His lips moved.
No sound came out.
Nadine dropped beside him.
She remembered something her mother had insisted she learn when she was fourteen.
A Red Cross first-aid course.
At the time, Nadine had hated every minute of it.
Now one sentence came back to her.
Stop the bleeding first.
She pressed both hands against the wound.
The man groaned.
"Stay with me."
She reached for her phone.
No signal.
She held it up anyway.
Nothing.
Of course.
The dirt road sat inside one of the dead zones of northern Vermont.
The nearest reliable signal was almost a mile away.
The nearest landline belonged to Merrick Sloan.
Another mile beyond that.
Nadine looked at the man's face.
He didn't have forty minutes.
She knew it.
So she made a decision.
She took off her belt.
She tightened it high on his leg.
The man cried out.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
She used her flannel shirt and part of her backpack straps to reinforce what she had done.
Then she looked at him again.
He weighed more than twice what she did.
There was no sensible way to move him.
But leaving him there meant he might die.
So Nadine Frost grabbed the dying stranger beneath his shoulders.
And pulled.
Gus
The first ten feet nearly broke her.
She dragged him three feet.
Stopped.
Three more.
Stopped again.
His boots carved lines into the dirt.
His body felt impossibly heavy.
Nadine's arms began shaking.
Her lungs burned.
She kept going.
When dragging him became too difficult, she found a wide piece of birch bark and rolled him onto it.
For several minutes she pulled him like a sled.
Then the ground rose.
The bark caught on roots.
Nadine changed tactics.
She pulled one of his arms over her shoulder.
Bent her knees.
Used the technique her father had taught her for lifting firewood.
Then she stood.
The weight almost crushed her.
His boots dragged behind him.
Ten feet.
Rest.
Ten more.
Sometimes less.
Twice they fell.
Twice Nadine got back up.
She began talking because silence frightened her.
"Stay awake."
Another few steps.
"You stay awake, mister."
Another few.
"You hear me?"
The man moved his lips.
This time, Nadine heard him.
"Gus."
"What?"
"Gus."
She nodded.
"Gus?"
A weak nod.
"All right, Gus. Stay with me."
She pulled him upright again.
"We're going to the Sloan place. They have a phone."
Step.
Drag.
Step.
"Stay with me, Gus."
His name became a rope.
Every time her strength disappeared, she said it again.
"Gus."
Step.
"Stay with me."
Step.
"Gus."
It took almost an hour to reach the Sloan property.
Nadine thought the worst was behind her.
She was wrong.
The Man Who Wouldn't Help
Merrick Sloan stepped onto his porch when he saw them.
A sixteen-year-old girl.
Blood on her clothes.
A huge biker barely conscious beside her.
Nadine's arms were trembling violently.
"Mr. Sloan."
He stared.
"Please call an ambulance."
He looked at Gus's vest.
Then at Nadine.
His expression hardened.
"I'm not getting involved in that."
Nadine stared at him.
"What?"
"Look at him."
Sloan pointed toward Gus.
"That's an outlaw biker."
"He's dying."
"That's not my problem."
Nadine could barely believe him.
"I just need your phone."
"No."
She tried to take another step.
Sloan folded his arms.
"You take him somewhere else."
"He might die."
"Then maybe he shouldn't have been riding that road."
Nadine's voice became desperate.
"Please."
Sloan walked down two steps.
Not to help.