I’d just wasted minutes trying to figure out how to avoid wasting minutes. So I chose to climb. I started walking toward the cliff face and was soon monkeying up it. There were handholds to grip. And the footholds I found felt solid. My confidence increased as I looked straight up and had a clear visual of most of my route.
It really didn’t take long to reach the top, and I had an immediate task scheduled for myself. Research.
I’d sent up the signal flare thinking I saw sunlight glinting on a town, like maybe Red Bluff.
But I was wrong, I was now seeing a harsh reality. There was no city, no town. From this mercilessly clear vantage point I could see that what I thought was a town was…just a mirage. A desert mirage. The oldest cliché in the book.
I was flooded with regret. I’d sent up our only signal flare with no purpose.
With that bad news suddenly came good news—
Crack!
What sounded like a rifle shot was startlingly loud in the quiet landscape, and echoed. I didn’t think it could be more than a half mile away, though I had no idea which direction.
I instantly rejoiced at the prospect of hearing hunters in the distance. My first thought was, Humans. Salvation. Sure, it was dangerous to have bullets flying around. Most people would rightfully cringe and take cover. But in this case, bullets were music to my ears.
Crack! The next shot echoed around me. Even closer.
I don’t know what you would hunt in the desert, though.…Maybe it was a search party?
I stood tall and shouted, “Hey! Help! I need help!” I was waving my arms like crazy. “Whoever you are, please help me!”
I scanned the area, waiting for a response that didn’t come.
“I’m right here!” I said even louder. “Help!”
And the valley said nothing.
“Here on this ridge!” I yelled.
I kept repeating this routine for a half minute. Until I saw something that changed my mind about how the rest of my life might unfold.
The shooter—not very far away, maybe a hundred feet at most—well, he could see me. He was looking right at me, that was clear. He was on the ridge too, on higher ground. And he was aiming at me. Directly at me. Crack! Another shot was fired in my direction. From him. At me.
“Hey! What the hell is wrong with you!?” I screamed.
As I recognized who he was.
Fat.
Bearded.
Ugly.
The SUV driver.
Chapter 7
This was an attack. This wasn’t an accident. This man was trying to shoot me.
I froze for longer than I care to admit. I always imagined that in a situation like this a thousand thoughts would race through my mind—some emotional, some practical, some an inventory of my life—but I was mentally blank. I eventually spun around and clumsily fled down the nearest slope.
I only had one viable thought in my head, not a very impressive one: to duck behind a bush.
My laughable instinct was quickly vetoed by my legs anyway, because my legs said run.
So I ran.
Movement became autonomous. I sprinted down the slope, creating a flurry of dust behind me. Crack, he fired another shot through the air at my back. Was this his third or fourth? Maybe his tenth, for all I knew. I’d never been shot at before. I felt irrationally insulted.
“You’re shooting at me!” I yelled, turning.
Is that all I can come up with?
“Stop!” I added.
I was crouching down again, my back to the dirt slope, taking cover, trying to figure out what to do. I wasn’t in charge of my voice.
The man with the gun said nothing but kept coming. He stormed across the patches of loose shale, relentlessly focused.
I knew I had to keep moving, but I couldn’t see anywhere to go. I looked back and yelled again. “My name is Miranda Cooper! I’m not whoever you think I am! I don’t even know you!”
If I had to identify him in a police sketch I’d say: bearded, fat, ugly. But I could add: mean, with hate in his eyes. Was this guy actually trying to ram us off the road? He seemed absolutely oblivious to what I was saying now.
Was he trying to ram my husband off the road?
Crack, another shot. Another miss.
Was he himself a husband? A jealous one? Did Aaron sleep with somebody? An affair?
Where were we headed in our minivan? To hide? In the midst of mortal peril, my crazed brain was now conjuring up all the grotesque situations that my husband could’ve entangled himself in. I was picturing a hotel in something like Atlanta or St. Louis. A nice one. Two hundred dollars a night. The hotel bartender announcing last call and Aaron looking at his voluptuous business partner, whoever she was, someone with a sexy neck, while they both giggled about whose room to go up to.
No.
It’s not possible. Not Aaron. He was taking us on a trip to meet a new friend he’d met on the job. Some guy named Jed. My husband doesn’t cheat.
And I know every wife thinks the “not him” thing, that hers is the one prince in the world who wouldn’t roam; but infidelity is beneath Aaron.
The man was now close enough that I could hear his breathing and grunting over his footsteps. He was closing the gap between us, scuffling himself down the hillside across the shale.
I looked around for places to hide or for a covered path to run along. He had a rifle with a scope. I started wishing I knew enough about guns to discern if his was a hunting rifle or a cop rifle. Useless speculation.
Something else occurred to me. My first possibly non-useless idea. Go back uphill.
If he’s silly enough to choose the shale-side of a hill over the limestone-side of a hill once, he might be silly enough to choose it a second time. A choice with consequences. Because when a rockslide happens, even if it’s just a small area that collapses—you’re going
