No signal. She was deep inside the dead zone.

The nearest reliable signal was back toward Route 105—almost a mile away. The nearest landline was the Sloan place, another mile further up the spur. She did the arithmetic quickly: A mile run. A 911 call. An ambulance navigating rural dirt roads. It would take forty minutes, minimum.

She looked at the pale, massive biker. He didn't have forty minutes.

Nadine unbuckled her belt, wrapped it high on his injured leg, and used a sturdy piece of fallen branch to twist it into a makeshift tourniquet. The man cried out in agony.

"I'm sorry," Nadine whispered, tears prickling her eyes. "I know. I know."

She used her flannel shirt and the severed straps of her backpack to secure the pressure. Then, she looked at him again. He was 260 pounds of dead weight. She barely weighed 120. There was no sensible way to move him. But leaving him meant leaving him to die.

So, Nadine Frost got him out of the ditch.

She couldn't truly carry him. She learned that within the first ten feet. Instead, she moved him any way her desperate body could invent. She got behind him, hooked both arms beneath his armpits, and leaned back.

Drag three feet. Rest.

Drag three more. Rest.

When the dragging became too rough, she found a wide strip of loose birch bark and rolled him onto it, pulling him like a morbid sled. But as the ground climbed, the bark caught on jagged roots and tore.

She changed methods. She draped his massive arm across her shoulders, bending her knees the exact way her father had taught her to haul stubborn firewood. Then, she stood.

His weight nearly crushed her spine. His heavy boots dragged deep, twin trenches in the dirt road. They moved ten feet at a time. Both of them fell twice. Both times, Nadine screamed in frustration, gathered her footing, and hauled him back upright. She talked constantly to keep the silence at bay.

"Stay awake. You stay awake, mister."

Step. Drag. Step.

"You hear me? What's your name?"

His lips moved. A faint whisper. "Gus."