Turn Around When Possible, J. C. Laird [best large ereader TXT] 📗

The first indication that anything was amiss was when “Samantha”, their aging GPS system, interrupted their stony silence with her computer accented, female voice—“In two miles take the Harris Road exit, Exit 140.” After a pause, she repeated her instructions a second time. Of course, Robert had no idea this innocuous statement foreshadowed the tragedy to come.

He had purchased the Tom-Tom GPS system over five years previously when their children, Elizabeth and David, were still living at home. It was a life saver on their two-week vacation to Florida that year. They all pooled their ideas and came up with the name Samantha—Sam for short—for the techno routing tool. This technological wonder came with a computer hook-up so it could be updated with the latest changes in routes and addresses, directly from the company’s website. Unfortunately, Robert lost the cord almost immediately when they moved from Albuquerque to Rio Rancho and Samantha had never been brought up to date. Still, in all the time since her purchase she had only failed them twice, and that was when she was unable to locate addresses of buildings that hadn’t existed when she was manufactured. Considering its age he should probably have just bought a new one…

Robert glanced over at his wife, Cindy. She was still looking out the side window and hadn’t acknowledged the new instructions. He figured she was still upset over their last discussion. Maybe discussion wasn’t the right word; argument better defined their last go-round, the frequencies of which had increased dramatically over the last year.

Samantha broke the silence again. “Get in the right lane. Take the Harris Road exit, Exit 140. Then turn right.” She echoed her clear, simple instructions a second time.

Robert signaled and steered the car into the right lane, a faint feeling of unease briefly fluttering through him. He never brought maps with them on their trips, instead relying solely on their GPS, another sore point with Cindy. But he had perused their road atlas a couple of times before leaving, just to get a feeling for the geography on their trip to Montana and Idaho. He was trying to picture the map in his mind…

They were almost to the Montana/Idaho border. When he’d last checked Samantha’s readout, they had about a hundred miles to go before reaching Coeur d’ Alene, a large city in northern Idaho. It was a straight shot on I-90, then another sixty miles north to their destination of Sandpoint on Lake Pend Oreille. But now Sam said he was supposed to exit. All he could figure was that Samantha had recalculated another route; Robert had opted for the gadget’s alternate program to find the fastest, as opposed to the shortest route, and she had obviously found a faster shortcut. If he remembered correctly, there was a mountain range, the Cabinet Mountains, somewhere to the northeast of them.

The Kia Sportage SUV’s cruise control had been set on 75 mph and he tapped the brake pedal lightly to disengage it as they approached the Harris Road exit. Samantha aggravatingly droned on with her instructions. “Exit now, Exit 140, Harris Road. Then turn right.”

Cindy finally roused herself from her scenery staring and looked at him expressionlessly. “Why are we getting off here?”

“I think Samantha found us a shortcut,” he said.

His wife of twenty-four years glanced around at the changing landscape and lapsed back into silence.

They had traveled approximately two miles down the rural road, passing lush green fields, heavily treed areas and several farms, when Samantha spoke again. “Turn left on Twelve Mile Road.” After repeating, there was a pause, then, “In 500 feet turn left. Turn left on Twelve Mile Road.”

Sure enough, an opening appeared in the trees to their left as predicted. Robert turned onto the road, his level of unease rising another notch; the pavement ended after a quarter mile. Robert slowed to a stop. A sign indicated another dirt road to the left led to a campground. The road ahead of them rose upward, but the most disconcerting thing was the posted warning: ‘Road Not County Maintained’.

Cindy was staring at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This can’t be right.” She peered through the windshield at the desolate looking, winding road. She pursed her lips. “You must have made a wrong turn somewhere.”

Robert glared ahead at the rising, forest lined road and handed the palm-sized GPS to Cindy. “You tell me what it says, if we’re on the right road or not. Besides, she’d tell us if we weren’t following her directions.”

She peered at the map on the small screen for several seconds. “It says we’re on Twelve Mile Road; the arrow is pointed in this direction and we have 13.5 miles to go.” She clenched her teeth and put the small technological marvel back in its holder on the console, muttering. “You want the time, speed and ETA too? I can’t believe you didn’t bring a map along. Especially on this God-forsaken trip.”

Robert bit his lip and managed to say nothing. His choice of vacation was another sore point between them. Cindy’s blonde head was again turned away from him, looking out the window. She would have preferred a week on the beach in Florida or California, not in the northern reaches of Idaho, near the Canadian border. He hit the gas and headed up the road.

At first the road was fairly navigable, narrow but occasionally widening with shallow pull-offs. Partially hidden by tall pines, a cliff-like mountainside soared up on their right, more trees and scrub to their left. The pull-offs soon disappeared, the road narrowed and ruts and potholes became more numerous. Robert slowed his speed as he tried to weave around the worst of the winter’s erosion. The roadway was wet from the spring thaw and, as they progressed higher, patches of snow began to appear on the shoulders to the right, in the lee of the larger rocks and trees. There was even a good sized drift hugging the bend of one S-curve.

It would be impossible for two cars to pass each other on what was rapidly becoming no more than a rutted cow path. Robert wondered what would happen should they meet an oncoming vehicle. But then, they had not seen a living soul since they had begun their climb up the mountainous shortcut, let alone another car.

Cindy was nervously glancing around, especially to the left, where the trees and scrub had partially given way to a too near—for Cindy’s liking—rocky and steep drop-off down the mountainside. With the soaring cliff wall to the right and the open air drop opposite, the dwindling roadway seemed even narrower. And there were no guard rails to deter cars from going over the edge… She gave her husband a sharp look as he maneuvered their SUV around a fallen tree limb. “This is crazy. This can’t be right. Things must have really changed since Samantha was created. Is your macho ego ready to admit we’d better turn around? It’s one thing to refuse to ask for directions, it’s another to continue driving up a desolate mountain in the middle of nowhere on an oversized cow path with no idea…”

Robert tuned out her tirade as best he could as they continued their upward climb, the terrain becoming more overgrown and wild. It seemed as if the interminable climb would never end. Finally, Samantha interrupted with what should have been good news. “In 200 feet, turn right on Knox Creek Road. In 200 feet, turn right on Knox Creek Road.”

He didn’t see any road. Their route had opened up somewhat; the rocky mountain face had given way to an open area, heavily treed; the opposite side—with the threatening drop-off—had also retreated from the roadway, with grassy spots and scrub oak between them and the drop. Robert glanced at the GPS screen; it showed the intersecting road. He slowed even more on their upward trajectory, and then…there it was…what must have been Knox Creek Road.

He stopped at the ‘intersection’. Samantha’s suggested new heading was no better than the ‘road’ they were on—an overgrown, one-lane trail with faint indentations where vehicle tires had once made their way. Knox Creek sloped downward and disappeared around a bend about a hundred yards from their location; several tree limbs strewn across the road might pose a problem…

Robert looked at Samantha’s GPS readout. The arrow was pointed down the new route; it said they had 4.5 miles to go, meaning they had managed nine miles already on their new adventure. It would be a shame to give up now…“Let’s take a walk and see how bad it is,” he said.

Cindy gave him a withering look and grimaced. “No thank you; I’ll wait. Just hurry up and get this over with.”

Robert got out and walked down to the bend in the road. It was cold out, especially in the shade of the trees. Although it was the first week of June, summer came a little later this far north and their altitude didn’t help, which he estimated to be between 7,000 and 8,000 feet. He wondered how long the large patches of snow—still clinging stubbornly to the shaded areas—would last before relinquishing their tenuous connections to a winter now past.

He surveyed the gently downward sloping landscape and the barely discernible path through the trees and brush. Their trusty Kia was a small SUV and could probably make it, if he took it easy and there were no major obstructions. Robert wasn’t sure what he was more afraid of, the new, unknown route or the seething woman waiting for him in the car. He decided discretion was the better part of valor and opted to deal with something that at least he was familiar with—his wife. He walked back up and was almost to their car when he noticed the two posts near the intersection’. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen them before. The wood posts, painted dark brown and about six feet high, had stick-figure images of hikers carved and painted in the wood at the top, one inscribed with Trail #31 and pointed towards ‘Knox Creek’, and the other, #30, directing hikers continuing up ‘Twelve Mile’. There were, of course, no road signs. They were at the intersections of two hiking trails.

Cindy’s head was barely peeking above the dashboard, her small 5’2” frame slumped down in the passenger seat, arms crossed, eyes staring straight ahead. The contrast between her brightly colored, yellow sundress and the dark upholstery made him think of an angry yellow-jacket. He got back in the car. “I think I know what happened,” he said.

She pushed herself back up in the seat, glancing at him. “Okay, so why in the hell are we up here? I’m freezing.”

Robert wisely decided to skip the ‘I told you so’ concerning her failure to wear something warmer. Instead, “I think prior to five years ago these two roads were county maintained. Somewhere along the line, for whatever reason—maybe lack of traffic or lack of money—they discontinued the maintenance, let the roads become overgrown and allowed them to morph into what they are now—glorified hiking trails. Since Samantha hasn’t been updated since we bought her, she wouldn’t have any way of knowing they weren’t county roads anymore and…”

“Whose fault was that?”

“Okay, okay, you’re right; I should have replaced the computer cord long ago.” Robert gritted his teeth, and tried to reign in his rapidly rising temper. He was relieved to have found a logical explanation for their little unplanned outing, but he was getting a little tired of his wife’s constant nagging. “Let’s get turned around and head back down the mountain,” he muttered.

Using the wider area of the ‘intersection’, it was only a couple of back and forth maneuvers before the Kia was pointed back the way they