When we last left Tex and Fed, they’d packed up the car, ready to head back to civilization, only to find that…
Part One:
Sunday Morning- You Shall Not Pass
The snow about the car wasn’t much higher than it had been the afternoon before, but the rain had deprived it of its crunchy, tire propelling properties, and replaced them with something altogether slushier. Fed tried to pull the car forward, but the snow began accumulating underneath the chassis, causing the wheels to spin wildly, but getting us nowhere. Reverse also failed, for much the same reason. I looked around the treeline surrounding us, imagining the echoes of laughter as the murdertrees realized their final revenge. Fed shut off the car, stepped back outside, and walked around to open the trunk. He pulled out the folding shovel, and handed it to me. “Time to dig,” he said.
We took turns scraping out slush from beneath the poor Subaru, trying to make a track on which the vehicle could run. Every so often, Fed would jump back inside and give it a go, hoping that we’d cleared enough to escape. We moved our attack from under the car to a space diagonally behind, clearing a spot for the car to back into. My strength was soon failing, as years of neglect and yesterday’s exercise conspired against me. But we got a zone cleared, and the time now had come for all or for nothing. I stood a few yards away as a measure of protection, in case Fed lost control, and I needed to jump out of the way. It took a few tries, but he righted the car, and though stopped once again, it was pointed the right way.
Fed grabbed his snowshoes and walked down the road, compacting a track that he might hope to navigate. I spent my time digging out under the car, near the wheels for a start, and then clearing as much as I could underneath. I managed the driver’s side as best as I could, but the passenger side soon grew beyond me. When I’d done all I could, I sat down down inside, thawing a drink of snow in my mouth. I saw Fed appear a little while later, still looking healthy, but touched by exhaustion. He cleared out a little more snow from beneath, and decided to give our escape one more shot. For the best chance of success, I would be staying outside, as we hoped lightening the load would make for easier going. From inside the car, he relayed to me, “If I can get some momentum, I’m just going to keep going. You’ll just have to catch up a bit further down.” I nodded and trudged to a safe rooting distance, just in case he began spinning toward me.
The tracks in the snow seemed to have been the answer, and he got the car moving along the path he’d stamped out. I watched my salvation pull slowly away from me before moving forward and giving pursuit. It looks like he’s got it, I thought to myself as I watched Fed and the Subaru gradually increase the distance between us. I did what I could to pick up my pace, as I couldn’t be sure when he might need to stop, and couldn’t chance having to walk back to the town. I crashed through the snow, doing my best to keep jogging, but could only sustain that pace for a minute. As my lungs began staging a walk-out protest, I saw the car slow and then stop in the road still a third of the way from the larger Forest Road. My breaths came in ragged, and my legs were aflame, but I increased my pace to catch up to my friend.
“It’s not going any further,” Fed told me as I arrived at the car, gasping for breath. “I’m going to gear up and walk into town to get us a tow truck.”
“You up for that?” I asked, hoping that he wouldn’t hear the subtext that if I went, one of us might die.
“Yeah, I just need to warm up for awhile before heading out. How much battery do you have left on your phone?”
“It’s down to about fifty percent,” I said, glancing down at his iPhone, uncharged, and now useless. “I forgot to disable the alarm last night, so it was going for a couple of hours before I could shut it off.”
“That should be fine.” He took my phone from me. “I don’t use Android, so you better show me how to make a call on it.”
I gave him a brief tutorial while he was warming up, and he explained after how to start up the car, should the temperature drop. “Try not to run it too much, obviously. But if it’s a choice between that or freezing to death, go ahead and crank the heat.” He looked at me, as if calculating my ability to survive on my own for unknown quantity of time. “You going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I explained, holding up my (signed) Kindle, “I’ve got-”
“Hey, is it supposed to look like that?”
“Like what?” I turned the Kindle to face me, and saw that the bottom third of the screen was stuck showing the offer that had been there the day before, while the top displayed the last book that I’d been reading. I breathed out a small tirade of dissatisfaction, and fiddled futilely with the now broken device. I tossed it back into my backpack, and in it place retrieved an iPod Classic. “Well,” I said, “at least I’ve got this.”
Too soon he was ready, and it was time to depart. We wished one another luck, and he was on his way. I sat back into my seat, enjoying the warmth of the leftover tropic explosion that had been preparing my brother for who knew how long of a trek through the slow. I selected some Metal, and popped in the earbuds, figuring he’d only be gone until 4, maybe 5. A couple of hours each way (and then, only if he failed to summon out a tow truck), and one way or another, I’d see him again. I scooped some virgin snow into my water bottle, and put it between layers, hoping it would melt. Without really noticing, I began blinking much slower, and then resting my eyes, and then… I woke with a start in now quite chilly car, and glanced at the time to see how much I’d lost.
Sunday Afternoon- Simply Walking To Mordor
I sat alone in the car, watching the sun begin to set around 3 o’clock, and wondered if Dave would return that night. He’d been gone for four hours already, and all I could imagine were the fates which may have befallen him along the 5.6 miles of snowed-in forest road until he could reach the nearest outpost of civilization. I took another sip out of the bottle in which I’d been melting snow, and glanced back the hundred yards toward the bathroom. I decided that if I was going to dare its usage, I would need to go now, as the light would be all but completely gone in another fifteen minutes. Jacket wrapped tightly about me, and scarf nestled snugly around my neck, I climbed out of the car and trudged along the tracks of our failed escape from Cooper Lake. How did we get into this mess? I mused, eyes darting along the treeline for signs of a lupine presence. It seemed like such a good idea on Friday…
To Be Concluded…
What befell our two brave heroes? Did Fed return with cavalry, or was Tex eaten by the imaginary wolves living within his imagination? Come back tomorrow for the those answers and more, as we conclude this epic six-part adventure in Tex and Fed’s Escape from Murdertree Mountain Part Two!
-Tex