water line, and not a crumb more. So all through the state you had these roads towering above the surrounding land with ditches so deep, you could drown in them during the spring. Driving on them in winter was like an Olympic automobile balance-beam competition. One tire one inch too far one way or the other, and you were toast.
He’d known it the minute he’d felt the car skid and go airborne. If there hadn’t been two feet offresh snow waiting at the bottom, he would have busted an axle when it finally smacked down. No way he was going to get it out, but still he tried, rocking back and forth as long as the tires grabbed snow, digging himself in another few inches when they spun, until the friction of the tires finally froze the snow around them into ice and they locked up tight. Worse yet, he’d dug himself in so far that the snow had packed around the doors and there was no way he could push them open.
Goddamned snow coffin, is what it was. Ol’ Cameron Weinbeck just dug himself in so deep, the snow packed the doors shut and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to get out. ’Course he was pretty well pickled like always, so maybe it wasn’t so bad, sitting there waitin’ for his eyelids to freeze open and his fingers break and fall off. Probably had himself a high old time until he emptied the last bottle, then I suspect things went downhill from there .
It wasn’t your standard run-of-the-mill eulogy, but it was the story he’d heard most, standing around his dad’s coffin as an eight-year-old. And here he was, twenty-four years later, about to relive a family legacy.
He’d almost wet his pants right then, until he remembered to roll down the window and squeeze out that way.
It had been snowing hard by the time he crawled out of the car and got to the top of the ditch, andthe temperature was dropping way too fast for his thin coat and tennis shoes. He looked around at the snowy woods, empty land, and deserted road and thought, Middle of nowhere, which was an overused phrase in this state until you realized it was the place you got to whenever you turned a corner this far north of the Cities.
The newscasters started hammering viewers over the head with the winter driving rules sometime in mid-November. You had to have a kit in the trunk: candles, matches, canned soup, blankets, and a bunch of other stuff that was supposed to save your life if you were ever stupid enough to do what he and his father and scores of other Minnesotans did every winter. Trouble was, people who were stupid enough to get stuck in a ditch in the middle of a snowstorm were apparently too stupid to carry a kit, because there sure as hell wasn’t one in this car. Damn hatchback didn’t even have a trunk.
So on to the second rule, and this was the big one: Stay with the car. Someone will find you. He looked around and thought that was pretty unlikely. Besides, being found wasn’t exactly first on his list. He knew then that he’d have to walk out, he’d have to find himself another car, and then he’d have to get out of this damn state, and, by God, he was never coming back.
But first he had one last piece of business to takecare of, and he hadn’t for one second considered leaving it undone. He’d spent the last three years stewing in a cell, thinking about it, waiting for the day, and now the day was here.
So he’d cleared the snow away from the exhaust pipe, then crawled back into the car to warm up a little before his trek; see if he couldn’t dry out his shoes a little. He’d turned the heater on high, leaving the window open a crack so he wouldn’t gas himself to death.
A good move, he thought, because the heat had put him right to sleep for a solid two hours – it was three a.m. already – and chances were, the new snow had blocked the exhaust a while back.
He shut off the car and climbed out the window for the second and last time, and started walking. He didn’t know where the hell he was, but he knew
He’d known it the minute he’d felt the car skid and go airborne. If there hadn’t been two feet offresh snow waiting at the bottom, he would have busted an axle when it finally smacked down. No way he was going to get it out, but still he tried, rocking back and forth as long as the tires grabbed snow, digging himself in another few inches when they spun, until the friction of the tires finally froze the snow around them into ice and they locked up tight. Worse yet, he’d dug himself in so far that the snow had packed around the doors and there was no way he could push them open.
Goddamned snow coffin, is what it was. Ol’ Cameron Weinbeck just dug himself in so deep, the snow packed the doors shut and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to get out. ’Course he was pretty well pickled like always, so maybe it wasn’t so bad, sitting there waitin’ for his eyelids to freeze open and his fingers break and fall off. Probably had himself a high old time until he emptied the last bottle, then I suspect things went downhill from there .
It wasn’t your standard run-of-the-mill eulogy, but it was the story he’d heard most, standing around his dad’s coffin as an eight-year-old. And here he was, twenty-four years later, about to relive a family legacy.
He’d almost wet his pants right then, until he remembered to roll down the window and squeeze out that way.
It had been snowing hard by the time he crawled out of the car and got to the top of the ditch, andthe temperature was dropping way too fast for his thin coat and tennis shoes. He looked around at the snowy woods, empty land, and deserted road and thought, Middle of nowhere, which was an overused phrase in this state until you realized it was the place you got to whenever you turned a corner this far north of the Cities.
The newscasters started hammering viewers over the head with the winter driving rules sometime in mid-November. You had to have a kit in the trunk: candles, matches, canned soup, blankets, and a bunch of other stuff that was supposed to save your life if you were ever stupid enough to do what he and his father and scores of other Minnesotans did every winter. Trouble was, people who were stupid enough to get stuck in a ditch in the middle of a snowstorm were apparently too stupid to carry a kit, because there sure as hell wasn’t one in this car. Damn hatchback didn’t even have a trunk.
So on to the second rule, and this was the big one: Stay with the car. Someone will find you. He looked around and thought that was pretty unlikely. Besides, being found wasn’t exactly first on his list. He knew then that he’d have to walk out, he’d have to find himself another car, and then he’d have to get out of this damn state, and, by God, he was never coming back.
But first he had one last piece of business to takecare of, and he hadn’t for one second considered leaving it undone. He’d spent the last three years stewing in a cell, thinking about it, waiting for the day, and now the day was here.
So he’d cleared the snow away from the exhaust pipe, then crawled back into the car to warm up a little before his trek; see if he couldn’t dry out his shoes a little. He’d turned the heater on high, leaving the window open a crack so he wouldn’t gas himself to death.
A good move, he thought, because the heat had put him right to sleep for a solid two hours – it was three a.m. already – and chances were, the new snow had blocked the exhaust a while back.
He shut off the car and climbed out the window for the second and last time, and started walking. He didn’t know where the hell he was, but he knew
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