NOT A JURY IN THE LAND WOULD HAVE CONVICTED ME

Clifford Fewel

April 4 , 2008

Springtime in Jackson Hole came a tad late in 1976. By early June there were still drifts in the shadows. Someone had told me that the Moose-Wilson road, which runs along the base of the Tetons, was finally open. My day off from Signal Mountain Lodge, where I was a cook, came just in time for me to invite the lovely new waitress, Roxanne, for a sunset drive.

My Veedub looked a little shaky to Roxanne, so she offered to let me drive us in her Malibu. It was a glorious start along the Snake River Highway and then off through the tiny town of Moose. The dirt-and-gravel Moose-Wilson road was clear and graded and baked in late afternoon sunshine as we embarked on one of the more scenic drives to be found anywhere. Oh, there was the occasional drift poking out from the shoulder; nothing we couldn't steer around. As we progressed, these protrusions of snow became a bit more frequent. But we had entered into the shady part of the drive and it seemed certain that once we rounded a major bend in a mile or so we would once again be swathed in sun with clear driving the rest of the way.

One small curve produced a drift that nearly crossed the entire road, but the Malibu had enough momentum that we traversed it with ease. Up ahead lay another but, with ample distance to anticipate, I simply kept up the speed and crossed that one, too. We found ourselves then on the sole patch of dry road to be had from that point forward. This dry section measured about one Malibu in width by two in length. It was clear that the road had yet to be plowed and that the person who had given us the erroneousplowing info was a lying, thieving whore.

In the process of performing a 16-point turn to reverse courseI put one of the rear wheels into the snowy ditch bordering our tiny dry patch. No amount of rocking between forward and reverse would free us, so I got out and began scraping bare-handed through snow and ice for rocks and sticks -- anything to give us a little traction.

Roxanne stayed safely in the passenger seat and called out suggestions through her slightly open window. The sun had set and it was cold. She insisted on keeping the engine running so the heater could operate, and I learned to breathe sideways to almost avoid the '73 Malibu's leaded-gas tailpipe emissions. After an hour and just before dark, I had with my cold, bleeding hands stuffed enough detritus under the rear wheel to gain traction. The Chevy threw up clouds of dirt and mud and snow and sticks and leaves as it bounced violently free from the ditch and fish-tailed back over the snowdrift towards Moose. We were free and proceeding steadily homeward.

There was no conversation for the first few minutes as we each imagined what it might have been like to walk this cold, dark stretch back to civilization. Roxanne did finally break the silence with a phrase seared forevermore into my memory, effectively ending the calm I had shown heretofore. She said in all seriousness, "Boy, am I glad we didn't have to put the chains on!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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