An arctic blizzard
barreled down from the Rockies onto southeastern Colorado like an
avalanche. It was after dark when Lyle Felton was making the drive
home from the AA meeting over in Pueblo, where that night he had been one of
only two who had shown up, the other being his sponsor, Rick, who had ventured
out into the weather as a personal favor. As Lyle drove, he could
barely contain his excitement at the thought of making it back to Rocky Ford to
see Maricruz for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. Lyle
had been in Pueblo on the night the blizzard hit because it was there, at one
of the Methodist churches, that the only Saturday AA meeting in three counties
was held, and it was that meeting that would open the door for him to walk back
into Maricruz’s life.
Lyle strained his eyes to
make out the county road in front of him. Normally he would have taken
the highway, but the highway patrol had shut it down while he met with Rick in
the church basement. Rick had offered Lyle his couch for the night, begging
him to wait out the storm, but nothing could keep Lyle from Rocky Ford on that
night. He would have driven through the plagues of Egypt, dodging swarms
of flies and wiping away the frogs as they hit the windshield of his old pickup
truck, all to hold Maricruz for the first time in ninety days. He’d survived to the age of
thirty-five, much longer than most gambling folks would have put money on, so
he could survive one more night.
Although he still must have
been a good ten miles away or so, in his mind he could see the
little downtown apartment where Maricruz lived above her family’s
restaurant, Los Tres Hermanos. It
is to that apartment that Lyle was headed, rather than to his own lonely
singlewide out on a southeastern section of the 5,000 acre Crazy Snake Ranch
where Lyle lived and worked. They
would hole up together at her place, waiting out the blizzard, doing their best
to be quiet as Maricruz’s eight-year-old son, Abenicio, slept in the next
room. Lyle was working out the details and what he would say at
their moment of reunion when his old 1980 Chevy Silverado hit the patch of
black ice, sliding the truck to where it was perpendicular with the county road
but still moving at the same speed.
His stomach rose and dropped
with the feeling of weightlessness as he yelled curses that only he could
hear. The truck picked up even more speed in its spin, and he used
all of the strength in his arms to turn the steering wheel into it, but it was
no use. Instinctively, Lyle closed his eyes tightly as his pickup
careened off the opposite shoulder, descending into the bar ditch, then back up
and out on the pasture side, becoming airborne for a moment as it destroyed a
wooden fencepost and a section of barbed wire. The truck landed
briefly on the passenger side tires which sent it into a series of rolls, each
bouncing Lyle’s head against the driver’s side window again and again, testing
the strength of his buckled seatbelt and causing him to swallow most of the
Copenhagen juice in his mouth. It seemed like minutes or hours even,
but the whole thing could have only lasted a few seconds before the decade-old
truck finally came to rest right side up.
When Lyle opened his eyes, after having them closed for how long he wasn’t sure, he found that he was hunched over, still buckled, with his head resting on the steering wheel. Slowly, he lifted his head, which seemed heavier than usual, and attempted to look through the windshield, but saw only an opaque sheet of ice on the other side of the glass. The engine was still running. Fast food napkins, foam coffee cups, work gloves, pop cans, and a pile of old used car circulars, as well as several things that had been long lost beneath the truck’s bench seat, were scattered throughout the cab. He checked the time on his watch. He’d been out for nearly half an hour. It took him a moment to realize that George Strait was singing “Oceanfront Property” through all the stereo speakers, most of which hadn’t worked in years but must have been jolted back to life in the crash.
Lyle shut off the engine, but
kept the key turned to where the dome light would stay on. He snapped his coat
shut and then forced his frozen door open.
He stepped his worn boots out onto the snow, taking a few steps outside
the truck cab, trying to take in his surroundings. It was obvious that his truck’s front axle
was broken. The front undercarriage of
the truck rested directly on the snow covered pasture, a snowdrift already
having formed covering up the headlights and grill. He muttered curses to himself. In the background, Lyle could barely hear the
music from the cab, sounding as though it was coming from some distant place,
some place on the other side of the vicious wind. The frozen air and the
snow pounded his already weather-worn face, making it difficult to keep his
eyes open for more than just a second at a time. He realized almost instantly,
though, that it didn't matter how long his eyes could have remained open; he
would have seen the same thing in every direction: nothing. Nothing, that is, but snow and darkness.
