Part 2
Owen dropped the towing line and stumbled back to the liner. He brushed snow from Ben’s eyelashes, bent close, and felt a faint breath against his cheek. The boy’s skin was frighteningly cold, but there was still warmth beneath his collar.
“Open your eyes, Ben.” Owen lifted him into a sitting position, peeled off his wet mittens, and pushed the child’s hands beneath his own shirt, pressing them against his stomach. The cold contact made his muscles seize. “Talk to me. What’s the loudest thing you know?”
Ben’s eyelids fluttered. “Dad’s bike.”
“What does it sound like?”
The boy made a weak engine noise.
“Again,” Owen said. “Keep it running.”
Ben tried once more. Behind them, Mason answered from Owen’s back, his voice thin but clear enough to hear.
Owen held Ben against his chest until the child began shivering harder. It hurt, and Ben cried when feeling returned to his fingers, but the crying was better than silence. Owen placed him in the back harness, settled Mason on the liner, and started east again.
The twins said their father, Gabe, built motorcycles in a shop bigger than their cafeteria. They described polished tanks, handlebars on the wall, and club members who brought Saturday doughnuts. Whenever their voices faded, Owen asked another question.
“What color is your dad’s bike?”
“Black,” Mason said.
“With red lines,” Ben corrected from Owen’s back.
“Then give me the engine again.”
The sound became their signal. Owen made it first, and the boys had to answer. Sometimes both did. Sometimes only one responded, forcing Owen to stop and wake the other before moving again.
At mile 35, Mason took the harness. At 36, Ben rode on the liner beneath the fleece while Mason walked beside Owen in his own coat, with one hand hooked through the towing strap. Owen no longer trusted his left leg, and the right had begun to cramp from carrying most of his weight.
Before moving on, Owen tore a narrow strip from the already frayed tail of his corduroy jacket and knotted it around the reflector post. If anyone found the wreck and followed the highway, the scrap might tell them which direction he had taken.
Farther on, the liner caught behind a buried marker. Owen pulled at the ice-stiff webbing with his bare hands until it cut across his right palm. When the liner came free, a dark smear remained on the rough side of the strap.
He thought of Curtis Vale’s house only when he needed anger strong enough to move another step. Curtis had come home drunk the previous night and accused Owen of stealing cash that had been found ten minutes later in a jacket pocket. The apology had been another blow, delivered without even the heat of anger.
Owen had waited until Curtis fell asleep, packed three granola bars, and climbed through the laundry-room window. He had believed the worst thing that could happen was being caught and returned.
Now two children were depending on him to keep standing.
Darkness came before they reached mile 38. Owen used the reflector posts to stay on the highway, feeling for the road’s harder surface beneath the snow. The storm bent the pines on both sides of the pass, yet there were moments in the shelter of a cut slope when the liner skimmed forward and gave him several easier yards.
At the marker, he changed the boys one last time. Ben went into the harness against his back, and Mason took the liner beneath the fleece.
He divided the granola bars into tiny pieces and coaxed the boys to chew one crumb at a time. He kept one small piece for himself, though swallowing felt like work. Hunger had become distant, another message his body no longer had the energy to deliver.
Mile 39 appeared in the sweep of wind like a dark finger. Owen touched the metal number to make sure he had not imagined it.
“One more,” he told the boys.
Neither answered at first.
Owen made the engine sound, louder this time. Mason returned it from the liner. Ben managed a murmur against Owen’s shoulder.
The maintenance shelter emerged only when Owen walked into its drift. It was a squat concrete building set back from the highway, almost entirely buried on the windward side. He found the steel door by following the wall with both hands.
An old padlock held the latch.
Owen set the twins together beneath the blanket, took the lug wrench from the liner, and struck the weathered lock until its corroded shackle failed. The door resisted the snow packed behind it. He forced a narrow opening and pushed the children through before dragging their supplies inside.
The shelter was black and bitterly cold. There was no generator, no working light, and no heat—only pallets of bagged road salt, rusted tools, and a raised wooden platform that kept supplies off the concrete floor.
Owen spread the cargo liner across the platform and laid the blanket over it. He removed his soaked shirt, opened the boys’ coats, and pressed them against his bare chest. Then he pulled the coats closed around the huddle and wrapped the fleece and his corduroy jacket over all three of them.
“Engines,” he whispered.
Mason answered. Ben’s attempt was little more than breath.
Owen drew them closer and waited for the shaking in his own body to stop hurting. The darkness softened around the edges. His last clear thought was that the boys were still breathing against him.
By 8:12 p.m., after hours of calls and road checks, Gabe Brooks stood in the Greyhaven sheriff’s command room with Leah gripping his forearm. Across the desk, Sheriff Dana Holt replayed a grainy highway-camera recording.
Gabe owned Brooks Custom Cycles and led Iron Ridge’s Greyhaven chapter. Neither role gave him control over the mountain.
Nate’s SUV passed the west gate of Blackstone Pass at 11:37 that morning. A second camera near the eastern junction never recorded it leaving.
Gabe and Leah had reported Nate overdue shortly after two. Dispatch spent the afternoon checking hospitals, tower data, and road cameras, but zero visibility kept a ground team below the closure until the wind eased enough for the snowcat to enter.
“There’s been no signal from his phone since noon,” Holt said. “The road crews lost visibility near the summit, but county search and rescue is assembling now.”
Gabe stared at the image of his brother’s SUV disappearing beyond the gate. “My boys are in that vehicle.”
“I know.”
Cal Dawson entered carrying two medical packs. He served as road captain for Iron Ridge and volunteered with county EMS. Behind him, three club members waited in winter gear, each of them experienced with mountain roads and equipped with four-wheel-drive trucks.
“We have chains, recovery winches, radios, blankets, and enough fuel to stay up there,” Cal said. “No motorcycles. No one moves without the sheriff’s authorization.”
Holt studied the route map, then keyed her radio. The county snowcat would lead, followed by the SAR truck, Cal’s four-wheel drive, and two club vehicles assigned to equipment transport. Every driver would remain on the designated channel and under search command.
Gabe called the Iron Ridge shop. “Close the doors. Tell everyone else to stand by in Greyhaven. We’re working with the county, and nobody goes onto that pass unless Holt requests them.” – Minutes later, the road barrier lifted just far enough for the coordinated convoy to pass…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇