He got out into the freezing cold, filled up his car with gas, scraped the windows, and went inside to pee. As he washed his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror.
It was one of those polished tin affairs, and only showed the edges of his face, his wild, long-distance-drive hair, blonde like his sister Sarah's, and the scruff of beard growth on his chin. The glimmer of blue eyes. But the mirror reflected no real distinct lines, so he couldn't see his own expression. Still, as he washed his face with cold water, he had to laugh.
Kyle considered him mountain man rugged but still in needof babysitting. And that, for some reason, warmed his heart a little, adding to the sensation that what he was trying to do, what he was going after, had meaning. And that while Sarah, Luke, and Shawn were rooting for him, maybe Kyle was, too.
Time would tell. For now, Clayton needed to get back in that car, turn on the engine, and ruggedly, mountain man style, make his way through four hours of snowy driving in blizzard whiteout conditions, and all for a Christmas gift for his favorite and only nephew. When he made it, he'd have a story to tell that Uncle Bill would be proud of.
CHAPTER 6
He almost missed the right turn to the small town of Torrington, whose bright street lights, ten in all, five on either side, contrasted sharply with the darkness beyond. But he kept driving at a steady forty miles an hour, due to the conditions. By the time he reached the border between Wyoming and Colorado, the sky was pitch black, though there was an eerie glow to the snowfall, as though the moon was trying to push its light through to help him but was failing.
He drove with both hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel till they became numb, all the while cursing himself for thinking he could do this. It was as though he imagined himself some rugged mountain man after all, impervious to the cold, fast enough to outrun the weather, and canny enough to find his way through a snowstorm on a back road that was only two lanes wide with no access to anything but open snow-covered black-as-hell prairie on either side.
Going steadily, he made it to Grover, where he thought to stop to gas up and scrape the ice and snow from the passenger side, which always faced west now and was taking the full brunt of the storm. There was a feed and grain store whose outsidelights were burning, but there was no gas station, so Clayton pulled into the parking lot anyway and did his very best to scrape off the snow and ice.
His hands were freezing, but there was nothing to be done about that. He'd been stupid to not take gloves with him, just in case. He knew better, and maybe Kyle was right in that he needed a little looking after.
Back in the car, Clayton checked the level on the gas tank indicator as the windshield wipers whisked across the windshield that was, for now, clean of ice. He had a little over half a tank, which would surely take him all the way to Orchard, which was a little over two hours down the road, an almost straight shot with a few turns. As long as he kept the snowfall on his right, he'd be headed in the right direction. He'd be fine.
He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the snow and knew that had he not already been driving in these conditions for hours, he'd be more up to the task. Still, this was the last little bit, and then he could stop driving. Beyond Kyle's house, it was only half an hour to the interstate, where he could find a motel to crash in.
Though it was late, he dialed Kyle's number and listened to it ring while he pulled back onto the snow-covered road. His headlights ate through the darkness that shifted and shimmied from behind the veil of snow that kept falling and falling. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard he couldn't feel his hands, but he needed to keep going. He'd make it if he just kept going through the endless, ceaseless white.
The phone made a clicking sound as Kyle answered.
"Hey, Clayton," said Kyle. "Where are you now?”
"Just two hours out," said Clayton, making his voice sound more sure than he felt. "There's no gas station in Grover."
"How much do you have?"
"A little over half a tank."
Kyle made a humming sound, though Clayton didn't know what that meant.
"I'm turning on all the lights," said Kyle. "All of them. You won't be able to miss the house, okay? And there are street lights down the main street in Orchard. They'll guide you through town."
"Okay," said Clayton.
"You doing okay?" asked Kyle.
"Yes."
"You don't sound okay," said Kyle.
"I can make it," said Clayton. "Just talk to me. Tell me about mountain men. Tell me about anything. Help me stay awake."
"I can do that," said Kyle. "Shall I tell you about what I'd rather be doing than developing software?"
There was a hint of shyness in the question, as though Kyle wanted to make sure that sharing, or in Kyle's case, over-sharing, would be okay. And more, beneath the question was a spark of passion, telling Clayton that whatever Kyle was about to share with him was actually quite close to his heart.
"Yes, tell me," said Clayton. Then, feeling a little more awake and slightly wise, he added, "Sometimes what we do for a living isn't what we want to spend our lives doing."
"You got that right," said Kyle. "Well, what I'd really like to do is to be one of those people who does arts and crafts and sells them at festivals and fairs. Is that stupid or what?"
Clayton thought for a minute, driving quite carefully but steadily through the snowy night. Somebody had told Kyle that what he wantedwasstupid. Which was a damn shame. Although, truth be told, Clayton himself had earlier dismissed arts and crafts as being foolish, but then, he'd never been to a festival or a fair, so what did he know? Maybe they had people who wove wool, and he could find a weaver who could make him a good red wool blanket. He'd always wanted one of those?—
"Clayton?" Kyle sounded worried. About him?
