I will always remember the look in his brown eyes.
It was a combination of fear and uncertainty of what had just happened. His left foot kept kicking the trailer tire over and over as the wretched pain continued to escalate, and his body could no longer carry him away from danger.
But there we were the three of us, locked into this terrible moment and all not wanting to be there and have to go through this, this...this awful thing that she had created because of a simple and yet avoidable distraction.
There was no saving us from it, there was not going to be any rescue from what was about to happen. And to make certain that all of us were going to pay dearly for our sins, the gods of fate decided to throw in a cold and bitter rain that quickly soaked our clothes and hair. One never fully realizes just how long one's hair is until rain washes into one's eyes like a dirty damp mop that constantly needs to be brushed aside, over and over in order to see.
I opened the the thin metal glove box and brought out my revolver. I remember the day I bought this, many years ago and thought then I liked the looks of its stainless steel barrel and checkered wooden grips. But I didn't buy it for this. I bought it for...why did I buy it? I guess it doesn't matter why I bought it then, so many years ago, and having sat in my old Ford pickup truck for at least ten years.
I unsnapped the brown safety strap, and pulled it out of fading leather holster. In the cold torrential rain it held the heat from the safety of my truck for about minute before surrendering to night's chill.
It's handle filled my hand like an old and familiar friend. Yet, it was a friend who I never wanted to visit like this, on this messed up night.
I walked to where he was lying in pain.
Then I took one last, hard look at the middle aged college professor from Berkeley that had brought us all together. She was unapologetic, and seemed more annoyed by all the commotion than anything. But her car was destroyed in the accident. She couldn't run, she couldn't hide this time, like I suppose she had done all the many times before this in her life.
Like so many other times when her decisions had come back to haunt her. Her marriage to a conservative man whom she hated, her having a child but not wanting one, her settling for department chair rather than Regent. And now this.
But now he and I were trapped in her nightmare life.
He kept kicking the metal rim of the tire, over and over like a drum. Bam, bam, bam, bam. I will never forget that damn sound, like the drum of a condemned man.
I raised the barrel of the gun and pointed it at his head, and rain began pouring down it's long barrel like a water slide.
Centering my finger on the wide trigger, I made certain my grip was sure and aim was certain.
I expected the usual loud raport to fill the air. And waited for the sudden and violent jerk back into my cold hand. But there was none. I never heard the shot, I never felt the gun forced back into the palm of my hand.
There was nothing. Only silence and the sound of rain beating mercilessly against the thin metal roof of my horse trailer.
And finally his foot stopped kicking the trailer's tire, and rested.
Thank God, my old friend was no longer in pain.
I am so sorry for your loss.