“Daddy?” Grace’s voice was thin with panic.
“It’s okay, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“What’re we gonna do?” Grace wailed.
“We’re gonna call for help, that’s what. Get a tow truck to pull us out, and we’ll be on our way.” Doug reached for his cell phone. “We may miss lunch, but what the heck, it’s all an adventure. You’ll have something to talk about when you get back to school.” He paused, frowning at his phone. “Is anyone getting a signal?”
“You mean you’re not?” said Elaine.
“Could you all just check?”
Maura pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ve got no bars.”
“No signal here, either,” said Elaine.
Arlo added: “Ditto.”
“Grace?” Doug twisted around to look at his daughter.
She shook her head and whimpered: “Are we stuck here?”
“Let’s all just relax. We can work this out.” Doug took a deep breath. “If we can’t call for help, we’ll have to get ourselves out of this. We’ll push the sucker back onto the road.” Doug shifted into neutral. “Okay, everyone out. We can do it.”
Maura’s door was jammed tight against the snow, and she could not exit from her side. She crawled over the gearshift, into the driver’s seat, and Doug helped her climb out through his door. She landed in calf-deep snow. Only then, standing beside the tipped vehicle, did she grasp the scope of their predicament. The Suburban had tumbled off the shoulder into a deep ditch. The wheels on the right were buried up to the chassis. The wheels on the left weren’t even touching pavement. There is no way we’ll push this monster out.
“We can do this,” said Doug with a burst of enthusiasm. “Come on, folks. Let’s work together.”
“And do what, exactly?” said Arlo. “You need a tow truck to pull that sucker out of there.”
“Well, I’m willing to give it a try,” said Elaine.
“You’re not the one with the bad back.”
“Stop whining, Arlo. Let’s pitch in.”
“Thank you, Elaine,” said Doug. He reached into his pocket for his gloves. “Grace, you get in the driver’s seat. You’ll need to steer it.”
“I don’t know how to drive!”
“You only have to steer it onto the road, sweetie.”
“Can’t someone else do it?”
“You’re the smallest one here, and the rest of us need to push. Come on, I’ll help you climb up.”
Grace looked terrified, but she clambered up into the driver’s seat.
“Good girl,” said Doug. He waded down into the ditch, landing hip-deep in snow, and planted his gloved hands against the rear of the vehicle. “Well?” he asked, looking up at the other adults.
Elaine was the first to scramble into the ditch beside him. Maura followed next, and snow seeped up her pant legs and into her boots. Her gloves were still somewhere in the car, so she placed bare hands against steel so icy that it seemed to burn her skin.
“I’m gonna throw my back out,” said Arlo.
“You have a choice,” said Elaine. “It’s that or freeze to death. Will you get down here?”
Arlo took his time pulling on gloves and a wool cap. Laboriously he wound a scarf around his neck. Only then, fully garbed against the cold, did he wade down into the ditch.
“Okay, all together,” said Doug. “Push!”
Maura threw her weight against the Suburban, and her boots slid backward in the snow. She could hear Arlo grunting beside her, could feel the vehicle begin to rock forward.
“Steer, Gracie!” yelled Doug. “Turn left!”
The front end of the Suburban began to inch upward, toward the road. They kept pushing, Maura straining so hard now that her arms were trembling and her hamstrings ached. She closed her eyes, her breath locked in her throat, every ounce of effort focused on moving three tons of steel. She felt her heels slide. Suddenly the Suburban was sliding, too, rolling back against them.
“Watch out!” yelled Arlo.
Maura stumbled sideways just as the vehicle rolled backward and toppled onto its side in the ditch.
“Jesus!” yelled Arlo. “We could’ve been crushed!”
“Daddy! Daddy, I’m stuck in the seat belt!”
Doug scrambled up onto the vehicle. “Hold on, honey. I’ll get you out.” He pulled open the door and reached inside to haul out Grace. She dropped, gasping, into the snow.
“Oh man, we are so fucked,” said Arlo.
They all climbed out of the ditch and stood on the road, staring at the Suburban. It was now lying on its side, half buried in the snow.
Arlo gave a laugh tinged with hysteria. “One thing’s for sure. We’re going to miss lunch.”
“Let’s think about this,” said Doug.
“What’s to think about? There’s no way we’ll get that tank out.” Arlo tugged his scarf tighter. “And it’s freezing out here.”
“How much farther is the lodge?” asked Maura.
“According to Lola, it’s another twenty-five miles,” said Doug.
“It’s been almost thirty miles since we left the gas station.”
“Yeah. We’re about smack dab in the middle.”
“Wow,” said Arlo. “We couldn’t have planned it better.”
“Arlo,” said Elaine, “shut up.”
“But the thirty miles we just drove is mostly downhill from here,” said Doug. “That makes it easier.”
Arlo stared at him. “We’re gonna walk thirty miles in a snowstorm?”
“No. You’re going to stay here with the women. You can all climb back in the truck and stay warm. I’ll pull my cross-country skis off the roof and ski out for help.”
“It’s too late,” said Maura.
“I can do it.”
“It’s already noon. You have only a few hours of daylight, and you can’t ski in the dark. You could fall right off the mountain.”
“She’s right,” said Elaine. “You’d need a whole day, maybe two, to make it that far. And the snow’s so deep, it’ll slow you down.”
“I got us into this. I’m going to get us out.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Stay with us, Doug.”
But he was already wading back into the ditch to pull his skis off the roof rack.
“Man, I’ll never say anything bad about meat sticks again,” muttered Arlo. “I should’ve bought a few. At least it’d be protein.”
“You can’t go, Doug,” said Elaine. “Not this late in the day.”
“I’ll stop when it gets dark. Build a snow cave or something.”
“Do you know how to build a snow cave?”
“How hard can it be?”
“You’re going to freeze to death out there.”
“Daddy, don’t.” Grace stumbled down into the ditch and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the skis. “Please.”
Doug looked up at the adults standing in the road, and his voice rose to a shout of frustration. “I’m trying to fix things, okay? Don’t you see that? I’m trying to get us out of here, and you’re not making it any easier for me!”
His outburst startled them and they all fell silent, shivering in the cold. The seriousness of their predicament was starting to sink in. We could die out here.
“Someone’s going to come by, right?” said Elaine, glancing at her companions for reassurance. “I mean, this is a public road, so there’ll be a snowplow or something. We can’t be the only ones driving on it.”
“Have you seen anyone?” said Arlo.
“It’s not that far off the beaten track.”
“Look at the snow. It’s already a foot and a half deep and getting deeper. If they were going to plow it, they would have done it by now.”
“What are you saying?”
“This must be a seasonal road,” said Arlo. “That’s why it isn’t on the map. That damn GPS sent us on the shortest route, all right-straight over a mountain.”
“Eventually someone’s going to come by here.”
“Yeah. In the spring. You remember that story a few years ago, about the family in Oregon who got stuck in the snow? They thought they were on a major road and ended up in the middle of nowhere. No one went looking for them. A week later, the man decides to walk out to save his family. And he freezes to death.”