Not Quite Forever

JoAnne stared out the window. “Find us? You’re not suggesting we just sit here.”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“I’m sure the way back to the main road is just up ahead.”

Dakota blasted the heat a little higher. “That’s what you said a half hour ago. We almost got stuck, which is why I know we made a big circle.” She pointed out the front window. “Our tracks are still here.”

JoAnne glared out the window. “We’ll just call Larry. He’ll come and get us.”

Dakota reached her hand out, palm up.

“What?”

“Your phone?”

“Mine is at home.”

Dakota shivered.

“What?” JoAnne’s word stiffened Dakota’s spine.

“My phone lost its charge hours ago.” She reached over, opened the glove box. The charger inside wasn’t the one her phone used. Freaking perfect.

On the dash, north was behind them, but the information was close to useless. They knew the main road was east of them, but the path east was filled with forest and trees and not a road.

Dakota tried to calm her kicking baby, and tried even harder to ignore her bladder.

While the car idled, she turned the radio back on, found a news station.

For the first time in hours, JoAnne didn’t question her as they both listened to the weather report. The report earlier said this storm wasn’t going to come in until two in the morning, but instead it blew in early and seemed to be parking itself over the mountain.

“It’s almost midnight. We have just under half a tank of gas. The more we drive around, the less gas we’ll have to keep warm during the night.”

“If we stay here, the car will get stuck.”

“And if we keep driving, we might get stuck. Getting out now to put on chains wouldn’t be smart.”

JoAnne wiped the condensation off the window with her hand. “We should try and find the road.”

Instead of arguing, Dakota found a compromise. “We drive for another few miles. If we don’t find it, we stop. Agreed?”

For once, JoAnne didn’t argue.

Five miles later they stopped.

With the engine still running, and the heater still blowing, Dakota set the parking brake and managed to climb into the back of the car. She unfurled two blankets and handed the water bottles to JoAnne.

“What is all this doing in here?”

“I stocked the car the day after we got here.”

“You thought this would happen?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t.”

For a woman who claimed to be tired hours ago, JoAnne sat with wide-opened eyes and fear all over her face.

“I have food back here, too. Not a lot, but enough for a couple of days.”

“We can’t survive out here that long. We’ll freeze.”

Dakota avoided panic by focusing on the positive. “We won’t freeze. And someone will come looking for us before morning.”

“Oh, God.”

Dakota climbed over the seats and killed the engine.

“What are you doing?”

“Saving gas. Put your coat on, your gloves, wrap up in the blanket. Jump in the backseat. Try and get some sleep.”

Dakota bundled into her ski hat and gloves and closed her coat around her tight. Then she reached for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I just need to pee, JoAnne. Your grandchild has been kicking my bladder for two hours.”

Dakota left the lights of the car on as she stepped out. Snow fell quietly; the fresh scent of the air would have been welcome from the porch of the Eddy home. She watched as her breath made the air fog with each exhale. She didn’t move far from the car and proceeded to freeze her butt off as she emptied her bladder.

She barely zipped her pants before rushing back to the car and climbing inside. “Shit, that’s cold,” she said the moment the door slammed behind her.

JoAnne handed her the second blanket.

Several minutes passed, and Dakota switched off the lights of the car. The silence grew as the temperature in the car fell.

“We’re going to be OK,” she told Walt’s mother.

“Of course we are.”

Good, that fight would help as the hours ticked by.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The plows went all the way to the Eddy house.

Nothing.

No one.

By two in the morning, the police were looking, but an official search wouldn’t happen until morning. Dakota and JoAnne weren’t the only missing people caught in the storm.

The roads farther up from his childhood home became impassible with the exception of plows, and even then, they were waiting for daylight and a break in the weather to get ahead of the snow.

He couldn’t sit, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Dakota on the side of the road, or worse, down the side of the mountain. What if they’d gotten into an accident? Were they hurt?

Larry made his way to the hospital, leaving Brenda at home to catch any possible phone call there.

At least his father rested comfortably, none the wiser.

Running on caffeine, Walt watched the sky lighten, but the snow kept coming.

With chains on his four-wheel-drive truck, Larry drove the two of them to the police station, where they were met with a lobby full of bundled residents and several sheriffs trying to calm and address each one.

When Walt met the whites of the clerks’ eyes, he forced his attention on her.