I kissed Jonah and hugged Royce, and wished them both well. Waved goodbye to Grandad, who used his nine-iron to wave back at me, hopped in the Volvo, and blasted out of there. I hate long goodbyes, so it was good to be on the road at last.
The only problem with a six-hour drive, with the clouds coming down like a flat, gray slate, was that I had too much time to think. Sure, I hummed with the songs, and jumped in and out of audio books (Royce had turned me on to Bill Bryson’sIn a Sunburned Country, and while I listened, sometimes I laughed so hard I almost peed myself).
Sometimes I just listened to the sound of my tires on the damp highway. Damp because it was starting to snow, light flakes that seemed to promise no harm.
In spite of the promise of no harm, the Rocky Mountains were a bunch of capricious bitches, and they did what they wanted, when they wanted. So as I drove up the highway, going toward Walden, it started to come down with a purpose, as if the clouds meant to bury everything hip-deep in snow.
I kept the wipers going double time, turned up the defogger on the back window and turned the blower on extra hot on the windshield. It barely made any difference, and for a good hour, I was looking through a sheet of snow that was only getting thicker as it came down.
Still, with part of my attention on the red-topped warning poles by the side of the road, I keptonthe road. With the other part of my attention, my hands on the sturdy steering wheel, I kept my eye on the other cars. They were the real danger.
I was coming up to a slow driver in a dark Audi A8. The car was a high end rental, and I could tell that it was high end because some asshat coming from DIA in Denver didn’t haveenough sense to drive into the mountains in a car with more ground clearance.
The road going over Rabbit Ears Pass was two lanes on the climb, so I eased around the Audi, intending to overtake in a gentle way so as not to piss him off. Guys in Audis tended to have big balls, dreams of having a big dick, and very little sense.
I pushed on the gas and sped up, slipping a little. Behind me, there was a line of cars just aching to stomp on the gas and go past the Audi.
Only just when I’d come alongside of him, the Audi veered to the right, sliding, doing a 180 before banging rear-first into the nearest pine tree. A ton of snow slipped from the trees and covered the hood, sliding like melted ice cream down his windshield.
To stay out of his way, I eased left, but then I had to ease right because that line of cars, so impatient to get to the slope, wasn’t going to wait for me any more than they’d been willing to wait for the Audi.
They all zipped past, using the left lane and whooshing like the devil. The Volvo, solid as it was, shuddered in the wake of all those cars.
I won’t say I lost control, because I never do, but I suddenly found that I was also doing a 180, just like the Audi had, slipping on a patch of almost invisible ice. I came to a stop without hitting anything, except I was facing backwards, half on the road, half on the shoulder, a slope of snow that led toward a frozen lake.
At least I was in one piece, and the Volvo was intact. The line of cars had all gone past, leaving everything still, except for the eerily silent and constant snowfall.
I looked at the snow piled on top of the Audi, waiting for somebody to get out. Nobody did.
I wondered if Highway Patrol might be along soon, because even though me and the law don’t get along too good, I’d be glad to see them. Maybe they could help the guy in the Audi.
But after a few minutes, the highway stayed still, except for the damn snow, and it looked like nobody was coming. My luck.
Nobody was coming so in spite of wanting to bet a move on so I could arrive at the Anchorage Hotel before midnight, I put the Volvo in neutral, left it running, double checked the parking brake, and got out.
The snow was soft, yet insistent as it came down. Inside of a minute, I had a layer of snow all over me. Shaking myself like a dog, I stalked in my big black Doc Martens over to the Audi.
I was about to go to the driver’s side, when I realized that the car was on an incline which turned into a drop-off. Below was Muddy Pass Lake, which I’d seen on the Google map I checked out before I left.
If the driver tried to get out on the driver’s side, he’d get roughly tumbled into the half-frozen water. Bending down, I could see the gap between car and sky, with one of the car’s tires hanging precariously in the air.
I yanked open the passenger door and said, “Get out this side buddy, or you and this car are gonna tumble into the lake.”
“What?” the man asked. He was drowning in an air bag, his hair messed. He had blood on his forehead, like had hit his head, though I couldn’t see where. And he was squinting at me, still coming down from the shock of the accident.
Old me would have left him there, I sure would. And I have to tell you I was running on empty, still mourning the fact that Jonah was marrying someone else—and I didn’t really have it in me.
But I was new me. Having been exposed to a whole shitton of Royce’s words of wisdom, having been a part of the Farthingdale Valley Fresh Start Program, which taught ex-cons (and me) thevalue of honesty, hard work, and perseverance, along with a whole bunch of other stuff that raised its ugly head, there wasn’t anything else I could do but the right thing.
“You got three wheels on the ice and one wheel in the air,” I said with just about all the patience that I had. “You move your weight that way?” I pointed past his shoulder, watched him watching me like I was a puzzle he didn’t want to solve but was realizing that he had to. “You will go into Muddy Pass Lake. It’s deep, so there will be no coming up for air before you freeze to death. Or.” I shrugged as if this was the least of his worries. “Or you get crushed by your car on the way down to the bottom. Your choice.”
“I’m—”
He paused, pushing the airbag away, the little that he could. Then he took a deep breath, sat up, and straightened his shoulders. Which looked very broad and impressive in that thin citified wool coat he was wearing. Totally not suitable for the weather or the terrain.
What was it with rich folks? Did they think the weather didn’t apply to them? Why did they always dress like they were only going as far as the taxi waiting in the street?
“I’m going to come out that way,” he said, like it’d been his idea all along. “Slowly.”
