9

When Zach got to the open car door, his dad was still grimacing in pain.

“Dad,” Zach said, gently tapping him on his good shoulder.

His dad turned to look at him. “It hurts.”

The temperature was dropping fast now that dusk was upon them. Zach had heard something about staying in your car if you had an accident in bad weather, but his dad’s car was tilted forward so it wouldn’t be safe for them to sit inside. They couldn’t go back to Zach’s car either because it was sitting in the middle of the road. It would get covered in snow and if a plow finally came down it would slam right into them. Zach was certain that they couldn’t survive another disaster like that.

They needed someplace that was warm and dry for the night, especially considering the shape his dad was in. He was already shivering and his lips had started turning purple. There was no way Zach’s dad would make it through the night like this. They needed to find some place to get warm.

“We need to get you out of here. I’m going to undo the seatbelt.”

Zach reached around his dad and found the seatbelt latch on his right side. The car moved a little. Zach stopped for a moment. He would have to be careful not to push the car any further in the ditch or he might risk injuring his dad even more. He slowly reached in again and pushed the latch release and the belt unhooked. In the process, he bumped into his dad’s shoulder.

“Oh!”

The car creaked and moved again. This time it wobbled and slid a little bit further down in the ditch.

“Sorry!” Zach immediately drew back, afraid to touch the car now that it had actually moved.

He had never seen his dad so helpless and injured like this. His leg was badly hurt, he winced every time Zach came near his shoulder, and blood was matted on his face from a one-inch gash on his forehead.

“My leg jammed . . . into the dash . . .”

His face looked pained. Crinkles formed next to his eyes as he squeezed them shut. It was killing Zach to see his dad this way.

“Here. Wrap your arm around my shoulder.” Zach reached in the car and grabbed his dad around the middle. “On three. One . . . two . . . three!” Zach pulled him out of the car as gently as possible. His dad tensed and cried out in agony but Zach knew that he didn’t have time to stop. He pulled his dad the rest of the way out of the car and onto the snow bank. The car squeaked and wheezed. It rocked forward and rolled the rest of the way into the ditch. Skye, who had been sitting by the sled, jumped up and barked.

Zach helped his dad ease onto the tarp sled he had made.

“We’re going to pull you out of here, just like riding a sled.”

Zach was trying to sound positive, but it was difficult listening to his dad groan in pain.

Zach grabbed one of the bungee cords out of his blanket sack and started to attach it to the sled when Skye grabbed the cord with her teeth.

“Do you want to help?” Zach almost cried with relief. Skye grabbed the rope in her mouth and started to pull. It was slowly moving, but Skye was clearly pulling Zach’s dad along.

“Hold on, girl,” Zach grabbed the dog’s collar. “Let’s make this a little easier for you.” Zach pulled out another bungee cord and wrapped it into a makeshift harness around Skye’s shoulders. He attached the remaining bungee cords to the sled and picked up the rest of the supplies.

With his dad resting safely on the sled, Zach set out to find somewhere for them to wait out the storm overnight. It had become pretty clear to him that no one would be driving past them in this weather.

“Looks like you learned something useful in Cub Scouts,” his dad said.

They both smiled, but neither of them said anything else. Zach pressed on, trying his best to keep Skye slow and steady as she pulled his dad behind her. He felt suddenly more like an adult than he ever had. He needed to take charge to get them out of this mess—for his dad.

“It’s getting dark,” his dad said.

Zach didn’t answer at first. Then he said, “I know. We need to get out of the cold. Someplace we can stay for the night. I’m taking us deeper into the woods. I once saw a rocky ledge a ways from the cabin. I’m looking over there.”

Skye trotted beside Zach. Every few steps she looked up at him to make sure he was still there.

Zach trudged through the snow. They had to turn to bypass mulberry bushes and fallen trees and the snow was getting deeper the farther into the woods they went.

Soon Skye was out of breath and limping along on her bad paw. The sled’s weight was too much for the dog. Zach unhooked the sled from Skye’s harness and attached it to his own belt loops. He set the blanket pack down at his dad’s feet and started to pull.

“Good girl, Skye. Now how about I give it a try?” The dog barked appreciatively and ran a few steps ahead, leading their group on.

Pulling the sled reminded Zach of pulling the team equipment for football. They used a pull sled to work the chest muscles and build upper body strength. Coach would add more weights when you were ready. His dad’s weight was actually less than what Zach pulled in football, but his dad was more fragile. In football, if Zach hit a bump nothing happened, but here his dad could be thrown off the sled.

“Keep going. You’re doing great,” Zach heard his coach in his mind.

“Stay with me, Dad. We’re going to get through this.”

Zach glanced back. His dad groaned from the sled, but mostly kept still. Zach looked ahead and steered them toward a rocky embankment. There might be something beyond the curve that would at least shelter them from the wind.

“This isn’t exactly what we had planned, is it?”

“Nope,” Zach said. He was trying to sound brave, but he didn’t feel brave at all. He couldn’t feel parts of his hand and face. He still didn’t know if they would find shelter, but he kept pulling. The pulling gave him something to focus on.

His dad groaned as they covered increasingly rocky ground.

“I’ve got you.” Zach steadied the sled. “Thought we’d be cleaning off some trout right about now.”

“Naw. We would have thrown them back. I would have caught them all and you would have said, ‘Let’s go for pizza.’”

“Or else I would have caught them all.”

“Right.” They laughed.

“Oh.” His dad grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, kid. Don’t make me laugh, okay?”

“Okay,” Zach said. “I’ll try being less funny.”

The blowing wind bit at Zach’s cheeks. “We need to get out of this wind or we’ll freeze to death. I think I remember a spot where we can spend the night,” Zach yelled over the blowing wind. “Over into those woods. There’s a high ridge in there. It’ll at least shield us from this wind.”

They were about two miles from where they had left his dad’s now-totaled car. The woods were starting to look the same. Only a sliver of the sun hung low over the horizon. Zach blinked back tears. They needed shelter fast.