After long hours of night driving it took a second for my eyes to jolt my brain about something wrong.   A faint light to the left, down in the ravine, but it was gone behind my moving car as soon as I saw it.  Stop the car. I braked gently on the wet blacktop, slick with autumn leaf fall.   No other car lights in either direction on this two-lane in the Vermont woods.  I turned left to squint through the rain on the window, but the shoulder of the road was now blocking the view down the bank.   Back it up.  Fifty feet in reverse, then, gradually, I see what looked like… headlights under weeds, way down in the deep ravine. Am I still on the pavement? Wet gravel crunches under the tires. Safely off the road. Park the gear. Get out.

To my friend: “There’s a car down there.  I’m going over the bank. ”

The slope was running with mud but the plants were big enough for hand-holds.  I scrambled and slid to the bottom.  A 15 second slog from the bottom of the slope to the dark metal mass.   Four tires stuck up like the paws of some woodland roadkill that just made it into the ditch.   Smoke came off the warm car and hung, uncertain of whether to leave or stay.

Cold, wet steel at the back of the car, but warmer as I felt toward the engine end.   By now the rain had soaked my hair and I had to rub the water from my eyes to bend over and peer beneath the metal superstructure.   Between the night and the rain and the shadow from the ravine and the opaquity of shattered auto glass I could see only the dull, dying dash lights.

I got down on hands and knees.    This must be the driver’s side door, at the rear.   Think:  down is up.   Down.   The window is shattered in the wet weeds. I couldn’t squeeze into the car at all and when I called “hello? hello? ” there was no answer.   A voice from the road above, my friend  “Are you O.K.?”

“I’m fine — I’m still looking.”

Past the glass, toward the place where the driver’s window had to be, but it was hard to tell by feel what was roadside trash and what was significant among all the cold, slimy papers and sharp metal.   I slowed my hands and carefully tried to define shapes.   And then, when I put my right hand on the bare, warm flesh I jerked back and caught my breath.   It felt, just for a second, ill-mannered.

Quickly now, with both hands now, I pat my way in both directions: to the right – – a belt, jeans, metal. My God, the car is on him. To the left – – up the body – – the bare skin of his flank, shirt, shoulder, back of head – – both hands feeling short hair, the face is in the mud – – find a pulse. Is he breathing? He’s face down and the car is on him. How am I going to resuscitate him?  There’s the neck, warm but not very warm, and again slow my fingers down to search with one hand for the carotid artery just inside the front neck muscle. With the other hand trace around the ear and the face was turned that way because there was his nose… no pulse at the neck. I leave one hand at the nose and mouth waiting for the cool pass of air.  With the other hand I finger down the back for any movement in the rib cage.

I freeze and try to calm.   Hard to feel breath or pulse through your own breath and pulse.  I wait for three or four of my own breaths without moving, my face now down in the dark grass as close to the other face as I could get, listening.  Sounds from high above: a car slowed, and then voices, but nothing else except the low rustle of the light rain in the underbrush.   I wiggled my fingers slowly, gently brushing the tips around the man’s nostrils and lips, as if to convince myself this really is a face.

Nothing.  Quickly again, with both hands again, search all over for every pulse you could think of.   The clothes were wet in spots but still mostly dry.   A shoulder.  Out the arm, it had unnatural twists and turns.   Find the other.   Out to the wrist, to the thumb, and then on that side for a radial pulse,   sliding inside a clammy sleeve.   Adjust the fingertips.   No pulse.

This guy is dead.

The state trooper, like every one ever, was as polite as a zen master.   He smiled from under his hat brim which dripped rain drops. There were a few questions, in tight logical order. But he tired of the details before I tired of telling them.    Then he took down my name, address, and phone number and, for once, smiled:
“Thanks.  We’ll be in touch if we need you again.  You folks drive carefully, now.”

They never called.    I never heard the dead man’s name.