Over the edge

One of the main incidents which convinced my smuggler employer to move to greener pastures had a lot to do with me.

I didn't learn much about what was going on behind the scenes until considerably later. It turned out though that my employer's organization had basically invaded the turf of some other gang's operations, who didn't take kindly to being replaced connections and routes-wise.

So this loose bunch all got a little tighter with one another, and decided to weaken my employer's capacity to distract and redirect law enforcement away from his operations.

Which of course meant taking me and Shadowfast out (since our route was one of those being contested).

Again, I was in the dark here. My employer gave me no warning. And though I'd noticed us having more and more trouble with civilian-looking vehicles along the way (in addition to the normal police cars) I'd just figured them for unmarked law vehicles.

So in the end my biggest trouble ever in the smuggling runs proved not to be the police, but rather other smugglers.

They worked up a pretty good plan, too. It was mainly by pure luck that it failed.

The most dangerous part of this particular smuggling route was a wicked little road of repeating switchback curves hugging the mountainsides between Tennessee and North Carolina. It was paved to be sure, but gave you little room for error or maneuvering. In most spots to one side would be a steep drop off, and to the other the near vertical wall of the mountain you were currently rounding.

Long before I began working for my present employer, I'd frequently visited this length of road for both fun and more serious purposes. For it was a nice series of hard curves on which to test new suspension mods and driving tricks at relatively low speeds, like 35 to 55 mph. For any faster there, and you'd tend to go off a cliff or slam into the mountain. Or hit whatever other vehicle was unlucky enough to be there at the time.

Did I mention the curves also weren't usually banked correctly? For the builders clearly expected folks to only drive them at around 10 to 15 mph at most.

About the only way to get around those curves faster than Shadowfast would have been to possess a shorter wheelbase car, and be lighter weight to boot. So maybe certain European Lotus autos might have beaten us there.

There were also few spots on the road where you could turn around if the way got blocked. Here and there you might run across a home precariously perched on a small piece of the mountain, jutting out beyond the road. But usually their driveway would be located right smack in the elbow of a blind curve, so using it at all was risky in itself.

In all the hundreds of times I've likely traveled that road in my life, there was only once I tried a turnaround in such a place. And it happened under perhaps the very worst of circumstances.

The first sign of trouble I came across was a guy with a walkie-talkie leaning on a fence alongside the road, where the highway began its last major climb up the mountain from a band of rolling hills.

As was my habit any time I noted anything unusual on the road such as a lone guy standing beside it, I continued to examine him in my 180 degree rear view mirror after I passed him by (the mirror allowed me to do this without being obvious about it).

That's when I'd seen him pull the radio out of hiding and speak into it. Was he alerting somebody I was coming? Seemed likely!

I was on my way to meet the truck I was to escort through the mountains and other spots on the lengthy route.

Basically what I'd do was precede the truck by a long ways, keeping an eye out for anything which appeared to pose a risk to our illicit activities. If it seemed like certain trouble, I'd either give a coded radio warning to the truck driver to abort or take a different route, or attempt to confirm my suspicions in various ways-- or even clear the route if possible, by performing various antics sure to cause some itchiness many lawmen would find it difficult not to scratch. They'd give chase, I'd lose them, and then double-back to do the whole thing again if necessary and feasible (my lead on my trucks was usually enough to allow for all this).

My employers had other anti-law measures besides me, of course. But this was all I was responsible for. Scouting ahead for potential threats, flushing them out where possible, and/or neutralizing them.

It helped that few local lawmen could resist a chase-- especially if the car was as aggressive looking as Shadow-- and even more so if the driver pretty much thumbed his nose at them in various ways (which I did quite often, being young and foolish and sometimes way too over-confident).

So here I'd seen this guy beside the road use a concealed radio after I'd passed him. From past experience I knew my own CB radio wouldn't likely reach any of my confederates from my present location, plus someone else might be listening in. So I didn't use it.

I was usually early for my escort duties, so I had some time to spare. I decided to use it to muck up any plans someone might have that required a radio alert of my approach.

I hadn't yet quite reached the point of no return on the mountain road, so I found a place it seemed no one malevolent was watching, and turned off onto another road leading away from the main drag.

Unfortunately I didn't have many choices here, so the new road wouldn't offer me a good (read: concealed) observation point from which to monitor the highway I'd just left.

But I knew if there was a road block ahead it couldn't be maintained long without causing a lot of problems for local civilians. So any ambush waiting for me there would quickly stew pretty hot from friction with the populace. As there was also considerable traffic on the highway normally, any delay ahead would rapidly generate a line of parked or slow moving cars, past where I'd turned off.

So I figured I'd hide and wait for twenty minutes or so, then check the main highway for a traffic jam. If my suspicions were confirmed, I'd start looking for an alternative route out of here, maybe even winding deep through the mountains on largely single lane gravel roads if necessary. I'd done it before, if not in this precise area.

I found a shady spot just off my present road, and parked there for a while, listening to music and leaving on my police scanner and CB (monitoring a general trucker channel rather than our outlaw band), just in case.

After 20 minutes passed with nothing unusual happening, I cranked up and returned to the highway intersection to see no signs of a traffic snarl.

It was always possible I'd been wrong about the walkie-talkie guy. My circumstances demanded a certain level of paranoia, and sometimes things which made me uneasy turned out to be nothing at all.

Plus, even if I did have good reason to worry, my little 20 minute delay after the call had to have screwed up the timing of any plan unfolding ahead of me. By at least a little.

I pondered my situation. Yes, I was a prime target for law enforcement here. Yes, I'd seen a suspicious radio-using character not far back on this, my major escort route. Yes, I was supposed to meet my truck pretty soon for a run on this very route. Yes, I'd soon run out of slack time, appointment-wise. And no, I had no way to contact my associates for a change in plans from this location, or this early in the job (technically the run hadn't even started yet). Especially not without possibly suffering eavesdroppers. But no, so far my voluntary delay had not resulted in any signs of a road block ahead. And yes, I was getting pretty antsy to just get on with my business, come hell or high water.

But I knew better than that (allowing myself to be too impulsive). Let the truck wait. That was better than getting caught in a trap. If I waited another 20 minutes before getting back on track, that would only make me ten minutes late so far as the truck was concerned-- assuming of course there would be no additional delay once I got underway again.

So I returned to my hidey hole to give it another twenty minutes, bad as I hated to. An unexpected forty minute delay for anyone alerted by radio to my approach would definitely work better than a twenty minute version. For little additional cost to me or my employer.

I listened to more music, and more CB and police scanner chatter. But still I heard nothing suspicious.

After the second span was spent, I returned to the main highway and waited and watched for a moment before pulling out. An occasional vehicle or two passed by. Everything appeared absolutely normal.

I pulled out onto the highway, but heading back the way I'd come, rather than continuing forward.

I passed by the spot I'd seen the radio man, but no one was there. Nothing else along the way sprang out at me either. So after a few minutes of trolling down the road in the wrong direction, I pulled off, turned around, and headed for work.

Surely roughly a fifty minute delay between the time the radio guy spotted me and I actually showed up would help gum up any nasty stuff ahead, right? I mean, probably dozens or even a hundred or more civilian cars had passed through there by now, while I waited.

And the way ahead wasn't exactly suited to an ambush or road block, anyway. It was far too narrow and winding. There were few places that even a single car could park beside the road. And if even one was parked in the road, I'd have seen traffic problems at the turn off. Or surely heard something on the radios about it.

Some aspects of this story I'd piece together weeks and months after the events, from a variety of sources.

I believe now what happened was our competitors had set up a trap to seize or wreck my car, and maybe beat me up or worse, at one of the few spots on the road ahead where a private residence sat on an extra piece of terra firma along-side the road.

They'd chosen a spot where they could see me coming several curves ahead of time, and pull a vehicle across the road to stop me when my own line of sight was blocked.

They knew from my past exploits I was resourceful, so they also positioned the radio man I'd spotted to provide them a heads up on my approach.

Although I didn't distinguish it from any of the other cars parked at various houses along the way, there'd also been a vehicle of some sort in the vicinity of the radio man which was meant to close the trap, and help isolate me from civilian traffic at the same time. As soon as I'd passed out of sight of the radio guy, this second vehicle had taken off behind me to perform its task.

But not long after that, the second vehicle had shown up at the trap location empty-handed. Since I'd pulled off to screw up such a plan if I could.

My would-be ambush team thrashed around a bit for a while, before they decided to call for reinforcements and spread out to look for me, and try to herd me by force into the trap, or some other equally dire circumstance.

All the while they kept the trap preparations in place on that property perched on the cliff (since it was such a good location). Meanwhile, some of them left the trap headed my way, while additional reinforcements elsewhere began heading towards me from the other direction.

And this seems to be about when I met the first of them on the road, as I finally headed in towards their trap.

In my defense, most ambushes are far less organized and resilient than this one was. So my little delay tactics would have likely worked much better in the more typical cases.

Plus, I mistakenly thought I was dealing with police or ATF or FBI here. In which case I would surely have heard some hint of the trap on my police scanner, or some clue on the CB from civilians noticing non-civilian-like resources on the mountain.

So I met and passed at least one vehicle holding some of my attackers, even as I drove into the trap. And of course those at the trap saw me coming, and moved to block the road.

Yes, I briefly had sight of the trap location a few curves ahead of time, but the two vehicles parked there didn't look that ominous and out-of-place to me. No, what mainly caught my eye was a scene in my wide angled rear view mirror: the excited activity in the pickup truck with three guys in it, that I'd met and passed only seconds before.

I didn't really have much time to think about it. But I had been driving relatively quickly through the curves, due to no one being ahead of me, and my state of lateness for my duty schedule. Shadow's tires were squealing around every one of the tight bends. I could have taken them only slightly faster without risking falling off the cliff to my left.

Still, my ambushers apparently didn't expect me to get to them quite that fast. I think they had maybe eight to ten seconds after sighting me to do their thing: which was to pull a single long bed pickup truck straight across the road ahead of me. I suspect the truck was sporting a straight shift tranny too, which caused them maybe a slight delay in getting positioned.

So as I rounded the last curve before the trap, I saw this truck pulling across the road, to present its broad side to me.

I had to make a split-second decision based on where I expected the truck to be in the next second or two.

I can't know exactly what went through my attackers' minds at that moment, but it surely would be censored for polite company.

Yes, despite its obviously late move, the pickup truck managed to squeeze my available road space ahead to something I expected would crush Shadow's front fenders if we attempted to pass through the gauntlet, and then leave us stuck there.

But rather than stopping, I simply went the other way. Behind the truck. Onto the private residence land off the road. Right before the eyes of another of my attackers-- although at that moment I was still striving to identify friendlies from non-friendlies.

Unfortunately the soil there was too dry and regularly beaten down by traffic to sport much grass. So it was basically hard ground and dry dust; no pavement. That meant I couldn't cut the corner there as well as I could on the road I was (hopefully!) temporarily leaving.

Shadow's heavy motor kept the front end tracking well enough in the hard left then right turn to get around the truck, but I felt the rear end coming around. And my eyes informed me I had scant space available for all this, without plunging off into never-never land.

I couldn't stop the spin steering-wise either, due to the lack of terra firma in the required space.

Holy crap! I was going to go over the edge!

Sure enough, my rear end swept over and down even as I pressed Shadow to scramble back up and out of the new threat.

The brief, terrifying view I got of the mountain-side below showed me it was far too steep for any sort of controlled plunge on my part.

Shadow's rear wheels were failing to get a purchase on the incline, and although our velocity had basically dropped to zero by that point, we seemed on the verge of sliding down and off of our perch.

Get a grip Shadow! Get a grip! I thought frantically.

I felt our backwards fall mounting, also pulling our front end from its position on anything horizontal, as I gave Shadow every bit of throttle I could (yes: I was getting panicky).

Then I instinctively reached for and yanked my crash bar release. I say instinctively because I cannot claim I had a conscious notion of what I was doing.

Then something caught, and we were suddenly back on the flat again! But now heading back the way we'd come around the tail of the truck. But that was okay by me! I was all for calling off this run today!

Did Shadow's crash bars embed themselves into the mountainside to give us traction just when we needed it? I truthfully cannot say. Maybe we caught traction on something else. But I'd sure hate to replay that moment without releasing the bars when I did!

That's when I saw the first gun drawn. By the guy standing beside the other car on the flat. But if he shot at me, I didn't hear or see it happen.

We raced back around the truck and into the curves. This time I was just about power-sliding around them all, in my haste to get away. But I couldn't stay too close to the ultimate edge of control, because around these tight and often blind bends there was always a chance of meeting another vehicle coming your way. You had to always keep open the option of allowing another car the opposite lane.

I couldn't know I was now heading directly at still more of this bunch.

Lo and behold, here came the same three excited guys in a truck I'd met before. Now we were both maybe some eight curves away from where I'd almost slipped into limbo. They were just topping a rise at the end of a straight maybe an eighth of a mile long, on which I'd built up a speed of maybe seventy or eighty mph from the last hairpin curve at its bottom.

And when I say last hairpin, I mean it. I'd exited the really bendy section of road there, and so felt it proper to gas things up in order to put some distance between me and any thugs who might still be around.

But now here were three more. Topping the rise ahead, after a straight where I'd built up considerable speed.

Although the worst curves were now behind me, here the road still offered a steep drop off on the right, and solid mountain to the left.

That's when the bastards swerved right at me, effectively blocking the whole road for the split second that I needed it.

The only way to stop was to hit them head on. In that moment, I also saw them brandishing shotguns in the truck cab.

There was absolutely nowhere to go.

The choices before me seemed stark. High speed head on collision; stranding; possible grievous injury; and maybe shot to death atop that. Or else.

In that instant, I chose else. After all, the end result couldn't be much worse than the first option, could it?

I figured my own chances slim, and Shadow's slimmer still. Whatever happened, I was certain this would be Shadow's end.

I swerved to avoid the collision with the truck, and went into space. Off the road, into what lay beyond. There was no time (or road) with which to use my brakes for some deceleration first. So I bid adieu to Mother Earth.

Racing up the incline had served as a launch ramp of sorts. Our exit speed might have given us a bit of a ballistic trajectory for a second or two afterwards. But everything after that would probably be classified as free fall.

I saw rising tree tops before me. Felt them hit the car's underside, first in whisking type brushes, then as ever louder and bumpier crunching and cracking seismic events.

Then Shadow's motor-heavy front end began dominating our flight path, and we rotated forward to give me a live top view of a wilderness forest up close. Or at least what could be seen of one in-between the branches and foliage now impacting against us.

I heard my tools in the trunk shift en mass as we tumbled forward. The force of impacts with the trees greatly intensified, giving me the feeling I was in Shadow's belly as he fought a boxing match with a giant, with punch after punch being delivered to our mid-section.

Our forward tilt for a split second had given me a view of distant countryside, then went dark as branches and leaves whipped across the windshield and side windows.

Then everything inside the car got a lot darker.

At that moment, the whole car began rotating sideways counter-clock-wise, in addition to flipping tail over front. And I thanked God I'd installed a roll cage-- although it remained to be seen how much help it'd be in this particular situation. I again heard my tools in the trunk; this time it sounded like they were doing their impression of a metallic waterfall.

I discovered my seat belts weren't nearly as tight as I thought they were, as I dangled from them upside-down, my knees striking the bottom of my dash. As the whole world slowly revolved around me. Yikes! I thought to myself at that moment. I hadn't designed my flimsy fiberglass dash to take my weight on it upside down. Or right-side up either, for that matter. So I tried flexing my legs upwards (or was it downwards?)-- pressing my feet firmly against Shadow's floorboards, in order to take the weight of my legs off the dash's bottom edge.

Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But what else could I do at that moment? And that's what popped into my head at that instant. But other concerns quickly displaced that one.

We hit a few things extremely hard, one actually almost knocking the breath out of me. Each strike noisily jangled my tool collection yet again.

Then we suddenly stopped, completely upside down, just as I heard an ominous, loud cracking noise (accompanied on an imaginary xylophone consisting of my increasingly musical tools). For an instant we didn't move at all, except maybe for a gentle sideways swaying, or up and down motion (it was hard to tell exactly which). Then we began to tilt. And ever so slowly, we rolled over again.

And once more, the tools gave their own tinkling announcement of the fact.

Then we seemed to be falling again-- but just for a split second-- and then came the final, jarring impact (although all things considered, this one was nowhere near as bad as some of the previous ones had been). My head banged painfully against the ceiling this time. Ow!

I was stunned. In shock. I wondered if I'd passed out and was now dreaming. Or was I dead?

For in-between the woodsy debris mostly covering the windows, it appeared Shadow and I were now sitting upright, facing a very pebbly bank of a small, shallow stream, running through an open space maybe 30 or 40 feet wide between tree lines. We ourselves were under and among the trees on our side. Forest litter, some of it quite large, was raining down atop us, banging on Shadow's roof, and threatening at times to shatter our windshield and especially vulnerable rear window.

But the falling debris and the impact vibrations accompanying it were the only non-peaceful aspects of the whole scene: what peeks I could get through gaps in the trashed foliage covering the windshield resembled an idyllic nature scene from a wall poster.

I was afraid to get out to inspect Shadow, due to all the stuff still falling from above (I might get conked in the head!)

Then I noticed a rumbling sound. Shadow's engine was still running! Idling! That seemed amazing in itself to me, at the time.

But something wasn't right. Shadow at idle on flat ground-- and even up a small range of inclines-- would pull ahead in drive. Which was where the shifter was still positioned, after our tumble.

I gave Shadow a little gas, and felt resistance. There was likely debris underneath us, I realized. I gave Shadow a little more gas than before, and we lurched up by about a foot and dropped down again, fairly violently (and with the sounds of hard stuff hitting our underside). Yikes! The drastic vertical change surprised me. But we had to go through another two of these big hops-- and several more smaller ones-- to get disengaged from the debris pile.

I sure hoped I hadn't damaged something vital underneath Shadow, getting out of there! Engine and tranny oil pans and brake lines, to be specific. But the only alternative had been to wait quite a while to make sure it was safe to disembark and inspect our situation in-place.

Actually, I guess we were pretty lucky we could drive off the pile without requiring a winch, or at least some prodigious jack use.

We finally got clear, and I pulled all the way over to the other side of the stream for added safety from falling and bouncing chunks of tree. I kept Shadow running just in case he might not start again, due to weird gas siphoning problems from the roll over or fall. I mean, the pick up in the tank could have swallowed some air along the way, or picked up dregs which normally didn't get sucked in until you ran completely dry of fuel.

I seemed okay myself, but for my head bump and an ache in my shoulders and neck, which I think came from being so tense for so long, over the preceding ten or fifteen minutes.

After pushing on the emergency brake, I got out to inspect Shadow.

Before the inspection though, I took a long look around to see if we had the time for such luxuries. It seemed so. I couldn't even see the edge of the road from where we'd launched, so I doubted our attackers could see us either.

I knew if those guys were the law, they'd definitely be coming to collect us fairly soon. But these jokers didn't seem like the law. I shook my head. Whatever! I figured I'd better expect them to come down as soon as they could find a safer route.

Shadow seemed surprisingly unscathed, considering what had just happened. There were stray tree limbs and leaves stuck in various places on him, and numerous dents in his softer places, like his roof and rear quarter panels (the roll cage likely prevented the roof from being mashed in). Quite a few of these dents were outwards direction dings rather than inwards. For my shifting tool boxes and spare parts collections in the trunk offered plenty of sharp corners and ramming weight to ding up my sheet metal from the inside.

It was Shadow's front end which exhibited by far the greatest amount of damage.

A single steel hood louver vane was noticeably bent. But that wasn't what grabbed your attention first. No, that honor belonged to the crushed primary top fender crease, just slightly forward of the highest point of the custom steel wheel well flare, on the driver's side. I figured maybe that hit had helped initiate our sideways roll over after the initial tumble. The crushed spot was fairly isolated and contained though, so the good news was it could likely be cut out and new metal welded in and sculpted to replace it (I figured that'd be easier than using a torch to cut out the present fender, getting a replacement, and then recreating the custom flare too! Yikes!). My younger brother was turning into quite the body man for jobs like that.

The bad spot didn't harm Shadow's drivability in terms of wheel clearance or anything. The solid steel factory fender, strengthened considerably by the wide custom steel flare, and direct attachment to the steel air dam, had absorbed the impact like a champion. Of course, Shadow's stripped down weight, and a healthy dash of luck hadn't hurt either.

The hood now possessed its own new ding too, lined up perfectly with the crushed fender crease. But the slight ding was almost impossible to see in Shadow's flat black finish, even at close range. I only caught it because I was so utterly familiar with his lines. After further inspection beneath the hood, I became satisfied that the hood ding would never warrant any repair work on its own.

The bent louver vane though was a different matter. Though functionality appeared unimpaired, it just didn't look cool.

My passenger side rear view mirror was gone. Ripped away completely. My rooftop CB antenna was snapped off at the base. Of all my windows, only my large rear one appeared damaged, with a couple large cracks running mostly vertically through it from end to end, with the apparent initiating point near the bottom. But I could still see well through it, and wasn't even sure it'd leak in a rainstorm from the looks of things. It'd be fine until I could replace it with $30 and a couple hours with glass from a junked Mustang. One column of my tail light assemblies was missing much of its red plastic lens. Which seemed odd to me, as the tail lights were protected by the fairly deep custom steel rear spoiler. And the spoiler itself wasn't even bent! Of course, it was somewhat flexible, after all. But I'd never had to replace my tail light lenses before. Even after being struck from behind by other cars.

The fine nylon mesh of my custom front grill had several holes poked in it. And a single sheared off branch was still stuck like a spear in there, at the start of my examination. That one gave me a good scare, as it looked like my radiator may have been punctured. But luckily the branch had penetrated no further than through my aluminum transmission fluid cooler and slightly beyond-- sparing my much more vulnerable engine cooling radiator. The trans fluid cooler was a tough little beast, having sprang no leak itself despite the branch violently spreading the cooling vanes to either side of its passage. After a close look, I decided I could perhaps gingerly extract the shaft without adding to my problems. And it worked! I could alternatively have merely cut the branch off on the forward side of the cooler, but that would left the spearhead embedded dangerously close to my main radiator, awaiting just a bit more forward push to wreak much worse damage.

If the cooler had actually sprung a leak, I could have bypassed it in the system (took the input and output hoses loose, and connected them to one another with a short piece of pipe and clamps) and topped off the tranny fluid with onboard reserves. I kept Shadow stocked up with such contingency accessories as a matter of course.

A punctured radiator would have been a different matter. Especially with the bayonet sized hole the branch could have made there. I did have stop leak onboard, but that was meant for much less significant problems. Heck: in a pinch, kitchen table pepper could do much the same. At least temporarily (in cars of that era anyway; I'm less sure about 21st century automobiles). There were a few things I could have tried for repair in that instance (of suffering a badly damaged radiator). But if they hadn't worked, I might would have had to run Shadow with inadequate coolant, driving just a few minutes at a time, and then keeping the engine off for hours afterwards, to cool back down again-- until I got him to a safe spot where I could leave him, to return later with more substantial repair options (like another radiator).

I pulled some caught branches out of Shadow's suspension, and inspected there too as best I could. The gas tank had apparently taken a pretty stiff blow: enough to maybe reduce my total fuel capacity by half a gallon, it looked like. At least until I'd get the chance to use compressed air to blow out the dent.

As I'd pulled past the wet wake of the small stream, I was able to look for telltale leaks of precious fluids from Shadow among the ground pebbles, such as brake fluid, etc. I saw none. Plus, the gauges seemed to read okay.

Although the air dam too seemed little the worse for wear, I figured it best to remove its lower portion. As well as change a few other things, in order to maximize our effectiveness at getting out of here. For we were now officially off-road.

There was no time to waste. Within around ten minutes, I'd removed and packed away the rubber and steel bottom half of the air dam (and found damage I'd missed before). Some of the metal top portion of the air dam had been torn loose from the passenger side, where it transitioned into the solid steel front fender flares. But it looked like everything there would still hold together long enough for me to return home before a repair. And removing the bottom half of the dam would relieve the damaged upper from the burden of carrying it around.

In another fifteen minutes I'd raised Shadow's rear ground clearance by a couple inches, by lowering the rear ends of the leaf springs in their custom brackets, and loosening the traction bar front ends from their normal street settings. Five minutes after that, I'd screwed my last two spare aluminum spring spacers into Shadow's front coils. That didn't raise his front ground clearance much, but it did help reduce the possibility of bottoming out on anything.

I also let a little air out of all the tires for better purchase on the unpredictable terrain (I had an onboard manual pump by which to increase pressures again, if need be).

One other bit of damage was a broken motor mount on the driver's side of the engine. Apparently the old mount couldn't take the stresses of holding the heavy motor in place while Shadow was flipped and rolled around like a toy in the tree tops. This too I figured might be connected with the hit which crushed the fender crease on the same side of the car. With the hood up, and fiddling with the throttle, I could make the motor appear to jump up on that side at will. Damn. I wasn't sure what I could do about that particular problem out here: motor mounts were one of the few types of spare parts I didn't stock onboard. But the other mount was still holding. And Shadow's ram air arrangement basically kept the closed hood pressed down against the top of the metal engine air cleaner/carb set up. So those would help hold it down some. Still, it made me uncomfortable. For we might still have some major maneuvers ahead of us. And those could put a lot of pressure on the air cleaner assembly-- which would then automatically transfer to my carburetor and its linkages. Yikes!

I could replace the normal bulky air cleaner system with an aluminum velocity stack I kept onboard mainly for the drag strip. But the stack's meager eighth inch thick air filter wasn't meant for lengthy use, and its presence would also mean the engine no longer had any movement restraint from the hood whatsoever. The way the engine jumped around now, I was afraid I might actually squash my carb linkages against the hood in such a situation. If not something worse.

I came up with a fix of sorts, with heavy steel bolts and washers and an emergency tire chain (it was the only substantial chain I had onboard). I found an engine block bracket bolt on the driver's side to which to attach one end, and improvised another connection lower down via an existing hole in my driver's side shock mount tower. It wasn't perfect, but I figured it'd last until we got back to civilization again. In tests so attached, the motor couldn't jump around nearly so much when revved.

At that moment I couldn't think of anything else I could do to adapt to the situation. And even if I had, I was getting antsy that we didn't have the time for further preparations.

It did occur to me though (after getting underway) to switch on the stealth lighting bypass (despite not needing any lights at the moment). That way only our front lights would work, no matter what. Well, the rear strobes were another story, but they weren't usually switched on except in battle anyway.

While rummaging around in my trunk, I'd discovered some spare lighting bulbs and one can of motor oil had been crushed in the melee. The trunk was now very well lubricated. Other cans had been damaged as well, but weren't yet leaking.

I decided to follow the stream downhill. After all, I knew my enemies were uphill from here. And that consistently going down should generally get me out of the danger zone. At least for now.

Thus began my biggest ever off-road trek with Shadowfast. It's a good thing I didn't know what lay ahead!

It didn't take long for me to find my way blocked by a large fallen tree laying across the stream bed. I couldn't go around it because the surrounding woods were too dense.

I didn't have a chain saw with me. And only a hatchet rather than an axe. So I pulled out a tow rope, and tried pulling it out of the way with Shadow. But no go. The trunk was too heavy, and Shadow's traction in the loose pebbles too weak. Or else we just didn't have a good pull angle here, leverage-wise.

So I had to use both my tow ropes (I had two) and my come-along (hand winch) to move it. It took several go-rounds, and maybe 45 minutes all told. Way too long. But I finally got a big enough gap so that we could squeeze through, and we motored on.

This time we managed to pile up a good distance, as the shallow stream meandered about the country-side. There was the occasional rock pile to get past, but it wasn't too much of a hassle.

But then the stream led into a sinkhole. And took with it the nice, spacious, and easily traversed route we'd enjoyed so far.

Just before you reached the plunging depths of the sinkhole though, there was a ravine which went up on the left. The cleft was wide enough for Shadow to climb, at least so far as the eye could see. So we did.

Although we were now headed up again, we'd by then put enough horizontal distance between us and possible pursuit that I didn't expect to meet them here.

I'd heard nothing of anything man-made since the fall-- except for ourselves. Of course, as Shadow had been running constantly, I could have missed some sounds beneath his rumbling.

We were in great shape for gas, as I'd filled up earlier in anticipation of a business run. It was now around mid-afternoon, and I knew my employer would be annoyed. Too bad: my flying-off-a-cliff excuse was unbeatable.

Uh oh. I winced. My excuse would only be unbeatable, if it wasn't unbelievable. I had no significant personal injuries for proof, and Shadow didn't look that bad either. Ouch! Oh well. I'd face that music when the song came up.

Shadow was having a tougher time getting up the ravine, than motoring among the pebbled stream bed had been. All the loose leaves and soil didn't play well with his wide designed-for-pavement tires. At least not when the incline got too steep. Or too damp. Or too dry (traction among fallen leaves can be a tricky thing).

Crap! We couldn't afford to get stuck here! I had to stop and consider my options. The ravine was getting steeper, which also added to Shadow's travails.

Leaving Shadow running, I got out and did a walkabout to survey the vicinity. Back a little ways behind us now was another, smaller ravine which branched off in a somewhat opposing direction. But it dead-ended not far up into a fairly vertical ascent.

The present larger ravine was only steep a little ways further, and after that the mountain seemed to level out some. The transition point between the two terrain features was tantalizingly close.

But we could never make it, piddling along like we were. So stop piddling! I told myself.

Up to now we'd been taking it easy, due to being in the rough, and our (automotive) design being made largely for smooth asphalt roads. But Shadow and I had tackled the rough at much higher speeds than this before. And it looked like that was called for again.

But I'd have to consider not only our acceleration path, but our deceleration possibilities too. So I climbed up to the more level feature of the mountain, examining our theoretical future path. I walked it for a while, constantly reminding myself that Shadow could be covering about the same amount of ground in a second, that I could walk in a minute.

Wooo. It looked a bit too close for comfort. If we could clamber up over the initial edge (while simultaneously turning right), we'd have a fairly straight deceleration course for a little ways-- which was essential in the loose leaves and forest soil of the present environment. But then pretty abruptly, we'd encounter a massive rock outcropping. There was a possible course to swerve around it to the left, but that turned suddenly into a further incline, as well as called for a quick left turn almost immediately after a quick right, and hard braking-- if the entire course was considered. Ouch! I didn't like it. There was far too little room for error here. And if we had too little speed when we tried to get over the edge, we might stall out traction-wise and roll upside down-- and maybe even keep tumbling down the ravine for a ways. Double ouch! In my mind's eye, I could already see my car on its top, stranded below me on the hill.

I clasped my hands behind my head as I scanned the surroundings for a better option. But there were none.

Well, I could always just leave Shadow behind and try walking out, I thought. Then get a four wheel drive of some sort to come tow him out. But I couldn't stand the thought of leaving him behind, except as a last resort. Because (for one thing), he represented the biggest financial investment of my life, up to that point. And the feds (or whoever those jokers were) would almost certainly find him before I could return, and confiscate him. Or burn him where he sat. Agh!

Mid-afternoon was turning into early evening, and the shadows were deepening in our little piece of the woods. Soon it would be too dark to even make an attempt. Plus, I didn't want to be bouncing lights around after dark here, giving away our position to possible foes.

I re-examined the route and practiced the maneuver in my mind. Once, twice, three times. Then I went over it again. Yeah, we could do it. Maybe.

I'd walked the entire course several times, and not found any hidden obstacle to add to the risk.

I returned to Shadow. As usual, he was shivering with restrained power at idle. I got in, put it into reverse, and slowly motored backwards: first down the main ravine, then up the smaller ravine (I was angling for a running start at getting over the target edge). There, I placed us back into park for a moment, and ran through the whole course again in my imagination.

After that I listed my priorities. One, get up enough speed so momentum will get us over the edge. Two, try to only use as much speed as absolutely necessary to get top-side, as too much would cause other problems. Three, try nudging gently to the left immediately after doing that hard right over the edge, in order that the hard left at the rock outcropping might be a little less extreme. Of course, the narrow path wouldn't allow much such nudging ahead of time. Four...the heck with four. I already had enough to do!

I tried to mentally calculate the perfect speed for making it over the edge, but knew it would truly depend on the conditions of the moment. Agh!

"Well Shadow, here goes nothing!" I said aloud, shifting into gear.

I tentatively pressed the gas, and we began our run.

We were out of the short ravine almost immediately, and climbing up the main cleft.

I pressed the pedal deeper, and our speed surged accordingly. I tried to stay keenly aware of any slipping and sliding happening in the leaves. But the spring mods I'd made for our off-road trek made Shadow's suspension feel quite a bit different from normal; I felt much more uncertain of Shadow's interface with terra firma than usual.

We hit the steep spot that'd stymied us at horse and buggy speed, and bounced upwards and over the edge. This happened faster and easier than I'd anticipated, and I struggled to correct for the difference.

But it all turned out much easier than I expected. For although I frantically whipped the steering wheel to the right as we crested, Shadow's tail just kept going forward and hit the dirt directly opposite the spot we'd climbed over. And that stopped us! Ha, ha. No fancy maneuvering on my part was required at all. And the soft soil there was even gentle to Shadow too, adding no appreciable damage to the toll already present. Yay!

So it proved much easier to make it through the next couple steps than I'd expected. I was starting to realize that driving in the deep woods was going to be a whole other experience, compared to the highway version. And the adjustments I'd made to Shadow's suspension made everything work and feel differently, too.

All this eventually put us atop a ridge line-- and apparently even onto an old dirt road of some sort! Nothing fancy-- just something like I'd seen on people's private forest properties before. The heavy forest growth overhead kept it clear of weeds and grass due to lack of sunlight in warm seasons. And very light traffic made it retain its visibility, but avoid getting torn up and rutted.

I stopped on the road, considering my direction. It seemed if I continued on the way I was headed, I would be putting more distance between me and desperado's leap. But I knew I could be completely wrong, since I hadn't been consulting a compass along the way.

Yeah, I had a compass in my onboard camping supplies, but I'd up to now been too lazy to use it. It didn't usually seem necessary unless you were truly on foot. Plus, immediately after the plunge, it'd seemed pretty obvious what direction to follow. But I also had a USGS map of the area in my car for contingency purposes (I was a very good escort driver). It seemed wise to examine both now.

I determined the most obvious landmarks from my present vantage point, checked the compass, and tried pinpointing on the map the cliff where we'd jumped, the little stream we'd followed, the ravines, etc., etc.

I'd had orienteering in US Army ROTC in college only months back. And even done pretty well in a little field contest regarding same. But it's not unusual to encounter navigation difficulties even with training, compass, and map.

The shallow stream and the sinkhole did not seem to exist anywhere on the map. Of course, this particular region had last been surveyed around 1945(!) So that was one limitation of the chart. But I thought I could see the stream's course based on altitude contours, and where I approximated we'd made our jump.

Wow! The map contours indicated a pretty drastic vertical drop where we'd leaped-- if I'd correctly guessed the spot.

It was then that I realized I should have been paying attention to Shadow's odometer about distance traveled. That would have helped me better locate our present position.

Of course, the odometer wasn't designed to count air miles, I thought with a grin. So no way it could be exactly accurate, even if I had been paying attention to it.

Surely my ambushers would be as amazed as I was by the results of Shadow's tumble.

There seemed to be several different ridge lines we might be on. None of them sported roads on the map. But most of the map ridge lines indicated continuing on in our present direction would indeed move us farther away from our starting point. According to current compass readings of course.

So we motored on.

We continued our slow and careful trek along the little ridge road for a ways, until it finally petered out.

At that point I set out on foot again to scout ahead a little. Mainly to see if we'd just hit a bad spot, and the road continued on somewhere, maybe in another direction. But it didn't. So we'd have to make our own way.

It was beginning to get dark then, but I figured I'd at least survey the territory a little, to have something to think about overnight, if nothing else.

Then I thought I heard something in the distance. Yep: definitely so! Engines; more than one vehicle; maybe a yell or two as well. But it was all pretty faint. Hard to tell where they were coming from, too. I couldn't see the sources from here, but they were definitely situated somewhere below.

Considering this was pretty much a desolate wilderness, the noise was coming from a group of some kind, and behind and below me led nowhere but to the spot Shadow and I had landed from our great fall, I was pretty sure the search and whatever mission on the part of our attackers had now begun.

We'd be pretty easy to track, I figured. Well, wait a minute: although Shadow did weigh roughly a ton and a half, he sported wide tires that I'd taken pains not to spin about for most of our journey. So our impressions wouldn't be that deep in most spots. Too, the stream bed and surrounding banks had been mostly pebbles, in which obvious tracks weren't easily made. And much of our trip through the ravines had been through a fairly deep layer of leafy debris. Hmmm. We'd really only left clear marks of our passing in a handful of spots so far, I realized. Our initial fall busted up a bunch of trees; we did pull one fallen tree out of the way to follow the stream; and we did do some spinning at that steep spot in the ravine.

Crap. There'd still be plenty of trail for someone to follow. It was just that they might suffer some sizable gaps of uncertainty along various lengths of same. But just maybe they'd have to waste some time along the way. In order to check out a few possible alternate courses I might have taken. For I had passed through a few natural forks in the landscape.

But in general we'd followed the terrain course most conducive to a street car making its way back to civilization. And anyone following us would be easily led by the same constraints. Damn!

I knew a few trail tricks I could use if I was on foot, to delay or waylay pursuit. But trying to hide or disguise the trail of an entire car was another matter entirely! Even for a light-weight racehorse like Shadow.

I couldn't tell how far away the noise-makers were. But so far as I was concerned, they were too damn close if I could hear them.

Luckily, most such bunches would stop and make camp for the night. Unfortunately, that meant Shadow and I should continue moving overnight, if at all possible.

Damn. I'd been looking forward to some sleep! I ached all over from the massive full body muscular contraction I'd experienced during the fall, as well as was fatigued from the unusual duties of the past day. But letting myself get caught was not an option here.

I wished mightily for some coffee at that point. But I knew I was out, without the need to look. For since my last depletion of my onboard coffee stocks, I'd never replenished the stash.

I figured I'd better capitalize on the last light of the setting sun to determine a new direction for us, and so continued my on-foot survey.

Crap. I didn't like the looks of things here. It appeared that I'd either have to do a lot of chopping down of trees for a football field or two worth of distance, or else take Shadow first down a steep descent, and then not long after a fairly steep ascent. The good news was neither fall or rise was very far in nature. But I was afraid I'd damage my front end on the descent. Well then: I'd just have to go over it backwards, I decided. Ack! I hated the idea of driving backwards down a near vertical surface, even if the drop was only about a couple car lengths in depth!

But there was no choice. We pretty much just fell down the first leg, with our rear bumper digging up some soil at the bottom, as we bounced through the abrupt transition. But it did save Shadow's more vulnerable front end from a possible smashup.

Now we had to get up the slightly longer climb on the other side. After that, we'd very soon have a fairly nice ridge line to continue upon. No road, but it looked like the trees were sufficiently sparse that we might thread our way through with a minimum of foliage removal being necessary.

Man! The ascent looked much more intimidating, now that we were at its bottom looking up.

Hmm. It appeared we'd have a similar problem here, as that just past; if we got part way up, and fell back again. Namely, we couldn't let our front end be facing downwards.

There was no way to get a running start at it here, like we had in the ravines. And even if there had been, the transition between floor and incline looked too abrupt. So we'd likely just ram our nose into the foot of the incline, rather than really get anywhere that way.

Nope. This climb would have to be slow and careful.

So that's what we did. But it didn't work. Sure, we managed to get our entire car length onto the incline, but then our traction got too weak and we were stuck. We had to back down again.

Holy cow: were we going to be stuck here until the wrecking crew arrived? If so, it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel for them!

Of course, I could always walk out, and leave Shadow behind (to be stolen or destroyed). But I felt like I'd almost have to be chased off at gunpoint for that.

Grrr. There had to be a way up!

I got out my remaining three emergency tire chains (one was already in use as a jury-rigged motor mount) and strapped them on to Shadow's rear wheels. It was a bit easier to put them on than usual, what with the tires' semi-deflated state.

We tried it again, staying in first gear like before to minimize spinning, and got somewhat farther. But nowhere near far enough. I had to abort once more before I dug ruts into the bank, and back down to more or less horizontal ground.

Think! I urged myself. We practically needed a ladder here. Only built for cars...

Hmmm. If only I had some really enormous tacks-- the kind shaped like an upside-down U with a flat end for hammering-- I could club them into the bank like ladder rungs for Shadow. And stagger them. Yes, staggering them would probably work best.

Yeah, right: dream on. Like I'm going to get custom-made tacks to fall on me from out of the sky...

But the concept seemed sound. The anchoring legs would have to go deep into the earth. And the cross pieces or rungs would have to be pretty strong and long...

But how the heck could I make such things out here? Then it came to me.

Holy crap. Surely there was a better way! I didn't want to have to work all night building a giant automotive ladder!

I realized I could simply chop up some lengthy stobs to pound into the incline, then sit some other stout wood pieces across them to effectively make some giant, staggered ladder rungs for my tires.

But that would mean an awful lot of wood chopping. And be not much different from the alternate route we'd shunned for this one.

Man! On the highway, Shadow would normally cross this much distance in a fraction of a second. Here though, it might take hours and hours. Hell: a snail might make better time than us at the moment, I fumed.

Think, think, think! Think of a better way.

I did have the come-along and tow ropes. And could in theory raise Shadow up a few feet at a time, then anchor him there and start over, until he sat on mostly flat terrain again. Mountain climbing for dummies with cars. But that too would likely take all night. Or most of it. And such a plan would pretty much use up all the safety margin on my come-along's rated capacity. Not to mention exhausting me pretty badly at the same time. Agh!

Too bad my strobe lights weren't really tiny rockets.

Come on! All I had to do was move a ton and a half of metal up a steep incline by a few car lengths. And that metal was on wheels! And self-powered to boot! This would be no great feat, requiring an all-nighter to accomplish! Would it?

Hmm. More weight in the tail would help traction. But at the angle of the incline, logic suggested there was already quite a bit more weight than usual being exerted on the rear tires in a climb. Just maybe not at the spots actually tugging on the hillside.

Was there a way to get a running start after all? In this confined space between inclines? No. I could turn the car around, but that was about it. If only the transitions with regards to both inclines weren't so drastic...

Hmmm.

I emptied Shadow of all his trunk contents, and removed the bullet-proofing metal panels and frame from the seats and rear interior.

Then out came the carpeted interior rear shelf, and its accompanying inclined panel from behind the bucket seats. I had to detach my stereo from the inclined panel too.

Then I unfolded my little black steel camping shovel, and started to dig.

After a couple hours, I'd created two ramps where none had been before. One at the bottom of each incline, both before and behind me. I'd built up and firmly packed dirt underneath both the relatively strong plywood panels, as well as to either side of them.

The smaller panel was actually too short in itself to span the distance between two of Shadow's wheels head on, and so had to be supplemented with multiple layers of the thin wooden veneer panels used elsewhere in the interior, and backed up with densely packed earth.

I'd also placed the various removable metal panels from my armor set up underneath the wood panels, for added support.

If I hadn't been working at the time of my stranding, I likely wouldn't have had the armor kit onboard to use like this. Then again, if I hadn't been working, I likely wouldn't have needed the armor kit for something like this.

Shadow was still wearing three tire chains. I wished the fourth wasn't busy holding the motor in the car.

By now my wrist watch read almost 11 PM. I'd been working under Shadow's headlights with his motor running since nightfall. I was pretty sure that down in this hole-- and atop that, the higher ridge between us and the nasties-- no one would see the lights. And Shadow wasn't all that loud, when only idling.

But someone might hear us making our leap out of the fish barrel.

I hoped to God this would work. If it didn't, then I'd just wasted an awful lot of the time and energy I was going to need to make the world's strongest ladder rungs.

The moment of truth had finally arrived. I sat down in Shadow and buckled in. For it wasn't totally implausible that I'd flip us on our top in this maneuver.

For a moment, I agonized over the slight hesitation my FMX transmission always displayed when shifting from reverse to drive. In my estimation, we'd need every split second of power here that we could get. Especially in the initial spurt. Of course, the higher we could get backwards up the one slope, the less critical the power timing would be. Maybe.

There'd be very little of a running start backwards, up the slope we'd slid down to originally get trapped in this hole. So I power-braked us before launch, similar to being at the drag strip. Only in reverse. I carefully and gradually stepped up the gas in reverse, while keeping the emergency brake tightly locked. Then I switched on the rear strobes for illumination, and let go the brake by yanking on its under dash handle, even as I pushed deeper on the throttle, and felt Shadow about to power past the brake regardless of me pulling the release.

We bounced backwards onto the rear ramp, then bounced onto the incline, the chains for just an instant doing a muted chattering on the carpeted ramp, before chewing into the slope beyond.

I'd left the panels' carpeted sides up, figuring that would give me better traction. Plus-- once back in civilization-- I could always replace any carpeting that got ripped loose here.

We gained more altitude than I'd dared hope, before our momentum began to flag, and I let off the throttle completely, and pulled the shifter all the way from reverse into first gear. We fell maybe a foot or so powerless before I felt the trans engage the engine again, and immediately hit the gas in response. This time we bounced forward from the incline, across the ramp we'd just come from, then bounced again onto the ground, accelerating at a scary pace towards the next incline directly ahead. The next ramp bounced us strongly upwards, then another bounce announced our arrival onto the opposite incline's face, and the rear chains dug once more into the mountain wall which so far had denied us further passage.

Though we did possess considerably more speed than on previous attempts, I could feel the summit once again about to escape our grasp: our forward and upward acceleration weakened dramatically as we neared the top.

It was a close thing. We barely got our rear tires past the tipping point, as our forward acceleration dropped to meet-- and then shrink below-- that of Earth's gravity.

I did of course make sure to speed us safely away from the edge, once it was attained. Then stopped both Shadow and his planet flashing rear strobes. Yikes! I figured the strobe flashes had probably been visible for miles around to anyone who happened to be looking in our direction at the time. But I'd needed to see well behind for this maneuver. Shadow's sudden engine roar in making the climb likely guaranteed attention too. It seemed I could still hear echoes of it bouncing off the hills, after I disembarked to begin the laborious task of retrieving all my equipment and interior components now lying about below.

But it'd all been necessary. And had worked!

After around an hour of me lugging everything up the incline and packing it back away, we slowly and cautiously continued our wilderness trek.

After a while I stopped again, and improvised some little hoods for the tops of my driving lamps from an unneeded small cardboard box onboard, after some testing showed I got a better deal light-wise from them alone than them and the headlights combined, or the headlights exclusively. Plus, the driving lights were mounted lower and could be more easily adjusted orientation-wise than the headlights, for stealth purposes. I wanted to minimize my over-the-horizon glow profile, while maximizing my look ahead lighting.

I also discovered that occasionally supplementing the hooded driving lights with my handheld spotlight was the best configuration of all. I mean, I still had to get out and reconnoiter on foot now and then to avoid drop offs or other unsavory terrain features. But in general, power idling along via hooded driving lights (supplemented with a little spotlight use) got us through most of the changing circumstances we met for a while.

On this new ridge line section, there was no discernible road or path. So we had to wind around things like stumps, trees, fallen trees, and large boulders as we met them.

One really bad thing about leafy debris in the mountains is it can often hide substantial size holes, making such pits look as even and solid as all the ground around them. I was reminded of this when Shadow's left front wheel plunged into one, before I could stop our forward motion.

We were long past the barrel trap when it happened. So at least we'd put some additional distance between us and our foes.

I got out of the car and looked things over with my 12 volt spotlight. Shadow's front end around the driver's side tire was sitting smack on the ground, with about a foot of open space apparent between the top of the tire and the fender flare opening. The tire was hanging in space, with the coil spring extended as far as it could go. Not resting on anything at all below. Fortunately none of the various spacers in the coil had fallen out, for they were deeply notched to accommodate the spring's shape.

I hadn't removed the chains on the rear tires since the barrel. But apparently the extra traction they provided weren't enough to remedy the present situation. Again, I missed my fourth chain.

I tried backing out. Tried rocking. But we were stuck all too well, achieving nothing more than digging holes with the rear tires. And I had to be careful I didn't damage Shadow's front suspension with my efforts. Or other vital components on Shadow's underside, like the metal fuel line.

I'd already broken the fiberglass and bondo smoothing the lines where my welded in custom steel fender flares met the body behind the left front wheel. This was because the flares sported built-in steel mud flaps behind the wheel as part of their design, and the bottom of the flap on this side had dug into the earth near the edge of the hole. So subsequent movements ruined the body smoothing there. But the metal underneath was still holding together, it appeared.

Okay. Thinking cap time again. I examined my options, and retrieved the come-along and tow ropes once more.

What the hell? I suddenly heard a chain saw-like sound in the distance. I realized it might be a motorcycle.

I looked at my watch. It was just after four AM. Hmm. Although it wasn't unheard of for country folks to be fooling around like that on cycles and mountain trails in the middle of the night for various reasons, I was sure this one would likely be linked to my pursuit.

I listened intently, trying to place where the cyclist might be, and how long I might have before they got here. Assuming they were on my trail. At the same time, I was pondering my defenses and potential escape options.

At the moment, I'd either have to stand and fight, or abandon Shadow (stuck as he was). For it'd take a while to free him.

While all this was brewing in my skull, I reached into Shadow and pulled my scramble vest from its backwards draped position over the back of my passenger seat. My vest didn't have many pockets, but what it did have were relatively large, and packed with various survival, evasion, escape, and defense items. I switched off the driving lights, but kept Shadow's motor running. His low rumble wasn't particularly loud at idle, and I always disliked the idea of killing the motor under dicey circumstances. For you could never know when something mundane like a worn starter switch might suddenly decide not to cooperate the next time you turned the key. Having that happen in the midst of civilization was usually just an inconvenience. Having it happen here could be much worse.

I was still listening. Still standing outside the car. The buzz saw sound was definitely getting closer. I rummaged around and found my little army flashlight with the red lens. Were the batteries up? Yes!

I then laid the now dark spotlight atop Shadow's roof, its long cigarette lighter cable trailing into Shadow's open window. I also placed my short barreled 12 gauge Remington 870 there, after partially filling its large capacity magazine from the small ammo supply handily kept in an elastic band around its stock.

A change in the motorcycle's sound caught my attention. The noise almost disappeared entirely, then ramped back up again, louder than ever.

The cyclist had just whizzed through the barrel trap in a second or two. That put him maybe ten or fifteen minutes away I figured, as he could cover ground much faster on his two-wheeler than we could in this territory. Move in something much nearer to a straight line, and at consistently higher speeds. But he was alone. Just one cyclist. No larger vehicles. Even if they'd been ultra-quiet four wheel drives, they'd have made noise forcing their way through and over the terrain in their path. And had no choice but to move slower than the cycle too, due to the wider track they required through the course, much like me.

It also sounded like the cyclist was moving too easily through obstacles to be toting a passenger.

I retrieved my green wool army blanket from inside the car. Draped the blanket over Shadow's tail as best I could to hide him. My license plate, and the white reflecting surface exposed by the missing red plastic of one side of my tail lights had seemed especially conspicuous, before the blanket covered them.

I piled leaves up around his rear too in order to hide the gap between blanket and ground level some.

On the present ridge, our exact trail wouldn't necessarily be as obvious as the earlier one with the clear roadway. And the usually thin layer of leaves on much of the forest floor up here hadn't been disturbed all that much by our low speed passage.

But the biker could just keep moseying around until he found us.

I racked my brain for what further preparations I could make in the few minutes I had left. Should I try to position myself away from Shadow, and pounce on him as he arrived? Or stick near the car? There wasn't much of a way to predict exactly where he'd show up. Being on a cycle in terrain like this left his options wide open. And even narrowing that down to just some width of our wake still made it too hard to pick a good pouncing spot.

So I stuck next to Shadow. I figured here I had a few more options than I would elsewhere.

Our tail end was hidden pretty well from any casual glance from a distance, by the green blanket and leaves and overall flat black of Shadow's skin. There was nothing to reflect and little to stand out in the forest blackness, now that I'd covered the license plate and broken tail light housing. Well, the glass windows could reflect some light, I realized. I threw several handfuls of leaves onto the rear window, and rolled down the passenger side to match the driver's side. It didn't seem I needed to worry about the windshield, which was facing away from the direction of the cyclist's approach.

If he saw us, he'd probably still be some distance away at point of recognition. That was bad, as he could then turn around and race off with the information of our location.

I'd only have two ways to reach out and touch him at a distance from here. My shotgun and my lights. The snub nose pistol was really a close range weapon, unless you were Annie Oakley, or unreasonably lucky. I had both the spotlight and strobes I could use. But if he appeared at too much of an angle from the strobe faces, I was uncertain how effective their normal blinding and dazzling effect would be. Plus I'd have to flip up the blanket to use them, as they were at present covered up. The spotlight could be pointed directly at him, but its effects would be mitigated somewhat by how fast I could successfully target his eyes, plus the spot simply wasn't as strong as my strobes in any directly faced comparison. He could likely more easily avoid being blinded by the spotlight, than the strobes (all other things being equal).

I hoped to God I didn't have to shoot him. I decided right then that I wouldn't shoot at him, unless it appeared he was about to do the same to me.

But that was taking a big gamble, I knew. Whoever got shot first in a shootout might be killed instantly, or incapacitated. At which point it might all be over. Giving an enemy the first shot was definitely not wise in war. But I didn't want to shoot anyone.

If only I'd had more time to prepare...

But then here he came. The noise was rampant now. I saw his headlight quivering through trees in the distance.

I reached in through the open window and killed Shadow's motor, then laid down on the ground alongside Shadow's driver's side door.

The disembodied light floated on a river of rushing noise up the ridge line, sometimes slow, sometimes in brief, fast spurts. The light stopped, the motor being regularly revved above idle. The rider was peering around, looking for signs of us. The light rotated some as he turned his handlebars. But the cycle's light's range and orientation was out of synch with the terrain, and did not sweep over us.

Go away, I silently urged him.

But he didn't. Instead, he leaped forward again, coming nearer to our position, but only indirectly. From his new vantage point, he again stopped and swept his headlight across the landscape. Once again we lucked out, and the beam didn't expose us.

Man, how I hated this! I much preferred the high speed pursuits. I felt as tensed up now as I had during our jump off the precipice!

The cyclist suddenly spurted ahead again, this time headed past and away from us. Once more he stopped and swung his beam around. Then he disappeared from sight on his next surge forward. I could still hear him continuing his search pattern though.

Well, so far so good, I thought. But the threat was still there. I couldn't set about trying to free Shadow from the hole, until after the cyclist was definitely out of the area.

So I waited. But I did rise up briefly to bring the spotlight and shotgun down to the ground with me. For now there was no telling from what direction the cyclist might come, in a return.

Trouble was, now I couldn't afford to put down either gun or light. It was too dark. Too easy to lose track of them among the leafy debris of ground level. At least in terms of quickly accessing them if the need arose.

Was there anything else I could do to prepare? I couldn't think of anything but throwing some leaves onto the windshield as well (after I'd momentarily put the gun and spot down on the hood). I worried about the reflecting surfaces of the headlights and driving lights, but couldn't think of a good way to cover them in a hurry.

Maybe five minutes later I noticed the cyclist was coming back. I couldn't tell from what direction though. If he zoomed up right in front of Shadow, he'd definitely see the reflection of Shadow's dead front lights.

The waiting was horrible.

Then I zeroed in on his approach. This time he was coming up the hillside on our passenger side. I moved around on the ground to Shadow's front end to watch, keeping Shadow's body between me the cyclist (while also avoiding inadvertently dropping an arm or leg into the same hole which now held Shadow locked in place). There were easily dozens of various sized trees standing in silhouette between us and his headlight when it stopped again. From that angle, Shadow's entire passenger side would be exposed if the light hit it.

But the steep angle saved us. That time. The cyclist spurted forward once more. The next stop put him past us, seemingly looking back the way he'd come before. Although it was pretty dark out here, I felt sure he'd see us if he only looked in the proper direction. Even if his light didn't point this way. The only disguise Shadow enjoyed at the moment from that angle was the green blanket over his tail, the leaves on his rear window, and the non-reflecting flat black of his paint, wheels, and tires.

Though Shadow wore white letter tires, I had them mounted with the white letters facing inside rather than out, plus had done things to darken the white lettering too, even under there.

This arrangement had caused me trouble more than once in tire mounting, when I forgot to properly instruct the person doing the mounting itself. After all, few folks installed their white letters that way.

The mighty darkness of the forest helped too, of course. The night was our dear, dear friend at the moment.

Although it felt like forever, the cyclist finally moved on, returning pretty near along the course from which he'd come. If he'd seen us, he'd given no indication of it.

But of course a real pro could have seen us, and acted just like that, to avoid having his head blown off, or scaring his prey away before he could return with reinforcements.

I absolutely had to get Shadow out of this hole!

But first things first. Would he crank up again? Yes! Shadow rumbled to life once more.

For a while I worked at my task agonizingly slowly, using only the red-filtered army flash. Just in case.

But maybe ten minutes after the cyclist noise had faded to below the level of Shadow's idle, I switched the hooded driving lights back on for better illumination, and propped up a naked metal panel of my armor nearby to reflect more light onto my work site.

I ended up having to use a combination of Shadow's rearwards traction, tow ropes tied around a tree, ratcheting the come-along periodically, and leveraging Shadow's wheel out of the hole with a log salvaged from our surroundings-- a log almost too big for me to man-handle that way. Yikes! It's a wonder I didn't bust a seam on that one!

But finally, inch by inch, I got Shadow out of the wheel trap, and back onto solid ground again. It took a couple hours. A couple of really tense hours, as for all I knew, my pursuers could show up at any moment. Maybe silently, on foot. With no warning at all.

I tried to keep my shot gun close by at all times (which slowed down the extrication process some).

Wow! I didn't want to have to do that again! And I had an idea how I might prevent it: curb feelers. I'd seen commercial designs in various spots, and read about driving with them in some magazines. But here I needed a mutant version of those. Something which could help me find holes or soft spots before I fell into them. Something I could rig up in a hurry and get on my way.

But what? I opened my trunk and looked for ideas there. I needed something fairly stiff firmly attached to my front end, so I could feel the difference if it suddenly encountered no resistance.

Uh oh. That sounded like a plow! But I didn't want to leave an easier trail to follow behind me!

Crap! Nothing came to mind. Grr!

Whatever it was needed to be rolling on the ground, or periodically plunging vertically into the ground-- and with some weight on it-- in the track ahead of my front tires. In order to leave little disturbance behind for tracking purposes, while also providing a decent hidden hole alert.

And I had to be able to put it together with the materials at hand, and within only minutes. For there was no time to waste.

My mind raced through all sorts of Rube Goldberg contraptions. But I had only one spare tire I might inflate for a real weighted wheel-- and I needed two.

Logs, levers, canned food from my survival store for small rolling stock, or to build a larger weighted wheel with; weighted sticks attached to the front end with little rollers of some sort at bottom, which would disappear from view if they hit a hole, held to the front with shaped-wire hoops...etc., etc., etc. But there were substantial problems with all the different concepts...

Eureka! I had it!

I ran a wire through the slots in my driver's side front wheel, then tied it off. Then I did the same to the passenger side. Next, I ran a quarter-inch diameter, 30 foot long propylene rope from one wire hoop to the other across the hood, tying it off there. I bunched most of the remaining slack in the rope at the central loose knot on the hood (I kept two coils of rope besides the massive tow ropes in Shadow's onboard supplies: one three-eighths inch and one one quarter inch in diameter; roughly 100 feet of nylon, and 30 feet of propylene, respectively) .

Now I had a bit more warning on a wheel going down further than it should, like into a hole. The knotted slack in the middle would slide back and forth as the two front wheels went up and down according to terrain. If it began going too far in one direction, we might be entering a hidden hole like before.

It wasn't a perfect solution by any means: the rotation of the wheels caused the rope to spin and twist and writhe on the hood like a living thing, which would have quickly become unbearable (and noisy!) at any significant speed. I also had to make several adjustments to the slack early on before I was satisfied with its performance. But now I had some way besides plain old eyeballing of the ground, and seat-of-the-pants feelings, to tell how firm the earth under-tire was.

And we motored on!

CLICK HERE to see what happened next.

The pic above closely resembles some of the gentlest curves in the region described here (the hairpins were much tighter than this). Curves like those above could be taken (when dry) by good handling cars like Shadow at up to maybe 80 mph without using both lanes, or crashing (there'd be plenty of sideways G-forces and tire squealing, though).

If I ever get the chance to revisit those places with a camera, I'll add a sample of the hairpins to this page.

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

Above is a scan of my ROTC completion certificate. I've blacked out certain info here that I consider privacy sensitive.

Above can be seen many of the original USGS maps sometimes used for navigational purposes in Shadowfast and other projects. A few particular maps were used more often then others and so folded up and stored in plastic baggies in my scramble vest. Above can be seen one still in its baggie from decades back.

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

Above is the money order stub for one map collection purchase (I ended up making several buys over the years).

Shadowfast's original fold-up steel shovel (folded position)

Shadowfast's shovel unfolded, but not tightened. A rotating sleeve can lock the shovel into either of its two configurations.

I believe this to be a remnant of Shadowfast's original 100 foot plus coil of 3/8 inch diameter nylon rope. Over time the rope got cut up for various purposes.

Above is the original green wool blanket carried in Shadowfast (I believe it was military issue, bought at a surplus store).