Thunder tumbled down the San Juan Mountains, heralding the arrival of pelting rain that turned the Jeep road into a surging stream and the sky to an ominous shade of raven black. Westlake plugged forward, his nose nearly at the windshield, which was spider-webbed with nicks and cracks, as the old car crawled higher. Only the driver's side wiper worked so the Deans were relieved of seeing what lay ahead. Cynthia leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes while Brandon Westlake acted as if he were taking a Sunday afternoon ride in the park. He chatted nonstop about the good old long-past summers. Dean was sure the old man and his dilapidated old Scout had done this a thousand times before. He marveled at Westlake's lack of concern, but as a first time visitor to the heart of nature's fury it was still a white-knuckle trip as lightning flashes and near-simultaneous thunderclaps erupted in every direction.
"It's up the gulch, you say?"
Dean acknowledged and explained the directions.
"Is that the mine those Dawkins boys were fighting over the other night? Where the make-believe bones were found?"
"Yes. We just wanted to see it for ourselves." Dean wasn't anxious for Westlake to pursue the conversation and was relieved that the subject apparently held no interest for him.
"Nothing like a good storm to wake you up," the old man observed as he maneuvered around a tight switchback. Cynthia gripped her husband's hand in a circulation-stopping grip as a deep dip bounced them to the ground.
"You didn't drive this buggy all the way out to Colorado, did you?" Dean asked, picturing the Scout creeping along a Kansas Interstate.
Westlake laughed. "No. I use the airlines now. I drove the trip for fifteen years, when I started coming back to Ouray again. My brother Ralph and I used to summer here when we were children.
We stayed with my uncle. Back then before the war we used to take the train, later the bus. When we first came out, I remember these notes pinned to us telling the conductor and everyone who cared who we were and where we were going so we didn't get lost. Nowadays, you'd be scared someone would kidnap a child but in the old days, no one ever thought of that stuff. After Ralph died in 1980, I remembered our good times in Colorado forty years before when we were kids, and I started coming back. The town had sure changed in all the time I was away, but not these mountains. I've been visiting the San Juans every summer now for the last twenty years." The vehicle rambled over a large boulder, skidding off to the left before Westlake wrenched the wheel and righted it. He chuckled again. "Me and Bertha here might be too old to drive all the way from Kansas, but we're still at home on these Jeep roads. All I do is pull the battery and store the old gal together with half my gear and the next summer she's as raring and ready as I am. Bertha and I are a team, and she's a lot cheaper than renting one of those pricey new Jeeps."