Her hair was tangled at the base of her head, and her neck was loose and fluid. I grabbed a coil of white gauze and closed the wound with wrap. Her breath was smokeheat and wind. I tried to picture her in the field before I found her on the highway, the road dark, fragments of cold stars falling. It bothered me to think of her being alone out here with no ride in sight and a long ways till morning. There is a darkness that presses in on you out here when your car slows or turns a hairpin curve. You can be stopped by a sudden nail, a low tire squeezed by a bent rim, or deer, elk, lazy bear, sharp rocks, thorns. There is always something unexpected just over the shoulder of one easy curve, a drop-off that can shatter your bones. A mist passing over the hood of your car can make you believe in your childhood ghosts. I’ve seen too much out here and every year that passes my own fears crawl farther up my neck.

“I think he’s dead,” Louise said.

“Boy,” I said, feeling my heart rock, as always paying more attention to Louise than the duties at hand. I slid out of the car. “Hold tight there, Louise, I’ll be back.”

I took my heavy flashlight and skimmed the area with light. I saw the LaSalle chrome shine first, like a stain of silver light in the darkness. A coolness lined the backs of my arms. I could smell engine oil and rock dust. My flashlight illuminated the shattered windshield, now an open pocket to sky. Light stabbed the great dead deer. I saw tufts of hide hair on the twisted frame of the window. I saw the stranger’s still head, rock-heavy and resting on the couch seat.

I scratched my side but did not take my eyes off the front seat. I wanted the man to stir, show some sign of life, but he wasn’t moving. I prepared myself for the task at hand. Check his pulse. Check his air passages. Check his pupils. I only wanted to go back to Louise, wash her wounds and wrap her in warm blankets, take her home. I wanted to sit with her in her grandmother’s kitchen until the sun rose. I wanted to know her. Know her so I no longer cared one way or another about her. I wanted her to be ordinary to me so I could go back to thinking about my wife at home. But I had to attend to the wounds of a dead man.