they all came from a great gene pool. The only other photo was of a slightly older Brian with a golden retriever puppy on his lap. He had a great smile and beautiful eyes, Brian, not the puppy.

 I next tried his cell phone, but other than providing two emergency numbers, it was locked against nosy people like me or scammers, pickpockets, and other riffraff. The emergency numbers were for a Katie Brock and Eva Simms. I take it these were the two sisters in the photo, so I took it for granted that he wasn't married, otherwise he would have had a wife listed as an emergency contact. My heart gave a quick little blip for no apparent reason other than my handsome stranger seemed to be single. I had already noted that there was no wedding band or even a tan line on the ring finger of his left hand. 

I guess when you find a stray dog by the side of the road and he's wet and hurt, one of the first things you check is his collar. Sometimes they have a name and a number engraved on the back of their tag on their collar. For a hurt human, it’s similar, you just check their wallet or cell phone.

About this time, he started to stir, so I quickly put his wallet and cell phone on a nearby coffee table. He moaned slightly, and I went to the fridge and got a semi-cold bottle of water. I wasn't at all sure if you were supposed to give someone with a head injury something to drink, but I thought if it were me lying on the floor, swaddled up in a blanket, I sure would want something wet.

 Sure enough, a few minutes later, his eyes started to flutter and finally opened wide to reveal the beautiful blue eyes I had seen in the old photograph. A slow easy smile settled on his lips. 

Oh, how I hoped that this stray man who had suddenly come into my life and had been found in a ditch by the side of the road like a stray dog, did not have an owner.