Silence.
My head was pulsing. More pressure than pain. A punishing rhythmic whoosh.
I started forward unsteadily. “Hello? Are you there?”
A moan.
I stumbled toward it.
She lay fetal in a patch of ferns, about twelve feet from the road. Her eyes were clenched, her face streaked with grime. The cushioned landing had helped, but not enough: Scratches marred the surface of her helmet, abraded flesh wept, and she rocked, clutching her shin, blood oozing through her fingers.
I knelt. I didn’t want to touch her. “Hey. I’m here... Hi. Can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes. Dirt speckled her eyelashes. She looked twentyish. Her unisuit was color-blocked, teal and black. Not the same suit she’d been wearing thirty-six hours prior, when she’d zoomed by me on Beachcomber. But the same person.
“Can you hear what I’m saying?” I asked. “Do you understand me?”
She nodded groggily.
“Okay. What’s your name?”
She rose to her elbows.
“Hold on — whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.”
She was trying to stand up. Blood coursed down her shin.
“Hold still a second, please, okay? I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
I ran tripping to the car and pulled a T-shirt from my bag.
She was sitting up when I got back. I used the shirt to bind the gash on her shin.
She sucked air through her teeth.
“Too tight?”
She shook her head.
“Where’s the nearest hospital?” I asked.
She unclipped the helmet, leaving a red line under her chin. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
“I really think—”
She looked around. “Where’s my bike.”
“Miss. Wait, please. Wait. Don’t get up. I’ll look for it. You sit.”
I found it in a bramble. The frame was warped, rear wheel bent into a taco shell. I brought it to her and her face fell.
“Shit,” she said.
She rolled onto her hands and knees.
“Stay there, miss. Please.”
But she was determined to stand, with or without me, so I helped her up, and we shuffled to the car. She had an athlete’s build, wide shoulders and wide back. One cycling cleat clicked on the dirt.
“I’m gonna mess up your seats,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I tossed the snack bag into the rear and settled her.
“My bike,” she said.
“I’ll get it.”
I dragged it back through the brush, loaded it into the cargo space, and got behind the wheel. She had taken off her helmet and was raking at a mass of curly auburn hair, shedding leaves and sticks. She was younger than I’d originally thought — more like sixteen or eighteen, with the straight nose and rosebud mouth of a classical carving.
I started the engine. “We need to get you looked at.”
“Just — take me home.”
We were roughly two hours from Millburg. The pounding in my head was worsening, and my memory of the crash felt disjointed, like a film missing frames. I couldn’t accurately gauge how hard I’d hit her but the distance she’d traveled and the damage to the bicycle suggested a gruesome degree of force.
She might be concussed. She might be bleeding internally. If she were to go into shock, I would be stranded, with no service and no help.
A two-hour drive over tortuous road...
“Can we please go,” she said.
“Where’s home?”
“In town.”
“Swann’s Flat.”
“Yes.” She rested her head. “I’ll tell you where to go.”
I began turning the car around. With so little room to maneuver, I could only move a few inches at a time, dancing between the ditch in front of me and the nothingness at my back.
I tapped the gas. Too hard. She winced.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Maybe I should drive.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I’m kidding.”
“Right. Okay.”
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“What?”
“Your forehead.”
I didn’t remember the impact but she was right: Looking in the rearview, I saw minor cuts and a goose egg at my hairline. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? ’Cause it would really suck if after this you drove me off a cliff.”
I laughed.
She smiled. “I’m Shasta, by the way.”
“Clay.”
“Nice to meet you, I guess.”
I was relieved to see her perking up but also wary.
My training had drilled it in. Assess the injury; stabilize the victim.
Now the adrenaline had begun to dissipate, and I could see her and myself more plainly. I was no longer a first responder. I was the one who’d made her a victim.
I finally managed to get the car facing Swann’s Flat and started downhill. Shasta arched uncomfortably against her seatbelt, tugging on the unisuit zipper to expose the hollow of her throat. A second red line dented the flesh, like a ligature mark.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I just feel hot.”
“Do you want the air on?”
“Window’s fine,” she said, groping for the switch.
She looked flushed. Temperature dysregulation. Not a good sign.
“How’s your leg?” I said.
“Hurts.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Shasta said. She rubbed at her neck. “I get in the zone, and...”
Her eyes widened. “Stop the car.”
“I—”
“Stop.”
I braked. “What’s wrong.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Wait wait wait,” I said.
She got out.
“Shasta.” I cut the engine and went after her. “Hold on. Shasta.”
She was limping uphill toward the crash site.
“Where are you going?”
“My necklace.”
“We can get it later.”
She ignored me. I wasn’t about to restrain her. I trailed her dizzily, ready to catch her if she fell.
She limped off the road and into the brush.
“Let me do this,” I said.
“You don’t know what it looks like.”
“Describe it to me.”
She didn’t answer.
“Can you tell me what it looks like?” I said.
“White shells with a silver pendant.”
We tramped around in overlapping circles, stooped over, combing through foliage.
My father, a retired science teacher, used to drag my brother and me on endless nature walks while quizzing us on species. The most common plant in the vicinity was redwood sorrel, a low-growing creeper with tiny white flowers. It hid perfectly the remains of the necklace: puka shells, scattered far and wide.
I held one up. “Is this it?”
Shasta came over. “Oh fuck.”
She dropped to her knees and began clawing at the earth. “Fuck.”
“Please sit. Please.”
She gave in, sinking down gingerly and rubbing her eyes while I crawled around, collecting shells and putting them in my pocket. My head was going whomp-whomp-whomp.
“Is this yours?” I asked, holding up a wireless earbud.
“Shit. Yeah. Do you see the pendant?”
“Not yet. What does it look like?”
“It’s a rooster.”
“How big?”
She spaced her thumb and forefinger an inch and a half apart.
The broken necklace cord dangled in a patch of salal. It must have caught when she went tumbling.
I parted branches, swept my phone flashlight.
A glint.
The rooster strutted in profile, tall wavy comb and grooves for feathers. It looked like something you’d buy on a whim at a crafts fair, its charm a function of its imperfection.