The Ravine

It was a beautiful night in the middle of November. The snow had not begun to fall. The temperatures were showing their wintry bitterness by dipping into the freezing points. The stars were shining bright and twinkling as if each one wanted your complete attention. It's so beautiful out here riding along at 70 miles per hour on my motorcycle. Riding like this is so peaceful. It feels like you don't have the bothers of city life to inject its problems on you. It’s like I'm somehow on my own out here riding and enjoying the solitude.

I've been riding for several years. At times my bike was my only means of transportation. It had gotten to be almost common for me to strap on 3 or 4 bags of groceries and bring them to the house. People use to stare all the time. Oh well, I have to eat too, but that's another story.

I've been riding long enough that I could go down the road and enjoy the fragrance of the trees, the grass or the aroma of freshly fallen snow. Or to enjoy either the sun on my face or the moon like a beacon. It's a world onto itself out here.

This particular day I was riding on this windy road just outside of town. It traveled beside a ravine about 300 feet deep. I guess that over time the road commission had installed a guardrail to help protect people from taking a turn they couldn’t return from. But riding on back roads like this is what I enjoyed most of all.

I was coming to an overhead bridge that stood about 200 feet tall. I'd gone under this underpass many times before. There was a connecting road on the far side of the underpass that had a stop sign for merging vehicles.

As I was approaching the underpass, I saw a cars headlight at the stop sign. From where the stop sign sat, the driver of the cage (slang for a four wheeled vehicle to a biker) could see me. I didn't see anything wrong with the situation. Then the driver of the car pulled out and blocked the oncoming lane.

At this point in time I'm already going under the nearest side of the bridge to me. I can see the driver’s eyes as we look eye to eye. Then he does something I just couldn't believe. This son of Satan is smiling like he's sneering, at me. He seemed to be looking at me as though I had just taken his last beer out of his hand right as he was about to take a drink. I don't know him. Why's he sneering at me? He's already blocked half the roadway. Now what?

I'm as far to the right as I can get with that guardrail there. As I started getting closer to him, I screamed, "I can't believe this." He'd pulled his car almost against the guardrail. At this point it seemed like everything went into a very slow motion. I was to close to him to adjust my direction of travel to get behind the car. Yet with the guardrail and the ravine on my right side, it left me with very limited choices.

I looked at the car from front to rear and top to bottom. I tried to figure my chances of going over the top and hitting the pavement at 65 or so miles per hour. The ravine was definitely not one of my choices.

I jammed on the rear brake and released it just as quickly to get the bike in a movement to do the impossible. Hit the brake just long enough to get a chirp skid out of the rear tire, and then release it. Lock up the front tire with the handlebars turning towards the ravine. It actually caused the bike to slam down on it's left side hard. I hit the ground like I'd fallen off a two story building on my back. In so many words, it hurt. Luckily I had on a helmet and my riding suit. I turned my head to the right so my helmet would go under the car, hopefully. I kicked up and against the seat of the bike with my right foot to keep it from penning my left leg under the tank or frame. Then I was as flat as I could get.

As I slide under the car, my helmet hit hard on the drive shaft. I heard and felt the left side of my helmet crack. With your ear right there at the point of breakage, it’s a sound you’ll never forget nor want to hear again. But I’d gotten under. Now I was already starting to loose skin. It hurt like all get out. But I didn't have any brakes that I could apply. I had to slide it out and hope. I put my hand on my holster and was glad my gun was still there. I pulled the gun out while still sliding away from the car. I emptied 3 rounds of the 357mag into the block of the car. I never rode with a round under the hammer. And I knew enough to save a round, always.

After I stopped sliding, I got up and knew I was in bad shape. I put my pistol back in the holster and got to within 50 feet of the car and sat on the edge of the guardrail and waited.

It wasn't four min and the cops got there. They had to practically pry the guy out of his car. He wasn't hurt. He could move. I was the one hurting.

One of the officers walked over and stood facing me but standing between the cager and myself. His first question was,” Are you hurt bad?" I said "Not really. Just a little skin and my riding suit." He then asked, "Do you need an ambulance?" "Naw, I don't think so. Just hope my bike isn't too banged up", I answered."Can you explain what happened?" The officer queried. "Ok," I said. "The car there pulled to the stop sign. As I got closer he pulled half way out. Then when I was to close to get behind him, he put it against the guardrail. So at that point it was the car or the ravine. I threw the bike down, to slide under the car. As I was sliding away from him, I shot the car so it wouldn’t attempt to try to kill me again. The car had tried to kill me once; I wasn't giving it a second chance."

The officer was watching everything and every movement I made. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "The driver told us that was what he'd done. I guess you scared the tar out of him. But you do know it wasn't the car that tried to kill you, but the driver." I stood up slowly; I put my hand on the butt of my gun and said, "You mean I shot the wrong one? Well I can..” The officer put his hand on my shoulder and said, with a very serious voice, "Don't even." I smiled.

Then I had to fill out a lot of papers. They took the driver away in handcuffs and towed his car. They had to tow it. The poor thing was dead.

C.J.Beige

8 Oct 08