by Jerry Dawson
The rear end of the Lexus skidded a foot or two to the right, and I clipped his back bumper ever so lightly. But it was enough to spin him the opposite direction, and once his momentum got him off the access strip, it was all over.
The Lexus did a somersault, rolling first onto its right side, then twisting around until it was rolling end-over-end down the slope.
Carl was whooping and hollering like I’d never heard him before. “Man, it’s still going, and it’s picking up speed. It’s also picking up a lot of snow. This wet stuff is packing great on that two-ton car!”
“Is anybody in front of it?” I couldn’t see it any longer myself, because I was concentrating on not hitting any skiers ahead of me. They did a great job of steering around me as I held a constant speed on the ledge across the center of the hillside.
“Kinda, but they’re all going the same speed as the car, and the car is rolling off to the right. Man, that orange fence didn’t stand a chance!”
The car was still gathering more snow as we went around the bend and the Lexus rolled out of Carl’s sight.
__________
I put my hands over my head, waiting for the inevitable crunch of a skier crashing down on top of me.
But it didn’t happen. I stayed in place for probably a full minute until a woman skied over to me and asked me if I was alright.
“I’m not sure. All I know is I was on Rabbit’s Hat, and somebody pushed me into the woods. Everything’s a blur after that.”
“Well, you’re on Harakiri now. This is a black diamond run.”
Another skier showed up, and then another after him. “Is she okay?”
“I think so,” my first rescuer said. “She’s coherent.”
“Can you stand up?” one of them asked.
“I may need some help.”
He took hold of my right elbow, and my first rescuer moved to my other side to take my left. I stood and slipped at first, but they had me and I got settled.
“How do you feel?”
“Surprisingly good.”
“Can you see okay?”
“I can see you.”
“Look at something farther away.”
I looked ahead and down the slope a little and nothing made sense. “Oh my god. I can see a car driving across the middle of the ski slope!”
They turned to where I was looking, and all spoke at once. “Whoa.” “What the ….” “Your vision is just fine, but I don’t know about that guy’s.”
__________
We crossed what I thought was the last slope, and something to the left caught my eye. “Hey, there’s that girl again! The one with the red striped coat.”
“It looks like she’s okay.”
“At least she has some people looking after her. Now, how are we going to get down off this mountain?”
“There’s one more run just ahead, and it’s closed today, and it’s not that steep. That’s probably going to be your best bet.
We were there by the time he said all that.
“Turn right and don’t roll it like those other idiots did.”
I turned my steering wheel to the right and immediately straightened it back out. We were going straight down the slope and speeding up a lot.
I pumped the brakes the whole way down, not wanting to risk going into a skid, but I quickly got up to forty miles an hour. “I’m not gonna be able to stop at the bottom of this!”
“Watch out for those workers!”
I tried a very gradual steer to the left to avoid some people who seemed to be working on the lift.
“Over there,” Carl said, pointing to the left. “There’s an opening in the trees.”
I aimed for it and found what at first glance appeared to be another access road. I turned sharper left when we hit it, and my car went into a skid as gravity tried to pull my car in the same direction we had been going down the hill.
I hit the gas and spun the wheel back to the right and partially recovered. I was about to dump us over a drop-off into some trees, but I kept fighting it. I had two wheels solidly on the road, and my right front was spinning for dear life trying to hang on to the edge.
We continued sideways like that for about fifty yards until the front tire finally bit into something and pulled us back onto the road. I fishtailed one time getting straightened back out and laid on the horn again when I saw two cross-country skiers coming right at me.
My brake started to put me into another skid so I lifted my foot, and I let go of the horn so I could keep both hands on the steering wheel.
I steered to the right, and fortunately, both skiers jumped to their right. I missed them—barely—but my right wheels went over the edge again.
The undercarriage dragged through the snow, which slowed me down a little. I cut the wheel to the left and abruptly regained the road, going all the way across it and bouncing off the opposite bank while I cut the wheel back right. I could hear underbrush scraping against the side of my car, but eventually I got centered in the road again.
“Jeez, is this a road or a ski trail?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but there’s a road sign up ahead.”
When we got to it, I read Black Dog, and made a hard right. “This is the same road that goes past the parking lot.”
“Oh, no,” Carl said, “Is this going to be one of those Groundhog Day things where we keep living the same thing over and over? Cause if it is, just shoot me now. I don’t think my heart can handle another lap.”
“No, we’re good, now. Push that GPS back over here.” Its rubber beanbag mount usually held it in place pretty well, but I guess the designers hadn’t anticipated driving down a ski slope with it.
Carl pushed it back to the center of the dash and said, “Where are you going?”
“Back to the ski rental place.” I turned on the GPS and drove past an oncoming police car while it booted up, then hit the buttons for Saved Places and Ski Rental.
It’s soft female voice said, “Turn left onto Whole Lotta Love.”
__________
Oh, I am so glad it’s Sunday and I don’t have to go in to the office today. When I took a shower last night, I was black and blue from head to toe, and this morning I could barely get out of bed I was so stiff.
I thought about what I could write in my story for the paper. Here’s where to go, here’s where to rent your skis. Oh, and watch out for vehicle traffic on the slopes!
When I got to the bottom of the black diamond run yesterday with the help of my new-found friends, everybody was talking about the car that rolled down the mountain. I thought they were talking about the one I saw driving, until I met back up with Ashley and we went out to the parking lot.
There were two police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance, and a giant snowball with an upside-down car door open on the side of it. The firemen were helping the occupants out of the snowball, and I recognized one of their coats. It was the teenagers. I have no idea what happened there, but whatever it was, I couldn’t be happier.
__________
I took a long, hot shower in the morning to loosen up and came out to a ringing cell phone.
“Dude, you’re famous,” Carl said. “Somebody posted a video of your car going down the ski slope and into the woods. It was shot from overhead somehow.”
“Must have been somebody on a lift. Can you recognize my car?”
“Of course I can. How many other cars did you see driving on the slope that day?”
“No, idiot! I mean can anybody else recognize it as my car.”
“Nah. It’s just a snow-covered car. You can’t even tell what color it is. I tried blowing it up and it just gets more distorted.”
“Good. I’m still glad I ran it through that car wash on the way home, though.”
“Yeah, you’re clean all around.”
“I wish I knew what happened to that girl in the red striped coat.”
“I found a picture of her online, too. You want me to try to hunt her down for you
? I might be able to figure out who she is.”
“No, thanks. I have a feeling if I ever ran into her again, it would lead to nothing but trouble.”
I hope you liked Hero’s Mountain. If you’d like to see how Sam and Patty finally do get together, you can read all about it, along with their further misadventures, in Sam ’n’ Patty’s 1st Adventure, Hidden Gems. This is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074KN41KF
. A preview starts on the next page.
Members of my reader group (that’s you) can get this book for free by going to amazon.com on the 1st day of the next two months. All of my books are also on Kindle Unlimited.
Sam ’n’ Patty’s 1st Adventure
Hidden Gems
Jerry Dawson
Chapter 1
I walked into the Soda Shop on Main Street. I was tired, I was hungry, and every table was taken. Even the booths. I dodged schoolkids newly released on summer break to place my order at the counter; then I scanned the small room one more time for an empty table.
What I found instead was even better, and my energy level climbed immediately. A very cute blonde had a booth to herself toward the far end. She looked about my age—twenty-three or so. Davidson, North Carolina is a small town, and the crowded Soda Shop is a staple. People are used to sharing booths, right? Sounded good to me.
“Hi. Mind if I join you?”
“No, not at all,” she reflexively answered, scooping her newspaper off the table and tenting it over her purse beside her.
I unslung my camera bag and pushed it into the seat ahead of me. “Thanks. I thought if I waited till I finished my work I’d miss the lunch crowd. So much for that plan.”
“What kind of work do you do?” she asked, with a pretty strong drawl that I missed the first time she spoke.
“I’m a photographer. I was shooting the new store down the street.”
“Wow, that sounds exciting.”
“Exciting?” I laughed. “What do you do?”
“I’m a writer for the Mecklenburg Weekly.”
“Well that sounds about exactly as exciting as what I do.”
She gave me a tiny token laugh and took a sip of her water.
A middle-aged lady suddenly appeared and laid a plate down in front of her. The lady looked at me and said, “I’ll bring yours right out, hon.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” I said to my tablemate, “you don’t seem to be very happy. Are you okay?”
She picked up her plastic fork and poked at her potato salad. “I don’t know. This just didn’t turn out like I expected.”
“The potato salad? Are you a vinegar girl instead of mayonnaise?”
That got a little smile out of her. “No.” She took a bite of her potato salad and assessed it. “This is actually pretty good. It’s the best thing I’ve had all day. I’m doing an article on all the restaurants in Davidson. There have been five new ones open up in just the last few months.”
“So what’s the problem? Aren’t they any good?”
“It’s not the restaurants; it’s the job.”
The server appeared again with my food. “If you need anything else, just let me know.” Then she snapped her fingers and disappeared.
Okay, not really, but it sure seemed that way.
I pushed my sandwich to the side and leaned forward. “What’s the matter?” I asked the girl.
She swallowed her bite and said, “I thought I could get a good job with a journalism degree. I’d travel to exotic locations and meet fascinating people. Instead, I’m covering every road closing and fifth grade graduation, and barely making enough to pay my rent.” She paused. “I didn’t think it would be so hard.” She somehow made an extra syllable out of “hard.” I’ve tried to talk southern, but I can’t do it. I must not have the gene.
“So is the job too hard, or is it the money?”
“It’s the money. The Weekly barely pays anything, but at least it is a steady paycheck so I have to keep it. I do some freelance work, too, but that’s hard to get. I pitch magazines a lot, and sometimes I get an article, but they don’t pay but a hundred dollars or so. It’s really tough to make a living doing this.”
“I know what you mean.” I picked up my sandwich and took a big bite before continuing. Rude, maybe, but I was hungry. “It’s a lot the same for me. I don’t have any steady paycheck. I have to hustle for every check I get.”
“How do you do it?”
“Well, I have a website, and I’m always doing little things to it to keep it fresh. I put new content on it several times a week so it will come up high in searches.”
“I don’t have that. All I have is Facebook.”
“You need to get a real website. I’ll bet everyone you pitch to looks for you online. But it takes more than just a website. You need to put yourself out there as much as you can. I make my rounds with all the local bridal shops and try to find all the wedding planners so they can recommend me. I visit the marketing agencies to offer my services through them. Pretty much everything they advertise needs pictures.
She frowned. “I guess I need to figure out how to do that.”
“Here,” I said. “I have what you need.” I pulled my camera bag onto my lap. This is a backpack that I carry all my cameras and lenses in. Most of the stuff is separated by a padded grid inside the main compartment, but there are some outside pockets on it, too. I unzipped one of the outer pockets and pulled out a short stack of tapered cups and a red foam ball.
“Three cups, one ball,” I said as I arranged them in front of me on the table. “I’ll place the ball under this cup.” I mixed the cups around a little slowly and revealed the ball again. “Keep your eye on the cup with the ball,” I said as I mixed them some more, just a little faster. “Which cup has the ball?”
“The middle one.”
I lifted the cup to show that she was right, and she smiled.
“Keep watching,” I said as I mixed them quicker this time.
“Hey! You crossed them. I mean—”
“Which one?” I asked with a smile.
She reached across and touched the cup on my right. I lifted it to reveal nothing underneath. I then lifted the center cup to reveal the ball. “That’s okay,” I said. “Let’s go for two out of three,” and I mixed them up again.
“This one,” she said, tapping the cup on my left with real interest now.
“You sure?” I teased.
“Definitely.”
“Well, first let’s check this one.” I lifted the cup on my right to show it was empty.
“So far, so good,” I said. “Let’s try this one.” I lifted the center cup. Empty, also.
“Ha!” she said, reaching for the third cup. “Two out of three.” She lifted the cup and three red balls rolled out, one of them falling onto the floor at our feet.
She jumped back and let out a squeal. “How’d you do that?” she demanded.
“A true magician never reveals his secrets,” I replied with my best mock smugness.
The magic server lady appeared again, this time standing up from below the end of the table and handing me my stray ball. If I ever needed a magician’s assistant, she was the one. “That was really good,” she said, and she vanished again.
“Are you a true magician?” my companion asked, playfully now.
“Strictly amateur, but I’m working on it!”
She giggled a little, reaching back for her food.
“My name’s Sam. What’s yours?”
“Patty.”
We continued talking while she finished her meal and I drank my Coke. Patty had to get back to her restaurant article, and I had to go through my photos from this morning, so we paid our bills at the counter and walked outside.
But not before I got her number.
__________
“Hey, Mom, it’s Patty,” I said through my phone. “My car wouldn’t start last week and the dealer told me I needed a new battery but it was two hundred dollars a
nd I didn’t have the money so they charged it up and I thought it would last a while—”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Patty Cake.” Mom said. “You always get so excited. Now take a breath and tell me slower what happened.”
“I had to go to Davidson two days ago, and when I was ready to come home, my car wouldn’t start. There was this really nice guy I met at lunch who bought me a new battery, and—”
“He bought you a new battery?”
“Well, I paid for it, but he drove me to Walmart and picked it out. Then he installed it for me.”
“What’s his name?”
“What? Mom! Sam. His name is Sam.”
“What’s his last name?”
“Mom, you can’t keep pairing my name up with the last name of every guy I meet.”
“Why not? A mother can dream, can’t she? Somebody has to be thinking about these things. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
I didn’t reply. We have this same conversation all the time.
“So, what’s his last name?”
“I don’t know,” I replied in frustration. “I was worried about my car and how I was going to pay for it and everything. Anyway, this morning it wouldn’t start again. A guy from the dealer came over and jumped it and followed me in. That’s where I am now.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mom, stop that! Besides, this guy reeked of cigarettes.”
“Oh, don’t marry a man that smokes.”
“I’m not marrying anybody!”