“No, son. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“I feel a crunching when I breathe, and I can’t move my leg.”
“Your legs? Both of them?” asked David, hearing it wrong and worrying about a spinal injury.
“No, only my left one,” said Mark, yelling as he turned over.
It didn’t take a surgeon to realize his left leg was snapped above the knee. It’s not a compound fracture, thought David, as he couldn’t see bone or blood, but the angle was all wrong. Anyone could see that.
“Son, did you hit your head?”
Mark took a deep breath before answering. “It just hurts so bad,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I hit my head on the tree…only in the dirt.”
David glanced again up the road, seeing both mama and cub disappear around the next bend. He almost forgot about the man with the gun who would surely take his four-wheeler and weapon, leaving him and Mark to fend for themselves. He could see him talking on a radio, still 50 yards out.
“Okay, Mark. I want you to hold tight. Where is your rifle?”
“I don’t know, Dad. Maybe on the machine or somewhere on the road. I never saw it.”
“When I say three,” said David, working what was left of his pack off his back. “I’m going to make a run for my machine and grab my rifle before he gets it. Lie still as you can until I get back.”
“No! Wait, Dad. What if he shoots you?”
“I won’t shoot first is all I can tell you, but he’s on a radio now and I don’t want us to be here when his men come. It’s our only chance.”
“Wait, Dad. Where’s your walkie-talkie? It might still work. We’re only 20 miles away.”
“Probably won’t work here, but maybe if we got to the top of the mountain… That’s as unlikely now as us walking out of here. But I’ll try to grab it too, just in case.”
Once more, he glanced at the man who was looking in a different direction and still talking.
“Three,” said David springing up and turning before he lost his nerve. One step, two, and his tattered backpack strap caught his foot, face-planting him down on the ground.
He scrambled to get up, fighting the pain and stumbling forward. Boom! he heard, seeing the man with his gun pointed in the air and walking towards him.
“You don’t need to do that, David,” he called out, not slowing his pace.
“How do you know my name?”
“Name’s Jason Davis and I met our mutual friend, James VanFleet, right here on this very road. We live with him and Janice, my whole family does, helping out on the ranch. He saved my life, and now I’m going to save yours. That must be Mark over there?”
“Yes, that’s my son, and you already know my name. How did you know to come up here?"
“You’re late. We were expecting you more than an hour ago. So, James sent me up to check on you. He is still healing up, but Janice should be up in just a few with the truck.”
“She’s coming up by herself?” asked David.
“Yep, I just rode up, so I know it’s clear, plus we’re only a few miles from Second Chances Ranch and my radio still works. Let’s see if we can get your boy over to the road.”
“Are you taking us home?” asked David, as they slowly helped a one-good-legged young man with severe chest pain.
“There’s a bear up there—went right up the road.”
“Yeah, the one who nearly killed me!” replied David.
“Unless you have a good medical team up there, I suggest we bypass mama bear and let a doctor take a look at your boy. Janice has medical training—fixed me right up with a gunshot wound to the hip. Let’s see what she thinks. Besides, James may never forgive me if I just drop you off back at home and something happens to one of you.”
“How are you feeling, Mark?” asked Jason.
“Not good, sir. Something isn’t right—inside, I mean. Dad, I don’t want to go home yet; I want someone to look at me. I’m scared. I really messed up this time. How is it when something really bad happens, I’m always involved?”
“No, Mark. It’s not like that at all. If the bear hadn’t been on the road, we could have raced down the mountain and had a good time. Bad things happen to everyone, even the good guys like you. It’s a tough part of life, and now it’s amplified a thousandfold. Jason, you don’t know what it means to have your help. I’m glad you were here, for both our sakes.”
“Oh, I think I do,” Jason replied. “Like I said, it was James expecting you an hour earlier and asking me to check on you is all. Plus, he has a sense of things other people don’t. I wasn’t expecting this, though, if I’m being honest.”
“Neither were we,” said David. “All right, we’ll have Janice take a look before making a decision.”
Mark laid on his back in the road, with the truck showing up fifteen minutes later. Janice took him first, examining him where he lay. She made him as comfortable as possible but inflicting more pain than she had wanted to.
“He needs a doctor,” she told David. “Not a medic but a surgeon. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said David, grateful for the honest opinion. “I don’t know any,” he added, lowering his head.
“Well, it’s a good thing then that I do. A couple of good ones used to work in Trinidad. Jason and I will get your four-wheeler on the truck and leave that pile of junk here,” she said, pointing to Mark’s machine.
“Wait,” called out David. “I need his rifle.”
“I’ll get it,” replied Jason, as they loaded the bike into the truck.
“Three guesses,” he said upon his return.
“Guesses of what?” asked David, not aware of the retrieval process.
“Where the rifle was. Three guesses. First, it was on the
