by Bobby Akart
“I’m guessing the ash fallout ruined the engine or the fuel tank, or both. The battery was strong, and the fuel gauge showed half a tank, but I couldn’t get it to turn over.”
Ashby offered an explanation. “Once the ash particles invade the inner workings of any machine that requires lubrication to operate, eventually the pumice-like substance mixes with anything wet and turns to something akin to volcanic rock. It’s possible the car sucked in too much ash.”
“Cars will break down unless you can somehow block the particles from entering the intake systems,” Jake added. “I’m curious, if you know, how can you filter out the particles? I mean, would a tee shirt work, for example?”
Ashby shook her head and pointed toward the stretcher. She wanted to keep moving and Jake couldn’t blame her. As they made their way toward the Subaru, she responded, “Cotton material like a tee shirt won’t work. It’s designed to have a loose weave, so it breathes. A filter paper is good, ash-less filter paper in particular. However, coffee and tea filters do a great job too. Then, in a professional setting, you might have access to semipermeable membranes, which block solids and most particulate matter.”
“What about cheesecloth?” asked Jake.
“You know, that would work well,” Ashby answered, and then added, “You can fold it over as many times as you feel necessary to block the ash particles.”
They passed the rear of the Subaru and both of them looked inside the windows until they’d continued twenty feet past the front end of the stalled car.
Suddenly, Ashby said, “Stop. Wait a minute.”
Jake immediately stopped and began scanning their surroundings, looking for signs of trouble. “What did you see?”
Ashby began to lower her end of the stretcher and Jake followed her lead. He readied his rifle and walked backward to where she stood, hands on hips, staring at the car.
“On your Garmin, can you determine where this road leads and over what kind of terrain?”
Jake quickly replied, “Sure, what are you thinking?” He returned his rifle to his shoulder and pulled out the Garmin.
“I know the car won’t start, but why can’t we coast down the hill? Depending on where this road leads, and what it takes to get there, we might be able to save time. I think Dusty could really use a hospital bed, don’t you think?”
Jake thought for a minute and then wandered back toward the car as he studied the topography map on the GPS device. “This road winds its way down the mountain for a few miles until it intersects with another county road that would take us straight into town. It looks like it might be a six-mile run before the ground levels out in the valley, but that’s a huge jump on what we have ahead of us.”
“Should we go for it?”
Jake shrugged and laughed. “I know one thing for sure, our boy Dusty would think it’s the greatest idea ever. He would absolutely agree and demand to drive!”
They exchanged high fives and proceeded to lay the backseats flat so the stretcher would fit into the rear of the wagon-designed Subaru. There wasn’t quite enough room to lay him flat, so they stuffed all of their gear directly behind the front seats and pushed him up at an angle. The stretcher lay on top of the front seats between the headrests. It was uncomfortable for the passengers, but it beat walking.
After they were settled in, Jake turned the ignition to on, and the dashboard immediately lit up. He eased the gear shift into neutral and released his foot off the brake.
It didn’t move.
“Parking brake, idiot,” said Ashby, using her best Rita impression, which made the word sound like eee-di-ot. Jake laughed with her until they both fell silent thinking about their dead friend.
Jake released the parking brake and the Subaru inched forward. “Ashby, the ash is thick as snow. It’s holding back our momentum. I’m going to step outside the car and push on the door to get her rollin’. Do you think you can do it too?”
“Sure,” she replied as she flung the door open and began to push. Jake did the same, and once the vehicle was rolling at a steady pace on its own, they both jumped back in.
“Here we go,” exclaimed Jake gleefully.
While Jake steered the car through a few gentle curves, Ashby scanned the AM and FM bands of the radio, hoping to pick up any form of information. All she was able to find was a repeated recording on AM 1600 advising that all camp areas in the Salmon-Challis National Forest had closed and were being evacuated. The recording didn’t indicate the day it had begun broadcasting or any other type of information. Disappointed, she turned it off.
“I like this, Jake. Heck, if we can get enough speed, we might make it all the way to Challis.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he added as he pointed ahead. “Look, this hill will give us some downward momentum.”
The speedometer immediately jumped from twenty to forty miles an hour. Jake began to experience the difficulty of turning a vehicle with no power steering. It was fairly easy to muscle it through a gentle bend of a street. Navigating the types of S curves typical of mountainous roads was far more challenging.
“Jake, I think we’re going a little too fast,” said Ashby as she braced herself by holding one hand on the door’s armrest and the other on the dash.
Jake pressed the brake pedal down, causing the car to slow slightly. He pumped the pedal and then mashed it to the floor. His eyes widened, and his knuckles whitened as the speed steadily increased to fifty miles an hour.
“Dang it, Ashby. The power steering and brakes don’t work because the engine is stalled.”
Ashby looked around as if divine guidance was going to offer a solution. Then she shouted as a deer stood in the middle of the road, staring down the grille of the Subaru.
“Look out!” yelled Jake as he laid on the horn. He swerved slightly to avoid the deer, but the left two wheels caught the shoulder of the gravel road. He compensated by pulling the steering wheel back to the right, which caused the rear of the car to swerve and toss Dusty back and forth.
“It’s straightening out, but it will be steeper,” said Ashby as she pointed ahead.
“Seat belts!” shouted Jake as he fumbled to pull the strap across his chest while driving with one hand.
After Ashby’s clicked into place, she leaned across the console. “Let me help. You drive.”
“Hold on!” Jake shouted as the Subaru passed sixty miles an hour. He allowed himself a quick glance at the road behind him, which was obliterated by the whiteout conditions created by the car plowing through the ash.
When the car hit sixty-two miles per hour, the slope lessened, and the speed quickly dropped. Then Jake’s heart sank when he saw the dreaded S curve warning sign.
“Here we go again,” yelled Jake as he forced the steering wheel to turn the vehicle through the curves. The speed caused the rear end to slide out from under them, but he’d gotten the feel of the car at this point and learned how to baby it through the curves. He breathed a sigh of relief as the road straightened once again and the car picked up speed.
Ashby leaned forward so she could see Jake’s face on the other side of the stretcher. “I can walk the rest of the way now. How about you?”
“Yeah, trust me, I’m ready to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“What if you pulled the emergency brake?” asked Ashby.
Jake reached for the manual parking brake lever and readied his hand to push the button before pulling it up. “I think it locks the rear wheels only, and I don’t know if it will cause the car to skid.”
“There are more curves ahead,” Ashby was quick to point out. A decision had to be made.
Jake explained his plan. “Let me try it slowly, one click at a time while I apply the brakes too. Maybe I can slow it gradually.”
Jake pulled up the parking lever until it clicked, but there was no change in speed. He was fast approaching a series of downhill curves. He pulled it another notch. And then another. It started to slow.
“It’s workin
g, but we’re almost at the curve!”
He pulled it again, but this time completely upright. The brakes grabbed, abruptly stopping the car and throwing both of them forward toward the windshield.
“Yeah! Hell yeah!” shouted Jake as the car began to slow below thirty miles an hour. Ashby began spontaneously laughing and clapping her hands.
Then he heard a loud crack from underneath the car. The rear end immediately slid sideways, forcing them down the ash-covered gravel road with Jake on the leading edge of an out-of-control vehicle. He desperately tried to turn the steering wheel, but his efforts caused the car to spin around backwards and then sideways again, so Ashby had the downhill view.
She shrieked as the car began to hop on its wheels, nearly bouncing Dusty out of the stretcher. The Subaru was out of control, sliding and hopping sideways down the road toward the first curve and the creek bed a hundred feet below it.
“Jake! We’re going to slide off the edge into the creek.”
“I’m trying!” Jake was pulling the steering wheel to attempt any maneuver to slow the car down. His foot stayed on the brake and he pulled the parking brake lever continuously, hoping for a different result.
Then the left side tires exploded, causing them both to scream. The continuous impact of the side wall tires against the rocky surface had caused the tires’ sidewalls to rupture. They simultaneously separated from the rim, dropping the vehicle lower on one side. The rubber tires pounded against the wheel wells and the rims dug into the ash and gravel.
Like a downhill skier uses the sharp edges of his skis to slide to a stop, the effect of the wheels fighting against the slope did the same. After a hundred feet of this hopping, sliding combination, their joyride came to an end.
Ashby jumped out of the car, stirring up a cloud of ash with each step, and began to rant. “I’m done. Give me a horse, a bicycle. I’ll take a tricycle.”
Jake exited the car and joined her. He trudged through the ash and joined her as they stared at the wrecked Subaru. “I’ve always preferred walking anyway.”
Ashby agreed. “Walking. Walking is good.”
PART THREE
Challis, Idaho
Chapter 28
Challis, Idaho
The use of the stalled car as transportation seemed like a good idea in theory. It certainly advanced their trip by several miles and cut off a significant amount of time from their journey. But the emotional drain on Jake and Ashby, considering what they’d been through, had exhausted them.
As it turned out, the remainder of their walk, following the S curves that almost took their lives, was a fairly gentle straight slope into a valley. Had they been able to maintain control, they most likely could’ve coasted into Challis.
As Jake and Ashby entered the wide valley and caught their first glimpse of the town ahead of them, the lost opportunity to ride into town and the near-death experience were replaced with a sense of euphoria. They began to laugh, and their pace quickened as they sloshed through the thicker layer of ash that had accumulated at the lower elevations.
“Just another couple of miles to go!” said Jake as he began to pull the stretcher behind him. Then his voice rose a few octaves. “Oh yeah. Asphalt!”
They no longer had to be concerned with their footing. Since they’d left the campsite and found the gravel road, they had been walking on an unknown, unseen gravel surface full of ruts and jagged stones protruding through the flat surface. Rain runoff and lack of maintenance had taken its toll, making each step precarious. Neither one of them needed a sprained ankle to contend with. Now it was smooth sailing.
The two-lane road was flanked on both sides by ridges rising out of the valley. Farmland bordered the road, and a smattering of houses could be seen in the distance. The road they’d been traveling turned into Main Street, and the indicators of a small rural community appeared before them.
Modest homes surrounded local businesses, like a bakery, a pizza restaurant, and a liquor store. Several blocks in, they passed the city hall and the Custer County Courthouse.
Challis was an isolated community on the eastern edge of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. It had been founded in the late eighteen hundreds as a supply depot for the growing number of sheep ranches and mines in the region. When Custer County was formed in 1881, the famed Wells Fargo bank and their pony express established a branch office.
Sheepherding became an important part of the local economy by the end of World War I, so much so that the sheep population rose to two-point-six million, six times more than people. A commemorative sign was erected near the courthouse describing the sheep and cattle wars at the turn of the twentieth century. Sheepherders and cattle ranchers had engaged in a series of armed conflicts over land and grazing rights. Cattlemen complained that the sheepherders were invading the public grazing lands. During the fighting, which occurred in Wyoming and Colorado as well, nearly a hundred men were killed, and fifty thousand to one hundred thousand sheep were slaughtered.
As they walked down the middle of main street, Jake felt the eyes of the cattlemen gazing upon them. There were no signs of life anywhere. The electricity was working, based upon the flickering neon sign in the window of a bar. But there were no vehicles moving, and people were apparently hiding indoors.
“Jake, where is everybody? Do you think they all evacuated?”
“That would be a first,” he replied. “I’ve never seen an evacuation in which everybody heeds the warning. No, they’re here, but inside. Waiting.”
“Waiting for it to be over?” said Ashby with a chuckle. “This is just the beginning. Do you see all the ash piled up on these rooftops? The first time it rains, it will turn to rock and collapse every roof in this town, especially the flat roofs of these commercial buildings.”
“Up ahead is the end of Main Street. We turn left on Highway 93.”
“How much farther?” Ashby asked. “My arms are turning to rubber again.”
“Half a mile.”
Ashby let out a sigh. Now that the excitement had worn off, she was ready to get to the clinic and collapse in a chair.
They cut through the parking lot of a mini-market, which, remarkably, was open for business. Jake promised to return for food and drinks. They made their way through an alley behind a local motel, and then the clinic came into view.
The single-story, nondescript building was set off the road. A farm tractor with a curved blade, which was probably commissioned as a snowplow in the winter, was in the process of pushing ash into piles on the rocky soil adjacent to the building. The driver was wearing a red and white bandanna tied around his face for protection, which was not enough.
Underneath the overhang of the building, a couple stood huddled together, sharing a cigarette. Their faces were withdrawn and showed little expression. As Jake approached the glass doors of the clinic, they held them open, but otherwise didn’t speak.
They appeared defeated.
Chapter 29
Challis, Idaho
As soon as Jake and Ashby entered the small clinic, two nurses huddled behind the reception desk raised their heads and scurried around to address Dusty’s injuries.
“My name is Amy Walters and I’m the head nurse. What do we have here?”
Ashby replied, “His name is Dusty Holder and he’s one of my students. We were in a helicopter crash and he’s badly injured. He’s been in a coma for three days and has several broken bones. Please help him.”
A doctor emerged from an examination room. “Amy, let’s bring him into a room!”
The small crowd in the waiting area stood to get a better look at Dusty. Then they suddenly stopped and clustered together. A deep voice addressed them from the back of the room.
An Idaho state trooper pushed through the group. “Come on, folks, let’s give them some room and fresh air to breathe. Please, back to your seats.”
Then he froze and subtly slid his hand on top of his service weapon. As he did, the people in the waiting room
slipped behind him and began to retreat toward the far end of the open space.
Jake smiled and nodded to the trooper as they exited the reception area. They carried Dusty to the end of the hallway, where a tall, lanky man with a jet-black goatee smiled and greeted them.
“This way, please. I’m Dr. Allen Peterkin. And you are?”
The nurses rolled a stainless-steel table next to the bed and motioned for them to place Dusty’s stretcher on top. Jake responded as they did. “I’m Jake Wheeler and this is Dr. Ashby Donovan.”
Ashby pointed to the USGS logo on her chest. “Scientist, not medical. Thank you for helping us.”
“We’ll do what we can,” said Dr. Peterkin. “We are a small community clinic, and we’re not equipped to handle major trauma cases. Under normal conditions, we stabilize patients and then wait for Life Flight to transport them to Idaho Falls. Obviously, that’s not happening now, especially in light of what happened to Idaho Falls.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by his nurses.
“Doctor, we’re ready.”
Dr. Peterkin took over. “Okay, folks, please step aside while we move your friend from the stretcher onto the gurney. Every bed in this facility is designed for portability. Typical hospital beds and days of rehab following treatment aren’t a part of our normal operations.”
Ashby and Jake stood to the side as the three medical personnel carefully lifted Dusty up, expertly slid the stainless-steel table out of the way, and gently placed him on the gurney.
Jake and Ashby were unsure of what to do, so they began to back out of the room when the doctor stopped them.
“Please wait. I have several questions.” He then turned his attention to the nurses. “Let’s get him out of these clothes and get some fluids into his body.”
“Yes, sir. Normal saline, or do you want the dextrose cocktail?”