The Ravine

“Honey, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. It’s just a twelve-hour trip to my sister’s.”

The afternoon peaked and the heat of spring had started to roll in, pushing aside the stubborn presence of morning chill. Their infant son cooed in Carol’s arms.

“I know. It’s just that I feel bad for not being able to escort you two there. This work’s really piled up and my boss is riding me to get it done.”

Carol looked at Martin sympathetically and, with her free hand, tapped him on his cheek in reassurance.

“There, there. Poor baby. But such a gentleman for caring.”

He exhaled sharply and she leaned in to give him a quick peck on the lips.

“Don’t worry.” She held up their son, Jameson. Martin made a face and he giggled.

“See,” Carol chirped. “He’s not.”

“Ba Dad-dee,” Jameson gleamed with a big smile spotted in developing

teeth.

Martin smiled back at his son and gave his wife one more good kiss for the road.

“Listen,” Carol reassured once more as she walked towards their sedan.

“I’ll call you once I’m at my sister’s. And if you’re lucky one time before when we make a pit stop at the motel.”

“It’s the Roeder Inn, right?”

“Yes,” Carol replied.

“You sure I don’t need to help you get there?” Concern flooded Martin’s eyes still. “I can tell my boss—”

“No. No. Now get back in there before you get fired. I need to hit the road. I got a deadline, too, sweetheart.” The sedan jerked into reverse and began gradually retreating from where Martin stood. Carol waved goodbye, blowing him a kiss as the vehicle straightened itself out into drive. Martin waved back, watching his family descend out of sight as it crept down their driveway’s incline.

The morning sun had already brought with it the promise of a sweltering day as the sedan meandered onto the side road that would take them into town and then onto the highway, leaving them the option of staying at the always-vacant Roeder Inn; a favorite pastime road trip spot from Martin and Carol’s dating days.

As the road began to wind, the sun’s rays broke through the line of fir trees that rested along the roadside, mounted on the slopes of its sub-grade. Carol drew down the visor on both her side and the passenger’s in the efforts of keeping the sun out of Jameson’s eyes and put on her sunglasses. She adjusted herself in her seat and turned the radio nob.

“It’s gonna be another hot one today, folks,” the weatherman said. “With highs in the eighties and lows in the mid-sixties. So make sure you are near someplace cool because this will be stretching for the better half of two weeks.”

“Beeaautifulll weather, Cal,” the reporter replied. “Just a splendid way to start your summer.”

“That it is, Lew,” Cal replied. “And just after that bout of rain we just had.”

Jameson cooed from his place in the back seat.

“You like that report, Jamey?” Jameson made giggling noises in between suckles of juice from his bottle.

“Don’t worry about the heat,” Carol continued. “Aunt Kim’s got a nice kiddie pool that you can play in.” Carol’s mind drifted back to the weather report as the car slowed to take another winding turn.

“Hell,” she said under her breath. “I may even join you.” The radio transitioned into a tune.

Carol reached down to the cup holder to her right and took the bottle of water into her hand and drank generously. She briefly looked at it, swirling its contents about.

Looks like I’ll need a refill. It’ll be about an hour before we get into town and this should hold me over. I’ll get some more for Jamey and I then.

The road straightened out for about a quarter a mile and then began to curve again, sunlight breaking through vacant spaces between fir tree canopy, as the two were led up a slight incline. To Carol’s right, off the shoulder of the road, she could see a breathtaking view of an expansive tree line burning with brilliant stripes of light from the rising sun. Eventually the road plateaued and began to wind again in a zig-zagging pattern like before. Another break in the canopy once again sent the sunlight right through Carol’s windshield.

“Shit!” Carol slammed on the breaks. Inside the sedan, there was a brief silence. Carol composed herself and then looked back to check on Jameson. He started cooing, content and seemingly unphased by Carol’s sudden and erratic action.

You’re okay. Good.

Carol looked forward and exhaled deeply. She turned the car’s key and the vehicle sputtered to a stop. She looked back at Jameson, unbuckled her seatbelt and then opened the car door, stepping out. She closed it and walked forward.

“Shit,” she repeated.

Sitting in front of her was a great accumulation of tree, dirt and stone. And to its left was an indentation in the hillside where the debris blocking the road had come from. Carol walked up to it, studying both sides of the road for the possibility of safely passing by and continuing forward. To the left was the hillside. No way that was happening. She’d be rubbing noses with the giant root structure of the unfortunate fir-corpse that lay across the road. And the shoulder? Sure, she could attempt to squeeze the car in between the debris mound’s abrupt end and the drop off that would send her and Jameson plummeting some fifty plus feet to God-knows-where, crippling the sedan and forcing them both to walk about an hour’s worth back through the sweltering heat to their cabin retreat.

“Shit.”

Jameson fidgeted in the back seat. He was starting to grow uncomfortable without his mother. Carol walked back to the open driver’s door and sat back in, closing it behind her. She looked at the debris in front of her and thought. After about a minute’s time, she opened the dash and reached in, pulling out a map. She opened it and began tracing the road she and Jameson were stuck on. After a few minutes of searching she found it.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “We are here and our cabin is about here…”

“Ah ha, I knew it was here somewhere.” Carol’s finger slid from where they sat to an old logging road that was about a half hour’s drive back along the road. As she followed it, she noticed that it seemed to back track a bit but then straighten out and eventually made a U-turn back towards town.

“This must be the way.” She remembered Martin once mentioning that the area was very enticing for those looking to make end’s meet in the tree industry and that Avery owed its roots to this wilderness and this old logging road.

It would about double the time to get into town. But that ain’t too bad. Martin needs the privacy and we love a good, scenic car trip, Carol thought.

Jameson drifted off to sleep in the car seat. Carol folded up the map and put it back into the dash, started the car and then turned it around in the direction of the old logging road.

About thirty or so minutes into their retreat, the sedan crept to a stop along a straightaway. Carol reached into the dash and opened up the map once more. She marked the place once more with her finger and then looked out her car window.

“There it is,” she said, with excitement and relief. She folded the map up haphazardly and took her foot off the brake. The car crept forward toward a cleared space that opened up along the shoulder and then gradually winded down, out of sight. Carol turned the car onto the adjacent road, carefully keeping the sedan on track.

The descent off the wilderness road took Carol and Jameson meandering away from the growing hillside and gradually down around fifteen feet above the treetops that, up the road and earlier, were illuminated by the growing morning sun.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it, Jamey,” Carol spoke to herself. The sun was now a lot higher in the sky and mid-afternoon was rapidly approaching, bringing the heat the weatherman promised with it. Carol took another drink of water; a bit less than before. The bottle was only about a third full now. Jameson gripped his bottle in his little fingers and copied his momma. The old road straightened out and the sedan tossed the two slightly as they continued forward along the uneven terrain, eaten by weather and neglect. Carol remembered this part of the road from the map. It was where it had straightened out before meandering into a backtracking pattern, accounting for the setback before returning to the way the map had promised; the path to town.

After Carol and Jameson had traveled the full length of the straightaway, the old road did as predicted and turned back, descending further into the wilderness and, soon, under the first set of fir canopy.

“Ah, shade.” Carol removed her sunglasses and pressed her lids together hard. Jameson cooed once more in delight. The fresh breeze that had initially entered the rolled down windows on his and Carol’s side had been lulled to an almost dead calm by the old road’s worsened condition, forcing Carol to err on the side of caution and slow her speed.

The two wore on and its gradual decline increasingly became steeper, transitioning from a ten degree slope to about a thirty without much warning.

“Hold on, Jamey.” Carol looked back briefly before returning her eyes to the road.

As she road the brakes down the steep grade, loose dirt broke from under her tires and the sedan slid and skidded. “Whoa,” Carol protested.

Sunlight spotted the road ahead and the bottom of the hill was in sight, revealing a much more dependable, and flatter, roadway. Carol stuck the vehicle in neutral and gave the drive a bit of a rest. She continued to break and, at about the base of the slope, the sedan slid the full remaining twenty feet until it rested at the bottom. As Carol shifted the sedan into drive, she heard the sound of the road’s slope behind her bounce off the rear of her car, providing the occasional ping, ping, ping in the extraordinary feat of reaching to the height of her bumper and exhaust pipe.

“Well, good luck getting back up that way,” Carol murmured. She looked over at the dash with the map in mind and remembered where the road would eventually lead them, should they see it through. Or, rather, now that they have no choice but to.