Comb Ridge, Utah—Present Day 

Upon regaining consciousness, it takes me a full hour just to get myself free. It’s not easy to lift an eight-hundred-pound motorcycle, rocking it an inch or two at a time, and stuffing rocks, dirt—whatever my grasping fingers could reach—up underneath until it forms a sort of lift ramp high enough to clear my broken leg.

But painful now, God, the pain screams a white-hot symphony. The returning circulation is like having my leg cooking in a lobster pot. I don’t even want to think about the main issue here. Right now, I’m just grateful that the initial tourniquet action between the bike and a hard spot kept me from bleeding to death while unconscious. The blood has clotted and no longer flows from the wound.

Now free of the bike, I raise up enough to look down into the depths, illuminated fully by the midday sun. Holy shit! It must be near a thousand feet! The sheer sandstone drops straight down where I peer over the edge. A soft breeze rises, cooling the sweat of my exertions. Far below, in the jumble of orange boulders, the pinyon and cedars poke forth their crowns, deep green against the rich red of the earth.Had my bike crashed over onto its right side, I would now be down there—a broken, bloodied, mangled corpse.

God, the pain! It would be so easy to just relax and slip over.

“Yes, Jeff. That is the choice you could talk yourself into . . . or maybe, just stay and talk to me.”

“Big D?” I look beyond the scratched and dented wreck to the ledge behind, casting about among the stunted trees growing from the meager earth and numerous cracks in the solid rock, looking for him, my dear friend and mentor. He’s been my secret companion, recently, on the journey of my life. I met him in an ICU unit at a time when my life appeared to be over, and while I don’t like to see him as such, he is also the Angel of Death.

Is that you, come for me at last? I speak to him in our old, familiar way—in my mind.

“Nah . . . not ‘at last.’” He chuckles. “I’m only here to keep you company and counsel you, as often I have these last few years.” I see him now, a darker smudge, squatting beside the ruins of a Moki Indian dwelling, a scythe cradled by the bones of his left arm. His ivory skull is grinning against the deeper shadows where the rock overhangs the most. “Besides, right now, you could use a friend, don’t cha think?”

Fuck! With how my life has turned of late, how do you know I might not end it all now?

“Because when first we met, you asked—in fact, you begged—for this time. No, you will not give it up over a little pain.” His laughter rings out freely, not mockingly, rather with a note of kindness. “Besides, haven’t you always been afraid of heights?”

“Hmm . . . ur-aaah.” My chuckle ends in a groan. Oh God, Big D, a little pain? I look down to where the bone protrudes through a rip in the cloth covering my thigh.

“Ah, but you know how to deal with pain. You handled it well these last years in all of its various forms. Yes, you can do it again.”

Holding a deep breath, I touch fingers to thumb, then release, letting it out from between teeth no longer clenched. I relax my body, one part at a time, while slowly counting down, centering myself into that place within.

But relaxing each part of my body isn’t easy, what with the pain. Big D, can you distract me somehow? As always, he hears my every thought. Just as well because to actually speak would break my concentration. Oh, I still feel it screaming but somehow know it is with his influence that I no longer give it any attention.

Now I’m ready. Visualizing the pain, I gather it into a tight ball of monstrous misery, like a big glob of mucus-green snot shot through with the mottled colors of red agony. When it is all gathered, I fling it over the edge and watch it fall into the depths of the canyon, watch it dwindle in size until it is but a faraway thing that can no longer even be seen.

I’ve not been aware of the time passing—a few minutes or many hours—but I am ready to continue. Now, with only a dull ache, I face the reality of my situation here miles from any traveled path, out of sight on this lonely ledge. Who would even suspect it exists, down here below the edge of this cliff?

What’s the point here, Big D? Are you saying that they will find me?

“Oh yes, they will surely find you. It is just a matter of time.” There it is, that enigmatic laugh again, the sound of kindness coming from such a gruesome countenance. “With life, it is always a matter of time . . . but then, you know that.”

Yes, you’ve taught me much since first we met.

“And there’s much yet for you to learn before we go.” He moves over to sit next to me at the edge of the cliff, his leg bones dangling over the edge.

Ah, God . . . I sigh, feeling weaker than I can ever remember. Look, I’m not really in the mood for lessons just now.

“Sure you are. It’ll help stave off the pain. Talk to me, Jeff.”

Talk? About what?

“Just tell me your story.”

My story? But you already had me write it all down—a whole damned book full of it, in fact.

“Not that. That was about your life before you met me in that hospital ICU. Begin from the moment when your life, as it then was, ended.”

You mean from when you made yourself known to me?

“Close, but you are not searing hamburgers here. Get into the fire with this one. Think, Jeff! When did it all really change for you? I asked you to write about it, and for a while, you even started. Guess that with the completion of your first book you thought it was a request. IT WASN’T!”

I turn to stare, speechless, my jaw sagging with the realization that the apparition facing me is the Reaper, with little to show him as also being my friend Big D.

“I . . . uhh . . . I w-wasn’t—” I speak it aloud, stumbling, aware I am beginning to hyperventilate. Oh, my God, I thought it was a request. Maybe it was of no great concern, but I did write that story. Sure, there was never any good ending, but I thought I finished it in a good place. I—

“Never mind.” He cuts my dry-mouth babble off short, as well as my mindfuck of an excuse. “It will never be done—not in this life. Don’t you get that? As to where this consciousness that you are now first began?” He pokes my chest with one boney finger. “You mind-farted completely past that embarrassing part. Start there!”

Taking a deep, shaky breath, I turn to look across the vast gulf of Comb Ridge with the sun low in the west, hot against my face. My mind floats back, remembering another desert and another late afternoon sun, this one viewed from the heights of a hospital room. Yes, it comes to me . . . the smell of the hospital, or rather, the smell of the hospital soap on the wash rag in Meg’s hand, and the feel of it sliding down my backside as she bathes me. And then lastly, there is the grunt of her disgust carried over into the words—words that lash forth from her mouth, from my beautiful, loving wife’s mouth.

“She-eeet!” Big D’s interruption breaks like a gush of ice water against my thoughts. “Don’t you mean from your ‘bitterly disillusioned, frustratingly unhappy with her life, soon-to-be ex-wife’s mouth?’ Well . . .”—he pauses as it soaks in—“don’t you, Jeff?”

Yeah. “Haaaa-shit!” That’s the way of it. What can I say?

“The truth, Jeff, only the truth. C’mon. Out with it! There is much about your life that you haven’t yet learned, and it’s all about facing the truth.”

Again, he pauses, and while there is only a red glow coming out of his empty eye sockets, I know he is eyeing me closely. “Now start it out truthfully this time, with Meg’s seven little words. Then carry it on through to its present, fucked-over state of affairs. Deal with it. It’s there in your saddlebags—several notebooks full. Read it. I’ll hear you as you do, then take it all the way forward to right now.”

“Oh, God.” I groan. I have slacked off. I can see why you might think I wasn’t doing what I was tasked to do. He ducks his head, eyes now turning a malevolent shade of red. Oh, sweet Jesus! He does think I’ve quit on life.

“That is our bargain—follow your joy with courage and honesty and never quit before your purpose here is complete. And you certainly have quit. Watching you ride that bike sideways down the side of that cliff, I was tempted to let it go on over.” The red rage in his eye sockets seems to ease off. “That is why we are here, or am I just pissing in the wind to give you this one last chance?”

N-no. A jolt of white-hot agony hits as I move toward my saddlebag. “Aaargh . . . shit!”

Instantly, Big D is back to his old self. “Just hold on. We need to deal with that leg first. You’ve good reason to quit. Between quitting and dying now or suffering even more to finish your task”—he nods his head in acknowledgment—“it probably seems like a bitchin’-poor choice.” There is certain grim humor in his grin as the glow of his eyes regards the bone sticking out of the gaping wound in my leg. “I think getting that leg stabilized is a priority. Do you want a little time to prepare?”

Oh crap, Big D. I can handle the physical pain . . . shit! Much easier to handle that than the mental shit I’ve dealt with since meeting you, y’know?

“Yes, Jeff . . . the mental shit? You’ve done very well there, and you know I couldn’t help you, especially not with that pain.”

I know.

I pause to look around at this ledge, only about thirty feet below the roadway. This is the only part of it that sticks out far enough to have stopped my motorcycle. Looking up, I note the scratches and gouges left by its downward slide and, for the first time, am aware that next to them are hollows dug out in the side of the sandstone cliff.

A Moki Indian staircase! It climbs the wall where it is not quite so perpendicular to the rest of the cliff. Of course there would have to be one, what with that Moki dwelling. The fact that the ancient Indians inhabited and used this ledge for their survival in this desert lends hope for my own. If they built a shelter here, there must be a spring somewhere, hopefully close by. And the view from here makes a man somehow grateful just to be alive.

“It is beautiful, Jeff. Has your life since that hospital not also been witness to a like amount of beauty? Has that not been worth the price in pain you paid?”

You know it has, Big D. But right now, I am wondering how I managed to put myself into this sorry-assed situation.

“We’ll discuss that, and in time, it will all become clear. For now, you need to dismantle your busted-up bike and take stock in what you have available for your survival. But first, take those front forks apart and set aside that length of rope in your saddlebags. You’re going to need them for setting and stabilizing that leg.”

He pauses to take note of my reaction to his words, then quickly adds, “Don’t sweat it, Jeff. I’ll help you with the swelling and in dealing with the physical pain. That I can do. And I’ve already assisted you with the bleeding. It’s the bleeding that sends me so many of my customers—kind of a side effect of giving up on life, y’know?”

He grins his old, familiar grin, and I am again struck with the fact that I can look at his boney skull and know that, like now, there is humor in his grin. “Yes, you’ve handled your pain with courage, but nothing like you’ll need soon. For now, get what you can get done on those forks while there is still some light.”

* * *

I wake in a cold sweat, and with a dull, throbbing pain. Looking down in the early morning light, I see my leg is braced by two metal rods that I recognize as the guts of my front forks. Tied tightly between them is my now-straightened broken leg.

“What the fuck!” The words burst forth without conscious thought.

“Relax.” The single word seems to carry an unexpected calming effect, the tone coming with that weird intonation that is unmistakably Big D’s voice. “I told you I’d help you with the pain. That you don’t remember it does not negate the fact that you faced your fear and bore the pain . . . again.”

But how?

“Well, see that pinyon pine with the rope tied around it? The other end you tied to your boot. Then it was a matter of just throwing your weight backward . . . well, several times. But hey, you really don’t want to remember.” He grins again as that realization plays across my mind.

You’re right. I shudder. That’s something no one would want to remember. Look, Big D—I begin to thank him.

“Least I could do.” His words come quickly.

Are you concerned that, should I dwell upon it, I’ll begin to remember? He doesn’t answer directly, but instead, changes the subject.

“Now, there’s a notebook at your side. Start from when your life, as it was, ended in that hospital ICU. Your first book needs a sequel, a how-to example from you.”

“Aaargh . . . shit!” Look, Big D. I’m really having trouble getting into writing just now.

His sigh comes now with a disturbing note. “Look, if you want to make a difference, you need to complete your story. You may not survive this ride.” He pauses meaningfully before finishing. “You certainly won’t if you quit now.” He is eyeing me with intensity.

B-Big D! I have not given up on life. Y-you know that . . . don’t you?

“That certainly is the question. Are you even aware that you have stopped following your joy and even been dishonest with yourself on that score? You’ve made a clean sweep of dishonoring our agreement, and you don’t even see it, do you? Ah, Jeff.” He shakes his head sadly. “I fear you will not get off this ledge alive.”

W-what? How . . . why? My jaw gapes open.

“Now . . .” The cast in his grin now feels of his resolve. “There’s a notebook at your side. If you intend to complete this task, start from when your life, as it was, ended in that hospital ICU. Remember those seven little words? Start rewriting Chapter One with them.”

A wind comes out of nowhere to fill my eyes and still-opened mouth with sandy grit. I quake at his final words. They shake the very ground around me.

“THIS . . . IS . . . YOUR . . . LAST . . . CHANCE!”