Chapter XVII

     Liz was a study in conflicting emotions. She was so pissed off at me that you could practically see the steam coming out of her ears. At the same time she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of a complete stranger.
She rolled down the window about two and a half inches. The poor guy, out there freezing his butt off had to stand on his tip toes and turn his head sideways to talk through the slit. I barely withheld a chuckle.
"Can we help you?" she mumbles through the crack.
Hi there, my name is Bill, Bill Wright, and I seem to have gotten myself in a little pickle" his booming voice filled the crack. The voice said "Salesman" without him saying anything more. "I was coming down off of the pass and all the sudden the front end started drifting off center. The more I corrected, the worse it got, until I was going down the road facing in the wrong direction, then WHOOSH! off into the bushes. I'm not ready for this stuff, I don't even have a heavy coat or anything, and I'm like to freeze my hiney off here. Is there any way you could help me out here, I got a meeting in Spokane this afternoon at 2 and i really can't be late. There isn't any cell service out here, and I been waiting for a cop to come by or something for a long time now."
All in one sentence, all loudly. No introduction, no small talk to ease into conversation, just there it is, deal with it. He was probably a pretty good salesman, but I was having a hard time feeling to sorry for him.
Liz was not quite cowering by the window, and I imagine if she said anything it would come out as a squeak, so I jumped in when he caught his breath.
"Seen your headlights pointing up the pass, figured you could use a hand."
I could see a couple of tow hooks attached above the front bumper, so I figured this would be an easy rescue.
"Let me get it set up straight ahead and get the winch cable payed out"
He gets a little nervous and kinda dances from foot to foot like a kid that needs to use the facilities. "You know what you're doing? my insurance probably won't pay if you screw up my car yanking it out of the bushes."
I seriously thought about leaving him there and driving off.
"Well, Bill you can either trust me or you can sit here and wait for someone else to stop, makes me no never mind."
So he apologizes profusely so I position the Power Wagon directly in front of him and play out the winch cable, and hook it to the right tow hook on the front of his car.
I told him to get in and start his car, put in four wheel dive and low. When the winch takes up the slack, let out the clutch and gingerly try to get it up on the road.
I set the emergency brake, and take up the slack in the cable. It tightens up til it starts to pull at the Blazer, and the damn fool guns the engine, so his rig jumps up on the shoulder and comes rocketing towards me. I jump out of the way to keep from getting squished between the vehicles and he puts his drivers side headlight right into me bumper. Smashed it pretty good.
Of course the Power Wagon is high off the ground and has heavy duty bumpers, so all it does to me is scratch the paint. Kinda hard to tell, since there are so many scars and colors of paint on it already, but I figure there was a new scratch in there somewhere.
"Look what you did! You should never have pulled so hard with that winch! How am I gong to explain this to my insurance company?"
I quietly went over and disengaged the winch cable and brought it back in, with him jitterbugging alongside chirping the whole time. He's lucky Liz was along or I might have done something I would regret later.
Look here Bill, you better get out of my face or I'll put you right back where I found you, but I'll bust out your other headlight so no one can spot you, and maybe they'll find you next spring when the snow melts. You were obviously not prepared for the driving conditions. You don't know how to drive in this, but you figured your four wheel drive gave you some kind of invulnerability. Guess what? It doesn't, and you can't stop any better with four wheel drive than you can with any other car."
"But my headlight!"
"Consider it a cost of getting rescues. I told you to ease it back on the road, not gun it. You're lucky it wasn't worse. Not to mention the fact that you almost ran me down because of your stupidity." Now I'm climbing in the truck and heading on my way. You keep your speed down, or you'll find yourself in another ditch."
I climbed back in the power wagon, eased it into gear and started on down the road. Liz was sitting there on the other side of the cab looking kinda peaked. She opens her mouth ans starts to say something.
"Don't even get started, Liz, I know what you're going to say before you get started. Just let it rest until we get to LaGrange, then we can sit down to supper and you can have at it."
It was already cold in the cab, but I swear, the air got downright frigid right about then. That's OK, I wasn't much in the mood for conversation.
We were a little past Ellensberg when I saw Bill coming up behind us. His headlights would sort of wobble, than right themselves then wobble again.
He passed up doing about 60, and I thought to myself "That damn fool didn't learn a thing the first time. If he doesn't watch it he's going to end up in the ditch again."
We pulled over at Vantage, where the freeway crosses the Columbia River to get gas and lunch. I had a fair amount of gas still, what with the dual saddle tanks, but given the road conditions I wanted to be a little extra safety margin, and the weight would help steady the truck, especially going over the bridge and up the far side of the canyon. The winds can be fierce. I have seen the wind pick up a camper and dump it over in the next lane. It is an unnerving sight.