Page 3 of Property of Bigfoot
He huffed at me as if to say he was until I bothered him with my inane questions. I carefully reached up and unlatched his chin strap and then put one hand under the base of his neck and head to support it while I gently removed his helmet.
“Okay, Bigfoot, I’m just going to put my sweater underneath your head, so it isn’t resting on the ground.” The sweater had been tied around my waist because it was too hot to wear earlier when I was in a crowd of people. Then I got chilly after getting into my truck. The heater took forever to kick in and push out anything but cold air. Since I had been sitting on my sweater at that point, I put on my emergency jacket I always kept in my truck – for when the stupid, temperamental heater refused to blow hot.
“Mmm,” The sound – something between an appreciative moan and a painful groan – was all he managed. It was then that my eyes drifted down his body, assessing for further damage again.
“Yep, you definitely broke that arm,” I said aloud, even though it appeared he had passed out again. I saw blood near the waistband of his jeans and gently pulled his shirt up to have a look. It didn’t appear as though there were any deep gouges or anything. It was more like he had really bad road rash. His jeans on his left side were worn down in spots and there was a bit of blood seeping through there as well. Thankfully, nothing I could see looked life-threatening. If the man didn’t have internal bleeding and his head didn’t swell up and pop off, then he might be okay after all. His left arm drooped at a weird angle making me think it had either been dislocated or something worse. Considering there wasn’t any blood coming from up there, I hoped it meant everything was still attached.
“I guess this would be a good time for me to be a nurse or a doctor or know more than basic first aid,” I murmured to myself and was surprised when the man attempted to chuckle. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you laugh.”
“No apologies,” he insisted in a garbled way that was barely understandable.
“Your men are on the way.” It was the only reassurance I could give him as we waited in the dark along the lonely stretch of highway in the middle of the night. I shivered and realized the temperatures had dropped again. I took my jacket off and draped it across his torso. There was a chance he couldn’t even feel the difference, but it was the only thing I knew to do that might not harm him more.
We sat on the roadside for another ten minutes as Jester did his thing cleaning up the mess on the other side of the road. It looked as though he was policing for more brass over there and combing through the brush. It made sense. Beyond the tire being blown out, it might tell us something more if he were to find other casings, or perhaps evidence that the man had been lying in wait for a long time. I didn’t believe in coincidences, so the probability of a man lying in wait with a rifle at the exact place an eighteen-wheeler’s tire blew to take out a motorcycle, felt a little too convenient to be anything else but an ambush.
I heard the distant roar of motorcycles. “Doc is coming with the men; he’ll be able to assess things. If we need to run him to the hospital, we’ll take him ourselves.” I glanced up to see Jester was back, and he stared down at me with a strange look in his eyes.
“Not sure that’s smart. What if moving him makes things worse or delaying treatment gets him dead?” I asked
“M’k,” Bigfoot huffed. I was fairly certain it was his way of saying he was okay enough to wait, but I didn’t believe him for a minute, especially since he passed out again after mumbling almost incoherently.
“Jester!”
“Yeah?”
“If he dies on me, I’m going to kill the person who made him wait for treatment.”
The man chuckled and came to stand beside me. “Bigfoot’s a tough bastard. He’ll pull through.”
“Says you.”
“Yep, I’ve seen enough riders go down in my time that I can tell you with certainty that he’ll have one hell of a recovery, but he’ll live.”
“I hope so.”
“Also, it ain’t wise to threaten to off our VP, since he’s the one who gave the order.”
“Whatever, I’m not scared of him.”
“I guess you wouldn’t be, considering I just cleaned up the last body you dropped.”
“That was also the first,” I admitted.
“Well, you did a good job of it, lady.” He glanced across the road and then back at me. “You were standing over here?”
“Yeah?”
“You used that?” He pointed at the 10 mil that was secured into my holster. I nodded. “Big sidearm for a little lady.”
“Not really. They fire smoothly, barely any kickback.”
Jester nodded his head. “Fifty feet give or take to where the fucker was lying in wait.” When I didn’t say anything, he tacked on, “In the dark and high on adrenaline.” He was assessing my skill level, I realized. “You a cop?”
I laughed at his question. “Not by a long shot.”
“Former military?”
I gave a quick nod. “No combat duty, but served honorably, nonetheless. The military doesn’t account for my shooting skills, though. That would be my Uncle Brady’s doin’.”
