Page 1 of Property of Bigfoot
1.CRASH AND BURN
SAMMY
I knewthe minute the eighteen-wheeler flew around me on US-60 that my night was about to take a turn for the worse.
We just rolled over the state line coming from Arizona into New Mexico when the asshole thought it would be fun to try to pass. Either he didn’t realize there was a man on a Harley in front of me or he didn’t care.
“Fuck!” I yelled into the empty cab of my truck as he blew by. The wind gust he kicked up rocked the hell out of my little Toyota Tacoma and made me wonder how that would feel to the Harley he was about to breeze by in the same way. I didn’t have a moment to think about it. As he passed the motorcycle, one of his tires blew and the debris flew right into the biker.
I stepped on my brake and swerved off to the side of the road, thanking every deity known to man that there wasn’t anyone else on the road at the time. I also thanked my “adopt a biker” mentality. The cushion of distance I kept between us was the only reason I didn’t roll right over him.
The motorcycle took a direct hit from the debris, but I thought the rider may have taken a large chunk to his side, as well. He flew off the bike and flipped in the air, which might have been a good thing, considering the way the motorcycle bucked up and came off the ground before it finally landed and slid over into the into some scrub brush at the side of the road.
The biker had been thrown backward as he was launched off the bike and slid to stop just in front of my truck when all was finally said and done. I couldn’t even imagine what the impact had done to him, especially after taking a hit from the truck debris.
I was so thankful that I had eased off the gas when the truck tried to pass me. Had I not, the biker would have ended up in my windshield or under my tires. Neither of those options were good for me. The trucker kept on trucking like his tire never blew out, like he hadn’t just taken out a motorcyclist.
My irrational anger almost got the best of me. Instead, I threw my hazard lights on, grabbed my phone, and jumped out of my truck to go check on the biker before calling 9-1-1, so I could let them know whether to send an ambulance or a clean-up crew with the police. When I reached the man, he groaned and tried to sit up, but I stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Please, don’t try to move. You don’t know what could be injured and you might make everything worse,” I explained. He moaned but laid back down as I asked questions. “I’m going to grab my first aid kit and call for an ambulance. Can you tell me what hurts?”
He shook his head once before groaning again. “Call my club.”
“Your what?” It was then I noticed the leather vest he wore and the tell-tale one percent patch on the front of it. “You want me to call your club?” I asked as I pointed at the patch.
“They won’t harm you. Need them to get my bike.” His voice was trailing off.
“I don’t know how to call them.”
He quickly rattled off a number that I put in my phone on instinct. My fingers pushed to dial before I realized what I was doing. “Shit, I really need to call for help.”
“Club first.”
I rolled my eyes just as someone picked up. “Baffle,” the gravelly voice spat out.
“A man just crashed in front of me on US-60 headed into New Mexico from Arizona. He’s one of yours.” As I rattled off the information something glinted from across the street. My eyes tracked the source. There was a man crouched down behind some scrub on the other side of the road. If he’d been there the whole time, it was a small miracle the accident hadn’t been worse.
He wasn’t watching me. The man’s eyes were trained on the fallen biker. It only took another second for me to process the fact that the glint I’d seen a moment ago was from the rifle in his hands. My headlights created enough light that his scope picked it up and reflected it back.
Without another thought, I dropped my cell phone and snatched my sidearm out of my holster, aimed, released my breath, and pulled the trigger. I wasn’t stupid. If he planned to shoot the biker on the side of the road, there was no way he would leave me behind as a witness to what happened.
I heard a harsh voice yelling in the background and realized the noise came from the cell I dropped.
“Who the fuck is this and what is going on?” I could hear him giving orders to someone in the background as I glanced down and snatched the phone back up while keeping my Springfield 10 mil trained on the man who I’d just shot.
“Your man, I think he’s passed out now,” I called into the phone as I took a quick glance down at the biker again. “His vest thing says ‘President’ on it. Wait…” I glanced around and realized the tape under it probably showed his name. After I dusted it off, I called out his road name. “Bigfoot.”
“Prez is down. We gotta go!” the man yelled into the phone before he started to speak to me again. “How bad is it?”
“He was more worried about his motorcycle getting picked up, it’s a few feet away from where he landed. We have a bigger problem, though.”
“Does that bigger problem have to do with the gunshot I just heard?”
“There was a man on the other side of the road. He was just about to take a shot at your president when I took him out. Your brother needs an ambulance in a bad way, but there’s a body here that I’m responsible for now as well.”
“You shot the man? Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Well, I’m no expert, but I am a good shot, and he hasn’t moved since.”
