About a half hour into the trek Asadi realized he’d made a really bad call. At this point, he couldn’t return to Savanah and Duke, but he felt no closer to reaching the Mescalero runway and hangar. The never-ending rows of snow-covered dunes had exhausted him completely. He trudged up one, only to find another. And then another. And then another.
There was at least a sensation of comfort and safety when reaching a peak, visible to the world again, versus the trough where he felt isolated. But neither crest nor valley provided any relief from the howling wind.
Ascending to the top of a mammoth hill, Asadi glanced around, realizing he had lost his sense of direction. He leaned over and massaged his aching thighs, wondering how much more he had to give. A part of him wanted to keep pushing, but Garrett had taught him enough about wilderness survival to know that doing nothing was sometimes the wiser option.
He was burning up his precious energy reserves, possibly for no good reason, and could feel the perspiration building inside his coat. Given the extreme cold, moisture was one of his worst enemies. On top of that, he was starting to feel the burn of dehydration. There was plenty of snow with which to hydrate, but his dad always told him not to eat it unless absolutely necessary.
Eating snow might quench his thirst but it would also bring down his core temperature. At the moment, exposure was a much greater threat.
Asadi was tempted to stop and sit when a quick flash of light caught his eye. He drew a bead on the beam and was back on the move, dipping and diving, as he raced between and over a half-dozen more sandhills before finding only darkness again. He huffed and puffed, filling his burning lungs with more frigid air, wondering if what he’d witnessed was an optical illusion.
About to turn around again in another of what he suspected would be a useless search for anything but the nothingness of an icy wasteland, Asadi saw the flicker. This time it was much brighter, which meant he was getting close. He took off toward the light and ran down the hill. Ignoring the burn in his calves, he moved faster, and pushed down the incline.
Asadi was nearly at the bottom when his left foot landed in a divot, his ankle went vertical, and a sharp pain radiated through his body. Knocked off kilter, he tipped forward and somersaulted into the trough between the dunes. He rose and dusted off the snow, but a good bit of powder had found its way inside his coat.
A slow look up and ahead revealed some devastating news. The source of the light wasn’t from the jet hangar as he’d hoped, or even a farmhouse. It came from an oilfield tank battery. It was at least a landmark, which gave him some comfort. But there’d be nothing there to help. So, Asadi pushed forward, favoring his right ankle just a little as he tramped through the snow.
Each step resulted in his boot tightening, which meant his foot was starting to swell. But he trudged on ahead toward the floodlight on the oil pad. A painful march onto the caliche pad revealed four tan-colored storage tanks, each about thirty feet high. An iron staircase led to the top, where a scaffolding ran the length of the battery.
In the middle of it all was a large pumpjack, stationary at the moment, and a few iron appurtenances on the outskirts of the site. Everything was covered in ice, or a frosty white glaze. A sign in front of the tanks revealed that it was a Mescalero Energy well. The fact that it was designated Boone 9-2H meant something to someone but certainly not to him.
Asadi moved to the stairwell and limped to the top for a better look around. Again, there was nothing to see but an endless sea of sandhills. Spying an oil field road coming in at the far side of the pad, he decided his best chance was to hike his way out. It was still a gamble, especially with a twisted ankle, but he’d at least have an end goal.
Psyching himself up for what was certain to be a miserable journey, Asadi took a deep breath, blew hot air into his hands, and latched on to the iron rail. The first three steps went fine, but on the fourth his boot heel hit an ice patch beneath the snow and sent both feet flying.
If the railing had been dry, he could’ve caught himself on the way down, but his momentum was too great. It ripped his hands from the bar and his body went into a free-fall slide. With each jarring step, he reached for the balusters, but they were just too slick to offer support. Asadi kicked out wide and his boots caught the posts beneath the railing and halted his descent.
The jarring stop saved him from tumbling but resulted in a loud pop from his busted ankle. His shriek was a combo of the ache of the injury and the terrifying plummet. If anybody had been there to witness the fall or especially the scream, Asadi would’ve been absolutely humiliated. But as luck would have it, he was alone.
Of course, Asadi didn’t feel lucky at all. And his attempt to stand was met with an even harsher reality than embarrassment. The ache from his tailbone was surpassed by the throbbing inside his boot. A year or two prior and Asadi would have been tempted to cry. But Garrett had told him there was a time for reflection and a time for action. And with that in mind, he fell back on the wilderness survival training passed down from his dad, the former Green Beret.
Asadi’s plan to help Savanah would have to be put on hold. Shelter, fire, signaling, and first aid were his priorities now. But knowing what he needed to do and actually doing it were two different things. The only resources he had to work with were a lot of rock, some tanks full of oil, and a whole bunch of steel. And with a blizzard approaching, he had to move fast.