Chapter 24
morgan
The road sloped up, and then it sloped down again. Going downhill was worse, because though Morgan knew full well the grades were gentle, in the snow the highway felt like a roller coaster. A nasty, slick, sliding one.
He remembered that there were hills around Hysham, and he hoped that they were getting close as they went up again, but then fear clutched at him as the tires slipped and Jack pumped the brakes with slow and steady intent.
“You know how to drive in bad weather, I see,” Morgan said, doing his best to make conversation even as his knuckles ached with tension around the handle of his cane.
“We got some bad storms in Lawndale,” Jack said. “Nothing like this, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jack sighed gently, his chest rising and falling as he readjusted his fingers around the steering wheel.
“Back east, the winters are harsh. My dad made us learn to drive in all weather, in case the delivery truck couldn’t make it.
” He looked at Morgan, a flick of those eyes, and then back at the road again.
“People live in neighborhoods and can walk to the store, but delivery trucks came from all over. Sometimes they got stuck. We’d meet them halfway in the store’s truck. ”
“It’s different out here,” Morgan said, glad to be distracted from the horrible weather by interesting facts about Jack’s life.
They had time now for the other questions he wanted to ask. Tell me about those girls you sometimes dated. And the boys.
But he couldn’t be a distraction when Jack had to concentrate hard on the road, so he did his bit by holding on to the armrest as a way of keeping them in one piece. Magical thinking, for sure.
“It’s bigger,” Jack agreed. “Much, much bigger. Star always said—”
He stopped, and Morgan took his eyes off the road for a second. “Go on, what did Star say?”
He wanted to ask more about Star, and about Blue, but the wind whomped the truck and it slid to the right, to the unseen edge of the highway, like it wanted to spin out, and Morgan had to grab on extra hard to keep them safe.
“Don’t remember,” Jack said, his voice strained as he did his best to keep the truck going steady and slow, back into what they could see of the lane. “Don’t fuckin’ remember.”
His face was white, and his knuckles beneath the gloves would be white, as well. All of him was tense, and Morgan was tense in sympathy. They could not stop. There was only the going, on and on through the endless tunnel of gray-white snow.
Morgan lost track of where they were and how far they’d come.
This was his fault. If he’d been more sensible, they could be cozy in a motel room, and never mind his own damn feelings about a situation like that.
The day was getting darker, and everything felt thick and slow and cold. Like inevitable death.
Morgan’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his coat pocket, fumbling before he could find the button to answer.
“Hello?” he asked, unable to imagine a single person who would be calling him at that moment.
“This is Mabel,” a familiar voice said. “Ambrose said he saw Jack driving you toward the highway earlier. Where were you making him take you, with another blizzard coming on?”
“Mabel?” he asked, blinking at the wall of snow in front of them. “We went to Billings to return a book Oralee had borrowed.” He didn’t want to tell her about buying clothes for Jack, because her stinging words about his lack of care still rankled.
“Where are you now?” she asked, a familiar snap in her voice.
“We’re on the highway, and—”
“On the highway? What are you doing on the highway in this weather?” There was a pause. “What mile marker are you at? Have you passed the Big Horn rest stop?”
“I don’t know, Mabel.” He scowled at the phone. “I can’t see the road signs because of the snow.”
“Check your map app, young man,” she said. “I’ll wait.”
Morgan put her on speaker and opened the app on his phone. He should have been doing this all along so he could tell Jack where they were and how much longer it would be until their exit.
Using his fingers, he adjusted the view until he could see that they needed exit 67. According to the app, their little blue dot was ten miles away from the exit, and the indicator said it would take them, at their speed, half an hour to get there. He relayed that information to Mabel.
“I’ll call you right back,” she said and hung up.
Morgan looked at Jack.
“At this speed, we need to exit in half an hour.” Which Jack had presumably heard him say a few seconds earlier, of course.
Morgan looked at the cloud of white they were driving into. Only one set of red dots was visible ahead of them. He hoped there weren’t any more 18-wheelers racing up from behind.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to see the exit,” Jack said.
Morgan looked at his phone, which told him, sure enough, that they were now twenty-nine minutes out, though a brief glance at the road told him that, yes, there was no way to see pretty much anything.
They could easily miss their exit. The next one after that wasn’t for miles and miles.
He didn’t want to share such a doom-and-gloom bit of information, but missing their exit would put them in dire straits. Maybe they’d survive the night when the truck ran out of gas, but maybe the blizzard would go on for days and days, and maybe they’d die of cold.
“Jack,” he said, and then the phone rang again. “Hello, Mabel.” He put the call on speaker. “We’re about twenty-five minutes out, doing our best to keep our eyes peeled for that exit.”
“We’re sending Plowy to the off-ramp,” she said.
“What?” He squinted at the phone. “Plowy?”
“The exit slopes down to the road leading to town,” she said briskly, as though he were a young child who hadn’t been paying attention.
“But Plowy is tall, so you’ll see its lights.
Young Tommy will be there with his red-and-blues going, too.
The road will be mostly cleared, so all you have to do is follow them home. ”
Morgan blinked. His feet were like ice. Jack’s couldn’t be any better.
“They’re going to meet us and guide us home,” he said, his eyes hot as he looked at Jack, so unbelievably grateful that his throat felt thick with it. “Just keep driving slow and steady. We’re going to make it.”
It seemed a long time before the road dipped downward, and there, to the right, veiled by a curtain of white, were red and blue lights, whirling, whirling. Beyond that, a little higher, orange lights blinked on and off.
Morgan pointed, and Jack steered the truck that way, moving off the highway onto an exit ramp perilous with snow deep enough to slow them down.
They paused at the bottom of the slope, where the sheriff, in a dark blue SUV with the town’s emblem on it, waved to them to pause when they pulled up alongside him. Morgan rolled down his window. White snow spat into his eyes.
“The plow will lead you,” Young Tommy said, stern and steady amidst the blowing snow. “I’ll follow behind, and we’ll get you home in two shakes.”
Unsaid was the scolding Morgan knew Young Tommy surely wanted to deliver, in his plastic-covered hat, double muffler around his neck. About being so foolish as to venture far from home when October’s blizzard season was upon them.
He’d deliver it at some point, Morgan had no doubt. For now, he rolled up the window and gestured to where Plowy McPlowface was moving slowly down the narrow, two-lane road, pushing a foot of snow to the side.
They were headed north into dark clouds, and Jack drove carefully, as he had before, but his gloved hands didn’t clench the steering wheel so tightly, and Morgan could let go of both his cane and the door handle from time to time, to flex and warm his fingers.
Everything seemed easier now, even though the sky had lowered and they were now in a full whiteout. Only the orange lights flipping in front of them and the blue and red lights whirling in the rearview mirror provided any sense of reality.
The truck’s heater seemed to have crapped out, so the insides of the windows were filming over, their breath solidifying into ice and filtering what little light remained.
Though Jack kept the windshield wipers going double time as they went, the snow grew thicker around the edges of the glass, giving him a clear space no bigger than the steering wheel.
“We’re going to make it,” Jack said, low.
“Barely.”
Morgan took a breath to say more, to complain and be irritated about everything that his life had become, when he stopped.
They’d been in serious trouble only half an hour before.
The High Plains of Montana in a blizzard were no joke, though maybe an evening or so hence, he might be able to spin the experience into a tale.
Nobody back in Denver would believe how thick and deep the snow had become so quickly, though there was nobody back in Denver to share the story with. But he and Jack could tell it to each other, couldn’t they.
“There’s some Frangelico left, I believe,” he said. Jack glanced at him. “Enough to take the edge off.”
“There’s also red wine,” Jack said. “In the cupboard. You could have used it for the spaghetti sauce.”
“I’m glad I didn’t.” He needed a drink right that moment, and though he shouldn’t, he’d get one the second he stepped through the door. Jack would get a double of whatever he wanted.
In the meantime, he needed to focus on the road, so Jack wouldn’t feel like he was doing this all on his own, though with the escorts in front of and behind them, the rest of the drive was child’s play.
A straight, white-shrouded shot all the way into town, past the gas station, and into the parking lot of the feed and grain.
Plowy paused, and the driver waved a gloved hand and then drove on through the snow, scraping the road before him.
Young Tommy pulled up beside them. “You fellows will be fine now,” he called through his open window.
“Thank you so much,” Morgan said.
“Don’t worry about me. Mabel promised me her next peach cobbler.”
As Young Tommy rolled his window up and drove off, Morgan got out of the truck, knees knocking as the snow piled on his shoulders and head like somebody was dumping it from a sack.
Jack, at his side, waved Young Tommy along with a snowy hand.
“Let’s grab the bags,” Jack said.
Morgan was tempted to leave them in the truck bed, since they’d be fine until morning. But Jack needed his new clothes and boots, and Morgan needed Jack to have nice, thick winter clothes to wear.
He tugged at the bags before Jack took them from him, and together they struggled through the drifts to the front door.
There, he put down his cane and pulled the double doors open, scraping a crescent in the deep snow.
Jack was right behind him, pushing Morgan into the relative warmth of the doorway.
“We made it,” Jack said, a smile in his voice.
The cool space of the feed and grain felt like a warm oven after the blizzard, though with the doors open, the blizzard was coming inside with them.
Morgan turned, taking in Jack’s still-white face, the flakes of snow on his dark hair that had yet to melt. And the fact that he was quivering, the effects of the drive shaking off him, remnants of fear that had yet to dissipate.
“Are you okay?” Morgan asked, reaching around Jack to close the doors, and then he slipped on a clump of snow.
He fell forward, narrowly missing Jack, and hit the doors with both hands, slamming them shut. His cane went flying. And through the glass was the storm, still raging, a curtain of white.
Jack stepped in front of him, those green eyes looking at him, head tilted back.
Morgan’s hands came off the doors and slid around Jack’s head, damp hair silky under his fingers. Quivers radiating off Jack and into Morgan’s body, as though Jack knew Morgan knew what to do with them.
“Jack.” Morgan’s voice was raw, as if he’d been shouting for Jack for hours and had only just found him.
With a final tremor, Jack’s face crumpled, and the mask he’d been wearing from the first moment Morgan had met him faded away. Jack pressed into the curve of Morgan’s body as though he’d found long-sought shelter. As though Morgan was his rescue, his final destination.
Jack’s arms snaked inside Morgan’s coat, the leather of his jacket shockingly cold, his head tucked under Morgan’s chin.
Jack was hugging him so hard that Morgan couldn’t resist any of the emotions racing through him. He hugged Jack back, just as hard.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into Jack’s dark hair. “This whole mess was my fault.”
Jack drew back, pulling off his gloves, and touched Morgan’s face with cold fingers. “Not your fault,” he said, and then he rose up on his toes and kissed Morgan gently.
An electric current zapped Morgan right into the moment, shoving the terrifying drive to the background in favor of the sweetness of that kiss, the softness of Jack’s mouth. All of it connected them, all of it nothing Morgan had expected or even imagined.
“I don’t—” he began, but Jack moved close, the smile in his green eyes, dashes of freckles high on his cheeks, everything about him magnified to become Morgan’s whole world.
“No talk,” Jack said. “Kiss now.”
Morgan had no desire to resist—except that the snow was melting, dampening Jack’s hair and forming a puddle at their feet, and Jack was still wearing those horrible boots.
Jack deserved better, and Morgan was going to make sure he received the best Morgan had to give.