Endurance - Jack Kilborn [23]
Mal cleared his throat. “That’s… horrible.”
“I was in shock, and I still wasn’t feeling any pain. But then I started crawling. That’s when it really got horrible.”
“Because the pain hit?”
“It hit. Hard. As I was pulling myself to my car, dragging my legs behind me, I kept catching my tibia bones on things. Rocks. Branches. I actually got snagged on a dead squirrel, and pulled that along with me for about a hundred yards.”
Deb could remember the crawling. The pain. The horror. The desperation. Because she knew, if she got to the car, the worst was yet to come. She hoped he wouldn’t ask about that part.
“I was also losing blood, getting dizzy. I’d tied my shirt around my knees to stop the bleeding, but I was still leaving a trail. And some local wildlife took notice.”
Mal looked up from his notepad. “A coyote? Bear?”
Deb shivered again. It was really getting cold. “Cougar.”
“I didn’t think there were mountain lions in West Virginia.”
“It followed me. I saw it up close. At first I thought I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t. Had to be close to two hundred pounds.”
Deb could remember how it stared at her. How it snarled. How it smelled. She would never forget its musky, pungent scent. Or its broken tail, bent in several places like a zigzag.
“Did it attack?”
She subconsciously touched the scars on her side. The cat had pounced on her, batting her with its massive paw, the claws hooking into her flesh. It did this several times. Playing with her. Taking its time. It even lazily groomed itself between strikes, its merciless yellow eyes following her as she tried to scrabble away.
“It treated me like I was a mouse. I would crawl a few feet, and it would drag me back. Like it was all a game.”
“How did you get away?”
“It was futile. Eventually I stopped trying, and just closed my eyes and waited for it to kill me. But it didn’t. Maybe it had already eaten. When I looked for it, it was gone. Then I continued on, to the car.”
“How did you drive? I mean, you couldn’t use your legs, right?”
So much for him not asking.
“Cell phones don’t always work in the mountains. Mine didn’t. And I couldn’t put any weight at all on my legs, but I couldn’t press the pedals with my hands and still see where I was going. So…” Deb let her voice trail off.
“So?”
“What would you have done?”
“I dunno. Looked for a tree branch, something long to press the gas.”
“There was a mountain lion outside the car.”
“Tire iron?”
“In the trunk. I could barely get myself into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t have pulled myself into my trunk.”
“I give up. What did you do?”
“I put my foot over the gas, grabbed my tibia, and pressed down on it.”
Mal set his writing pad in his lap. “That’s… that’s just…”
“Disgusting? Repulsive? The most terrible thing you’ve ever heard?”
“That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re one helluva woman, Deb Novachek.”
Deb looked at Mal. He was beaming at her. Then she opened her window a crack, because it had gotten kind of warm in the car.
“Look for a dirt road, on your right,” she said, happy to change the subject. “According to my GPS, it should be coming up.”
After a few hundred yards, Mal said, “Is that it?”
Deb squeezed the brake bar and peered where Mal was pointing. Rather than a road, there were two faint tire tracks that led into the woods.
“It can’t be.”
“There’s a sign. On that tree.”
The sign was half the size of a pizza box, painted green with a large white arrow. It read RUSHMORE INN ¼ MILE. Deb didn’t mind quaint and rustic. But backwoods and hidden weren’t a good match.
“You’re kidding me.” She frowned. “How is anyone supposed to see that?”
“Maybe they like their privacy.”
“Maybe they don’t like guests. It’s not even permanent. It’s hanging on a rope.”
And it was swinging, even though the wind had stopped.
Almost like it was hung there just a moment ago.
“The weeds are tamped down,” Mal said. “Looks like someone drove down there recently.”
“Never to be seen again.”
“Are you actually nervous about this?”
Deb didn’t answer.
“Come on. How bad can it be?”
“You’re asking