It was a custom-built chopper, black and chrome, destroyed almost beyond recognition. The front fork had snapped. One wheel still turned slowly.
Then Miriam saw the rider.
A young woman lay crumpled near a limestone outcrop.
For one terrible second, Miriam thought she was too late.
Then the woman’s chest moved.
Once.
Twice.
Barely.
Miriam hurried toward her.
The years disappeared.
She was no longer seventy-one.
She was twenty-four.
She was back in a field hospital outside Da Nang, surrounded by wounded men, screaming voices, and the smell of blood.
Her hands remembered what age had not erased.
The rider’s right leg was trapped beneath a slab of rock.
The bone had broken through.
Blood pulsed from her thigh.
Miriam’s jaw tightened.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered. “You picked a bad place to bleed.”
There was no cell service.
There had not been for miles.
So Miriam did not waste time looking for it.
She pulled off her belt, wrapped it high around the woman's thigh, found a dead branch, and twisted until the bleeding slowed.
The young woman jerked weakly.
“I know,” Miriam said. “I know. Stay with me.”
The rock was too heavy.
Miriam could not lift it.
But she could move it enough.
She braced herself, ignored the fire in her hip, and pulled.
Once.
Nothing.
Again.
The rider groaned.
Miriam pulled harder.
The leg came free.
Then came the impossible part.
Getting her to the truck.
Five More Minutes
Miriam could not carry the woman.
She was seventy-one years old, arthritic, exhausted, and already feeling muscles tear in places she had forgotten existed.
So she dragged her.
One foot at a time.
She gripped the back of the leather jacket and pulled.
Rested.
Checked the tourniquet.
Pulled again.
By the time they reached the Ford, Miriam could barely breathe.
She lowered the tailgate and used an old loading ramp to slide the injured rider into the truck bed.
It was rough.
It was ugly.
It was necessary.
She packed the wound with her flannel shirt, braced the injured leg with an old tarp and bungee cords, and looked down at the unconscious woman.
“Stay with me,” Miriam said.
The woman did not respond.
Miriam slapped the side of the truck.
“I am too old to be haunted by you.”
Then she climbed into the cab and drove.
The emergency clinic in Ely was forty-five minutes away.
Miriam made it in twenty-nine.
The old Ford screamed through the darkness.
The temperature gauge climbed.
The headlights bounced.
The engine threatened rebellion.
Miriam gripped the steering wheel.
“Five more minutes,” she whispered.
The truck rattled.
“Just five more.”
The engine coughed.
“Five more.”
When the emergency entrance finally appeared, Miriam leaned on the horn.
Doctors and nurses ran outside.
“Female rider!” Miriam shouted. “Arterial bleed! Right thigh! Compound fracture! Tourniquet’s been on about thirty minutes!”
The medical team froze for half a heartbeat.
Then they moved.
The woman disappeared through the emergency doors.
A nurse turned to Miriam.
“Ma’am, are you family?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Bike went down.”
“We need you to stay for a police report.”
Miriam looked down at the blood on her hands.