My heart pounded as I stared into the unfamiliar darkness as two strange men in hooded sweatshirts headed our way.  I nervously stayed from sight as they approached him from behind. With my courage wrapped in trembling hands I tightened the grip and prayed.

* *

            I’m a country girl, a native, raised in Central Oregon.  Growing up in Bend, surrounded by lakes and forests with abundant wildlife, the only place my family ever vacationed was hunting and fishing, and then it was practically right in our own backyard.  After I married Dennis, we traveled a little but never ventured far.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought 10 years later, life would bring us here, to this unfamiliar, foreign place where I now stood on a bridge in the Bronx in fear, clutching a .357 revolver as if my life depended on it, and at that moment, I believed it did.

* *

            The hum of the diesel engine filled the cab as Dennis and I bounced down the dark Interstate without talking.  It had been a long day and it was getting late.  We wanted to park for the night but we had to get through the city before we stopped to avoid morning rush hour traffic.  The horses we hauled had all been fed and watered hours earlier but they too were likely ready for us to stop, allowing them to relax and sleep before reaching their delivery destination the following afternoon.  The large custom eleven-horse trailer had ample room for each horse to comfortably sleep without laying down which horses only need to do every few days.  I glanced at the road atlas to see what our options were.

            “Once we get past the city we should be able to stop.  There has to be a shopping mall or a truck stop we can park in for the night,” I said as I checked the map and found a nearby place to shoot for. 

            “Uh oh, that isn’t good.” Dennis said with concern in his voice as he glanced down at his foot on the throttle, tapping it to the floor.

            “What’s wrong?”  I asked.

            “Something’s wrong with the throttle, I think the throttle cable just broke,” he said. 

As the truck began to slow, Dennis steered for the shoulder.

            “Oh no, what are we gonna do?” I said with concern.

            “Maybe I can jury rig it to get us by.  I can probably fix it temporarily with some wire.” Dennis assured me.

            After a few minutes under the hood Dennis climbed back in and started the truck.  He pressed on the gas pedal and the engine accelerated.  “I think that’ll work.”  But we quickly learned that the problem wasn’t solved.  We couldn’t gain any speed, but we were moving along slowly.  Thankfully there was little traffic due to the late hour.

            “What now?” I asked.

            “Once we get across the bridge there should be a safe place to pull over so I can try and fix it, hopefully at a service area that has some lights,” he said. 

            We crossed over the George Washington Bridge that expands across the Hudson River and separates the state of New Jersey from New York.  Soon after we entered the Bronx we rolled into a service area.  Not a service station like we were used to out west but a wide spot in the road with a small building that contained public restrooms, a gas pump and a pay phone.  Everything was shut down for the night and the lights in the pullout area were dim.  There was no one around.

            “I don’t like this one bit,” I told Dennis as he hopped out of the tall semi-truck’s cab.

            “Oh it’ll be alright.  It’s well lit and it shouldn’t take me long to fix it.  Wire will hold until tomorrow then we can replace the part.”  As Dennis shut the door behind him, I climbed through the crawl-through window into the large sleeper so he could tip the cab of the truck forward to access the engine.  The truck was a UD cab-over made by Nissan, we always joked that UD stood for ugly diesel and right now it was living up to the name.  I handed him a flashlight so he could see as he worked under the dark hood.   I glanced at my watch, 12:03 am.  Oh my, it’s late.

            “Do you need me to hold that?”  I asked, referring to the flashlight.

            “No it’s good lying here, I can see.”  I was relieved he didn’t need my help, out there.  I wanted to stay out of sight in the dark living quarters and keep watch.  I reached in the drawer and pulled out the handgun and laid it on the counter.  Then I sat down on the edge of the bed next to our sleeping baby daughter, and nervously watched out the window as Dennis worked bent over under the hood.  A car slowly pulled into the lot up next to the closed service building.  My heart fluttered as two men dressed in dark clothing stepped out of the car and began to walk towards our truck.  I quickly stuck my head out the crawl-through and quietly told Dennis, “Two guys are coming this way.”  He looked up and saw they held a small gas can in their hand.  I reached down and picked up the pistol and removed it from the leather holster.  My heart pounded with fear as I anxiously watched them approach in the darkness.  As the two men moved toward Dennis, they split up, each approaching him from a different side.  Oh my God, I thought.  Why are they doing that?  What are they gonna do?  They probably saw our Oregon license plates and this big fancy horse trailer and think we’re carrying cash.  They were right; however most of the money we carried was personal checks from clients, payment for delivering their horses on this trip.

            As the two men moved towards Dennis in the dark, one on each side of the truck, I stepped up to the crawl-through with the revolver firmly in my grip.  Making my presence known; I stuck the barrel of the .357 magnum through the opening.  The guys mumbled something to Dennis that I couldn’t quite make out their words. 

            “No, we don’t, sorry,” Dennis replied.  “There is a small town up ahead not to far though,” Dennis added as he pointed in the direction we were headed.  Then the two dark figures walked back to their car and got in.  With great relief, but still holding the Smith and Wesson, I asked, “What did they ask you?”

            “They said they were out of gas, and asked if I had any.”

            “It’s a diesel truck, why would we have gas?”  I said as I watched them pull away.

            “They just went back the way they came from!  The nearest town is in front of us.  I don’t think they needed any gas.”  I said, with relief they were gone. 

            “Are you almost finished?”

            “Yep, I fixed it, with a piece of baling wire.  It should hold until we can locate a UD dealer and buy a new cable,” Dennis said as he lowered the cab and latched it shut.

            “Let’s get out of here.  I don’t like this place.”  I said as I crawled headfirst through the hole, over the infant car seat, back into the cab.

            “Me neither,” Dennis agreed as he settled into the driver’s seat and started up the noisy diesel engine.  “Thank you Jesus,” we both said as the truck accelerated and we gained speed, and safely headed on our way.

* * * * *
This was one of the top 10 winning entries to the CO Writers Guild 2012 Literary Harvest Contest.

Two nights ago, just 10 minutes after my husband arrived home from work we heard a horrific noise towards the front of our small acreage.  At first I thought it sounded like a car racing by shooting an automatic weapon. Then I thought it sounded like someone losing their load of metal and garbage off a flatbed trailer as they traveled too fast down our narrow country lane.  We ran outside to the porch. I smelled a strange odor...dust or smoke billowed past the end of my driveway as I sprinted in flip-flops down our gravel drive.  Then a huge plume of dust billowed in front of the neighbors house ending in what I thought was an explosion.  As I reached the street still unable to see, I heard a woman screaming for help.  My blood raced and chills ran down my spine at what I might see when I topped the hill.  I knew it was something terribly bad.

As  I reached the street I was met by my neighbors running down the road with me. My phone rang...the song "Fancy"...I knew it was my daughter whom had left home earlier that same day returning to college. 
    "Hi Michelle," I answered, trying to sound calm but failing miserably as I was out of breath and adrenalin raced. 
    "Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I talked to..." she went on.
    "Honey, I can't talk right now..." I interrupted, " I think there's been an accident on the front of our property."  Then she started asking questions as I topped the hill and saw the street covered with garbage and debris...papers littered the street for a hundred or more yards.   I searched for the jackknifed trailer that had carried the load.  There was none.  Then I spotted the vehicle laying on it's side in the middle of the horse field.  The result of multiple rolls down the hill, through the fence and across the field. 
     "Is is bad?" Michelle asked. 
     "Yes, it's bad." I replied.
     "Oh my God is Daddy OK?" she asked in a terrified voice.
    "Why are you so upset?" I asked. 
    "You said it was Dad!" 
    "Oh no baby, I thought you said is it BAD, No it's not Daddy, he is fine."  Then I began to tremble for frightening Michelle, tears filled my eyes.

I hung up the phone to see my neighbor calling 911.  I spotted a male body laying in front of the crumpled SUV.  I was afraid to approach, in fear of what I might see but I knew I had to.  I ran to the wreckage. Thank God he moved, he was alive.  His shirt was covered in blood the size of a soccer ball.  His right arm was covered in blood.  I told him to lie still that help was on the way.  People from my neighborhood ran to assist the woman driver stuck in the rig hanging upside down in the seat-belt.  Three people held her dangling body upright.  She gurgled as she struggled to breath.  My husband was one. He squatted on top of the SUV  hanging on to the severely injured woman.  He focused on her neatly french manicured nails that dug into his blood smeared bare arm to avoid looking at her exposed brains.  Blood dripped down on the small framed neighbor woman that helped hold her body.  My husbands hands trickled blood of his own from small cuts from the broken glass.  

Others gathered to assist and wait for the ambulance that was taking an exceptionally long time to arrive...they couldn't find the way they said.  I focused my attention on the herd of 6 horses that raced and kicked and continually tried to approach the wreckage.  I worried about the injured man laying on the ground being trampled.  I spotted some hay and ran and grabbed flakes to distract and calm the excited snorting equines. It worked for a while.  The man on ground mumbled about "messing up" and "leaving the baby alone".  He insisted  I call a number. "I messed up," he said.  I asked his name, he said it was Ray.  He said they had been baby sitting..."they need to know about the baby," Ray said as he he looked up at me.  His eyes were crystal blue, but glazed...is he drunk?  It could be shock, I thought.  Grey stubble covered his chin...he needed a shave.  His hair was short his frame was very small.  Thoughts of my deceased brother-in-law flooded me, he had a roll-over accident from high speed driving drunk. I walked away and called the number.  The woman on the phone didn't know Ray or anything about a baby but started asking me all kind of questions.  "Where is the accident?"  I confirmed there was no baby there and she did not know Ray then hung up the phone still waiting for rescuers to arrive.

Liqueur bottles scattered across the dirt field.  A box of Fronzia wine lay next to the overturned vehicle where it had been thrown from the car.  I looked around at the debris of post-it notes, receipts, a checkbook, the woman's black purse and cell phone, an old pillow.  Junk mail and opened envelopes of mail littered the street for hundreds of feet. Time passed slowly. Thirty minutes passed and help had not yet arrived...they only had 3 miles to travel.  We could hear sirens getting louder and then the faded and went silent.  I saw my husband talking on the cell phone with one hand as he strained to hold the woman with the other. He's calling 911 again.  I heard the woman moan. Someone jumped into a truck and headed up the road to flag them down and lead them to the wreck site.

They finally arrived and began assisting the woman, removing her from the overturned car.  One rescuer attended the man on the ground.  They yelled that the Air Life helicopter was on the way and would land in the neighbors pasture. 

The  horses now tired of the hay, headed towards the downed fence.  I shooed them back.  We grabbed a halter and caught the lead mare and led her to another pasture, the herd followed minutes before Air Life arrived.  The woman,  Jennifer we later heard, was loaded into the helicopter, Ray was transported in the ambulance.

The following morning our quiet country lane was covered with pink spray paint marking the "out of control" speeding vehicle's path.  No one witnessed the accident but 1 person saw them pass his home at a speed of near 70.  "They got air going over the hill in front of my place, " Roger told the sheriff deputy. It was believed that alcohol and high speed was the cause. I felt guilty thinking I should have done more.  Why didn't I run to help the trapped woman as my husband and others had.  I tried to tell myself... I did the what I knew...dealing with the horses.

I picked up the discarded crime tape and found a grocery receipt on the ground.  I was sure it came from the wreckage.  Four bottles of wine and a bag of chips is all that the was purchased at 9:00 am just 3 days before the accident.  Anger overcame me when I thought of how many people could have been affected by these peoples actions.  The pink marker paint showed how the car had traveled the full length of my property on the dirt shoulder on the wrong side of the road.  I thanked God that Dennis had arrived home 10 minutes before the accident. But now he sits in a lab being tested for HIV and hepatitis due to the cuts on his hands.

The newspaper said that Jennifer, age 37 was in critical condition and Ray, age 50 was in serious condition.  They were not married to each other.  I don't know whether these people lived or died, but I do know that  nearly a dozen of my neighbors showed unconditional love to these people who had no regard to life and chose to get behind the wheel while intoxicated.  I can only hope the unattended baby was safe and unharmed.

            For me, it started with these three simple words…In the beginning. In the Book of Genesis, mankind was commanded to “rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all creatures that move along the ground.”  With the early fall of man in the Garden of Eden, the killing and consumption of animal flesh became a necessity to survive.  That’s a good enough reason for me to eat meat; plus the fact that nothing goes better with pancakes than of a pound of bacon while on my annual hunting trip.

            Isaac, an irreplaceable founding father of the people of God, said in Genesis 27:3…“Now then, get your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me.  Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like…bring it to me to eat so that I may give you my blessing before I die.” 

            Mankind would never have survived to evolve without the consumption of meat.  Early man didn’t spend their days on hands and knees tending a garden.  They slaughtered animals to prevent becoming prey.  They hunted game to eat, used the hides for protection against the harsh elements and harvested bone for tools.  One could argue that in today’s world we no longer need those things to survive.  But without the consumption of meat, domesticated stock would be virtually useless and overpopulate, affecting the survival of plants and organisms and seriously altering the earth’s natural balance which would affect the survival of mankind.  It’s a vicious circle, a process that human’s are constantly interfering with, tipping the scale.

            I strongly disagree with the common practices of unhealthy, cruel and inhuman methods of raising meat for higher profits, but I would also argue about the use of chemicals to raise fruits and vegetables. The human body requires a balanced diet with complete proteins to thrive in addition to quality vitamins and minerals.  If humans hadn’t messed up the natural system by contaminating the Earth, we wouldn’t have to support the human body with synthetic additives to our food.  We would actually get the vital nutrients naturally through our food.

            Adam and Eve may have been created to live blissfully on fruits and vegetables in harmony with all the animals of the earth, but the second Eve convinced Adam to take a bite of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we instantly became carnivores by nature.

            I find it more ethical to eat natural meat then I do to eat genetically engineered grains and foods that have been altered from their natural state.  We live in such an immoral society today who’s actually qualified to judge what ethical even means?