Helpless

I can’t believe I’m doing this. If you had asked me even one hour ago if I thought that I would be disposing a dead body I never would have believed you. I would have thought you were mad. But here I am in a darkened valley off the Trans-Canada Highway, hunting for a spot to hide this body.

Only an hour ago I was driving west on the highway, speeding toward my new life in BC, listening to k.d. lang’s “Hymns of the 49th Parallel”. Her cover of Neil Young’s “Helpless” mixed with the sunset over the prairie expanse of Saskatchewan had swept me into a sudden and uncharacteristic wave of national pride. It was at this moment that the sight of a lone hitchhiker emerging from the landscape onto the highway caused me to pull over. I’d never done this before. Never even thought of it, but k.d. singing Neil Young, in this postcard prairie sunset and me awash in a giddy patriotism; coupled with an overwhelming loneliness after driving all the way from Toronto on my own, made me pull over for my countrymen.

He quietly proclaimed that he just wanted to go west and would happily go as far as I would take him. He quietly slumped into my passenger seat and generously listened as I talked his ear off. Considering that all my interactions for days have been purely transactional, I had a lot to get off my chest. I told him how I was moving to BC to live with my sister for a while as I worked to climb out of the pile of debt I had put myself in back in Toronto. I told him about how much the city had taken out of me. I talked without hardly breathing as I told him much of my life story. We must have driven 20 minutes before I realized I hadn’t asked him a thing about himself. He pointed as we passed a roadside noting the turn off for Broadview, Saskatchewan. He said that that is where he comes from. That was about all he offered when he quietly commented that he had been walking most of the day and was more tired and sleepy than he realized. He apologized and said that he might just want to rest his eyes for a bit. “Of course,” I eagerly offered, and I turned up the music to enjoy k.d. lang’s buttery crooning some more.

I drove without speaking for almost an hour, until I pulled into the road-side gas station at Indian Head. I gently asked him if he wanted to get out while I filled-up, but he didn’t stir. After I had finished and pulled over to go into the rest stop myself, I thought I should try him again. This time I gently nudged him. Nothing. Something didn’t seem right. I got up and circled the car to his side. As I approached him from this side, I could see it. The blood inside his jacket. I opened the door and he spilled out of the car. The weight of him was shocking. He wasn’t a big guy, but the dead weight of him was overwhelming. I propped him back up in his seat. A wave of panic overtook me. What do I do? I looked down to his bag to see what I could find. I opened it to find it piled to the top with cash. There must be $20,000 here! That was it, a pile of cash and a small black notebook. All the notebook contained were columns of numbers and initials. It was all in code. A ledger of some kind. I searched his pockets again and couldn’t find anything to identify him.

I’m not proud of this, but I have to admit that it was with shocking speed that I realized that I could easily make off with this bag of $20,000. There was nothing to identify him, and there was nothing to tie him to me. This sure would take me a long way toward getting out of this pile of debt that I had put myself in. I really could start over with this. And no one would ever know. So there and then I made up my mind. I would find a spot to stash his body and take the money. I mean, reporting this to the police wasn’t going to bring him back to life. With only that book tied to the money, it was pretty clear to me that it probably wasn’t legally gained. I might as well take this money and put it to positive use. To start my life over, this time with a leg up for the first time ever. So, I did it.

Now I’m headed north on this side highway that is leading me into the Qu’Appelle Valley. Hardly more than a stone’s throw from the Trans-Canada Highway, the valley appears as a dark and menacing shadow across the flat prairie cast by a gigantic and unseen figure before a rising yellow moon. I descend into the valley and look for a place to leave the body. I don’t want to bury him. I do want him to be found, just after I am far from here. I find a patch of trees with nothing around, and I pull over. I pull my car in far enough so that it won’t be seen from the road. I get out and go to his side and pull him out. Again, it’s surprising just how heavy his body is now that it’s just dead weight. I pull him out and prop him up, seated against a tree. Am I really going to do this? Can I do this? I look into his face. His eyes are closed, and that is somehow making this easier. Who is this man? What brought him here and most of all who the hell shot him? No, no, I need to push all these thoughts out of my mind. If I’m going to do this, leave him, take the money and get out, I need to think as little about all of this as I can.

I go back to the car and pull out some wet wipes from the map pocket. I wipe off every part of him that I think I have touched. I take the small black notebook out of the bag of money; I wipe it off too and leave it with the body. Afterall, it means nothing to me and perhaps somehow this book can be decoded to identify this guy. No, this body. I have to stop thinking of this ‘guy’, this ‘man’. He’s just a body. I’m just leaving a body at the side of the road. I’m not really responsible for any of this. I haven’t done any harm myself. I’m just going to take this money, mind my own business, and go start my new life.

I jump back in the car and look around to make sure I’m alone before I start the engine and turn on the lights. Once I’m back on the road I nail the gas pedal and I speed out of there like a bat out of hell. I can’t help looking back though. Not in the rear-view mirror, but physically turning and looking over my shoulder. What I’m looking back for I don’t know. Is there someone behind me? Did someone see all of that? No, I was on my own. No one saw, no one will ever know. I turn and look back again and while looking over my shoulder I smash into something. Hard. The impact is so severe that my car is thrown into the ditch. For a moment I don’t know where I am or what happened. I was looking behind myself, so I don’t know what I’ve hit. I get out of the car and I see a large cow lying at the side of the road. She’s bleeding out, but still alive, gasping for air. I don’t know what to do. How the hell did she get here? Then I see more cows in the ditch and on the road. They must have escaped their ranch’s fence. I go back to my car. I’ve got to get the hell out of here. It won’t turn over though. I can’t get it to start. The entire front of the car is crumpled. The engine is toast. I’m not getting anywhere in this.

I just stand there for a minute. I stand beside the wreckage, feeling the sharp wind against my cheek. In the wind I swear I hear someone calling to me. It sounds more like an echo than a full voice calling. No, it can’t be. It’s my mind playing tricks. It’s just the wind. I decide there’s nothing I can do now but get out of here. I take the license plates off and I leave much of my stuff in the car. I grab the bag of money and I set fire to the car. Fifty paces away, I stash the license plates behind a cluster of rocks. I pile a few heavy ones on top. They will never be found. As I walk away, I realize that I left my ID in the burning car. Now I will truly break from my past and start new for real.

As I set out on foot, I hear a crack in the air and almost instantly I feel a sharp pain in my upper back, in my right shoulder blade. What was that? But I keep going. Before long I feel a wetness running down my back, and a numb but growing pain. I feel behind me and look at my hand. Is that blood? No, it’s too hard to tell in the darkness. I hear someone calling again. It’s so dark down in the valley I can’t tell where it’s coming from. “Who’s calling?” I yell out. I feel confused, like I can’t think, slightly dizzy. I hear someone calling again and again I hear a crack in the air and simultaneously a wiz right by my head. Instinct kicks in and I run. I don’t even think I just run. I’m not on the road now, I’m running up through the woods.

I reach the crest of the valley. The wind is even stronger up here. But I don’t hear the echo calling anymore. I keep running to the road. I don’t know how long I run but eventually I see the highway in the distance. It’s so flat here that I can’t even tell just how far away it is. I feel like I’m running on the spot, making no progress. I keep running, more at a jog pace now though. I’m so tired. I can’t remember feeling this tired before.

I don’t know how long it has taken, but I finally reach the main highway. I put out my thumb as though I’ve done this a thousand times before. Dozens of cars fly past me. I’m about to give up when a car finally stops for me. I run up and through the open window he calls to me “where ya headed?”. I tell him I’m going west. As far as he’ll take me.

I get in and he introduces himself and talks on for a good 15 minutes before asking me anything. I’m so tired that I can’t focus on the road ahead. Thank goodness I’m not driving. All I see are indistinct, round auras of light. He asks me my name and I give him a false one. I tell him that I’ve had a long night and I’m very tired. I walked a very long way from my broken-down car. I just need to rest my eyes for a bit. He apologizes and turns up the radio. As I drift off, I can hear that it’s Buffy Sainte Marie’s cover of Neil Young’s “Helpless”.