Welcome, to your refresher course in driver education—he thought—on a snowy mountain
road north of Missoula.
The conditions were the worst—it was hard to even tell if he wasonthe road, as everything was either black or white.
Just stay in the wide space between the trees.
He began sliding right.
Now, what… do you turn into a slide, or away?
He steered into it and the car straightened.
There. That's not so bad.
He began sliding left.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Alec was white-knuckling the steering wheel so hard his hands were cramping, gasping aloud
every time the vehicle slipped. Every few seconds, he checked the GPS to confirm that he was
heading in the right direction even though he was moving less than ten miles an hour.
He looked at the gas gauge—a quarter of a tank.
Damn.
He should have filled up in Missoula, but he didn't see the point. He was only going twenty
miles!
He thought of Mark, the attendant at the airport, and his puzzled expression when he had asked
to rent the vehicle.
"The weather's really bad, sir. Perhaps you should just check into a hotel here and leave in the morning."
"No," Alec had said, adamant and anxious to reach his destination, desperate to prove to himself that he was making sound decisions, steering his life in anew direction.
"But, sir, have you ever driven in a snowstorm? It'sNovember. You're inMontana."
What Mark was trying to communicate was not reaching him at all. Alec's superficial focus only
on the annoying way the rental clerk kept referring to him assir.
"I'll take the Avalon."
"Please, sir, take the Land Cruiser. At least it's more suitable for the conditions."
"Fine. Whatever."
So, here he was—so deep in Montana that it was practically Idaho, navigating the state's vast
wilderness… at night… in a snowstorm… in a Land Cruiser. It was most definitely a new direction.
The question was: would he live to see it through?
