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O’Neal

I swerved and almost ran my car off the cliff, pressed my foot to the metal too late, and wound up in a ditch, all to avoid…I squinted. Why was that man pushing an empty wheelchair up the road?

I lost my air—like a ball to the stomach—and my chest cramped where the seat belt held me back. All in the same second, shock and adrenaline spurred me to overcorrect, wrench the steering wheel hard to the right, shove my foot to the pedal and nearly crash into the rock face before the brakes finally kicked in.

This would have been bad enough without an audience. With the man there as a witness, it was mortifying.

What the hell was he even doing?

By the time I got my breath under control, I turned with a start to find him bent right beside the car, peering through my window.

“Ma’am? You okay in there?”

I managed a shaky nod.

“Need help?” he yelled to be heard through the glass.

Shaking my head no, I tried to put the window down, but the car had evidently stalled. After another stunned second, I opened the door and the man was there, appearing efficient—if road worn—as he looked me up and down.

My lips pushed out a mumbled “I’m fine,” and he stepped back.

“Can you get it to start up again?”

Why did he seem familiar? Shock, I guessed. I blinked at him for a few seconds before understanding set in.

The car. Start it. Move it out of the road.

I turned the key and nothing happened. Shit. Shit. Shit. I couldn’t afford a tow, much less repairs.

I tried again, hands shaking so hard they jangled my keys like Christmas. Nothing. Close to sobbing, I tried to twist it a third time when the man reached through the open door and laid a warm hand over mine.

“Put it in park.” How could he sound so calm when I'd just nearly killed him? Killed us both! My jittery eyes flew from the mountainside I'd missed by about two inches, to the hand I couldn’t hold still, to the man telling me things in some foreign tongue.

He pointed at the gear shift.

Park, park. Oh, right! I shoved it into Park and tried again. The car turned over with its normal hiccup, which made my eyes prick up with tears. Getting the old Forester to start was a miracle at the best of times, considering how many miles I'd put on it. And when was the last time I'd had the oil changed?

On a still-shaky breath, I turned to give the man a smile, really taking him in. Again, I had an itchy feeling, like I’d met him somewhere, or maybe seen him on a show or something.

He was big, but I didn't think overly muscular, though it was hard to tell with the thick coat he wore. My initial impression of dirt, I realized, was actually a dark, dark tan on a sun-creased face. Only the area around his eyes revealed his original fair skin color. His hair was a shaggy dark mess and his eyes, set deep in his skull, were a flat brown. The lower half of his face sported a couple days’ worth of growth.

“You always drive on the wrong side of the road?” He broke through my perusal.

“No.”

“Get killed doing that on Saint Jacob.” He paused. “Any mountain, for that matter.”

I drove constantly for work, but the fact was I hated it with a passion. Always had. I hated maintaining this old car and hated the time spent alone on the road. It was a relief when I could bike to work. That hadn’t been feasible when the paper had sent me out here to Mount St. Jacob.

“I’m a terrible driver,” I admitted. What was the point of prevarication?

Apparently the words stunned the man, who let a surprised half smile slip.

“Least you’re honest.” The look lingered and something about it made my pulse pick up. Maybe it was the way it dug those eye creases deeper, or the fresh lines that formed around his mouth, almost like dimples. Mostly, though, it was the way it took his gaze from flat and chilly to warm.

Something about that warmth overwhelmed me; a ghost of a memory flitted by.

“Have we met before?”

He looked away.

“Don’t think so.”

I glanced behind him, to the wheelchair parked on the opposite shoulder of the curved road, its only passenger a worn backpack.

“What are you doing out here with that thing?”

After a second or two of confusion, he looked over his shoulder. “Climbing Mount St. Jacob.”

“Pushing a wheelchair.” I cocked my head. “Flying an American flag.”

“Just hiking.” He straightened up and stepped back. “Drive safe now.” The words were a dismissal. With a quick lift of the hand, he took off, leaving me alone in the darkening afternoon.

Guess he doesn’t want to talk about it.

I put the car into gear and let it roll back onto the road, thankful I hadn’t crashed into the mountain itself.

Slower than normal, I drove around the first curve and then the next, shaking so hard my teeth actually clattered.

It took maybe a dozen hairpin turns before my tremors stopped.

What a day. Starting off with an assignment to cover the much-disputed pre-Thanksgiving week release of wild turkeys into Washington State’s North Puget Sound region—an area where these turkeys weren’t, apparently, meant to live—hadn’t been my idea of a good time. I'd covered it, though, taken pictures, asked questions, gotten the protesters’ story and all that.

The whole thing had the feel of a media stunt planned by some PR person, trying to get more business into the park just before the start of the ski season. They obviously hadn’t banked on the enviro-protesters, though. Or had they? None of this would have attracted an iota of attention if the wildlife people hadn’t gotten pissed about the release and made it into a story.

I could see the headline now: St. Jacob Takes its Turkey with a Side of Protest. Gobble Gobble.

And now a near-miss on the steep gravel road.

I exhaled, loud and deep, thanking every spirit in the universe that I hadn’t run that guy over.

Jesus, sometimes I hated this job.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about that dude—so oddly familiar—pushing an empty wheelchair up one of America’s highest peaks, a week before Thanksgiving. I knew for a fact that the top of St. Jacob was covered in snow. I'd had to wear my crampons to get some good photos of the media portion of the event, after all—not because the turkeys were released up high, but because they’d chosen the ski area for the press potion of the event.

What the hell was the guy doing? Where was he going? Judging from his outdoor gear, he’d be spending the night up here. But what was up with the wheelchair? And where did I know him from—because now that I’d calmed down a bit, I was sure I'd seen him before.

That man wasn’t just hiking the mountain. Climbers took the more picturesque paths. They didn’t walk up the road pushing a wheelchair and flying the stars and stripes.

There was a story here. Now that the shock of almost killing him had fizzled away, I could smell it. Whatever he was doing, it would be more interesting than the wild turkey release.

In that moment, I had to know. What was he doing, pushing that chair up the mountain? As hell bent as an addict going after a fix, I turned that car around and raced back up the road.

---

Kurt

The headlights hit my back, and I got one of those twitches behind my eye. That squeezy eyeball itch, in my experience, was never good. I had to fight the urge to shove Sebio’s chair to the side and follow it into the underbrush.

I didn’t bother looking up when the car slowed to a crawl beside me. Had to be the blonde from earlier. The rattle in her engine announced her arrival like a set of sleigh bells.

I tried to inhale, but as usual these days, couldn’t quite get a full breath.

She lowered her passenger window. “Hey.” She paused, but I didn’t look at her. Just kept on walking.

“Mr. Wheelchair Hiker Dude.”

Nope, not paying attention. Didn’t care that she was cute, in a messy, hippy kind of way. The itch. Just remember the twitchy eye itch.

“Dude, are you seriously going to ignore me?”

“Might.”

“You just failed.”

I sighed. It was true, dammit. I just didn’t have it in me to fight this right now. I shoved the eyeball itch to the back of my mind and glanced briefly to the side, still plodding ahead. I had a mountain to climb, after all. “Help you?”

“What are you doing?”

“Walking.” If I kept my attention ahead, maybe she’d let it go.

“Where?”

“Up.”

“Hm.” I could almost hear her mulling over her options. Or planning her attack. “Why?”

“You harass every random person you see?”

“It’s just…the wheelchair. That’s pretty interesting. Right?”

Did she expect me to weigh in on that? Nope.

“There must be a story behind it.”

The woman was part of whatever they’d done here today. There’d been a ton of traffic heading up this morning and back down just a little while ago. Hers was the last car to come down the mountain.

Her driving skills were as bad as advertised, apparently. She seemed to be having a hard time keeping pace in her car and I picked up speed, although I wasn’t sure if it’d hinder or help. Probably get me killed.

“You seriously not gonna tell me what you’re doing?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m a reporter, from the Daily—”

“Absolutely not.” Hell, no. The eye twitch turned into an ice pick in my brain. I drove myself harder up the mountain. The last thing I needed was the media getting involved.

“You’re clearly pushing that chair up for a reason. Why don’t you let me tell people what—”

I stopped, hot and tense, rage too close to the surface, and turned. “Back. Off.” I didn’t shout the words, but they came out on a growl. After shoving the brake down, I stepped to the window and leaned in—possibly more threatening than I intended. Maybe not. “I’m not a sound bite, lady. Got it? This isn’t about entertainment. This is personal, and it’s none of your goddamn business.” I swiped an arm across my face, surprised to see sweat when it was so cold outside. “Please.”

I listened to her breathe for a few seconds. Then, just as I pulled away, she shocked me with a whispered, “Kurt Anderson?”

The sound of my name on her lips sent a not entirely pleasant fizzle down my body. I examined her more closely. “Do I know you?”

“I’m O’Neal. O’Neal Jones. You and my brother were best friends. Jared Jones? We went to school together.”

The eye twitch went crazy. Back up, it screamed. Run away. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You were a couple years older.”

A couple? More like a few. She’d been a freshman when I graduated.

There was a smile in her voice when she went on. “I wasn’t a cheerleader or homecoming queen or anything like that. You’d never remember me.”

I'd been clueless in high school. Big and cocky and spoiled as hell, but I'd recognize this girl—now woman, I guessed—until my dying day. “I know who you are.”

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