Quiver by Peter Leonard Read Free Book Online Page A

before everything would shut down.
    Owen wasn’t in much better shape, sitting in the dirt, propped up by cornstalks, the ground cold and wet under him, a corncob digging into his back. It was strange: he didn’t feel the arrow that had gone through the buck and somehow had hit him, the carbon shaft buried in his chest up to the white fletching. His shirt was soaked with blood and more blood bubbled out of his mouth as he tried to breathe. He knew he was in trouble.
    Luke saw him now and ran over, falling to his knees, too stunned to comprehend what he was seeing. He dropped his bow, slipped off his backpack. “God, what’d I do?”
    He had tears coming down his face.
    Owen said, “Luke, listen to me. It isn’t your fault. Just get help. Tell ’em they’ve got to bring a helicopter in.”
    Luke got up and took off, running.
    * * *
    Owen looked at the whitetail that would’ve dressed out at about two hundred pounds, the animal still trying to find its legs, movements becoming less pronounced, and then no movement at all.
    How odd was this? After racing cars for twenty years going two hundred miles an hour in the tight confines of the racetrack, he’d only been in three accidents and wasn’t hurt too bad in any of them. Although Kate would most likely have disagreed, taking care of him for three months while his injuries healed after Talladega in ’94. She said it was the grumpiest she’d ever seen him. He said, “What do you expect, I’m missing a third of the Cup season.”
    Owen remembered it like it was yesterday. He was on lap 256 when Dale Senior came up behind him and must’ve taken the air out of his spoiler. Dale may have nudged him a little, too, but didn’t bang him intentionally. In any case, Owen spun into the wall at about 205, rolled four times, smashed into the catch fence and landed upside down near the entrance to pit road. He was airlifted to the hospital. Broke his right ankle and his left wrist and was in a coma for two days. When he opened his eyes, Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, a look on her face like the day Luke was born.
    He said, “You like watching people sleep, is that it?”
    She said, “I must,’ cause that’s all I’ve done for two days.”
    He thought he was in his bedroom at home till he looked around and said, “Where in hell am I?”
    “Citizens Baptist Hospital, Talladega, Alabama,” Kate said. “Remember hitting the wall and then rolling four times?”
    He didn’t. Not then. But it came back to him within a week. It also helped to see it on videotape replay, confirming what he suspected. Big E’s black Monte Carlo coming up fast behind him, Dale trying to make up for penalties for driving too fast on pit road and having too many crewmembers over the wall on a pit stop.
    Owen was leading at that stage of the race, but didn’t get into another racecar for three months, and did it over Kate’s protests.
    “Are you out of your mind? You’re lucky to be alive. Here’s what’s left of your car, in case you forgot.”
    She handed him a picture that showed wheels and tires, pieces of sheet metal and a roll cage—the thing that saved his life.
    “And here’s what’s left of you,” she said, indicating his casted limbs and hospitalized condition.
    Owen remembered saying, “I’m a racecar driver—this is what I do.”
    His third wreck involved an altercation with a young aggressive driver named Teddy Hicks. Owen was going into turn three at Martinsville Speedway, lap 127, when Teddy’s Ford banged his rear fender and sent him spinning. Owen did two 360s, spun off the track, but got it under control and kept going. He’d been in second place and finished eighth. Hicks was black-flagged and disqualified for rough driving.
    After the race, Owen confronted Teddy in the pits. “I don’t know what you’re doing out there, but if you can give me a reasonable explanation, I’m willing to bypass this whole deal and move on,” Owen said,