by David Hicks
*
Every time Flynn drove past the Blue Mesa Reservoir, the water looked different. The Gunnison had been stopped up by a dam and was now ringed by parched brown mesas, its hue changing with the altering light. At this hour it was a broad patch of darkness, shimmering silver at the surface, the mesas corniced by the first hints of dawn. During his first summer in Colorado, Flynn and Casey had stopped here on their way back from a drive to Crested Butte; they had sat by the water’s edge, eating chunks of Asiago cheese stuffed into lumps of freshly baked bread and washing it down with mineral water.
That was a good day.
A solitary truck was parked by the shore, and as Flynn drove past he noticed a man stepping out onto the new ice, pulling a small wagon behind him. The ice couldn’t possibly be thick enough; it had only recently started to form, and the middle of the reservoir was yet unfrozen. But the man looked peaceful and confident. He must know what he’s doing, Flynn thought. He must have an intimate relationship with the lake. He must enjoy his own company.
Flynn headed directly west toward Cerro Mesa. The route ahead was a long, uphill straightaway that stretched for miles, plateaued at the top of a mesa, and then plummeted down in a series of twists and turns that flattened out through Cimarron and snaked back up to Cerro’s Summit. Flynn wasn’t looking forward to this stretch. Unlike Slumgullion, Cerro brought with it some company: tractor-trailers, for which highway 50 provided the only east-west route through the middle of Colorado before turning into the Loneliest Road in America. When the road iced up, there was nowhere to pull over; on one side was mountain, on the other, empty air. If at any point Flynn hit the brakes he would spin off the cliff, so his only choice was to think clearly, drop gear, and forge ahead.
It had rained on Cerro, frozen up overnight, and now it was snowing lightly—so the road was a thick glaze of ice under a dusting of white. Flynn took it slow, adjusting to the presence of traffic and to the low sunlight reflecting in his rearview mirror. As he rounded a curve, an eighteen-wheeler rumbled past him going the other way, its chained tires grinding into the iced surface. After that, the road straightened out, ran steep downhill, and then doubled back toward the bottom, a hairpin curve that demanded fifteen miles per hour and a stiff clutch. Flynn dropped down to second, then to first, and on the bottom turn Flynn felt his car drag. He muttered a curse, slowed down, and looked for a place to pull over.
When he got out, he saw that his left rear tire was flat—probably from a sharp rock on the cut-off. He put on his gloves.
For the first two months of his job, his commute had gone smoothly. But lately, something had gone wrong nearly every week. Three weeks ago, the skidding elk. The following week, he had run out of gas just short of Grand Junction and had to hitch his way to school. On his return trip, he had spun out on an ice patch and a van full of snowboarders helped to pull his Sidekick from the ditch. Then today, the skid on the cliff, the dead fawn in Lake City, the crushed cottontail and now this.
He bundled up his coat and set about changing the tire. Short on cash, his credit card maxed out, he’d have to make the trip back to Sanctuary on Thursday with one headlight and no spare. He could just stay in Grand Junction, of course—Len and Sydney wouldn’t mind—but Casey certainly would. The previous Thursday, when he had heard of a storm brewing to the east, Flynn had called from Grand Junction to suggest he stay there overnight and start back the next morning. When she responded with a frigid silence, he hung up and drove through the blizzard, arriving home frazzled and exhausted at two in the morning. She awakened him at sunrise with a hot cup of coffee and a list of projects: clean out the horses’ stalls; fix the fence on the back side of the pasture; drain, clean, and refill the water trough. “It’s so good to have you home,” she said.
Flynn was grateful the sun was up, which made tire-changing easy, but his stomach was growling. Back inside his car, he glanced at the clock: he had just enough time to grab a bacon-and-egg burrito from the Carl’s Jr. in Delta and still make it to his first class. He told himself to be careful, to take it slow. In the future, if he moved to Grand Junction, he would be able to walk to campus. On Thursday evenings, instead of gearing up for yet another four-hour drive, he could go out for a beer with his friends, and on weekends he could go hiking in the Black Canyon. He could secure a second job, save his money, pay off his lawyer, and take normal flights when he visited his kids instead of the cheap, double-layover red-eyes.
Once he cleared Cerro Summit and saw the road ahead was bare, the sky blue and clear, he pulled over, got out of the car, and switched the wheel hubs from “Lock” to “Free.” When he looked up he saw two airplanes over the mountains, one pulling the other. When the lead plane released the towline and tailed off to the left, the glider behind it curled right and arched up, catching the thermal like an eagle, on his own now and doing fine.
*
On Thursday afternoon, Flynn taught his last class outside on the campus lawn, and as he walked out to the parking lot at 3:30 to begin his trip home, he was in his shirtsleeves, and the sky to the east looked clear. Across the road was a grove of aspen trees, their yellow leaves unevenly fringed with brown, as if a thousand butterflies had perched at the tips of their branches. Back at Casey’s, the aspens had long ago gone bare.
After gassing up the car with Casey’s Conoco card and stopping at the MacDonald’s in Delta for the two double-cheeseburgers-for-two-dollars special, he saw storm clouds over the mountains to the southeast, so he changed the setting on his wheel hubs, then removed his Dr. Martens and put on his hiking boots. He never knew how bad it would be until he got there, and the weather reports rarely accounted for what a mountain summit could bring. On one trip back he had hit heavy snow over Cerro Mesa and had to stay overnight at the only motel in Cimarron, arriving home Friday morning to find not a trace of snow in Sanctuary and a pouting Casey on the couch. On another occasion he had called first, and Casey told him not to worry, it was all clear there; but by the time he got to Lake City there was a snowstorm so severe he had to spend the night in his car. Slumgullion Pass was never officially closed; people assumed that only locals drove over it, and locals knew enough to get home by dark and not to cross the Continental Divide during a storm. And the mountain was never plowed at night.
As Flynn turned east at Montrose, the bank sign showed 74°. A half hour later, he was in the middle of a blizzard. On Cerro, a few pick-ups and eighteen-wheelers were grinding and sliding their way up and down highway 50. Everyone else had turned back or chained up.
Everything inside Flynn told him to turn around. To be safe. To be sensible.
He forged ahead.
The snow ended abruptly on the eastern side, and after a few miles of dry road, Flynn knew the cut-off would be passable. He sailed over the straightaway through Cimmaron, blasted past Blue Mesa Reservoir (its surface a sparkling navy-blue in the twilight), and turned right onto the cutoff, the dirt road spattered here and there with patches of snow. Flynn slowed to avoid the sharp rocks jutting up through the dirt, as he no longer had a spare.
The sky was darkening. The sun had not set but disappeared. Flynn turned on the car stereo, but there was only static. He flipped on his high-beams, then remembered only one was working. He slipped in a CD—one that Casey had made for him, with songs by Patty Larkin, Kate Bush, and Paula Cole—but ejected it after only a few notes. He tapped the steering wheel and looked in the rearview mirror. The sky behind him was streaked with pink and purple clouds. Ahead, it was gray and menacing.
He mentally added two hours and pictured his kids getting into their beds, Rachel tucking them in. Kissing Nathan first, Janey second. Rachel’s former high-school boyfriend, Sam, standing in the doorway, wishing the kids goodnight, his finger on the light switch.
*
When the first rabbit scampered out, Flynn accelerated, narrowly avoiding it. The first time he had seen the hares, when cross-country skiing wit
h Casey at 11,000 feet in the Wemenuche Wilderness, he had felt great affection for them. Now he saw them simply as prey, animals put on earth for the sole purpose of being devoured. They spent every second of their lives scared.
The second hare bounded out from the sagebrush and scampered safely to the other side. Flynn didn’t slow down or swerve. It was now the luck of the draw. He would continue toward Lake City, driving straight and true, and if a rabbit ran under his wheel, so be it. Judging from the dark sky ahead, Slumgullion would be in snow, and the later he got there, the more snow there would be. He couldn’t slow down for every damn rabbit that got in his way.
The third was unlucky. It darted out and ran ahead of the car, angled off the road, then right back into it. Flynn felt the slight bump under his back tire.
The fourth met the same fate, scurrying out from the left, racing ahead of the car, then breaking right. Flynn knew, more than felt, that it hadn’t found its way to the other side. The fifth was spared by a hop off the road at the last second, but the sixth was crushed as it came out of the brush. The seventh and eighth made it out safely, but Flynn clipped the ninth with his rear tire. He knew it might not be dead, but he left it to the coyotes.
Ahead of him, the rising moon was being swallowed by the storm cloud.
The tenth hare jumped out about a mile before the cut-off ended. It angled toward the middle of the road and Flynn slowed slightly, to keep it just ahead of him. Then, as the rabbit veered to the right, Flynn accelerated, running over it just before it reached the safety of the brush.
“Fucking rabbits,” he said.
*
On the stretch of 149 from the cut-off to Lake City, Flynn lost the moonlight and knew for certain he was entering a storm. He had to be careful now, with only one headlight. He saw deer eyes in the brush. They too were prey. They too slowed his forward progress.
He accelerated.
*
Lake City was an early Christmas card. Over a foot of fresh snow had fallen, and it was sure to be worse up Slumgullion. Flynn slowed through town, following the tire tracks of others who had come before him and were now safe inside their warm homes. He passed the restaurant he had taken Casey to for her birthday, run by a chef who had studied in France. Casey had ordered the most expensive items on the menu—escargot dumplings, roast lamb, profiteroles—and picked out a sixty-dollar bottle of wine. As the chef came out after their meal to compliment her on her selections, the waiter brought back Flynn’s credit card, shaking his head. They had driven home in silence through the snow.
Flynn lost the last of the tire tracks at the southern edge of town and began his ascent up Slumgullion through the unplowed snow. With his hand clenching the stick shift he drove up the switchbacks, dreading what he might find on the other side of the summit. The snow was falling like a surrealist’s dream. He had no money for a motel; if he got stuck, he’d have to spend the night in his car again.
As he continued to climb toward the summit, Flynn was plunged into darkness. At first he feared that his remaining headlight had gone out. But then he realized that the snow was higher than the grill of his car. He was plowing up the mountain.
He gripped the wheel with both hands. In the deep darkness, the color of the snow had changed. What had been an enchanting white was now a ghastly gray. He nudged the gas pedal forward, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. It was insane, he knew. He could easily drive right off the cliff. But turning around would be dicey. Plus, Casey was expecting him.
In March, on their way back from Telluride in a storm like this one, five feet of snow had fallen, the main road had closed, and they had stayed two nights at an inn in Pagosa Springs. They spent the first day sitting in the hot springs and trudging to the bakery in town; they spent the second day continually checking CDOT, wondering when the highway would open, until finally Casey decided they’d head south and cut across New Mexico, at least four hours out of their way, to get home. They talked a lot in Pagosa—about Casey’s book tour, her river trips, her upcoming television interview. But at no point did Flynn mention his children, or all the work he had done that summer—documenting phone records and emails, filing affidavits, writing lengthy emails—to re-establish joint custody. And at no point did they discuss Casey’s abortion. The only time she seemed to refer to it was when she told Flynn she saw her life as a picture she had worked hard to create in the hopes that someone would step into it, and now that he had, she was determined to keep that picture intact, to preserve it at all costs.
*
Flynn plowed through the darkness to the summit, and once the road leveled off and he saw a bit of light on the snow in front of the car, he got out and high-stepped it to the front, his legs sinking like posts into the deep snow. It was only up to his grill now. He brushed off the headlight and got back in the car.
On his way down Slumgullion, the heat directed onto his wet legs, he took his time. The snow banks on the side of the road, from previous plowing, acted as guardrails, and the fresh snow on the road embraced his tires, keeping them straight and true.
At that moment, Casey was probably sitting on the couch with Sage, watching the Weather Channel. She was content to be by herself, as long as someone was on their way home.
If Flynn were to continue past the turn-off to her ranch, he’d be in New Mexico before midnight. It would be warmer there, too. And he would have all kinds of options. He could head east through Texas, then Tennessee, then north for two days up to Binghamton, where he could take Rachel to court, win custody of his children, and start a new life together with them, a life in the woods. He smiled to himself, then felt his throat close up.
“Natty,” he said. “Janey girl. Don’t forget your dad.”
The car hummed through the snow.
*
From Slumgullion to Spring Creek, the snow stopped falling, and there was less and less on the road until he hit Spring Creek Pass, where the pavement was actually visible in stretches. But a tremendous wind now shook the car. He had expected this: a week earlier it had blown so hard that it had pushed the Sidekick sideways across the ice and spun it around, facing him back the way he had come.
Past the Oleo Ranch, it started snowing again, a different storm, coming at him low and hard from the side, harsh and icy. The pavement was slashed with drifts, like enormous yard line markers on a narrow football field. Flynn blasted through the first three drifts, finding them deeper than they looked. He rounded a curve in the road and saw more ahead, much longer and wider, twenty or thirty feet from beginning to end. He accelerated, counting on the momentum of the car to get him to the other side. One by one he plowed through, feeling the wheels slide sideways as he did.
Back in Grand Junction, it was probably about fifty degrees and calm. Here it was near zero, and howling bad. Flynn cracked open the window and the car rocked with the incoming gale.
The seventh snowdrift was at least five car-lengths long, and Flynn slowed to a halt before it. There were no good options. He could try to blast through, or sleep all night in the car and risk death by snowplow in the morning. The curve in the road behind him meant that the plow would have little time to see a stopped vehicle shrouded with snow.
Flynn went in reverse until he was back against the drift he had just gone through. Then he accelerated, hoping to power through the next one as he had the others. But after hitting the front edge of the drift the car shuddered to a halt, the rear wheels spinning. A few attempts at forward movement only spun the wheels further into the ice. The car skidded sideways, then back, sideways, then back, until Flynn finally stopped trying.
He put his gloves on and got out. The icy wind annihilated his face. Three high steps brought him to the rear of the car. He chipped off the ice on his tail lights, dug out the snow from around his rear tires, and saw that even if he had remembered to put a shovel in his car, he wouldn’t have a chance. The ice under the tires was solid and thi
ck, and his wheels had worn two wide and deep grooves. He stepped back to the car, grabbed a couple of shirts from his overnight bag, and shoved them under one tire, then jammed his dirty canvas jacket under the other. For the next hour, he tried repeatedly to get himself out of his icy trap. He ruined his shirts and jacket, but the car didn’t move an inch.
He sat in the driver’s seat. He had a half a tank of gas. Sitting in idle, even all night long, would probably use only a quarter tank. He would be all right . . . until a truck came around the curve in the morning and slammed into his snow-covered car. He tried to calculate how far the walk would be to the Oleo Ranch, but then he remembered that around here, that’s how people lost their toes. The tips of his fingers already throbbed under his gloves. He took them off and held his hands to the vents.
After a while, he pushed back his seat, took off his wet hiking boots, socks and pants, and changed into his jeans, dry socks, and the Dr. Martens he had worn to teach earlier that day. He dropped the heat down to low, directed it onto his feet again, and settled in. The weather didn’t bother him. What bothered him was that he should have moved to Grand Junction by now. The weather was just waking him up, that’s all. It was teaching him a lesson, again and again, one he had yet to heed.
It was 8:03 p.m. There wouldn’t be another vehicle all night, not in this storm. At the first sign of daylight he could hike back to the Oleo Ranch and see if anyone was home; but for now, he’d be safe in the car. Or could the drifting snow clog the exhaust pipe? Would that be possible, or would the exhaust continually melt it? He got out again, ducking into the screaming wind, and used his hands to dig out a trench around the pipe. Then he fought his way back into the car, took off his gloves, removed his Dr. Martens, and changed his socks again. He got his sneakers from his gym bag and put them on. He stared at the rearview mirror, half dreading, half hoping for, headlights. Within minutes the snow would build up again over the exhaust pipe, but the heat from the pipe would probably continue to melt it. He cracked open the passenger window, just in case, then opened his own about an inch as well. The wind whistled and ripped into the car, rocking the vehicle. He slouched down in his seat, wrapped a sweatshirt around his neck and mouth, tugged down his hat, and closed his eyes. In the fabric of his sweatshirt, he smelled the Gunnison River and Escalante Canyon, where he had hiked on Wednesday.