Snow was scattered in patches along the highway. The meridian was gouged and torn up in a stretch of mud, grass, and decaying leaves that divided the interstate into lanes of two going east and west where one limp, passive figure groped dazedly along a mass of crumpled wreckage.

     The cold, brisk wind bit relentlessly through Tom's bloodied and mud-soaked clothing that served as little protection against the elements. As he sensed the throb of pain that was pulsating from above his left eye, a knot of tension in his stomach began to twist at the numbness of his shock and disbelief.
 
     With eyes squinting, he scanned the side of the disabled vehicle as if looking for something yet unable to remember what it was. Finally, grasping the handle of the right rear door and wrenching it open with the anticipation of a child unraveling an enormous gift, he found her.

     His voice cracked as he cried out, "Kris!" Then, with a cautionary sense of delight, he said, "I thought that you..."

     "Layla!" Kris interjected. "I hear her," and, while scanning her surroundings with an ever-increasing awareness of what had just occurred, she added, "somewhere."

     As Tom gently, yet awkwardly, carried her away from the smoldering machine to a soft mound of cold, wet grass, Kris's repeated urgings reminded him to return to the wreckage to retrieve their young dog.

     Layla was yelping hysterically beneath the front fender of the vehicle where she remained cowering after her frantic escape when the front passenger door of the car flew open upon its final impact.

     The frightened puppy, a Shepard-Husky mix by anyone's guess, was relatively unharmed as Tom wrapped her in an old woolen army blanket that he had retrieved from the middle of the highway.

     Even though it was soaked with mud and slush after being ejected from the trunk of the tumbling car, the blanket's familiar musty scent seemed to comfort the crying animal as Tom tried to reassure her with a soothing voice.

     Kris, none-the-better from her own trauma, received Layla over her right shoulder and clutched her beneath her chin like a long-lost play doll. The puppy soon quieted down to a subdued state of doleful whimpering. With Tom's help, Kris eagerly wrapped herself and the dog in the damp blanket, but grimaced occasionally from the sharp pain that was emanating from above her right knee.

     She had been thrown violently from the front to the rear seat of the car as it tumbled and rolled aimlessly, head over heals and from side to side until, finally, it had landed upright, facing west, with two flat tires and a shattered windshield.

     A tandem trailer truck was stopped further beyond. Its driver had witnessed the one-car accident and was so close, in fact, that he had to swerve over to his right, almost jack-knifing, to avoid the on-coming vehicle which was on what seemed to be an almost certain collision course until the soft mud in the middle divider finally froze the doomed carriage in its place.

     Before he could stop his rig, however, he had passed the wreckage and drove over several of Tom and Kris's ejected belongings, including the drab-green woolen army blanket that Tom later retrieved for Kris and their dog.

     Upon disembarking his own vehicle, he approached the scene of the accident with guarded caution, fire extinguisher in one hand, and first aid kit in the other. After seeing that Tom was able enough to carry Kris away from the wreckage, he quickly extinguished the growing flames that were licking the bottom of the opened engine hood.

     He first suggested to Tom that he lie down and "Take it easy!" However, after noticing Tom stagger as he retrieved the blanket from the middle of the road, almost being hit by a passing car, he then compelled him to join Kris in order to ease the likelihood of shock and injury that was quite apparent by then.

     Several other motorists slowed down as they cautiously viewed the scene through raised windows. Two elderly women who were riding together chanced to pull over to the side of the road and the driver rolled her window down and asked, rather coldly, "Is anybody dead?"

     Tom, leering back at her, still smarting from his wounds and in no mood for sensation-seeking, morbid tourists such as she, responded scornfully, "No! Not yet, Lady."
 
     The woman driver, apparently quite miffed by Tom's snide remark, yet seemingly more disappointed that her routine of travel had been interrupted by something as marginally interesting as a one-car accident (survived, no less, by such a brash young man,) immediately rolled up her window and continued on in a huff.

     A highway patrol car arrived on the scene with lights flashing through the rain and sleet, and a lone officer emerged and began to hurry the traffic on by. A wrecker soon followed and its workers quickly cleared the highway of debris.

     They tossed those articles that were salvageable either in the trunk or on the back seat of the car, reassuring Tom and Kris that they would all be accounted for.
 
     The truck driver had already radioed ahead for an ambulance. It would take some time, he told them, before it could get there as the nearest hospital, he explained, was in Rock Springs, Wyoming, which was more than twenty miles to the west and the inclement weather was sure to slow the ambulance down considerably.

     As the officer finally approached the youths, Tom attempted to get up on his feet but was quickly motioned with a down-turned hand to remain as he was.

     Upon examining Tom's New York license and registration, and taking into account his age and apparent lack of experience, the officer asked him whether he had fallen asleep at the wheel.

     Tom, returning his identification to his wallet, looked up at the officer and replied rather curtly, "No! The dog jumped in front of me. I couldn't see the road," and, more pointedly, in sensing his chronic dislike for anyone in authority, especially police officers, Tom consciously omitted the customary "Sir" and "Officer" from his remarks.

     The officer pressed him further. "By the looks of the skid marks on the road, it seems as though you were speeding."

     "I was only doing seventy-five." Then, with a feigned air of confidence, Tom quickly added, "That's the limit, isn't it?"

     The officer finally posed the inevitable question that Tom had already imagined sooner or later would have to be asked since the times, the length of his hair and the style of his clothing seemed to beg it. "Have you been taking any drugs?"

     That was the first time in quite a while actually that Tom had given any thought whatsoever of getting high. Instinct, however, as well as his experiences with past official confrontations, seemed to caution his answers to this question more so than others. "No...Sir...It was the dog...Officer...I couldn't see the road."

     Noticing curious passersby again begin to cluster their vehicles along the scene, the officer returned to the road to wave them on by, but not before he informed Tom and Kris that he would meet with them at the hospital for further questioning.

     Watching the officer shuffle off with what appeared to be the stereotypical arrogance of a cowboy sheriff, Tom turned to Kris lying beside him and remarked, "He probably wants to strip-search you."

     Kris, trying hard to make light of the situation as well, but apparently feeling the throb in her leg overshadow any thoughts of a snappy comeback to his teasing remark, merely replied, "Just let him try!"

     Although they continued to pass the time with such half-hearted lampooning at one another, even humor was not enough to divert their attention from the concerns at hand.

     Scattered in nearly every direction were the remnants of most of their belongings, along with the remains of all of their hopes and dreams of making it on their own.

     After all, Tom thought, didn't they decide to return home only on the condition that, if things didn't work out the way they had hoped, they could always pick up from where they had left off and leave for good?

     Among all of his foolish endeavors, this was Tom's most pathetic realization, and it starkly reminded him of just how far away from the comforts of their respective homes they actually were.

     Before them loomed the Rocky Mountains from which they soon would have to descend in order to return back east, and behind them lay their vehicle with its front end pointed accusingly in the direction from which they came.

     As they huddled and shivered during that late autumn afternoon along the Continental Divide at Bitter Creek, they waited nervously for the ambulance to arrive.

     Kris, looking eastward with cold, detached stares, continued to distance herself from Tom's attempts to reassure her as she prayed for the comfort and security of her home, barely mindful of their baby that she carried in her womb.

     Since she had placed most of her faith in Tom’s repeated promises to take care of her, Kris's apparent reluctance to believe him this time compounded his sense of uneasiness between them.

     Those mountains seemed to cast further shadows of doubt upon Tom's already-faded notions of triumph as the sun lingered pale-white through the wind-blown snow.

     Any pretense of confidence that Tom tried to convey to Kris seemed to diminish with every moment as he gazed along the glistening fragments of glass and that wretched clump of steel that was once their only home together.

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