The SUV spun and slid to the shoulder and Sam’s Ford approached it fast as JR stared wide-eyed. The truck slowed marginally with each yard it traveled. JR increased her hold on Smokey with her left arm and grasped a hand hold near the ceiling with her right hand and again yelled, “Oh, shit,” when it was clear they would collide. Finally the front brush guard smacked the side of the SUV and made a sizable dent in the sheet metal. The impact skidded the SUV to the shoulder toward a low concrete abutment under an overpass. Sam saw an open, clear path ahead and hoped his rig would fit; it would be tight. Squeezing between the SUV and its destroyed trailer would give him an open shot north; he hoped he hadn’t misjudged the space. There was no alternative, so he got off the brake, hit the fuel pedal, and surged ahead.
Behind them tires squalled, metal scraped and tore, and the sounds of impact were long and frightful. Traffic running seventy and eighty MPH was in a major pileup. From images in his side mirrors, Sam estimated wrecked vehicles sprawled at least ten or twelve deep and two and three or four wide behind them. Vehicles and trailers filled both lanes and both shoulders. The motor home behind him appeared unscathed and followed him through the opening. As Sam’s truck continued slicing through the tight space, JR looked behind them in the side mirror and said, “The red SUV is on the shoulder and two people are crawling out of it. I predict they’ll be shot or beat to death for causing that pileup.” Riding partly on the edge of the shoulder, Sam focused on gliding past the wreckage, let out the breath he’d held, and continued north toward Minot.
JR exhaled forcefully. “That was too damned close.”
Sam turned to JR as he sighed. “That is why I’m holding our speed to fifty-five. If we’d been in the middle of that bunch of crazies running seventy plus our equipment would be disabled and we could be injured or dead. Getting to the Canadian border in one piece is what matters most; we lost a day for engine repairs, so being another day late won’t matter that much. The people in the middle of that pileup are out of the race now and will become zombies very soon just because fear drove them to make stupid decisions. The butthole in the pickup who wouldn’t give way was just as much to blame as the nut in the SUV who tried to force his way in without being up to speed. The SUV was in the way preventing me from accelerating to seventy five to merge safely—in retrospect, I should have stopped at the start of the entrance and waited for the SUV to merge and the entry lane to be clear instead of getting that close to it.”
“I agree with that. And there’ll be no more comments from me about going too slow. I thought we were dead back there. I still don’t know how the hell you managed to get through that mess without a scratch.”
“We’ll know about any damage when we stop. The front brush guard smacked that SUV a good wallop but, being on its roof, it slid easily. Had it been upright on all four tires we may have had considerable front end damage. That heavy-duty brush guard Dad installed may have saved us. He paid more than a thousand dollars for it, and at the time, I thought it was a wasteful extravagance. But it turned out to be a good investment.”
“Somewhat lucky maybe, but you did a great job keeping us from jackknifing like the SUV did.”
“Thanks. The electric brakes on the trailer helped greatly, but it’s overloaded past their capacity.”
“I wonder,” JR mused, “if any of the rigs in the middle and further back in that pileup were undamaged and will be able to work their way through the wreckage and continue.”
“Don’t know, but I hope so for their sake. Otherwise I’m sure they’re condemned to being zombies.”
They thought in silence for a time until Sam said, “Are you getting hungry? We ate at noon before we left Strasburg and it’s nearly four thirty. If you have something to snack on, we might go on past Minot to get closer to the border and learn from others how long we’ll have to wait in line.”
JR nodded. “Yeah. That’s good. There’s plenty of cheese and crackers and chips and jerky. Smokey is getting antsy; he needs to run. Stop at Minot for fuel and I’ll use the restroom then play with him until we leave.”
“Agreed. We should be near Minot in another hour and a half, around six.”
They left Minot Wednesday at six thirty. Fifteen miles north of Minot, they stopped at a truck stop forty miles from the border. The parking lot was packed. An eighteen wheeler was pulling out of a double long space and Sam pulled in right behind it. Smokey was left in the truck because the restaurant was noisy and too crowded for him to run loose. They walked around the rig inspecting it for damage. Scraped chrome on the front brush guard was the only damage they saw in the late afternoon glow, and it was minor.
They
