The gradient of the hill increases toward the top. Caldwell pulls out in first and remains in this gear until the wheels begin to spin, and then shifts into second. The car plows upward some more dozens of yards; when the wheels start spinning again he shifts desperately into third. The motor stalls. Caldwell yanks out the emergency brake to hold them here on the hill. They are more than half-way up. The storm sinks sighing into the silence of the motor. The motor restarts but the rear tires cannot grip the snow; rather, the weighty old Buick tends to slip backwards toward the low cable fence that guards the edge of the highway embankment. In the end there is nothing for Caldwell to do but to open his door and, leaning out, using the pink glow of his taillights as his only guide, to back all the way down. He backs beyond the Olinger turnoff onto the flat straightaway between Coughdrop Hill and the next little rise on the road to Alton. Yet, though the momentum gathered here carries them more briskly into the lower part of the hill, they spin to a halt a little short of where they were stopped the first time. Their previous tracks are dark ruts in their headlights.
Suddenly their heads cast shadows forward. A car behind them is coming up the hill. Its lights dilate, blaze like a shout, and sway outward around them; it is a green Dodge, a ‘47. Its chains slogging, it continues past them, takes the steepest part of the hill, and, gathering speed, vanishes over the crest. Their own stalled headlights pick out the stamp of the cross links in its tracks. The sparkle of the falling snow is steady.
“We’ll have to put on chains like that guy,” Peter tells his father. “If we can just get up the next twenty yards we can make it to our road. Fire Hill isn’t so steep.”
“Did you notice the way that bastard didn’t offer to give us a push?”
“How could you expect him to? He just about made it himself.”
“I would have, in his shoes.”
“But there’s nobody else like you, Daddy. There’s nobody else like you in the world.” He is shouting because his father has clenched his fists on the steering wheel and is resting his forehead on their backs. It frightens Peter to see his father’s silhouette go out of shape this way. He wishes to call him to himself but the syllable sticks in his throat, unknown. At last he asks shyly, “Do we have chains?”
His father straightens up and says, “One thing, we can’t put ‘em on here, the car’s likely to slip off the jack. We gotta get down on the level again.”
A second time, then, he opens his door and leans out and guides the car backwards down the hill, the snow dyed rose by his taillights. A few flakes swirl in through the open door and prick Peter on the face and hands. He thrusts his hands into the pockets of his pea jacket.
Back at the bottom of the hill, they both get out. They open the trunk and try to jack up the rear of the car. They have no flashlight and nothing is easy. The snow at the side of the road is six inches deep and in trying to lift their tires clear of it they jack the rear too high and the car topples sideways and throws the jack upright, with shocking velocity, into the center of the road. “Jesus,” Caldwell says, “this is a way to get killed.” He makes no motion to retrieve the upright so Peter goes and gets it. Holding the notched bar in one hand, he looks along the side of the road for a rock to block the front tires but the snow conceals all such details of earth. His father stands staring at the tops of pines that hover like dark angels high above them in the storm. Caldwell’s thought seems to his son to be describing wide circles, like a scouting buzzard, in the opaque mauve of the heaven above them. Now his thought returns to the problem underfoot and together the father and son prop the jack under the bumper and this time it holds. They discover then that they are unable to fasten the chains. In the dark and cold it is too late for their blind eyes and numb fingers to learn how. For many minutes Peter watches his father squat and grovel in the snow around the tire. In this time no car passes. Route 122 has ceased to bear traffic. His father seems on the verge of clip ping the chain fast when it all slips forward into his hands. With a sob or curse blurred by the sound of the storm Caldwell stands erect and with both hands hurls the tangled web of iron links into the soft snow. The hole it makes suggests a fallen bird.
“You should fasten the catch on the inside of the wheel first,” Peter says. He digs up the chains and goes onto his knees and crawls underneath the car. He imagines his father telling his mother, “I was at my wits’ end and the kid just takes the chains and gets under the car and fastens ‘em neat as a pin. I don’t know where the kid gets his mechanical ability from.” The wheel slips. Several times as he drapes the cumbersome jacket of links around the tire, the tire lazily turns and shucks its coat of mail like a girl undressing. His father holds the wheel still and Peter tries once more. In the underworld beneath the car the muted stink of rubber and the parched smells of rust and gas and grease seem breathed syllables of menace. Peter remembers how the car toppled from the jack, imagines how the springs and axle would crush his skull. One comfort, there is no wind or snowfall here.
There is a little catch that holds the clue to fastening the chains. He finds this catch and, reading with his fingertips, deduces how it operates. Almost he succeeds in snapping it. Only a tiny gap remains to close. He applies a pressure that makes the prostrate length of his body tremble; his kidneys ache sweetly; the metal bites deep into his fingers. He prays; and is appalled to discover that, even when a microscopic concession would involve no apparent sacrifice of principle, matter is obdurate. The catch does not close. He squeals in agony, “No!”
His father calls to him, “The hell with it. Get out from under.”
Peter obeys, stands, shakes the snow from his jacket. He and his father stare at each other in disbelief. “I can’t do it,” he says, as if it could be denied.
His father says, “You did a damn sight better than I did. Get into the car, we’ll go into Alton for the night. Once a loser, twice a loser.”
They put the chains into the trunk and try to lower the car on the jack. But even this piece of retreat proves impossible. The small lever supposed to reverse the jack’s direction swings loose and useless. Each shove on the handle lifts the car a notch higher. The fluttering snow pesters their faces; the whine of wind distends their eardrums; the burden on their tempers becomes unendurable. The whole soughing shifting weight of the storm seems hinged on this minute mechanical refusal.
“I’ll fix the bastard,” Caldwell announces. “Stand clear, kid.” He climbs into the car, starts the motor, and drives forward. For a moment the jack upright is caught in the tension of a bow and Peter expects to see it go flying like an arrow into the storm. But the metal of the bumper itself yields under this instant of stress, and the next instant drops the car onto its springs with a sound like icicles snapping. A lip-shaped dent along the lower edge of the rear bumper will always remember this night. Peter gathers up the jack parts and throws them into the trunk and gets into the front seat beside his father.
Aided by the tendency of the rear wheels to slither, Caldwell turns the Buick around and points it toward Alton. But in the hour since they came onto this road another inch of snow has fallen and the packing action of traffic has utterly ceased. The little rise that takes the road out of the trough at the bottom of Coughdrop Hill, a rise so slight that on a fair day it whips by beneath the wheels unnoticed, proves too steep to negotiate. The rear tires never cease slithering. The slits of vision in their windshield go furry and close; the heavenly bin from which the snow has been sifted now bursts its sides. Three times the Buick sloughs forward up the shallow slant to have its motion smothered. The third time, Caldwell grinds his foot into the accelerator and the crying tires swing the rear of the car into the untouched snow at the side of the road. There is a small depression just off the shoulder. Caldwell shifts down to first gear and tries to lift out, but the snow holds them fast in its phantom grip. His lips make a quick silver bubble. Crazed, he shoves the shift into reverse and rams the car backwards so they are hopelessly stuck. He switches off the motor.