dontravis.com
blog post #367
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| Courtesy of NeedPix.com |
I’m
going to try something different (at least to me) this week. I want to publish
a heretofore unpublished novella in serial form. I’ve done short stories in
installments, but this is quite a bit longer. We’ll give it a try, at any rate.
Please let me know how you like this first installment.
*****
IMPOTENT
Forrest De la Roche swiped at
the cold, damp windshield. The Volvo’s defogger failed to clear the mist inside,
just as its wipers could not cope with the downpour outside, leaving him
virtually blind. It appeared to be twilight, although the dashboard clock and
his gold Rolex insisted it was not yet two in the afternoon. Who in the hell
knew it rained like this in New Mexico? Admittedly this was northern New Mexico… but still.
For a brief moment, De la Roche
surrendered to a sense of overwhelming depression, something entirely foreign
to him. As the chairman and CEO of ConstructCo International, he had controlled
his own destiny and that of thousands of employees for years. Problems were
simply knots to be undone by the application of knowledge, experience, logic,
and brainpower, and this situation was no different
An inveterate workaholic, he had
felt the sudden need to snatch a couple of days from his crowded schedule, and
a solo trip to a meeting in Albuquerque seemed just the ticket. He deplaned the
company’s executive jet in Farmington, a small New Mexico city in the Four
Corners Area, rented the Volvo, and started driving, ignoring demands that one
of his security staff accompany him. He wanted to forget about White House
invitations, Congressional hearings, power lunches, and merger strategies while
motoring cross-country in the superbly engineered Swedish automobile.
Almost immediately upon leaving
Farmington, he ran into long stretches of road construction. After consulting a
road map, De la Roche struck out across the Jemez Mountains, planning on
rejoining the highway at some place called San Ysidro where the construction
would be behind him. In any case, the prospect of a mountain trip pleased him
more than the flat, high-desert country he had traveled so far. A few miles
east of a quaint little town called Cuba, he ran out of pavement and really
began enjoying himself.
The first big raindrops
approached from behind and failed to give adequate warning of what was to come.
The landscape faded from green to gray behind a heavy veil of water. The
weather system hovering to the west all day had rushed up to catch him by
surprise. De la Roche pulled to the side of the road to punch up his satellite
phone. Nothing but static. He glanced at the briefcase on the seat beside him
and assumed the Global Positioning Unit inside was doing its job. Past experience
with mountain storms told him the front would rush past, leaving only the worry
of washouts and bog holes. Since the road was well graveled, he threw the Volvo
in gear and continued.
Before long he suspected he had
miscalculated. The rain relentlessly pelted the countryside. Frequent flashes
of lightning momentarily brightened the day-turned- night, but the deluge
drowned out the thunderclaps except when a bolt hit especially close. One
strike on a stretch of road a hundred yards ahead of him excited the hair on
his forearms. The gravel foundation that gave such comfort and confidence began
to thin, and in places totally disappear, but by that time he was committed. Reducing
his speed, he doggedly kept driving.
Half a mile later, he powered
through a stream of water rapidly eroding the dirt road. Once across the newly
formed creek, he realized he’d foreclosed returning the way he came. The
roadway would be completely washed out in a matter of minutes. In typical
fashion, he shrugged and continued his slow way over the sodden road.
He was climbing now, and his
primary worry became the condition of the roadway. On sudden, severe
down-slopes typical of mountain roads, the car planed on treacherous caliche
clay. More than once, he slid off the slick road into water-filled ditches, but
the valiant machine always pulled itself clear... until it didn’t.
Cursing vehemently, he crawled
out into the pounding rain to stuff rocks and branches under the bogged wheels with
little hope that it would help. To his amazement, the rear wheels grabbed, and
the Volvo gradually tore itself from the mud with loud sucking noises that
sounded amazingly like Griego, the hunky masseur at this discrete little club
in San Diego.
The car topped a steep hill and
entered a flat, open meadow. Negotiating the long gradual curve to the right,
he almost did not see the fallen tree until too late. Even so, he calmly pumped
the brakes gently. The automobile fishtailed alarmingly but stopped short of
the pine blocking the road.
Fighting panic, he noticed a
track leading off to the left, undoubtedly an old logging road. With no other
real alternative, he urged the Volvo on its uncertain way into the misty
forest. A short time later, the rough track connected with another graveled
road. Relieved, he turned right and prayed this would lead him to civilization.
One hour and no more than five
miles later, the road dropped abruptly to snake down the side of a steep
ravine. He pumped the brakes, but it did no good. In the terrifying moments
before the car gently caressed a big Ponderosa, halting its uncontrolled
forward movement, De la Roche noticed a Forest Service sign announcing Cañon
Cebolla. As he stared down the two hundred-foot precipitous drop just beyond
the friendly pine to the distant floor of the canyon, his stomach dropped into
his scrotum.
Mindful of the shallow root
systems of these mountain pines, even one so formidable as this, he threw the
car into reverse. Alarmed that the rear wheels spun sideways, swinging the nose
of the car free from the protecting tree trunk, he hit the seat belt button and
prepared to abandon the vehicle when the tires found purchase and threw the car
backward. Removing his foot from the gas pedal, he allowed gravity to take him
wherever it wished, so long as it wasn’t down into the canyon. Where it took
him was on an unrestrained slide back along the sloppy road. The car slued
sideways as it picked up speed before bouncing across a washed-out furrow and
crashing against a boulder.
The rain quit abruptly as he climbed
out of the car. The respite was only momentarily; another wall of water
approached from a hundred yards down the road. Rushing through an inspection,
De la Roche found the right rear fender crushed and the wheel beneath it bent
at an awkward angle. The Volvo wasn’t going anywhere except for a piggyback
ride aboard a wrecker. Unwilling to risk the steep road down into the canyon, he
tackled the hill behind the disabled car. After falling twice and sliding on
his L. L. Bean-clad butt all the way back to the car, he turned at right angles
to the hill, dug the length of his soft Italian shoes into the mud, and
side-stepped his way to the top.
Despite hours in a gym and a
disciplined exercise regimen, he was breathing laboriously. It was the altitude,
he told himself, exhaling white vapor into the mountain atmosphere. Just before
the rain came again, he caught the distant growl of a laboring motor. Immediately,
he began running down the road like some panicked greenhorn in pursuit of what
may or may not be a vehicle. The rain struck, descending in angry torrents that
blinded and rendered him deaf. He floundered on, clutching at the faint hope of
salvation. Chilled to the bone, he nonetheless began to sweat heavily as he slipped
and slid on the untrustworthy clay.
Then he faltered, coming to a
halt with his hands clutching his knees while he fought for breath. Out of the
corner of his eye he caught movement! Lights! A car! Awkwardly, he stumbled
ahead, understanding immediately that the machine was on a sidetrack intersecting
the road fifty yards ahead of him. The vehicle towed a stock trailer so the
driver would not attempt the descent into Cebolla Canyon. The car would turn
away from him if he did not attract its attention. Given the lashing rain, the
driver would be concentrating on the road ahead of him.
He wouldn’t make it to the
intersection in time! The headlights shimmering through the rain approached
the turn-off while he was still twenty yards away. Realizing that he wore dark
clothing, De la Roche tore off his windbreaker and quickly reversed it,
flapping the tan lining frantically. The vehicle, a Jeep, reached the
intersection and turned in the opposite direction. He nearly collapsed from
fear and disappointment.
Halfway into the turn, the brake
lights flashed. The Jeep drifted to a halt and sat puffing pale clouds of fog
at him. A yellow-slickered figure in a Stetson emerged from the cab of the
vehicle and peered through the falling rain.
De la Roche, reaching down
inside himself to reclaim his dignity, calmly put on the soaked windbreaker for
the scant protection it afforded before walking toward the vehicle with as much
poise as he could muster on the slippery surface. The driver, a large figure
obscured by the pelting rain, approached on foot.
“Trouble?” asked a basso-profundo voice when they were five
yards apart.
De la Roche downplayed the
thing. “You might say that. Car’s propped up on a rock at the bottom of the
hill,” he half-turned and gestured behind him.
“Let’s take a look,” the figure
said, striding past him, amazingly sure-footed on the treacherous surface.
De la Roche had the impression
of a big, beefy man. Young. Confident. Capable. “It’s disabled,” he called,
turning to follow the yellow oilcloth raincoat.
“Blocking the road?” The voice
was muffled by the failing rain.
“Halfway. Rear end’s in the
ditch; front’s sticking out some.”
“Better do something about it.”
The man preceded him down the
slope, digging in the heels of his calf-high waders to keep his sliding to a
minimum. De la Roche almost plowed into him from behind when he stopped beside
the Volvo.
“Let’s see if we can shove the
front end into the ditch.” In a move De la Roche admired, the stranger picked
out some hefty rocks and stomped them into the greasy mud for leverage. The wet
clay made the task reasonably easy. Soon the handsome black car sat forlornly
in a water-filled ditch at the side of the road.
“Help you carry your things?”
the man asked, pushing his dripping hat back on his head during another brief
lull in the downpour, revealing an immensely pleasing face of angles and
wind-burned hues.
Cowboy for some ranch. About
thirty. Good-looking. Sexy as hell. And a Godsend.
“Thanks,” he responded aloud,
allowing the stranger to take his overnight bag while he claimed the briefcase.
They reached the Jeep just as
the rain started in earnest again. Safe from the deluge for the moment, the
cowboy eased his vehicle and trailer out onto the road before glancing over at
De la Roche and shooting out a hand.
“Austin Andino,” the cowboy
yelled over sound of rain slamming against the roof.
Impressed by the grip, he
responded. “Forrest De la Roche.”
*****
Well, now they’ve met.
And they’re stranded in the middle of the northern New Mexico mountains in a
horrendous rainstorm. At the outset, I said this was a novella, which gives me
time to develop characters, unlike a short story. We already know that Forrest
De la Roche, big shot or no, occasionally likes to get it on, like with Griego the masseur. But we don’t know anything about the desires of a big cowboy, do
we? Not yet. At any rate, the Los Angeles executive usually is in control of
things. But now he’s at the mercy of a strange cowboy. He’s in an unaccustomed
condition… he’s impotent.
The following are buy
links for the recently released The Voxlightner Scandal.
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Universal
Link: https://books2read.com/u/4AxPDo
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com.
PLEASE DON’T USE THAT ONE.)
Email:
don.travis@aol.com.
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
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