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Chapter 1
I’d planned to visit my only living relative in El Paso, but then a packing box and registered letter arrived the day before my discharge.
Harold Baker Law Firm—Ms. Jackson: it is with deep regret that I inform you of Mildred Taylor’s passing. In accordance with her will, please find the assets bequeathed to you—
I fingered through the box’s contents—my grandmother’s collection of family journals. Dated 1899, the topmost diary was labeled Fort Lincoln, Texas.
Fort Lincoln…The name conjured vague memories of Grandma’s stories. Tears stinging my eyes, I checked an online map. The town was three hours from El Paso. But do I have time for a detour? I’d have to file a DA 31 to request leave…
A mirthless chuckle escaped. Tomorrow, I’m getting my discharge. I don’t need anyone’s permission!
****
“Our family homesteaded in the Lincoln Mountains.” Grandma’s bedtime stories echoed through my mind as I sped west on I-10. At an early age, family history had merged with myth until the name Fort Lincoln was as legendary as Avalon or Middle Earth.
But when the snow-covered peaks loomed closer, their reality was undeniable. Maybe her stories weren’t tall tales…
And what about her proverbs? “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” I winced. No job and no prospects. Mustering out after a five-year Army stint, I had to ask myself: What next? Where next?
Cody slipped into my thoughts, but I dismissed him, refusing to romanticize our breakup.
Though the speed limit was eighty mph, traffic zipped at a brisk ninety, and I approached Fort Stockton just after noon. A troop of cavalry soldiers galloped toward me from the nineteenth century, but a second glance proved the images were metal cutouts—two-dimensional illusions that resembled an officer and guide leading two columns of cavalrymen.
The silhouettes evoked tales of my great-great-grandfather, Ben Williams. Beginning his military career as a scout, he’d been field promoted during combat, then commissioned as Second Lieutenant at Fort Lincoln.
I smiled, proud of our similar career paths. Maybe Grandma’s stories influenced me more than I realized.
Leaving the Interstate, I turned south. Road signs noted the distance to Fort Lincoln, Terlingua, Lajitas, and Castolon, towns that sounded familiar from family stories but seemed as mythical as Camelot or Tintagel Castle.
Closer now, the mountains’ features came into view. No longer mere outlines on the horizon, each craggy palisade and butte towered over the highway.
The forecast had promised sunny skies and temperatures in the sixties. Then an El Niño cold front barreled through. Fog still hugged the mountains—wispy remnants of the blue norther—coating every cactus spine, mesquite thorn, and barbed wire with a fine layer of ice. Fluffy hoarfrost transformed the landscape into an icy spectacle, with flaky, crystal shards overlaying each leaf and every blade of grass.
A frozen fairyland! Just the way Grandma described it. Inspired by the raw beauty, I straightened my shoulders. Maybe I’m viewing my discharge the wrong way. Instead of adrift, maybe I’m free…
Crouching forward, I peered through the windshield at the vertically fractured boulders high above. The basalt columns rose like thousands of giant fingers reaching for the sky. Steep bluffs flanked both sides of the road, and as I navigated the pass, another mountain range appeared on the horizon, then another.
Snow flurries swirled about the peaks like confectioners’ sugar. A bank of compacted snow lined the twisting highway’s shoulders, partially shrouding fallen rocks—proof of a plow’s recent sweep—but except for an occasional thin glaze of ice, the road was clear.
As my car continued its climb, another sign came into view: Wild Rose Pass.
A roadrunner sprinted across the road, its neck craned forward and its tailfeathers parallel to the ground.
I grinned at the lucky omen as I rounded the next bend, where a javelina sow and her two piglets scurried onto the highway, directly in my path.
I swerved, but my front wheels caught a patch of black ice, sending the car into a spin as it careened toward a sheer drop-off. My equilibrium off, I pumped the brakes while I steered hand over hand, skidding sideways toward the opposite shoulder, where a solid basalt wall backboarded the emergency lane.
I closed my eyes, clenched the wheel, and braced for impact.
The car crunched through the snowbank and jounced over the rocky debris, but instead of hurtling headlong into the stony barrier, it lurched to a halt, just inches from the mountainside. The hood tilted skyward, and the car’s right front tire lifted off the ground.
Rammed against the driver’s door and queasy from the spin, I cut the engine, while the javelinas nimbly ducked beneath the railing and scuttled down the hillside. At least they’re safe.
Thick smoke began filling the car. My lungs burning, I pushed against the wedged door, but it would not give. I’m not going to die in flames! Adrenaline pumping, I twisted in my seat and kicked against the armrest with both feet. Millimeter by millimeter, the rim scraped the packed snow until, finally, the metal buckled, and I tumbled out.
Black smoke billowed from the engine. Coughing, I filled my lungs with cold mountain air as I tried to pry open the hood. But with the car nearly leaning on its side, the crumpled metal would not budge. I limped to the passenger side for a better view.
Lodged on a fallen boulder, the right front of the car’s undercarriage listed in midair.
