“I’m a Maine game warden. My name is Mike Bowditch. I need to find your cell phone and call an ambulance.”

“I’ve been drinking, but I’m not drunk.”

“I’m not arresting you, sir. I’m just calling for help.”

“That bottle wasn’t open. You can see the glass broke.”

“I’m going to take your arm, OK? I’ll support your weight.”

While I am busy with Reynolds, another snowmobile has appeared along the road. The first one is still there but it has shut off its headlights. Now the second one does, too. They don’t want to give me easy targets.

I begin to pull on Reynolds’s forearm as he steps gingerly down onto the snow, and for a second I think everything is going well, but he makes no effort to support his own weight, and the next thing I know, I have an overweight man, falling like a chopped-down tree on me.

I try to catch him around the torso as he topples, but my hands are still feeling the effects of frostbite, and he doesn’t bother extending his arms to catch himself before he hits the ground.

“Oh!” he says, less in pain than in surprise.

At least he’s out of the way. I dive headfirst into the vehicle, heady with rum fumes, and feel around under the seats. I touch aluminum cans, a crumpled snack bag, a roll of duct tape, and what feels like a forgotten sandwich before my gloved fingers feel a rectangular device made of metal and glass.

As I yank the phone out, my wrist trailing a ball of fishing line, the screen awakens with surprising brightness. And I see that it is cracked.

I push the home button, and nothing happens.

“Shit!”

The phone is the one thing I need above all others, and of course it broke during the crash. Meanwhile its owner lies, seemingly uninjured, beyond my outstretched boots.

Now I am pinned down, unable to call for help, and still bleeding out from the reopened wound on my leg. I managed to lose the bandanna and the clotted ice that had formed over the injury.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

The duct tape.

I don’t have time for careful bandaging. But, given the blood I’ve lost, I would be a fool not to make use of it. I have to be quick, and I am, wrapping the tape as tight as I dare around my upper leg—it’s not quite a tourniquet, but close.

I tuck the roll in my pocket and raise the useless phone again. It glows at me mockingly. As I do, a hole appears in the passenger door. The driver’s seat spits out stuffing where the bullet lodges above my head.

The next round, fired seconds later, misses by a wider margin, merely glances off the top of the van.