Rescued From a Bad Decision

Rescued from a Bad Decision
This vast, Great Basin Desert was one of the last great obstacles for the pioneers heading for
the lushness of the wet Western side of what was the Oregon Territory. Its barren alkali flats,
arid mountains, rimrocks, canyons and waterless expanses became the final haunts of many a
pioneer father, mother and child who could not endure its cruel beauty. And before them,
inhabitants left mysterious inscriptions on canyon walls and lone boulders. They watched, at
home in this crucible of scarcity, as those pioneers passed through or died trying. Some of my
own ancestors made the brutal trek on their way to the lush farmland of the Willamette,
Umpqua and Rogue valleys, and some actually stayed on, making a go of it in the desert. All
these souls contributed something to an almost spooky presence that inhabits the Oregon
Outback.

It is this "presence," the soul of this wilderness of Central and Eastern Oregon that has always
fascinated me, drawn me with an oddly spiritual, inexplicable siren song to its remoteness,
loneliness . . . its ghosts. Perhaps it's that ever-present knowledge, not quite in the active
consciousness, that this place can kill you, that adds all the more to the attraction.
And so, seeking those intangibles, I and my son set out on one of our annual expeditions. For
each of these adventures, I try to focus on one region, defined by a mountain, canyon, lake or
river, that we can explore in greater depth than on previous passes where we only "looked in
from the edge." This time, the chosen destination was fairly specific; I wanted to get to the
Western shore of the vast Abert Lake. This is one of several remnants of the inland oceans that
covered much of Southeastern Oregon and Nevada some 10,000 years ago. Like most of them,
it is a highly alkaline soup with no outlet other than evaporation, and the water level varies
greatly from year to year, depending on the previous winter’s snows. There is a story, the
documentation of which I can no longer find, that one year, after a prolonged drought, the
water level dropped far enough to expose a pioneer wagon that had become mired in the
muddy lakebed. Human skeletal remains were reported to be scattered near the wagon, and it
was said that a lone family had become trapped there, while trying to cross the lakebed, and
had been attacked by Indians.

My goal, in visiting this place, was not to search for the macabre, but to capture,
photographically, something of that ghostly spirit. I have photographed the lake from the 2500
foot high rim that borders the Eastern shore, and I have photographed it from the foot of the
rim, but I've never been able to figure out how to get to its Western shore so that I could
capture the huge precipice of Abert Rim from across the lake.
This year, though, with the help of modern technology (the satellite images of Google Earth), I
was able to discern the trace of a jeep trail that crossed from Highway 31, between Paisley and
Valley Falls, over a high, rocky outcropping and ended right at the shore of the lake.
According to one of my maps, this trail even had a name, "Old Hotchkiss Road." So, finding and
following this road became the goal of this year's "adventure."

Austin and I loaded our essentials into the "new" expedition rig. In previous years we had
always traversed the various trails in my trusty, if somewhat brutally uncomfortable '74 Bronco.
But this year, we would give the Bronco a rest and use the rig that Austin had purchased and
we had built together, an '82 Toyota FJ60.
We bought extra rims and used two of the old off-road tires as spares (two spares are highly
recommended out here) and shod the truck in all new Toyo Open Country M/Ts. The FJ proved
to be much more comfortable than the bone-jarring (but still dearly loved!) Bronco, and its
rock-crawling capabilities were outstanding. They would need to be, because this Abert country
is, in many places, like a giant cobblestone road where the cobblestones are large, sharp and
spaced so that each is an independent obstacle to be slowly traversed.
We didn't take camping equipment. Rather, we intended to use a motel at Summer Lake as a
base camp. Our supplies consisted of food and drink for the day - some bottled water, some
soft-drinks and a few Newcastle Brown Ales. We would replenish these on our evening return
to the motel.

Our plan was to do some site-seeing nearer Summer Lake and then head for "Old Hotchkiss"
late in the afternoon so that we would catch the low, evening light on Abert rim by the time we
arrived. After wandering around the Summer Lake Wildlife refuge for a while, we headed
southeast on Highway 31 until we found a turn-off that appeared to be nothing more than
access to a dry lakebed. Nevertheless, we followed the perimeter of the playa and found that it
actually did connect to a road that appeared to head in the correct direction. It didn't take
much of this trail to get us wondering who Hotchkiss was and what this road could possibly
have been used for. We certainly couldn't imagine horses or wagons fairing very well on this
linear collection of boulders and steep, sandy descents. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed
grinding along at a rate we could have matched on foot and taking in the amazing scenery and
the FJ's exceptional "crawling" prowess. Another hour or so of barely discernable forward
progress brought us, finally, to the lake shore. It is here that WE suffered one of the worst
lapses of judgment in MY entire life!
Like the other giant alkali lakes in southeastern Oregon and Nevada, a fair portion of Abert Lake
consists of bleached-white dry lakebed. The Alvord desert, another mostly dry lakebed ninety
miles to the east, has served as a land speed record course, a landing strip for desert fly-ins, a
site for land-yacht racing and numerous other speed-related events. I have camped on it and
driven on it many times. Last year I cautiously drove right to the water's edge without making
so much as a tire mark in the surface. The Blackrock desert, to the south in Nevada, is a giant
parking lot and camp for thousands of “hippies” during the "Burning Man Festival." So, looking
out onto the vast, flat expanse between us and the water, I saw no reason why I couldn't avoid
a long, hot walk and drive closer to the water's edge in order to get the photo that I wanted.
We set out, as the crow flies, due east toward the water. We were following some tracks that
someone had made long before us and which had remained on the lakebed for who knows how
many days or months. Our pace was very slow and cautious as we watched our own track
behind us to make sure we weren't making too deep an impression. Suddenly, the engine
lugged, and we came to a stop quicker than I could think or respond. The white alkali crust had
given way, and we had sunk up to our axles in the sandy mud beneath. The truck would not
move a quarter inch in any direction. With an uncharacteristic "Oh Shit!” I instantly realized the
seriousness of our situation. As I would learn, later, the "dry" shores of Abert Lake are
infiltrated by numerous springs which keep the ground underneath the deceptively "crunchy"
surface wet and soft.

(Abert Lake is fifteen miles long and seven miles wide. The ridge, visible across the lake, is 2500 feet high.
You can see the white alkali around the edge of the lake.)
I weighed the options, one of which was to stay with the truck and wait a couple of days until
we were missed. Surely, the people at the Motel in Summer Lake would miss us when we
didn't return to our room that evening or check out the next day, and, hopefully they would
remember that I mentioned trying to get to the western shore of the Abert. Chances were
good that they wouldn't remember, and no one would know where to look for us. What would
be worse is if they called my wife and told her that we hadn't returned to check out of our
room. It certainly didn't seem that the situation was serious enough to warrant actually waiting
for rescue. And we definitely did not want to foment the kind of panic that this would bring to
family members. While our situation was an inconvenience and would certainly become an
embarrassment that I would have to endure later, and though it would result in a long and
uncomfortable walk, it was not cause for that level of drama. I knew that, some ten miles
distant, the XL ranch road, a well-graded county road, connecting a paved highway with the
community of Paisley, skirted the very northernmost tip of the lake. One option was to walk
the lakeshore north until we reached this road. We could then walk the XL east, another six
miles, until we got to highway 395, where we could flag down a car. A major drawback and
risk of this plan would be that our walking would be mostly in the dark, and we had no idea
what risks this entailed. Another problem would be that our walk would probably be about
sixteen miles long. Our maps indicated that the "road" we were on continued northwest and
connected to the XL in about eight to ten miles. Following this road seemed the most sensible
of our options; it would somewhat shorten the distance to a road that we could conceivably
encounter traffic on. And, as it was a road and not a lakeshore, with possible mud holes or
marshes to navigate, we could walk it reasonably well in the dark. We had six cans of pop and
two small bottles of water, and this seemed adequate for such a trip, especially in the coolness
of night. We put these in a shoulder bag along with a small flashlight, wolfed-down a sandwich
each, and started up the road. My son had suggested we take his light jacket and my
sweatshirt, but I didn't want to carry the extra weight, and the nights had been reasonably
warm, at least at the lower elevation of Summer Lake. We also brought along the GPS, which
had really impressed me a couple of weeks previous. My friend, Al, and I had been trying to
navigate our way through some equally remote country, and the GPS actually indicated the
obscure and almost non-existent road we had been following. It also indicated the road that
Austin and I were walking (though it referred to it as an "unnamed road.") and the distance to
the XL Road.

A great deal of our walk was uphill, as the road veered away from the lake and toward the top
of the ridge that paralleled it. We were fairly careful to ration our liquids, but we weren't too
concerned as we knew that most of our hike would be in the dark, and we shouldn't lose too
much moisture. I did not account for the huge amount of water that is lost through
transpiration when the local humidity is around 10%. We quickly found our mouths extremely
dry and our throats sticking together, and we weren't producing any saliva. We walked on, and
it quickly became so dark that we struggled to keep sight of the trail in front of us. At mile
nine we passed the faint silhouette of a tall "stock tank." These are used to store water for
cattle and usually feed a series of troughs downhill. Our GPS said that we had about 5 miles to
the XL Ranch road. We decided that this was a tolerable distance, and we drank the last of our
liquids. By this time, the heels and balls of both of Austin's feet were completely blistered, but
he didn't say so, and we pressed on. At this point, we were so tired and Austin was in so much
pain that our plan was simply to reach the XL road and wait there for sunrise and the traffic it
would hopefully bring. Every so often I would turn on the GPS and it would tell us that we had
4.3 miles remaining, then 3.6, then 2.5, then 1.0. Then, as our hopes of rest were rising, the
GPS said that we had passed the XL road! This was impossible! The XL is a wide, smooth, gravel
road that you would not miss crossing if you were blind! At this point a degree of panic began
to set in! If this wasn't the road that our map showed, if this wasn't going to lead to the XL
road, we could find the sun coming up, bringing the heat of day and us not knowing where to
go, and . . . we had no more water. By now, we had been walking since 5:00 p.m. and it was
midnight! The pain Austin endured while walking on feet, the bottoms of which were totally
blistered was forcing him to stop and lie down on the ground every quarter mile or so. It
grieved me terribly to see the kind of pain that my foolishness had brought to my son. I had
been praying since we left the truck and had expected those prayers to be answered when we
hit the XL road, but this was not to be. At that point my prayers changed to a simple mantra of
"I trust you Lord, I trust you Lord . . ."
Now we were forced with a decision. Would we keep walking and end up finding ourselves
utterly lost in the heat of the day, or would we turn around and try to make it back to the truck.
It seemed impossible that Austin could get there with his feet in their current condition. It was
then that we decided we would set a nearer-term goal. We would try to get back to the tank
we had passed and hope that, unlike most old tanks in the desert, it would contain water.
Austin, who refers to himself as a "soft atheist," not at all certain that there was anyone out
there to hear them, asked me to say some prayers.
We turned and began stumbling back in the direction we'd come. By now, it was past midnight,
and a three-quarter moon had risen high enough in the sky to make our footing a little less
treacherous. Austin asked me to put my hand in the middle of his back, ostensibly to give him a
little push up the road, but I think this was as much for some reassuring physical contact as it
was for a boost. We frequently had to stop and stretch out in the dirt to regain enough
strength to continue and to give Austin some brief respite from the agony of walking on feet
that had, miles ago, peeled away on the bottoms. By now, it had also become painful and
difficult to try and swallow - the incredibly dry air had made the insides of our mouths and
throats like leather; we were shocked that this could happen in only eight or nine hours. I kept
praying for the silhouette of that tank to appear ahead of us, and it seemed it never would. I
really didn't hold out much hope that we'd find water there, but at least we'd have reached a
goal! I fully expected that, from there, we would have to push on to return to the truck where
there was some melted ice-water in the ice chest and three beers. Austin assured me that he
could not make that trip! As there were no trees of any kind in the area, the tank would be the
only thing that would protrude against the field of stars ahead of us. And then, seemingly an
interminable distance away, there it was, a barely discernable bump on the horizon. I would
like to say that our pace quickened, but there was no energy left for that and not nearly enough
hope. I had kept up my mantra all night, and hoped that I wasn't fooling myself.
Austin was carrying a 9mm pistol, and he fully planned, if absolutely necessary, to try and
penetrate the tank if no other means was found to determine what it held. I had a small
flashlight, and as we reached the looming, dark shape, I began looking for pipes or valves or a
hatch of some sort. The tank was about thirty or forty feet tall and stood on a concrete
foundation, not at all like the other two or three old, rusted, collapsed things I'd seen in a few
other locations in the vastness of the eastern Oregon desert. At the base, on the northernfacing
side of the tank was a thirty-six inch galvanized culvert sticking a few feet out of the
ground, and it had a lid on it. I lifted this lid and found only plastic covered sheets of fiberglass
batting. To me, this was a good sign because it probably meant that there was a pump under
that batting, being protected from freezing. And if there was a pump, it probably meant that
this tank was connected to a well and not just intermittently refilled from a truck.
Nevertheless, I was still at a loss as to how to determine if there was water inside. I followed
my small light around to the south side of the tank and found two more culverts with lids. They
were nearly flush with the ground. I lifted one lid and found only dirt inside, but when I lifted
the other, it, too, contained sheets of fiberglass batting. I started to pull the insulation out and
was startled when Deer mice began to scatter in every direction, looking for a way out. Once I
had removed much of the batting, I saw two sections of heavy, black hydraulic hose with a
disconnected coupling on the end of each. Where one hose protruded from the ground, there
was a ball valve with a quarter turn handle. With my heart pounding, I turned this handle, and
water began to erupt from the hose! Austin pulled an empty 16 oz. water bottle from the bag
and cut the top off of it with his pocket knife. I filled it with water, and Austin inspected it; it
had no smell and it was crystal clear . . . quite warm but crystal-clear. Austin cautiously tried
it, and said that it tasted wonderful! We both wept at this discovery - this provision, and we
each drank as much as we could. My mantra changed from "I trust you God," to "I knew I could
trust you, God. Thank you so much!"
Now we had a new plan. We would wait for sunrise, when I would leave Austin at the tank,
with water and some shade and head due east, across the sage and rock, to the shore of Abert
Lake. I would then follow the shore north until I hit the XL Ranch road and hope for traffic. But
wait! How could I carry enough water to get me there in the heat of the day? The tank was
surrounded by a barbed-wire fence which was anchored at each corner with a rock crib. Austin
found, sitting on one of these rock cribs, an unopened bottle of "non-toxic ethanol-based
antifreeze" that the ranchers had left there for some purpose. I emptied the contents, rinsed
the bottle several times and filled it with water. Now I had in excess of a gallon of water to get
me to the road.

At this point, Austin and I sat down at the base of the tank to wait for sunrise. Now we had
water, but we hadn't counted on the other potential killer stalking us - hypothermia! As it
nearly always does at night on the desert, the wind started to blow. The temperature dropped
into the forties, and Austin and I were dressed only in shorts and tee-shirts! We both began to
shake uncontrollably and wondered how we'd survive the night. And then it occurred to me,
the good Lord had not only led us to water but to blankets! I got up and took the lid of the first
culvert and gathered a number of the 6 foot by four foot, plastic-sheathed sheets of fiberglass
insulation. We placed one on the ground and one against the tank to lean on. The others we
wrapped around ourselves. When the wind would come up and penetrate the gaps in our
"blankets," we would, again, shake uncontrollably, but the shaking generated some heat, and
the insulation retained it. We would shake for a while, and then the shaking would subside,
and we would doze off for a few moments.
It was 2:00 a.m. when we reached the tank, so we only had to endure four or five hours until
the eastern horizon began to brighten. When the sun broke over the escarpment of Abert Rim,
it didn’t immediately make enough heat to coax me out from under my fiberglass, but I knew it
would warm very quickly. In another hour, I got up and told Austin I needed to get going. I
warned him not to worry if he didn't see me again before evening, but I was determined not to
let him endure another night, especially a night without my body heat to share. As I started
east, downhill, I continued to shake, convulsively, for several minutes until the weak but direct
sunlight and the exercise warmed me. I followed a dry-wash, which soon turned into a canyon
that was heading in the direction of the lake, some five miles east. As I trudged along, I
concentrated on every foot-fall, knowing that if I found a Rattlesnake the hard way, no one
would be picking Austin up that night. After a couple more miles of following the canyon, I
could see far enough down it to realize that it was going to take several large meanders and
that it was getting quite deep, and I didn't feel I could afford the extra few hours that following
it was going to add to my hike. I decided to climb out over the rim-rock at the top and short-cut
straight to the lake. Arranging the shoulder bag behind me, like a backpack, I "bouldered" out,
sincerely hoping not to come hand-to-face or face-to-face with a Rattler. I think that the
exceptionally cold night served to keep the snakes holed-up in their dens until later in the day,
and I never saw any sign of any. From the rim of the canyon, I continued toward the now
visible shoreline of the lake some miles away and about a thousand feet below me in elevation.
As I'd discussed with Austin, my plan was to try to walk across the dry end of the lake to
Highway 395 where I would definitely encounter some traffic. Toward that goal, I walked about
a mile out onto the lakebed only to find that the thin, white alkali crust disguised a shoe-sucking
mud beneath. I was forced to turn back to the shore, and I revised my plan. I knew, with
certainty that the XL Ranch road passed tangent to the very northern tip of the lake, so I would
follow the shoreline until I reached it, then hope for a vehicle. However, I would not wait for
anyone to pass through; rather, I would walk east on the XL until it reached Highway 395. I had
no idea how far this was; in the vastness of the desert, distances are almost impossible to
judge. What looks like five miles away might be twenty-five miles. I remembered playing a
game while driving highway 20 across the desert at night. I'd spot headlights coming from the
opposite direction and try to estimate how long it would be before the vehicle passed me.
What seemed like it should be one minute was often ten.

Having reached the shoreline, I sat down in the dry, short grass and rewarded myself with a
drink. From here on, my walk would be on completely flat ground, but the white alkali was
reflecting the sun onto my face, arms and legs so that, in spite of my Safari hat, I was getting
burned and very hot. I set goals for myself; I would spot a fence line in the distance and reward
myself with a drink when I reached it. Or I would measure the height of the distant mountains
with my finger, and when the measure actually got one knuckle larger, I'd have a drink. Finally,
I spotted a tree in the distance. As I knew there were no trees for miles in any direction, I
suspected that this had to be the big Black Locust at the abandoned Pope ranch. This ranch sits
just off the XL Ranch road, so I determined to take as straight a line toward that tree as
possible. I walked on for hours, watching the sun go from just breaking over Abert rim to being
squarely above me. It seemed that the tree wasn't getting any larger. The sweat was dripping
into my eyes and burning, but I continued to ration my water, knowing that even if my walk was
only fifteen miles or so, I would need more water, in this heat, than I was carrying.
I had started out at a very brisk pace, and I was impressed with how quickly I was covering
distance. But as my walking never seemed to be getting me any closer to the tree, and the heat
was becoming quite unpleasant, I began to slow appreciably. I recalled, from the night walk
only a few hours previous, that I had urged Austin to be very "intentional" about his foot-plants,
to not allow himself to begin to stagger, because this would sap his strength even more and
would be a psychological concession to exhaustion. Now I was struggling to follow my own
advice. I would later learn, by tracing it out on Google Earth, that Austin and I had walked over
twenty miles that night and that I would do another eleven miles before I was finished.
Eventually, I began to make out a shape under the distant "target tree." It appeared manmade,
like a building, and this gave me reassurance that this was, indeed, the Pope Ranch. At
this point, I still had several hours to go, and an unexpected obstacle lay ahead of me. I had
come to the edge of a marsh that consisted of clumps of sod separated by water-covered mud.
I clumsily stepped from clump to clump, like a drunk trying to master a field sobriety test. This
severely sapped my strength, so that by the time I had crossed to the bleached white lakebed
on the other side, I was walking a bit like the characters you see in movies, staggering across
the Sahara toward mirages. The dry lakebed I'd reached didn't help my situation; unlike the
hard alkali "blocks" I had been walking on much of the way, this playa was covered with an inch
thick crust of salt crystals that had heaved up from the surface below as they had dried. This
was exactly like walking on snow that had thawed then refrozen on top, and with every step, I
would break through the crust to the soft ground below. I had to walk with high, "goose steps"
to get anywhere, and the exhaustion was swift and severe.

Finally, I could clearly make out the trunk of the old tree and the outline of the crumbling ranch
house beside it. The remaining distance couldn't have been more than a mile, but it seemed to
take hours to cross it. When I could finally see that it was no longer running away from me,
that I could actually touch it, I opened the door to the old, screened-in porch and cleared away
what looked like a hundred years of cobwebs. I hoped to get inside the old house, but I don't
know what I hoped to find there. The door to the inside was dead-bolted, but there were a
couple old folding chairs on the porch and I collapsed into one. This seemed a reasonable place
to reward myself with a big drink, and I winced as the water pushed apart the stuck-together
sides of my throat. I drank deeply and left myself a half gallon for the remaining walk. By now I
wasn't sure how I was going to make that walk, even on a smooth gravel road. After about
fifteen minutes of rest, I left the porch and headed for the road, having to gather the strength
to climb over an old fence to get there.

Again, I remembered my own advice and took slow but intentional steps in an effort to walk
like a healthy human and not a movie caricature. From the Pope Ranch, the road climbed up
from the lake shoreline and around a bend. As I neared the top of the first rise, I saw a pick-up
truck, in the distance, parked beside the road. I prayed that the driver would not miss me and
take off before I could get there. If I reached the vehicle and found it unlocked, I planned to
honk the horn until someone showed up. This proved unnecessary; as I approached the truck,
a fellow came walking out of the sage. I was pretty sure he was an angel! The angel's name
was Bill, and he had been camped in the area, for a couple of days, rabbit hunting. After I got
my breath, I explained the situation, and we climbed into the gloriously air-conditioned F350 to
go find my son. Since Austin and I never reached the intersection with the XL Ranch Road, I
couldn't be positive how to find him, but Bill and I headed West up the XL, because I knew that I
had come from West of the lake. After a few miles, we encountered a road, taking off in the
right direction, that had the same rutted appearance as the one Austin and I had been on, and
we decided to try this one. We had driven no more than a hundred yards up this road when we
came upon the gate where Austin and I had turned around and headed back to the tank! As it
turns out, the lying GPS had done us a favor by getting us to turn around so close to our goal.
Had we reached it, we'd have lain down next to the road and waited for daylight. We'd have
found ourselves freezing in the night wind with no protection (no sheets of insulation) and
certainly no water. Bill told me that he hadn't seen any traffic on the XL Road for two days, and
he was planning on heading the opposite direction from where we'd have sat down. So, with
no water and no traffic, in the heat of the day, it seems unlikely we could have gotten to
highway 395! I had been praying, all during our long walk the previous night, that God would
get us to the XL Ranch Road, but that would have been a disaster! Instead, head led us "beside
still waters" and provided blankets to boot!

After Bill and I had driven several miles along this rough, rutted track, I spotted the water tank
and was filled with relief. This relief was short lived, because, as we approached the tank, I
could see no sign of Austin. Panic rose within me, and I recalled some of the nightmares I'd had
where I had lost one or more of my children. But my fear was soon relieved when Austin stood
up! He had gathered the sheets of insulation and made a mattress and blanket and fallen into a
deep sleep which only the sound of the idling truck woke him from. Struggling to walk on his
raw feet, Austin climbed into the truck, and we headed for Paisley where I planned to get a
motel room and try to find someone to pull us out of the Abert Lake mud.

We were quite a sight! During our long night-walk, we had come to be in need of toilet paper.
To meet this need, we used Austin's knife to cut the lower third of my tee-shirt off. So, we
were covered in dust from having lain in the road, and my hairy belly was sticking out below my
"halter top." We were starving and planned to get something to eat at the bar and grill, but
while I knew they were accustomed to seeing some pretty rough cowboys, I wasn't sure they'd
let me in looking as I did. When we arrived at Paisley, Bill headed for the bar and grill where he
had agreed to let us buy him lunch (he absolutely wouldn't let me buy him a tank of gas!), and
Austin and I headed for the Paisley Mercantile to buy new shirts. All they had in stock was
some "Paisley Mosquito Festival" shirts, so we bought those, put them on immediately and
threw our old shirts away!

We joined Bill for a wonderful meal and then bid him adieu as he headed back to his camp. I
had asked if he had a business card or anything to write on, so that I could contact him later to
thank him again. He replied that, "no," he didn't have any on him and that he was really bad at
staying in touch with people anyway! I didn't press him, but now I wonder if he really was an
Angel in an F350!

After our meal, we got a room at the Sage Inn, and what a beautiful room it was! There were
two King beds, a refrigerator, a microwave, satellite TV, a big shower! And the gal that owned
the place brought us bottles of the coldest, sweetest water I'd ever tasted! We got situated,
and I left Austin there while I went down the street to the old garage and gas station. I told the
fellows there what had happened, and one of them told me I'd need a crane to get my truck
out! I assured him that I'd only gotten a little way into the soft stuff, but he was skeptical. I
asked if they knew anyone with a four wheel drive with big tires and a winch. They looked
thoughtful for a bit then replied that they knew of only one fellow "who might be crazy enough
to try it."

After some calls and about an hour of napping on my bed, John Fellows showed up in his little
Toyota four wheel drive pickup with a bunch of chain and a winch. I offered to pay him $200.00
and top off his tank, and he didn't hesitate. From my description, he knew exactly where our
truck would be found. I was delighted that I could be a source of income for John, because, as
it turned out, he had no regular job. He made his living by running some trap-lines, doing some
contract logging, working a bit at the ZX ranch and any other work he could find. John was
about Austin's age and had moved to Paisley, with his father, at about the age of eleven. When
his father died, John and his sister and brother were left the house, and the siblings
immediately wanted to sell it. John, though, loved the wilds and wanted to stay in Paisley.
With his odd jobs and Muskrat, Beaver, Coyote and Bobcat pelts bringing a good price, he
managed to pay off his sister and brother and keep the house for himself. Now that's a real
country boy!

John aired his tires down to about ten psi, and we headed for Abert Lake. When we arrived, he
carefully walked the tracks out to my truck, stopping to dance and jump up and down on the
ground every few yards to see how solid it was. Satisfied, he got as close to my truck as he
dared and still be able to reach me with his winch cable paid out completely and a length of
chain hooked to that. I started up the truck, put it in reverse and let it idle, while John ran the
winch. After making about twenty feet of ruts, the Cruiser finally climbed up on top of the
crust. We unhooked the cable, and I backed all the way to the road! There was still a bit of ice
left in the ice chest, so I pulled out a couple of cool Newcastle Brown's, and we celebrated the
accomplishment!

John, knowing every back road in that area, led me out via a shortcut, and I followed him back
to Paisley, thanking God all the way!
Back at the motel room, Austin and I showered, and Austin sat down to do some "surgery." He
had to drain the huge blisters that comprised the entire bottoms of his feet; otherwise he could
not stand up due to the pressure and the accompanying searing pain. Tough as always, he and
his trusty Benchmade got the job done.

The next morning we slept as late as we could, then headed for home. All the way there, I tried
to come up with a plan as to how I'd escape "uninjured" while admitting to my wife that I had
almost killed her son.