The Benevolent Order of Middle-Aged Adrenaline Junkies

1. You see a neighbor at a cafe during lunch in Nearby Town, 15 miles away. Eight hours later, you meet her at the site of a one-pickup truck rollover accident on a snowy highway near home. She was wearing her EMT gear at lunch—must have been her shift on Nearby Town's ambulance.

2. Responding to the call in your POV (personally owned vehicle), yours are the only tire tracks on the snowy county road. In the headlights' beams, the track of a fox weaves back and forth across the road. Red flashes bounce off the pine trees — now they are echoed by other flashed on the highway.

3. On the scene: the sheriff's deputy, a state snowplow driver, and the volunteer firefighter who just walked over because it happened in front of his little ranch. The ambulance goes to the home where the truck's occupants, not seriously injured, had gone, following the lights. "Someone was pounding on my door," the firefighter says, "but by the time I got there, they were gone." They went up the canyon and across the road — probably highly agitated.

4. Another volunteer arrives. You and he climb down the slope to where the red Chevy lies pillowed on crushed willows — maybe they cushioned it, preventing serious body damage. Passenger-side window broken out (crash or evacuation?), windshield badly cracked, but no leaking gasoline, no smoke, no crackling or hissing sounds. No blood either, that's good.

5. Your engine arrives with three on board. The deputy is relaxed. The Colorado State Patrol is  not coming, he says. No wrecker coming tonight either. So there is no need to direct traffic. You say hello to the chief of the Nearby Town VFD, who followed the ambulance out to the scene (adrenaline junkie that he is). Say hello to the neighbor. Tell the deputy we're clearing the scene. Tell "Central" we're clearing the scene.

6. You all go your separate ways. The chief will do the incident report. You drive back down the quiet road to your house, cutting the fox tracks once again.