“You’d tell that lie?” Landon cocks his head, seeming surprised.
“Of course. How romantic is it to say you were showing off and pushing beyond your abilities when you lost your balance on your bike?”
“Yeah, I like the mama bear much better. You’re awesome, you know that?”
“I am.” I grin widely and kiss him.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to tell me I’m awesome, too?”
Before I can answer, I hear dirt bikes. “Here comes the cavalry.”
“And?”
“And what? I’m telling everyone you were a hero, not a show-off. I should get extra credit for that.”
Frank and Mikey come barreling up on their bikes.
Mikey takes his helmet off. “You rode this far up?”
I nod. “He took the lead at the meadow.”
“I told you to be prepared to walk after the meadow.”
I’m positive he told me we could ride beyond the meadow, but it’s not worth the argument.
“Well, there was this bear…” Landon says.
Frank looks at him dubiously. He won’t be fooled by our story.
“He doesn’t want anyone to know he was showing off and turned his ankle,” I explain. “We’re telling his friends he got between a mama bear and me and scared her off.”
Frank shakes his head. “We have grizzly bears here, but not in this area. Not enough food. Plus, if you had seen a mama grizzly, she would have charged you at thirty-five miles an hour, taken you both out, and left you half-alive for the coyotes and wolves to enjoy.”
“My friends are all city folk,” Landon grunts. “They won’t know the difference.”
“Whatever.” Frank looks at his watch. “The medivac will be here in twenty minutes. How’s your other leg?”
“Fine, I think.”
“We’re going to walk you to the meadow.”
I watch them stand Landon up. He puts an arm around each of them, and they slowly walk him down the trail. Two more ranch hands arrive as we’re halfway down, and Mikey tells them where our bikes are.
“What will you do about the dirt bikes?”
“We’ll go back for them after we get him on the medivac.”
The helicopter blades chopping through the air can be heard before it appears. Its blades are still spinning when we arrive, and a nurse comes running over.
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s fine,” Frank says. “Turned his ankle, and it’s most likely broken.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t need surgery,” the nurse says.
Landon looks up, eyes wide. “Surgery?”
“I’ll let the orthopedist from Butte make that determination.”
“We’re flying to Butte?” I ask.
“Yep. The best ortho is there. Hopefully she’s sober.” The nurse winks at Landon so I know she’s teasing—at least I hope she is.
“We have room for you,” she tells me. “Would you care to join us?”
“Yes.” I turn to Frank. “Should I rent a car to get him home?”
“No, I’ll leave after dinner and head into Butte in the Range Rover. If they determine he needs surgery, call and let me know when they’ll be discharging him.”
I nod. I wasn’t nervous before, but now I’m scared. Do I call his parents? Claire? Do I cancel his friends coming? Shit. I don’t know what to do.
I take a deep breath and figure I’ll take this one step at a time.
The nurse checks Landon's vitals and gives him a choice between lying down on the gurney on the outside of the helicopter or sitting in the back. He immediately signals that he’ll sit upright.
“I warn you, this is going to throb because it isn’t elevated,” she says.
“That’s okay.”
I sit next to him and lift his leg onto my lap. “This might help,” I yell into the mic of the headphones, but I’m not sure he can hear me.
In under an hour, we land at the hospital in Butte. As the helicopter touches down, people come running at us from all sides. They move Landon to a wheelchair and elevate his leg.
“How are you doing?” a nurse asks me.
“I’m fine. We were out on fat tires, and he took a rock wrong. To keep from falling, he put his leg out, and it got twisted.”
“That happens a lot around here. Don’t worry.”
I lean in. “He’s kind of famous. Can we register him under a different name for privacy?”
“Let’s talk to admitting. We do that every now and again.”
My cell phone pings, and I look down to see I have an email from Dana. I’d completely forgotten I asked her almost three weeks ago to snoop on the Stanford Octagon page.
I’m so sorry about the delay. I AM pregnant, and my energy is gone, but I didn’t forget. Attached is the list of members of the Stanford Octagon group, and I included several screenshots of conversations about you. I’m sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. I hope it’s still useful.
Miss you,
Dana
There are eight attachments. This is great, but I’ll have to look at everything later. I now have all Landon’s admitting paperwork in front of me, and I have no idea what to write.
I call Claire and explain what happened—using the bear story.
“I know my brother well. You do know he wouldn’t jump in front of a bear for our mother. My guess is he was being a show-off.”
“I don’t know what to tell you… She was a big grizzly bear.” I shuffle through the mountain of forms. “Can you help me with some of the information for these forms?”
I run through the questions, and she’s great about answering them.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asks as we finish up.
“He’s angry at himself more than anything.
