Over the edge

(Continued from PART ONE of Over the edge...)

I gradually became more and more certain the cyclist had seen us, but just not acknowledged it in any way which might have gotten him shot. But still, if that were so, he'd taken an even bigger risk coming back the same way again on his return leg.

The skies overhead had been lightening for a while now, with the approach of dawn. I was really feeling the exhaustion of the previous night. God, but a cup of coffee would have been nice!

After the hole incident, luck rode with us for a while, as dawn turned into brightly lit morning. We did find another hidden hole I'd visually missed, but the new system gave just enough warning to prevent us from going beyond the point of no return.

Of course, my worsening fatigue was reducing my alertness and responsiveness to such things.

Now the mountain dropped away from us dramatically on our passenger side. And our climb was getting steeper and rockier. And harder to see very far ahead. More and more often, I was being forced to leave Shadow for an on-foot inspection of the lay of the land.

I made a mistake in one case which forced us to drive backwards for a terribly long distance, over pretty rough terrain, to get back to where a different route could be taken. Agh! I hated losing that time and distance! But damn if it wasn't hard to pick a good street car route across a mountain, even with a USGS map!

My uncertainty as to our position had shrank considerably with our continued journey. Because the farther you went, the more points you had handy to check against your chart.

But along with less uncertainty on location also came more dread of what lay before us. For on paper, the way beyond definitely didn't look sympathetic to a street machine.

Then we came upon it: a vast rock face, with a scarily steep descent angle, along our essential course. Maybe a 60 or 70 degrees tilt! The good news was it offered a pretty smooth surface for a natural feature. That was also the bad news (for that meant Shadow might not get the traction required to avoid sliding off it).

But there was more. We'd have to make our descent at something of an angle across the face-- not straight down. For straight down only led to an awful precipice (based on what I could see at the scene, and make out from the map: lots of altitude contours merged into one at that edge).

If we made it safely across, we'd then have a nice, gently ascending ridge line to climb once more. With a minimum of significant foliage or rock obstacles. At least from what I could gather at the moment.

The straight line descent was maybe five or six car lengths. The angled descent we had to make was more like nine or ten. Much too far for using the tow ropes and come-along as a safety line.

Plus, even had I been able to use that gear, it might have been the last use I could have for it. Because I wasn't at all sure I could climb back up the face with hands and feet to retrieve them afterwards. It was that scary!

And something told me we'd need that equipment again, if we got past this challenge.

I removed the hole detector from the hood and wheels, as it would have been a horrible distraction on our downward plunge.

I was a bit concerned about our traction on the rock face. Shadow's tires were still under-inflated, and his rear tires still wore their three available emergency chains. The angle here was so scary-- and the surface so smooth-- I wouldn't have wanted to go down it on foot, much less driving a car!

I sure wished we could have a safety line. But the only way to arrange that would be to combine every rope-like thing I had onboard, and much of it (like the 100 foot and 30 foot plain rope lengths) was rated nowhere near enough to hold up a car, even doubled or tripled in lines. And I didn't trust the connections I'd have to use between all those disparate items. Lastly, there might be the necessity to leave most or all of it behind too, as mentioned before.

I wondered if I could make it out of Shadow, if he began sliding down and off the cliff at bottom? And if I did get out all right, could I then prevent myself from tumbling into the void after him?

As I stood there contemplating our mortality, I heard the distant din of a motorcycle again. No, make that two. I guessed my pursuers had broken camp. All or most fully rested, and having enjoyed a decent breakfast.

Me, I'd opened several small cans of beanee weenees from my onboard stash, and eaten them cold, as Shadow and I slowly made our way across the landscape. Drank the juice too, as I'd already used up my canteen's stale water supply, and didn't want to take the time to filter or boil some new from a stream just yet.

I sure couldn't afford to get sick out here.

I thought I could hear at least one larger vehicle too, now. They must have a four wheel drive with them.

Damn. Those cycles and a four wheel drive would make short work of all the terrain obstacles which had caused Shadow and I so much trouble.

But at least we'd put some distance between us overnight. If this run lasted much longer, I'd have to seriously consider trying to set up some traps behind me.

If only we hadn't lost time on that one major back-track! I fumed. But for that, our escape might now be assured! Agh!

The escarpment. We had to get down it, pronto. Without dying.

I was afraid my fatigue was making me stupid. For the more I looked at the dangerous rock slope ahead, and the longer I listened to the faraway engines, the more clearly I could see Shadow and I backing up a ways, then making a fast run for it diagonally down the slope, to the safety of the next rising ridge line, letting sheer momentum protect us from sliding into oblivion.

But I had to be careful. Being tired makes for more mistakes in judgment. And I knew I was getting more than a little punchy. Man! If only I had a cup of coffee!

Hey! Didn't chocolate have both sugar and caffeine in it? Maybe I had an Army C-ration with chocolate of some sort in it!

Rats! I could find nothing but cocoa powder. Oh well. I took it dry. Agh! That was a mistake! I immediately coughed some of the dirty looking stuff back up and out into my hand. I didn't have time to drum up some water, so I just tried taking a little at a time, and working up the spit to hydrate it. Man, I wouldn't do that again!

But after a few minutes I did feel better. Even if my mouth and throat hadn't yet recovered from the gaggingly dry brown dust I'd inflicted upon them.

Did a fast diagonal run still look reasonable across the rock face? Yes! Scary. But reasonable. Considering the circumstances.

I wished I could walk the expected course first. But I was afraid I'd slip and careen down the slope to the abyss immediately below. Armed with Shadow's mass and some velocity though, it seemed we'd have a good chance at making the crossing.

The fluctuating engine noises in the distance encouraged me to hurry.

I retook my piloting position in the car, and we backed up for some running room. Then we carefully returned to near the edge again, and I took a second look at things. I was nervous about the crossing. And wanted to be sure about what course to take, and how fast.

Man, this was going to be scary!

I considered my speed plan. Twenty was way too low for going over the edge. Thirty too. Forty? Hmm. I tried to recall my experiences with speed, momentum and inclines.

Damn it. Forty would be too slow. Fifty? Wow, but the thought of running 50 mph across that rock face was frightening.

But scooting down to that hole and falling off the mountain would be worse.

Sixty. I'd better be doing sixty at minimum when going over the edge. But I mustn't be spinning at that moment. Or making drastic changes in steering movements. Or making significant changes in acceleration. All those things could make us break loose and slide towards the natural drain hole.

I backed up a fairly long ways. My stomach was turning flips. My brain racing over all sorts of unrealistic alternatives to our racing down the cliff face.

I wondered if the army cocoa powder was too old, and upsetting my stomach. Or maybe I needed some water.

If I got bad sick in mid-run, that could be a huge problem.

No! It was just fear. All fear. I didn't usually drive down cliff faces. Even tiny ones. But we'd done similar stuff before, I told myself. Yes, this was a little different. Yes, there was a risk of falling off the mountain. But momentum would see us through.

And if worst came to worst, there was always the roll cage.

(I tried not to think about the fact that roll cages weren't meant to keep a car from flattening into a pancake at the end of a 500 foot fall (or whatever depth all those aligned altitude contours on the map worked out to).

Yikes! I wasn't buckled in! I rectified that one immediately, once I'd stopped at our planned starting point.

Man! I truly was losing it, to forget my belts!

I'd backed up maybe twenty or thirty car lengths from the edge. And there we sat, in park, idling. For some reason I was freaking out here. Was it my fear of heights? My instinctive revulsion against being forced into something? Worry that my fatigue was making me do something stupid? The unfamiliarity of driving this way off-road?

I did not want to do this. But what else could I do? Shoot it out with the posse chasing me? Take my scramble vest and abandon Shadow, and try hoofing it out on foot?

Yeah. Right. I had about as much chance of outrunning motorcycles and four wheel drive off-road vehicles out here on foot, as a dog did of making it across the Atlantic via paddling.

Was there some way I might double-back in Shadow, and get around my pursuers to escape that way? Very damn unlikely. In a running gun battle, I'd have less chance of successfully defending myself than I would simply making a stand in a fixed location. It'd be damn hard to shoot and drive at the same time. Even harder out here, than it'd be on the highway.

I was going to hit the edge at an angle. Otherwise I'd have to change direction right at the edge, and increase the risk of a slide towards doom.

I knew one thing bugging me here was that I didn't usually have so much time to consider a death-defying act before I made it. On the highway, things usually happened at a much quicker pace. Here, there was way too much time to think about it.

Plus, if catastrophe took me on the road, there was usually still a decent chance for an ambulance to come pick up the pieces, and maybe put me back together again.

But not here. My hometown papers frequently told of folks being found in their cars after careening off mountainsides months or years before, and nobody anywhere knowing what happened until their skeletons were eventually found by hikers.

I had my windows rolled down. And now, even inside Shadow and over the sound of his idling, I could hear the approach of multiple engines. Shoot out? Running on foot? Heck: I couldn't run down that slope on foot!

That was enough.

I shifted into drive, and eased down on the gas. There was no need for spinning to achieve the speed required in this distance.

Going over the edge was terrifying. Much scarier than the original drop which had put us on this trek. Because here I had time to think about it.

I had a view of nothing but thin air, and a wholly different mountain side in the distance, as we went over the edge.

We skittered across the rock in horrifying bounces, which at times made me feel like an air hockey puck traveling on a cushion of air without actually touching a solid surface. I was sure there were times we had air between mountain and tires.

Logically, I knew I needed to be doing around sixty as we went over the edge-- but I couldn't bring myself to look at the gauge when it happened. Or even in the run up prior. Instead, like an utter fool, I let my fear be the measure of my speed.

In hindsight, I know we were moving too slow. Purely out of fear, amplified by exhaustion.

Or maybe I made a different mistake. For the rear end started going to the right, falling down the cliff face. It was too light to get enough traction on the steep surface angle-- especially on the slick rock face we were crossing. I instinctively turned the front wheels into the skid to get back control. Turned us towards the death notch. We straightened up with a tail wiggle, and I gave it more gas.

The rear wheels began spinning, and broke loose of the rock again. The tail fell once more. We were making progress in our diagonal track, but maybe not enough to get us past the deadly drop.

I had to let up on the gas. Try to match the tire speed better to the rest of the car. Give Shadow a chance to catch on the rock. The opposite of the tactic usually called for on the road. Once more I turned us towards the cliff to straighten us back out.

There wasn't going to be room to do that a third time.

Basically we were fish-tailing down the diagonal, with all the skidding being in the direction of falling off the mountain.

I had no experience at this sort of driving, and no training. Only the feel of the car and my gut. I yelled in frustration as I fought to marshal our momentum towards the safety of the ridge, now so tantalizingly near. Our forward and across speed was falling, our sideways and down speed rising.

I realized we weren't going to make it.

The tail wanted to come around, and that's what it was going to do, come hell or high water.

I had to change something.

I let off the gas, shoved the shifter into neutral, and twisted the steering wheel to the right-- which basically made our out of control rear end become the leading one in our little drama. It was a gamble I felt I had to take.

Our tail swung down and around as its own weight combined with the now free wheeling tires and its downward momentum, to actually take it past the death notch, and end up pointing towards the ridge I'd meant to be our destination.

The front end came around in response, and the drop off swung into view before me, maybe just six feet away! I pushed the shifter into reverse, knowing under normal circumstances it took a half second or so to engage. Also knowing my governor would only allow it to engage below a certain speed. Not looking at the speedometer, because if it read the wrong number, everything was over anyway.

Our momentum took us about two feet closer to the safety of the ridge line, then gravity seized the upper hand once more; we lost those two feet again by rolling forward, before I hit the brakes.

My panicked braking caused the tires to break loose, and we began slowly sliding forward to our death.

The transmission engaged reverse gear.

I let go the brakes and hit the gas, causing the rear wheels to spin uselessly. We slid still closer to the edge.

Against all my screaming instincts, I let up on the gas, and the partially deflated rear tires with their chains caught something. Haltingly. It seemed like I could hear small pebbles tumbling down the rock face and into space. I could definitely smell a bit of burning rubber.

I was out of my mind with fear. Though the front wheels hadn't fallen off the edge, that edge was so close now that I couldn't see it over the hood.

I gingerly played with the gas pedal, trying to nudge us away from the horrible, horrible edge without breaking us loose again. But the chains were problematic in their traction. They weren't full chains, but emergency chains. Basically two sets were normally used for each rear wheel, each set positioned directly opposite the other. This arrangement resulted in exactly four chain lengths winding around each rear tire where the rubber met the road. Two on one side of the tire, and two on the other. In-between you had only the normal tire rubber. No chains.

But the current situation wasn't normal. One of my chain sets was tied up doing duty as a motor mount, leaving only three for the tires.

And at this point I wasn't exactly sure which portion of the wheel combo was actually giving us the best traction: the rubber or the chains. But it was definitely one or the other and not both, for as the wheels rotated, one of the surfaces was definitely missing in action, traction-wise. Causing us to alternatively slide down and pull back up again.

Ahhhh! Talk about nerve-racking!

We didn't seem to be making much progress. We'd inch up a bit, and then fall back down a bit. I couldn't tell if it was a net negative or positive.

I desperately needed to improve the situation, but how? A single miscalculation on my part now and we were done for! Ahhhh!

All I could think of were ways I might improve the situation if I could get the car to stay where it was and I got out-- but I was trapped!

I kept working the gas pedal-- not too much and not too little. Because too much either way and we'd break loose and slide off!

I couldn't get the car to stay here without piloting it myself, to maintain the balancing act.

A frenzied, childish thought about weight came to mind. Was there anything handy I could grab to toss out the window and watch careen off the cliff, to enable us to maybe inch a little closer to safety?

But being too light was what hurt the rear tires' traction. And now it was the front end pulling us towards oblivion. Could I lighten us somehow like we were a hot air balloon clawing for altitude?

Nothing within easy reach carried much mass though. And I didn't dare move much from my present seated position, as that could disturb the present balance in more ways than one. So anything weighty in the storage compartments (like my emergency food stash) was effectively out of reach.

Was there anything I could pitch outside under the driver's side rear wheel to improve its traction? No. Plus, it looked likely anything I threw out there would simply roll back down the face and over the edge.

Think! Think! What resources did I have at the moment that I could exploit? The gas pedal. The brakes. The emergency brake. The windshield wipers and washer. Well, I could empty the windshield washer for an ounce or two! Crap!

I could throw out some music tapes. The mini-fire extinguisher. The CB radio? All that stuff weighed almost nothing!

Gas. Brakes. What else? The shifter. The ignition switch. I could yank out wires from various places. I could tear foam insulation off the roll cage. I could call someone on the CB. No, wait: the antenna got tore off the last time I fell off a cliff!

Well, gee willikers Mister Wilson! I guess that's that! as TV Dennis might say. Either I screwed up soon and we fell, or I managed to maintain the delicate balance until our pursuit could show up to shoot us off the cliff. If by some miracle the shooters didn't show up for hours, I might pass out from exhaustion and die. If somehow I managed to stay awake, eventually we'd run out of gas or I'd faint from dehydration, and it'd all be over that way...

Wait a minute...As we sat there surging alternatively up/backwards and down/forwards, I calmed down a little (since my fate seemed sealed), and a glimmer of an idea came to me...

Power braking.

I'd used it not far back to prepare for exiting the fish barrel.

In power braking at the drag strip, one would keep the brake pedal depressed just enough to prevent the car from moving forward, even as they gradually gave more and more gas to the rear wheels until they were spinning, to heat up the rubber for better traction on the pavement...

If I did it correctly here, I might could stop the one-step-backward-one-step-forward dance in which we were currently trapped...but lord, it'd be tricky! For the brakes would be applying at all four wheels-- including the rear wheels which at present represented our only hope for escape.

I'd have to pit the gas pedal against the brakes in a different balancing act than the one we were presently playing-- without making a single mistake in the transition and what came next. Sheesh!

I dearly hoped we had a foot or two of solid rock face between our front tires and the edge.

I had to gradually increase the gas, as I slowly stepped on the brakes. Too much or too little gas and/or too much or too little brakes, and this would not work.

Luckily for me I was a two-footed driver. Everyone early on had tried to break me of the habit of using my left foot for brakes and my right for gas, but thankfully they'd failed. For my ambidextrous footwork had come in handy many, many times driving Shadow.

And now all my experience working both pedals at once might be key to saving my life.

When it seemed we were descending farther than before I increased the gas, and we rose a bit-- then I pushed harder on the brakes to lock the front wheels without locking the rear. And we kept our meager gain!

Now if only I could do that correctly another few zillion times...!

In hindsight I believe I lucked out here, because the rock face was just a bit less steep at the very bottom near the edge, than higher up. The difference seemed to be just enough to enable me to back off the cliff's edge in the manner described. But damn if it wasn't still a horrifically near thing!

It didn't help matters any that both my legs felt wobbly and unreliable during much of this particular ordeal, largely due to pure fear. Well, maybe a little from fatigue and dehydration too, I suppose. But I know my fear had to play a big role. There was no way anybody could look out over their hood like that to see countryside maybe hundreds of feet below, and not be scared out of their mind!

Maybe an hour later we were safely on the ridge, and I was utterly exhausted and soaked in sweat. But the enemy engine noises were getting downright loud now, so I couldn't rest.

We went up the fresh ridge line at the fastest clip I dared take us.

The respite didn't last long. After maybe a quarter mile or so things deteriorated fast, until we found ourselves faced with maybe a three foot wide ledge a car length long, with a vertical drop on the right and a mountain shoulder on the left, with a few trees perched precariously among the rocks maybe twelve feet above.

I couldn't believe it. After all this-- this.

I figured the posse was going to be reaching the cursed rock face behind us any minute now. They'd probably hop, skip, and jump over it easily with their cycles and four wheel drive, and be on top of us in no time at all.

Do I make my stand here? I asked myself. I had probably about a dozen shot gun rounds handy in my vest, and at least half a magazine worth already in the gun. With up to a hundred more in an onboard ammo box. And I had my 38 Special revolver with a similar number of rounds available, too.

God, but was I tired!

If only I could get one side of Shadow to float on air, we could get past this crappy spot.

Unfortunately, while Shadow was light, he wasn't that light. Or was he?

By that point I knew my exhaustion and stress overload could have my mental circuit breakers popping all over the place. But I was beginning not to care anymore.

Wouldn't it be a grand prank to play on my pursuers, if I could get past this spot in a street car? I mused.

So I parked as near the awful gap as I dared, put it into park (and put on the emergency brake) and got out. Then I collected up my trusty come-along and tow ropes. Hmm. Looked like I'd need my hammer and a smaller rope as well to reach the best tree of those above. It looked substantial enough, right? Heck: it was a healthy thirty footer or bigger at least!

Wow, but I was getting loopy! This stuff was starting to feel a little like fun to me!

What was going on in my head was that-- if I recalled correctly-- my come-along was well rated to lift half my car's weight. And the tow ropes maybe even more! Or was it the other way around? Anyway, why not test them here and now?

I climbed up to where the tree jutted out above our path, used my shortest rope hank to help secure the come-along to it, then climbed back down again (jumping down the final five feet or so (due to my loopiness, I don't think I was as scared as I should have been for that: a jump down to a ledge only a few feet wide, on a vertical cliff face! To a more sober version of me, the vision of that yawning gulf would have been terrifying)). I figured I wound plenty enough loops of the line around the tree trunk to take the strain. My tow rope I ran from the other come-along hook, to Shadow's cliff-side (over the roof and through the passenger side window), and tied it securely to the roll cage's internal roof connection. I also positioned the small vent window in the vicinity so that it would hopefully give enough not to be ripped out or shattered if the rope tried to come its way. I examined the black painted metal edge above the door window (where chrome molding had once been attached from the factory), on which my tow rope would possibly be sliding back and forth. I didn't like the looks of it. So I slipped several layers of my Army wool blanket between it and the metal, and tried to affix it there so it'd stay between the two items, no matter what.

I'd pulled out some slack in the come-along cable before jumping back down before. Now it was time to pull things tight.

Damn if I didn't have to get my other rope, and use my hammer as a weight again, to get a loop around the tree that I could use to climb up once more.

Once positioned, I began ratcheting in the slack in the come-along's cable. In a couple minutes everything got taut. In another minute or so the tow rope had stretched as much as it was designed to, and Shadow's passenger side began to rise.

I brought it up perhaps a little higher than was necessary, and then latched the winch where it was.

I combination climbed/jumped back down again, gave things a quick look-over, then got in, took off the brake, put it in first gear, and cautiously motored over the gap on two wheels. Shadow's passenger side actually descended quite a bit as we passed over the gap, due to us shortening the horizontal distance between us and the anchor point. Then it began rising again. I pushed on until I felt the rope actually restraining our forward progress more than lifting us, before I stopped. With the emergency brake on again, and the trans in parking gear, I leaned over to the passenger side window and looked out to make sure that side's wheels were back on solid ground again-- but they weren't. They were over solid ground, but not resting on it. The winch was holding that side firmly up in the air.

Yay!

I got out, and reversed the entire winching up process of before. Then retrieved and put everything away, and drove on.

Take that you sons of bitches, I thought to myself, grinning for several minutes afterwards.

Just where would they tie their ropes to their four wheel drive? I wondered. Hopefully they'd have no rope, and the cyclists would have to come after me without their four wheeler buddies. Yeah! I fantasized for a few minutes about improving my odds in that fashion...

The ledge widened out and led to much friendlier terrain. But soon after we were in forest again, and I once more set up the hole detector rig. And had to go through all the damned adjustments again, as I'd lost them in the process of crossing the gap just past (due to the reconfigurations of my ropes necessary to that task).

Man, I'd sure like to put those guys off my trail and take a nap, I thought to myself more than once along that leg.

By around 2 PM I hadn't heard the posse's engine noises for a while. But that might just have been due to vagaries of the terrain. The shade of the woods felt nice after all the blasting sunshine of earlier in the day.

I was getting major league pooped out. As I couldn't reach my stash while driving, I stopped and had me some more beanee weenies and juice. But I needed more. Water, most of all. My thirst suddenly seemed overwhelming. But at the moment there was nothing to be had. I knew I'd better collect some water soon, if I came across any.

Unfortunately, it was unlikely I'd run across any water sources this high in the mountains, with no recent rains and all.

As I was already stopped, and a fresh foot survey of the woods was always wise, I strode away from Shadow...and promptly fell down.

At first I thought I'd fallen into another hidden hole. But no. It turned out I was getting wobbly-legged. I was way too tired and hungry and thirsty to be traipsing about like this out here! But man oh man, did it ever feel good just to lay there for a minute...

But I had to get up. I had work to do. I got back onto my feet, and walked over a nearby rise to see what lay on the other side.

Water! There was a whole river down there! Or a good-sized creek, anyway. Hmm. Whatever it was, it was at least several car lengths wide. And looked to be fairly deep in spots. But it wasn't very noisy, this far away. Shadow's idle, and the rise in the terrain ahead, had been enough to cover it up until now.

Getting to the stream would be tough. Where I was standing, there was nearly a vertical drop between it and me, of at least a couple hundred feet. It appeared someone well rested could clamber down and back up again. But I knew that wasn't me.

My eyes wandered over the rest of the terrain in the vicinity. Hmmm. There was a darn interesting slope not far from here, that looked to offer a relatively gentle passage all the way from top to bottom, for a car like Shadow. And from the bottom there, the land flattened out for a ways, with ever wider spaces between trees...hey!

I ran back to Shadow on ever shakier legs, to consult the map.

I was awfully groggy. It was difficult to concentrate. It took me several tries and errors to finally figure out where we were now, and what the trek of our next hour or so should be.

Holy smokes! If we could get to that good looking slope and drive down it, we'd likely be able to drive across several open fields to reach a road! A real road! Or at least a road that'd been there in 1945!

Oh man: I absolutely had to rest for a minute. I sat down on the ground, with Shadow's driver's side rear wheel against my back. It was nice and cool here in the woods. This high up there didn't seem to be many bugs. I was awfully thirsty. But I had the time to rest for a minute. For I was almost out of the woods! Yep, I'd rest for a minute, and then make my plans...

The next thing I knew, something really freaky was happening. Who the hell was that?

I jerked, and bumped the back of my head. I could see absolutely nothing but all encompassing blackness, and wondered if I was unable to open my eyes, or if I was dreaming and having trouble waking up. Something definitely rustled right up against me. I reflexively yelled out loud, and flailed wildly at the unseen thing. Then I recognized it by feel and sound as a large and now mangled sheet of paper.

Everything was pitch-black dark. Shadow was idling behind me, gently pulsating against my back through the wheel.

Holy hell! I'd slept the day away! I could be surrounded this very minute!

I stopped all movement, and just listened, horrified by the realization of lost time. I tried to pick out any sound that didn't fit. I couldn't see very much at all. Partly because I was still a bit dazed from my power nap, and partly because it was hard to focus with so few visual cues to go on. The forest was pretty damn quiet around me. Crap! I'd accidentally rustled the paper again! It must be the map, I realized. I seemed to have pulled it over me like a blanket as I slept. Man! What time was it? It was cold!

Oh shit: my blood froze in my veins. For I heard voices. No engines this time. Just voices. Talking in hushed tones, it seemed. Oh shit.

They'd come for me on foot. Or else I'd missed their approach by vehicle because I'd been friggin' unconscious! Agh!

Didn't these guys ever sleep? Oh yeah: they were probably working in shifts. So they could sleep while I couldn't. Bastards.

I didn't see any sign of lights; just heard the hushed voices. I couldn't tell where they were, or how far away. Then I heard feet moving through leaves. They seemed to be not far off from where I was facing, direction-wise: so approaching us on Shadow's driver's side-- somewhat from behind us.

Could it possibly be they were only now reaching my position, and I'd been safe the whole time I was asleep? Seemed so.

I tried as quietly as I could to disengage myself from the invisible map, and its potential for making a truly awesome racket under the circumstances. Then I got into a crouch, and eased Shadow's door open. There was a barely audible whine of hinges and a click, as I gently re-closed the door behind me.

I'd only barely latched my door closed for fear of the noise it'd make otherwise.

I had no concerns about interior lights snapping on automatically, because Shadow had no such default lighting. That had been changed long ago. Nowadays his interior lighting could only be turned on manually, and even then it was red-filtered, so as to be less easily noticed by others.

So far as I could determine, there were at least two guys cautiously walking towards us, from the way we'd come. More or less headed directly for us. Guided by Shadow's idling motor sound, apparently.

More fully awake now, I could make out the black silhouettes of the tree tops and mountain against a slightly more illuminated night sky.

I was pretty sure the posse couldn't see flat black Shadow in all this darkness-- only hear him.

What the hell could I do now?

As I'd eased into the driver's seat, I'd heard a creak from Shadow's suspension springs. I'd sure never noticed that before!

I was doing everything by touch, as I absolutely positively couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

It looked like it was shoot out time. A totally blind shootout. Unless one side turned on some lights.

Maybe the posse was worried they might be walking into a trap. Hah! Maybe if I was half the adventurer I fancied myself to be, I would have done something along those lines. But no: I decided to take a nap instead! Grrr!

And now I was wimping out again. For though I was relieved to find the stock of my loaded shot gun still protruding from behind the passenger seat, I couldn't bear to draw it (maybe it had something to do with my having just awakened).

Instead, my hand seemed to go of its own accord to my flare gun, in the nearest pocket of my scramble vest, draped once again over the back of the seat. It'd been too hot to wear the vest the previous day. I broke open the pistol, and loaded the single shot device with a flare which much resembled a shot gun round. All by touch and feel. It helped that the flares were all in a little clip always attached to the gun itself. Find the gun, and you also found the ammo.

A piece of a strategy wafted through my mind-- but it seemed woefully lacking for chances of success.

From my vantage point inside Shadow, I constantly turned my head this way and that scanning all the windows and two remaining mirrors for signs of the posse (although of course there was little but unrelenting darkness to be seen). I felt very uncomfortable being aware only of two coming up from behind, as I felt there surely had to be more.

I tried to recall as much detail as I could of the walking survey I'd taken of the way ahead, before I'd passed out earlier. Grrr.

Then I saw it: either a tiny reflection, or small flame-- maybe a cigarette or lighter? Or sideways glimpse of a small flashlight in use? Whatever it was, it was almost directly facing my driver's side window, and maybe twenty yards or so away-- by wild guess.

So there was number three. For the other two seemed to be farther to our rear. There could be more, but I dared not wait for further information.

Largely by feel alone I found the proper switches on the dash. The single little red indicator light signifying my stealth lighting circuit was still active, didn't offer much extra illumination for anything else. But it did make for a decent reference point in regards to working the other controls.

I took the shifter from park into drive (holding us in place for a second with brakes; my stealth lighting circuit kept our brake lights from betraying us), then flipped on my hellaciously loud siren. I next aimed my flare gun out the open window towards number three, and let go a fireball in his direction, then flipped on my rear strobe lights as well. I was doing all this as near to instantaneously and at once as my reflexes would allow.

Despite the external dangers, I couldn't help but fret about accidentally trapping a live flare round in the car with me. That is, I was very concerned about the possibility of somehow missing the open window with my shot, and causing a fiery crisis in my lap or elsewhere inside the car.

Remember that I started doing all this with about the least amount of visual feedback possible, this side of zip.

And anyone who's used flares like these at least several times before surely gets antsy about firing one from an enclosed space, and in near total darkness. For instance, if I'd have accidentally hit a tree trunk too close to the car with the flare, the damn thing might have bounced back inside my window! And it's not like you can pick it up and toss it back out again after that-- for it's literally nothing but a burning hunk of metal! Around 2000 degrees hot!

Between the flare shot, and switching on the rear strobes, suddenly I went from near absolute darkness, to lots more light than my eyes could immediately handle in the cockpit. But most of that light was only indirectly illuminating my personal space: it was my attackers who were getting the bulk of the visual blasts.

Atop all that, I also flipped on every front light Shadow possessed, headlights and driving lights both. I tried to minimize the waste of wheel spinning, as we sought to get the hell out of this real life Dodge City style gunfight and showdown. But it took tremendous will power not to push the pedal too far.

We'd probably already covered ten or twenty yards in our getaway, before the siren got fully wound up to its horrible please-make-it-stop full banshee mode, and was echoing off the nearby hills.

I soon flipped the strobes back off again, as we sped away.

Again, with my stealth lighting mode still in effect, once my strobes were stilled, there were no tail lights or side body running lights to aid the posse with their targeting.

I believe I did hear some gunshots over the roar of Shadow's motor and the awful din of the siren, but I never found any holes from hits anywhere afterwards. I believe my strobes momentarily blinded some of them, while my siren noise made it too hard for them to communicate with one another, and all that plus the whizzing fireball made for a heck of a distraction as I made my escape.

Under circumstances like these, a flare gun may actually be superior to a regular firearm. For I couldn't see to aim accurately anyway, and the sudden dazzlingly bright fireball (with the potential threat of more to follow) surely got my foes' attention better than the mere sound of shots in the dark would have.

Man! What someone has to do to get a nap around here! I thought to myself, as we seemed to get away scot free from a potentially very bad situation.

But our mad scramble through the woods posed dangers of its own. The hole detector spanning the hood was worse than worthless at this speed: it made for a terrible distraction for me. And reminded me that we could be stopped cold by a hidden pit at any moment. I switched off the siren but kept all my forward lights working, in the hope they'd help me to avoid a pitfall catastrophe.

I could hear rocks and sticks bouncing up and hitting our underside as we careened through a nightmare of downed tree trunks and roots and rocks and stumps and possibly invisible hole traps filled with leaves. Another scary possibility was we'd unexpectedly run off a cliff edge. Agh!

So as soon as it seemed like we'd put a good distance between us and the posse, I slowed back down to normal woods speed again: basically staying between zero and 20 mph, as the terrain dictated. And turned off the headlights in preference of the hooded and lower profile driving lights.

Oh man, but that had been scary!

My throat was parched. As was the rest of me. I stopped for a moment and switched off my exterior lights, then dug out my last four cans of beanee-weenees and opened them. I mostly just drank the juice from them all, but I did eat one can's worth of solid contents.

Unfortunately, this just made me more thirsty than ever (these items were relatively salty).

Time to examine the map again, I thought. But as I began looking for it, I remembered I'd left it behind.

Holy crap! Damn it!

And the last good look at it I'd had was while bone-tired and punch-drunk. So I wasn't even certain I could trust my memory.

To make matters worse, I was pretty sure my frantic run from the posse had taken us off course for that nice downhill route to freedom, that I'd spied before.

Man! I couldn't believe these guys had followed me all this way! But of course if it was the feds, that was their job. Hmm. Why no helicopters then? And I never had seen any uniforms or other marks of authority with these people. Or heard any of the normal kinds of verbal warning you'd expect from some variant of the law.

But non-feds? That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me at the time. I mean, I knew my employer had some competitors in these parts, but they'd have to be pretty desperate to trail me like this...Yikes!

Yep. Desperate. Or going after a bounty on my head maybe. Crap. Were these guys going to force me to kill them to be rid of them?

If I remembered correctly, I badly needed to go back, in order to make that golden downhill run to get out of this. But that meant turning around and meeting the posse head-on. Crap-o-rama!

Then I recalled their vehicles. Uh oh! They might not be as far behind me as I thought, if their wheels had been close by at our last meeting! And since I'd been asleep during most of their approach, I had no idea now just how far away their transports might have been parked.

Damn. I really did need to turn around and somehow blow right through them, to get to my escape route.

On the bright side, I'd already drove much of the required route back at considerable speed, to get to where I was now. And so any return trip along the same path should be largely free of surprises (terrain surprises, anyway). Plus, it was still dark, and Shadow and I pretty well camouflaged except for the need to light our way ahead.

And if we could get close enough before discovery, we'd have the element of surprise. Especially since all I'd done was run from them since this started. They had to expect me to either keep running, or get stuck somewhere, or run out of gas. Not come at them head-on.

Shadow's engine noise and lights would give them warning though. I could keep the noise down by creeping up on them slowly, and only using a burst of speed at the last minute. But still I felt I needed more stealth than that.

As I'd already been over the route once, I could in theory get by with less lighting on the way back. And only switch to brighter lighting at the last minute. If only I had a way to put a red filter over my driving lights...did I have anything like that onboard?

The small round red filter for my Army flashlight was way too small. Maybe worth only around twenty-five percent coverage of one driving lamp. Hmm. I could disable one lamp to reduce our lighting signature still more. And I'd need less red filter coverage, too with that move.

Fortunately I'd wired up the lamps with plug-in connectors, so it was simple to put one out of action. I decided to keep the passenger side lamp lit, so anyone shooting at it wouldn't be aiming so close to me in the driver's seat.

My headlights would still be fully functional when I needed more.

Oh man: a red filter. I might not have one. I found a can of transmission fluid which I knew to be reddish. But slopping the liquid over the lamp probably wouldn't work very well for several reasons...

The beanee weenie can labels had red in them...but I knew from past experience the paper labels would cut the light way too much to be useful.

(I'd begun keeping all my trip trash in a plastic bag in the trunk, partly to minimize the trail I left behind (empty plastic bags were super light and compact and versatile, so I practically always had two or three in Shadow))

There were tiny little red plastic pieces deep inside my dash warning light system...but those were too small, and I'd basically be destroying my car to try to use them that way.

I had some sun glasses clip-ons for my eye glasses, but they weren't red or big enough...

Hey! What a dummy I was! The shirt I was currently wearing was a jersey with red half sleeves and a white trunk!

I pulled my shirt off and began testing the sleeve fabric against a lit driving lamp.

Well, shoot! It didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Sure, it would greatly reduce the likelihood someone noticed the light from a distance, but it mainly did it by dimming it substantially.

Fortunately the cloth was somewhat elastic, so I had some choice in dimness versus driving usability. When I figured I'd found something near an optimal configuration, I cut off my left sleeve with a hunting knife I always kept in the car as part of my normal hiking/survival gear, and began putting it into place on the still working passenger side lamp-- then realized the lamp got too hot for that. So I hurriedly rigged up a stiff wire frame from my trunk parts bin to hang in front of the lamp from the bumper, and tied the sleeve over that instead. I put what was left of my shirt back on.

So now what about engine noise? For one of the few times since I'd owned him, I wished I had a complete and very quiet exhaust system on Shadow. But all we had were headers and straight-through mufflers. And the faster we went, the louder we were.

I recalled the previous summer concocting a full mock exhaust system for an inspection in Texas, from soft drink cans and flexible tubing. But that contraption hadn't done much about noise muting. Which was what I really needed here.

Think! There had to be some way! It wouldn't have to last very long either. What deadens sound?

That brought to mind all the sound deadening insulation I'd stripped from Shadow's interior long ago-- maybe some 50 pounds worth.

I got it!

Once again I pulled the carpeted inclined plywood panel from behind the seats, causing the front of the main horizontal shelf of my rear interior to possibly rest on the battery, and various other equipment underneath. But no harm there, due to wood being a non-conductor, and the shelf and its present weight load not being sufficient to hurt the battery at the moment. Normally the horizontal shelf was undergirded by a center support between it and the driveshaft hump. But I'd had to remove that earlier, to use the panel as a ramp out of the barrel trap, and hadn't yet reattached it.

I briefly considered using some armor panels instead, but decided the thin metal wouldn't be as quiet as the carpeted wood panel.

I collected my longest coil of rope, tied one end to the roll cage through the driver's side open window, and threw the rest underneath the car to the other side.

Using my flashlight, I pulled some extra wire from the trunk part supplies, and wiggled underneath Shadow to get at his mufflers. The extra ground clearance I'd added via earlier suspension adjustments helped now-- but even normally I could squeeze underneath Shadow for repairs when needed, without jacking (I was fairly slim in those days). There, I mounted the panel wood side up against the mufflers, and ran my wire around the front end of the panel, the mufflers, and whatever other protrusion was handy in the vicinity, to hold it up.

I then ran my rope under the tail end of the panel, and to the roll cage on the passenger side, then over to the passenger side rear view mirror-- whoops! That had been my intent anyway, until ripped out screw holes in the door reminded me I'd lost the mirror in my drop through the trees. Oh well!

I changed the plan and ran the rope from the roll bar back into the car again, and underneath the front corner of the passenger seat, around the floor bracket there, then back out over the passenger window sill and under the car. Next I took it up and over the driver's side window sill, to the driver's seat floor bracket (I'd decided side mirrors might be too fragile for the job after all), crossing these length of rope under the wooden panel with the other, to make an "X". I tried to make sure it was all tight and snug, and then threw the remaining slack behind the driver's seat.

Of course, I'd have to be entering and exiting Shadow via the open windows now. That was fine for the circumstances.

But still I needed more. I cut loose the periodic duct tape bands which held the foam rubber insulation onto nearby portions of my roll cage, and pulled off the spongy dark gray foam. I then stuffed it in along the sides of the tied off panel underneath the car. Lastly, I retrieved Shadow's bottom rubber air dam from storage, and stuffed it in between the rear of the carpeted panel and Shadow's true belly pan above.

Shadow was now much quieter than before, but exhaust fumes were wafting into the interior, and I couldn't be sure how long it'd be before something melted or caught fire underneath there.

And we were off to meet our fate.

Just as I'd figured, movement reduced the amount of exhaust fumes collecting in the car, plus the open windows and vents helped too. I hoped the extra ventilation brought by our movement would help keep the newly improvised muffler from bursting into flame any time soon, as well.

Now that we were a much quieter, one red-eyed monster stalking the woods, I felt it incumbent upon me to meet up with our pursuers just as quickly as I could. I didn't drive as maniacally fast over the route this time as before, but I tried to push it as close as I could with the much dimmer illumination. It helped that there were signs here and there of our previous hurried passage to guide me.

The whole atmosphere of the moment was eerie. Shadow's unusually quiet running, the barely there lighting ahead of us, the cool night air, the dark emptiness all around, and the knowledge we were heading directly at trouble-- with the plan basically being to run right through them before they knew what was happening. Then find the slope and rush down it to get to that theoretical road beyond the fields...

Holy crap! Here they were! Much closer than I'd expected!

They were lit up like a mobile Las Vegas. Using tons of lights on their vehicles. It appeared there were a couple motorcycles, and three four wheel drives; some of the four wheelers had extra lights above their cabs. All these different light beams were waving up and down and back and forth through the trees, as they seemed to roll over anything and everything in their way, not bothering to dodge around as much stuff as Shadow and I had.

I suspected the first thing likely to give us away would be the reflecting surfaces inside the dead headlights and one dead driving light. But still they didn't show any sign of seeing us until we were racing right through the middle of them. I heard horns blare as we sped past, and maybe a shot or two fired-- but it was difficult to be certain with the various engine noises and random forest bashing going on, if there truly were shots fired.

They were actually making so much racket on their own, I might not have needed the make-shift muffler I'd devised.

Just in case they were shooting, I flicked on the strobes for a few seconds once we were behind them all, and seemed to have their attention. But after I switched them off again, our hunters likely could see no sign of us whatsoever.

I did switch on the headlights maybe ten seconds after that. And soon found what I believed to be the proper place to turn right for locating the downhill slope.

I hoped our pursuers wouldn't realize we'd turned off there.

Burning smells began to enter the passenger compartment. As we seemed to have made some progress, and I couldn't see any sign of lights around (although I definitely heard motors racing and horns honking), I stopped for a minute to climb out my driver's side window and cut the ropes, and throw the panel and rubber air dam onto my askew rear interior shelf. They were accompanied by smoke and awful smells to be sure, but those two items didn't seem to actually be on fire yet. I'd just pulled the wooden panel backwards out of the wire loop rigged underneath, rather than trying to cut the metal strands.

I didn't bother to recover the foam rubber roll cage insulation, as it seemed to be what was closest to igniting, and I figured I could replace it pretty easily later, anyway.

I sort of had to explore the near vicinity to figure out my way to the slope: this consumed precious time.

I finally seemed to locate it. But from the top, it looked pretty intimidating. Especially with nothing but blackness below. My handheld spotlight beam wouldn't reach far at all, when I got out of Shadow to peer down the slope.

I couldn't be absolutely certain this was the one (I hated that!) And choosing wrong could kill me. At that moment I wished for a stronger spotlight...hey!

I jumped back into Shadow and turned him around, then backed up as near to the edge as I dared, and moved the shifter handle to park. I also set the emergency brake.

Then I flipped on my super bright strobe lights, and got out again to inspect the scene. Sure, I couldn't aim them like the spotlight. And they did blink on and off rapidly, which wasn't the most optimal illumination you could have. But boy, were they bright!

They let me make out in one swoop the whole lay of the land hereabouts, including some of the rugged slopes on the other side of the chasm I was facing.

In my strobes' stop-action white flashes, I was able to determine my current position based on an old one-- for I was sure I could make out from here the spot from which I'd first beheld the golden slope.

Whoops! I was definitely a little off in positioning here, based on everything I could recall from before, and this newest information. I needed to move to my right maybe fifty yards or so for the best route down. At least that was my best estimation. So I returned to Shadow, flipping off the lights, and taking us over a ways, to where the top of the slope seemed most likely to be.

I pulled up near the transition point of the downward course, got out, and played my spotlight over things.

Yeah! This looked much better! Apparently the previous path had been way too steep, which prevented my spotlight from helping much. Here, I could see maybe a whole third of the way down, before my beam petered out.

The massed rumblings of my pursuers were rapidly increasing in volume now.

I needed more lights, so I moved to Shadow's front end and re-enabled the one driving light, while pulling the red filter off the other (using my spot to light the tasks). Then I gathered up the long trailing cord of my spotlight, re-entered the car, re-arranged some loose junk a little better for a rough ride, belted myself in, and began maneuvering us around in preparation for our plunge.

I was also trying to recall every detail I could of the slope, and the conditions at its bottom.

Yikes! Time was up! No sooner had I almost completed my preparations, than the first of my pursuers broke into sight among the surrounding trees.

Here goes nothing! I thought, giving Shadow the go ahead with the gas pedal, and as an after-thought switching on the rear strobes too. After all, I needed all the light I could get for this trip, even if some was indirect. And blinding my pursuers just before we all plunged down a steep slope couldn't hurt either!

In maybe one second we were up and over the edge, every non-red lamp on Shadow alight, front and back. I had Shadow in first gear, and initially let up entirely on the gas after turning downwards, due to the steep descent. Indeed, I was staying ready to use both regular brakes and the emergency as needed. Of course, a scary sum of velocity was required due to the bastards right behind me. So once again, it was all a knife's edge balancing act between chaos and control.

I was first startled, and then elated, to see a motorcycle and a four wheel drive go flying off into space to either side of me, as I considerably more slowly made my way down the decline.

They must have been hoping to race ahead of me, to cut me off. I guess they didn't figure on encountering air rather than ground, on that course.

My elation didn't last long though, as a second four wheel drive (also apparently blinded by my strobes, as it raced out of the woods after me), could suddenly be seen in my big rear view mirror tumbling out of control behind me. Yikes! This was a problem!

I gave Shadow more gas, as I simultaneously tried to get out of the path of the careening vehicle.

Naturally, the four wheel drive could have navigated this slope better than Shadow under normal circumstances, but I'd blinded the driver, and he hadn't been expecting to chase me over a precipice, so I guess he'd made the wrong choices about braking and steering after that, pretty well ruining his chances for a graceful plunge.

When the four wheeler flipped over and began tumbling broadside towards me, that directed its own light beams sideways, and in my 180 degree rear view mirror, my fast flickering strobes began offering me my best and most alarming view of the coming calamity.

Holy crap! Now that he was sideways, his size as a potential impactor was maybe three times bigger! Making him three times harder to get away from on the steep incline!

Holy shit! I had to do something quick, or we'd just get mashed up too, in a growing snowball-like chunk of twisted metal rolling downhill!

But too drastic a move would tip me over as well! Or put me out of control, too!

Oh shit! He was picking up speed now, and bouncing! Holy crap! He was right on top of me!

In a moment of inspired desperation (and admittedly high stakes gambling) I suddenly did my best to make a straight line panic stop in my plunge down the mountain. Shadow did what he could to respond. In hindsight, it was good the tires were partially deflated, and chains on the rear wheels, too. For we managed to slow enough that the wildly bouncing wreck of the four wheeler sailed right up and over us, and on down the hill-- actually helping somewhat to clear the rest of the way for our own descent.

I was amazed not to feel any contact whatsoever between the bouncing four wheeler and Shadow, as it flew over us. For it'd sure looked like an impact was inevitable, in my mirror! And the stop-motion effect of the strobes had just seemed to make it all the more terrifying.

I was also glad I didn't see any bodies fly out of the vehicle, as it continued its violent descent ahead of me.

Of course, I hadn't been able to stop completely-- just slow down a lot. Now I let up on the brakes, and we continued on down the steep slope.

I kept in mind that any survivors among those who'd fell ahead of me wouldn't like me very much, when I reached them at the bottom. My guns were still close at hand. But I hoped to avoid using them.

In my rear view, I could see indications the rest of the gang was taking their time about following me down. Good! I hoped they'd change their mind altogether, and leave me alone at last.

I never saw any sign again of the lone cyclist who'd zoomed over the edge beside me. But of the four wheeler which did like-wise, I passed by where it'd hit a massive tree trunk head-on. It really didn't look like anybody could have survived it.

Remarkably, several of the powerful lights on the crashed vehicle were still lit. Although it seemed like their wires would have been cut by the impact.

I finally got to the bottom, but didn't immediately see any sign of the rolling disaster which had almost taken me with it. As I continued on, now finally on more or less level ground again, I did catch sight of the wreck. It'd rolled a pretty long ways from the foot of the slope, to come to rest in the stream. Only about a third of it was above water. Its lights too were still burning, like the other four wheel drive smacked into the tree. But here most of the lights were underwater.

Heck: there could have been people drowning in there! But I couldn't do anything about it: else I might get killed for trying.

At least there were none of them up and around and shooting at me there.

I looked longingly at the water as I passed by: wanting a drink so bad. But I couldn't. This was a run-for-my-life situation!

I made my way towards the open fields and through them, finally locating the old road depicted on the map. Once upon that, I eventually found my way back to civilization again. And didn't suffer any more hassles from that particular bunch after that. Although on that last leg back to civilization, I was fearful they'd show up once more, somehow. For they'd sure been dogged pursuers up in the mountains! Maybe the meanest I'd ever had!

I found a service station and pulled several soft drinks from a vending machine to slake my thirst. I drank two immediately, and nursed a third one for the rest of the way home.

Though it bothered me on several levels, I couldn't report all this stuff to anyone but my employer. For one thing, I wasn't sure at the time exactly who those folks were. And I certainly didn't want to positively identify myself to any friends or relatives of the deceased, as the person who'd escaped all those guys, while leaving them scattered like matchwood on the mountain. You just did not do that in my parts. So it all became just another piece of my hot rodding days that I never mentioned to anyone (except for my boss, in this particular case).

I was just this weird guy with this black car, see? Who had this really boring life...

At least that's what I hoped lots of folks thought at the time!

Did my employer believe my story? Well, although he knew me well enough by then to know I wasn't one for shoveling the B.S., he was skeptical at first. Especially since I had so little physical evidence of personal injury or car damage. Heck: I experienced it, and still could hardly believe it!

But my report as to the damages to my pursuers was something which could be checked through various means. And within a week, that part had been pretty much confirmed to my boss's satisfaction.

But that confirmation didn't achieve what I expected: quite the opposite, in fact. I lost my job!

My employer decided the runs were getting too risky, and shut everything down. Fortunately, he gave me the phone number of another possible employer. Or at least I thought it was fortunate at the time.

That next job would be where Shadowfast would meet his end.

Above can be seen one wheel set of Shadowfast's original emergency tire chains.

Above can be seen the original hunter's vest from Shadowfast's accessories kit.

Above can be seen Shadowfast's original two tow ropes as described in several accounts on-site.