Authors: Anthony Bidulka
vehicle it could tell me a lot. I could gauge how
fast we were going, in what direction, and on
what type of surface we were driving: pavement
358 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
or gravel, snow covered or clear.
Judging from the starts and stops from the first
part of the trip I’d guessed that we’d left the city
heading east. We’d then driven only a short dis-
tance, maybe a few kilometres, before stopping
again and making a left turn. Then we drove for
about twenty minutes before we slowed down to
make a right hand turn. The best I could figure it,
that put us smack in the middle of…nowhere.
We were in the middle nowhere and I couldn’t
even be certain this whole thing was even related to
the blackmail case at all. But why else would some-
one want to kidnap me? Or…could this be about
Jared? Had he really just come along at the wrong
time? Just as darkness filled the back of the truck, it
now coloured my thoughts. Horrible thoughts.
Maybe this
was
about Jared. Jared
and
me. Maybe
Anthony was Loverboy and I was too close to find-
ing him out. So he was getting rid of me—and
Jared, the cuckolded lover—at the same time.
Shit, no! What a load of hooey! I was letting my
imagination run amok. I was allowing fear and
anxiety to eat away at reason and logic. First I
accused my friend of being a blackmailer and now
a murderer? Preposterous! I knew him. I knew his
character. I knew he wasn’t capable of any of this.
It had to be something else, someone else, I told
myself. Maybe it had nothing to do with the
Daniel Guest case at all. Maybe it had something
to do with Jane Cross—a woman who’d
ambushed me, sprayed me in the face with Herbal
Essences hairspray and attacked me in my hotel
room. I really knew nothing about her. Who was
Anthony Bidulka — 359
she working for? What did they want from me?
Maybe I’d made a mistake in judgement. Or what
about the man driving the truck? How did he tie
in? Who was he? Was he the second driver during
the landfill chase? Obviously he’d lied about
being a neighbour. If not, then I was living in a
pretty rough area and would have to seriously
consider a move as soon as…if…we got out of this
mess. And at the least, under no circumstances
would he be getting an invitation to my Christmas
party!
It had been close to an hour since we’d turned
off the highway. We seemed to be on a series of
country roads that twisted and turned and rose up
and then down. After about fifteen minutes more
of this the truck finally came to a halt.
“Thank God,” Jared exclaimed.
“I wouldn’t do that just yet,” I said, all my
senses (except sight) on high alert.
For a moment we sat in dead silence except for
the sound of whooshing gusts of wind slamming
the truck broadside, buffeting the huge vehicle
from side to side.
“Now what?” Jared whispered as if worried
our captor could hear us.
“I don’t know,” I hated to say.
Then came the sound of metal against metal. It
lasted maybe two seconds, then stopped.
“What was that?”
I began to rise to my feet but immediately fell
back down. The cold had settled into my bones
and rendered me arthritic and ancient. “I think it
may have been the lock on the tailgate doors.” I
360 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
tried again to stand, more carefully this time, gin-
gerly straightening myself up. I held out a hand
towards Jared. “Come on, let’s check it out.”
Jared, in runway model shape, had an easier
time getting up, but I knew he was colder than I.
Not only were his clothes less protective against
the elements, but he had less than one percent
body fat and that couldn’t be good in these condi-
tions. Finally, eating my mother’s cooking was
paying off! After bumping into the desk, we
inched our way towards the tailgate. When we
reached it, I held out my gloved hands and
applied pressure against one of the doors. As it
swung out, it was grabbed by the wind and flung
wildly away from me. A shattering bang followed
as the door slammed against the side of the truck.
And then another as the other door was also
thrown open. We both jumped back from the
precipice created by the opening, startled by the
sound, startled by being let free, startled by the
raging elements before us. Outside was Mother
Nature gone wild. Billions of pinpricks of snow
danced crazily before our eyes. The wind was a
violent force, and sounded like a howling pack of
starving wolves looking for prey. The storm had
arrived.
“Is he letting us go?” Jared asked. “What’s hap-
pening? Are we supposed to get out?”
A fear colder than ice shot through me.
That was exactly what he wanted us to do.
“Get back!” I yelled at him, grabbing the sleeve
of his jacket. But it was too late. I heard the sound.
The sound of our doom. The hoist. Imperceptibly
Anthony Bidulka — 361
at first we felt the floor beneath us quiver. “Shit!”
I screamed. “Get back, Jared, get to the back of the
box!”
“What is it?” he yelled. I could hear fear in his
voice.
I kept a viselike grip on Jared’s jacket as I
pulled him towards the rear of the truck bed. But
it was no use. I could feel the upward motion,
slow but steady. “He’s using the hydraulics! He’s
emptying the box!”
“Emptying the box? Why is h…” He stopped
there, the sickening answer all too obvious. We
were being dumped like a load of garbage.
It didn’t take long. As the end of the box nearest
the cab rose higher and higher it became increas-
ingly difficult for us to stay upright. We desperate-
ly searched for anything we might hold on to that
would keep us from sliding out of the truck’s box
and into the blizzard nightmare. But there was
nothing. Only the desk. And it was the first to go.
We watched it slide, at first jerkily, then with
increasing speed, towards the end of the box, then
disappear over the edge. It landed with a thump
on the frozen, snow-covered ground, waiting for
us to join it. My eyes darted about the floor, ceil-
ing and walls of the box, hoping against hope to
locate something, anything, that we could attach
ourselves to. If not, we’d end up outside
and…well, I didn’t want to think about that
option. But eventually, like the icy fingertips of a
cold and lifeless hand, the wind found us. It
reached into the tilting truck bed, grasping at us,
pulling at us like an evil accomplice, howling its
362 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
laughter at the hopelessness of our plight.
And finally, with no other choice, we gave in.
Unable to resist gravity we fell to our backs. We
looked at each other, saying nothing. We reached
out and held hands as we slid down the length of
the box and finally over its edge. We landed first
on the desk and then toppled painfully over it
onto a crusty bank of snow. I was definitely back
to stage two: anger. Despite a jabbing pain in my
right side where I’d hit that damn desk, I jumped
to my feet, intent on running to the door of the
cab, tearing it open and pulling Neighbour Guy
From Hell out into the snow with us. Although I
didn’t know his real name, I had a few others I
wanted to try him on for size.
But I was too late. As soon as we’d landed on
the ground, the truck began its escape, the box still
elevated on its hydraulic lift. I tried to catch the
lumbering beast but, disoriented and trying to run
against the wicked wind on slippery, fresh snow,
the truck proved too fast for me. I watched in hor-
ror as the truck disappeared from sight behind a
curtain of snow. After a brief moment of self-pity,
I looked back to where I’d left Jared and the desk,
two grey lumps in an otherwise black and white
landscape. Neither was moving. Despite exhaus-
tion and paralyzing cold, I ran back, worried that
Jared might be hurt. When I reached him I fell to
my knees next to where he was splayed against
the desk.
“Jared! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
He looked up at me and I saw that a patch of
his copper hair was matted against his forehead
Anthony Bidulka — 363
with red. A stab of fear jolted me. Blood. His gold-
en eyes looked brown and his olive skin was drab.
“I’m okay,” he croaked. “But I think I may have
hit my head kind of hard on a corner of the desk
when we fell out of the truck.” For a moment I
thought I saw his eyes roll up into his head, but
then he recovered, seemingly alert. “How about
you?”
“I’m okay,” I assured him as I gently tried to
clear away some of the hair around his wound to
see how bad it was. “Just hold still if you can.”
The cut wasn’t big but it had bled a lot, though
it seemed to have stopped. Still I was worried he
might faint from the loss of blood, and being this
cold would not help. Any type of trauma can easily
contribute to faster onset of hypothermia. Living
in Saskatchewan I am well acquainted with the
dangers of being caught outdoors in the winter
without
appropriate
protective
clothing.
Normally I’m careful to avoid that happening, but
neither of us had expected this and we were poor-
ly prepared to deal with it. I knew we had to get
out of our miserable situation as soon as possible
or we were in for a nasty case of frostbite or worse.
With an injury and poor clothing, Jared was even
more at risk than I was.
For the first time since we’d been dumped, I
closely studied our surroundings. But other than
dark, snow and the desk, there was nothing to see.
I assessed our situation with the little information
I had. It was night, we were on a deserted gravel
road, over an hour away from Saskatoon during a
raging winter storm. The temperature was drop-
364 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
ping fast and I couldn’t decide which way was
north and which was south. We were definitely
lost. We were definitely in trouble.
“What can we do?” Jared asked, still in his prone
position. I could tell from his voice that he was push-
ing the limits of his energy to speak. “What about the
desk? Can we use that for shelter?”
I looked at the crappy piece of furniture. I
should have known it was too much of a piece of
garbage to be a Christmas gift for someone’s
daughter. Cherry wood my ass. It was nothing
better than a Salvation Army reject. “It’s too small
to get under and one of the sides broke off in the
fall,” I told Jared. I should have known I was
being set up! There was something about him…I
was mad at myself, but I’d have time to admonish
myself later—if there was a later. “You didn’t hap-
pen to bring a cell phone with you, did you?”
“I left it in the Jeep,” he said. “Sorry. Can you
see any lights? There must be a farm or town
somewhere nearby.”
I had already scanned the horizon, which,
under these conditions was a lot closer than usual.
I’d seen nothing but more swirling snow and the
oblivion of a full-blown Saskatchewan blizzard. I
shook my head.
“So what do we do?” Jared said. “Don’t they
say if you’re stuck in a snowstorm you should
stay where you are and wait for someone to come
for you?”
Unfortunately that advice was only good if you
were stuck within the relatively safe confines of a
vehicle or other protective covering. We didn’t
Anthony Bidulka — 365
have that luxury and I didn’t know of any other
rules meant for this particular predicament. Should
we just wait here and hope for a passing car? Or
should we pick a direction and start walking?
Should one of us go for help and the other stay?
Should we separate or stay together? How was one
to decide? At least we had options. None of them
good, but at least we had some.
“I think we have to try to find help, Jared,” I
said to him, assessing the wound on his forehead
again. “We should keep moving. If we stay here
we’ll freeze to the spot. It’s gotta be minus twenty