Life Expectancy

trouble.
        With luck, we wouldn't have to get all the way to town to find help. I prayed for a police storm patrol.
        Behind us, the spotlights on the Hummer's roof rack suddenly blazed, filling the Explorer, illuminating us no less brightly than we would have been if we'd been performing on a stage.
        He couldn't possibly drive and use the rifle at the same time.
        Nevertheless, the back of my neck crawled.
        Time-smoothed rock formations along the west side of the highway formed an effective block to the banshee wind that howled out of the east.
        Snow had drifted against that barrier, forming a mound that diminished from west to east but remained formidable across the width of the roadway.
        Trickster to the eye, the storm deceived with every device at its command. The thick falling snow half blinded but also imparted the false impression of a tilt to the landscape. White on white, in white, the drift had been sculpted as if by a master of camouflage, so that it appeared to be a smooth rise in the pavement.
        A soft wall, three feet high, met us before I could brake, and we plowed into it, losing a third of our speed in an instant.
        Lorrie cried out as we were thrown forward in our harnesses, and I hoped to God she'd taken most of the jolt with the shoulder restraint, not with the lap belt.
        Once into the drift, the front wheels chewed at it, tried to crawl over it. Compacted snow scraped the undercarriage. Although rapidly losing more speed, we struggled forward, one tire spinning, three taking grip, and I thought we would make it, but then the engine stalled. ^ 1 The engine never stalls when you're enjoying a lazy drive in the country and have ample time to assess and deal with the problem. No, the engine stalls when you're rushing your pregnant wife to the hospital in a blizzard with a gunman chasing you in an SUV the size of a battleship.
        This proves something. Maybe that life has a design, though one that's hard to understand. Maybe that fate exists. Maybe that when your wife is expecting, you should live next to a hospital.
        Sometimes, as I'm writing about my life, I get the weird feeling that someone is writing my life as I write about it.
        If God is an author and the universe is the biggest novel ever written, I may feel as if I'm the lead character in the story, but like every man and woman on Earth, I am a supporting player in one of billions of subplots. You know what happens to supporting players. Too often they are killed off in chapter three or in chapter ten, or in chapter thirty-five. A supporting player always has to be looking over his shoulder.
        When I looked over my shoulder there on Hawksbill Road, I saw that the Hummer had come to a stop no more than fifteen feet behind us. The driver did not immediately get out.
        Lorrie said, "We leave the Explorer, he shoots us."
        "Probably."
        I twisted the key in the ignition, pumped the accelerator. The grinding of the starter and the complaint of the engine didn't inspire hope.
        She said, "We stay here, he shoots us."
        "Probably."
        "Shit."
        "Deep," I agreed.
        The Hummer drifted closer. The array of spotlights on the roof now shone over the Explorer, both dazzling and darkling the highway ahead.
        Worried that I would flood the engine, I gave it a rest.
        "I forgot my purse," Lorrie said.
        "We aren't going back for it."
        "I'm just saying-I don't even have a nail file this time."
        As the Hummer came forward, it began to arc around us, into the northbound lane.
        Focusing on the hand in which I held the key, trying the engine again, I didn't dare look up, not because I dreaded the Hummer but because the sight of the ceaselessly falling snowflakes in their millions resonated with me in a troubling way. I felt borne on a wind, as they were, subject to every changing current, helpless to chart my own course.
        "What's he doing?" Lorrie asked.
        I didn't know what he was doing, so I stayed focused on the key, and the engine almost caught.
        "Jimmy, get us out of here," she urged.
        Don't flood it, I warned myself. Don't force it. Let it find the spark.
        "Jimmy!"
        The engine caught, roared.
        The Hummer had pulled beside us, not parallel but at a forty-five degree angle. Its front bumper gleamed inches