Missouri Midnight Mountain Ride

Fifteen terrifying minutes in a '59 Ford Galaxie riding just ahead of the grill of a fuel tanker down a mountain in pouring rain. Tanker had no gears and no brakes... and there were no turnouts.

After thirteen long months as a medic at the US Army’s Camp Page, in Cheunchon, South Korea, I came back to the states and took a month’s leave. I spent some time with a friend in Los Angeles and then headed home for a much delayed Christmas in early February, 1964.

My brother and his wife, Kathy, had driven up from Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, in a ’59 Ford Galaxie and he flew back, leaving his wife to have an extra month with her family. The plan, which nobody told me about, was that I would drive Giles’ car and his wife to Ft. Hood and they’d take me on to Fort Sam Houston.

When it was time to leave, we packed up, headed south on Interstate 71 early on a snowy morning in late February and late that night we topped a mountain in Missouri. Kathy was asleep in the passenger seat and I was busy fighting the bow-shock from the gasoline tanker I was passing.

My head jerked around, and I caught the sign with the corner of my eye:

Steep Hill!!!

Trucks Use Low Gear!!!

If I hadn't been so tired, the sign might have registered sooner... before I was almost past the truck. But it was nearly midnight, and I was also fighting sleep.

As the Galaxie and the tanker crested the hill and started down the other side of the mountain, the back seat of the Galaxie was just even with the tanker’s driver's side fender. I heard the trucker try to downshift; the tanker's transmission made loud rude noises and gave up, grinding the gears into shards. The big diesel over-revved and the driver jerked his foot off the accelerator. The tanker's tires smoked on the wet pavement and the trailer came sideways at the Galaxie as the driver slammed on the brakes. I hit the gas. The truck backfired again, lurched, stuttered and straightened out, and I was ahead of it " and smack into a construction zone.

The two downhill lanes of the four-lane highway narrowed to one less than two hundred yards ahead of me. There was no time to brake and let the truck go by. I accelerated again to get beyond the tanker’s grill and cut the Galaxie in front of the truck.

The tanker was gaining " had its brakes gone so soon? I accelerated, and so did my heart. As I entered a left-hand curve, I felt the front end lift over the driver's side wheel. The car had been ditched the previous summer, bending the tie-rod and flaring the fender. I'd replaced the tie-rod and the ball joints and had the car aligned, but straightening the fender had seemed unnecessary. Now, the fender was catching air like a parachute and lifting the left front of the car. Worse, the car was overloaded in the rear, shifting the center of gravity and lightening the front end. I feathered the gas and shifted the steering wheel slightly to the right. The rear tires held as the curve began to straighten.

I looked in the mirror again. The tanker's headlights filled it and flooded the car with light, making it almost impossible to see ahead. I accelerated, pulling away from the truck a few feet. I reached up and flipped the mirror up, killing the truck's blinding headlights.

I could see where the barricades ended and the road widened again into two lanes. But a right-hand curve began almost immediately. There was no time to let the truck pass before I was into the curve. At the end of the barricades I saw a cop car parked with no lights on. I looked at the speedometer " the needle was hovering at ninety, and a quick glance in the side mirror told me the truck was gaining again. We shot out of the single lane and into the curve. In my side mirror, I saw the lights come on and the car at the end of the barricades pull out behind the truck. I turned my attention back to the road. As the curve developed, I felt the front tires float on the wet pavement and then the rear end loosened. Backing off as much as I dared and letting the car drift toward the outside of the curve, I felt the tires bite again. Although the tanker was following me to the outside of the curve, when the road straightened it should be able to change lanes and go by on the inside.

I backed off the accelerator as the road straightened, and the trucker pulled up behind me and began a swing to the right. He never finished it. The road ahead disappeared in a sharp curve to the left around a vertical face cut into the side of the mountain. There was no time for the tanker to complete the pass. I goosed the Galaxie and the tanker pulled in behind me.

My eye caught the red flash of the Trooper's gumball light. The police car was passing the truck! "Damn!" I thought. "He'll kill us all!" The Trooper's car lurched, and then it was beside me " in the uphill lanes! The Trooper's inside light was on. I barely caught a glimpse of the Trooper frantically waving for me to follow, and then the squad car was ahead of me, and into the curve. Pulling to the left, I followed the trooper to the inside lanes of the curve.

As the curve straightened for the switchback, I looked to the right for the truck. It wasn't there! But I could see lights shining through the rain from behind me in the side mirror. Of course " the tanker had followed me across the divider! I looked at the speedometer; it read an even hundred miles an hour. Even with the inaccuracies built into the high end of '50s’ speedometers, I had to be doing at least ninety-five.

The road began to bend right. My only chance was to cross the divider again. The Trooper squared up and jumped the divider. I aimed the Galaxie into the belly of the curve. The big car followed the Trooper, bouncing and swaying as she hopped the divider. I checked the mirror. The tanker was right behind me, and way too close! Giving the wheel the barest touch left, I let the car begin to run to the outside of the curve. The Galaxie settled down, and I could see the curve straightening, with the next switchback beginning just beyond the end of the curve.

I eased the Galaxie as far to the right as I could, to sharpen the angle when I jumped the divider again. "We can't keep doing this... we're gonna meet somebody coming up, sure as Hell." But I started for the divider.

Coming out of the curve, I saw headlights a hundred yards ahead, a right-hand curve beginning just beyond and the Galaxie began to drift out. Any attempt to hold her to the inside of the curve would be disastrous. Hands trembling and sweat burning my eyes, I let her drift. My wipers slashed water off the windshield in sheets, but the car coming toward me was a blur of lights. I couldn't even tell which lane it was in. Worse, the refraction of its headlights through the wet windshield blinded me to the road beyond.

One more look at the speedometer. Pegged! A hundred and twenty miles an hour! Maybe more. I had the big V8 floored and I dared not back off. I looked back up. The oncoming car wasn't moving! It was stopped in the inside of the curve. Of course! It had pulled over because of the Trooper's gumball. I was going to make it! I shot past the headlights, and found myself almost into the right-hander ahead. This was going to be a bad jump! I'd had no chance to sharpen the angle to the divider. The flat angle I was now running would likely flip the car. Taking a deep breath, I snapped the wheel right a quarter turn.

The right front tire hit the divider, and the back end broke left. I thought I'd lost her, but the left front tire hit and jumped, and the rear slued right, jumping the right rear across the curb. A moment’s hesitation and the Galaxie’s last tire jumped. The rear of the car lurched right. I pulled the car left and right with short, gentle strokes, until she quit fighting me. My lungs burned and I was breathing as if I'd run a marathon. My shoulders ached and my fingers felt like hooks, but I followed the Trooper into the right-hander. Driving into the deepest point of the curve, I reached out and caught my sister-in-law. Still blissfully asleep, her upper torso was slowly leaning toward me. How the Hell was she sleeping through this? I steered one-handed through the curve.

Coming out of the curve, I saw lights below us. My heart seemed to stop. I’d never make it through the next curve with all those cars coming at me! I searched for a place to leave the road. No luck! I looked for the tanker. It was about a hundred yards behind me and gaining again. I glanced at the speedometer. Almost down to a hundred! I floored the accelerator. How could I have backed off?

I looked ahead for the beginning of the next curve " and realized that the lights weren’t just the lights of cars! They were also the lights of a strip of buildings along the highway! That was the bottom of the mountain through the shallow pass " salvation lay less than a mile away! But I had two more curves to negotiate. The left-hander was fairly shallow, but the right-hander that broke out to the straight was going to be tight.

I headed into the left-hander. It was shallow enough that I didn’t have to jump the divider again, but I needed the whole downhill side of the road. I held the tires just off the divider, the wheel live in my hands. I remembered the argument with Giles about the ball joints. He had insisted there was nothing wrong with the ball joints. But I hadn’t given in! If I had, I’d be dead by now. The separate pieces of what was supposed to be a unified ball joint lying in my hand were bright in my mind. I shook my head sharply. Now was not the time.

The curve opened and I concentrated on getting my angle for the new one. Once I was into it, I had to hold Kathy away and drive one-handed. The Galaxie held through the curve. As the she began to drift left, I glanced in the side mirror at the tanker. It had gained again. It was now close enough that it couldn’t avoid me if I lost the least control. It was already in the outside lane, and there wasn’t room to drift out in front of it. Well into the curve, I couldn’t brake. A quick look at the speedometer told me there was no more the car could do. I tightened the wheel against the drift, but I felt the back end begin to come loose. There was nowhere to go. This curve had to end before the tanker caught us!

The wheel in my hands told me what I needed to know. The curve was straightening. The lights were very close. I held the Galaxie to the inside of the curve.

As the curve straightened, the road began to flatten. I could breathe again. Ahead, I saw a line of double headlights, with a Trooper parked across the uphill lanes. I almost laughed. Troopers had radios! I relaxed a fraction, and that was almost a fatal mistake. A glance in the mirror. The truck was gone!

A roar and a blast of diverted air told me I was wrong. The truck was passing me! Then the rear end of the Galaxie came loose, trying to swing right. The bow-shock of air in front of the passing tanker had lifted it, breaking the tires’ tenuous contact with the wet pavement. As I desperately fought the wheel, I felt the air from the truck catch the flared front fender as well, lifting the front end and snapping it to the right. Had I fought my way down that mountain, just to die at the side of the road in a small Missouri town?

As the tanker screamed past, my right rear tire dropped off the pavement, and the Galaxie slung herself out of control. I lifted my foot off the accelerator and braced for the roll. But instead of sinking into red Missouri mud, the tires slid over gravel. As the car spun, I realized we had dropped into a long gravel parking lot. The car swung to face back the way we had come and I slammed the accelerator to the floor again. I have to be doing ninety traveling backward, I thought. But the speedometer still registered a hundred and twenty.

Throwing a rooster tail of gravel, the forward drive of the wheels slowed the Galaxie. My mirror told me a building was coming up behind me too fast, but I held the accelerator down. Finally, slamming my foot on the pedal, I braced for a crash. But the big car bit into the gravel, and stopped more quickly than I had thought possible. As the car rocked, Kathy came awake. “What’s going on?”

 “We’re going to stay here tonight,” I said. “I’m too tired to drive anymore.” I got out of the car.

The door to the motel check-in opened to a large room that was part restaurant, part bar, and part lobby. I rang the bell at the desk... twice. My hands were still shaking. The TV behind the partly open door behind the desk switched off. The old man who came out to the desk looked as if he’d been asleep in front of it. “Yuh?” he asked.

“Need a couple of rooms for the night.”

The old man pushed a book over to me. “Sign here,” he said; then, peering through the glass in the door at the car, “Two rooms? You and the missus have a fight or something?”

“Or something,” I said, signing in.

The old man shrugged. “Five bucks a room. Rooms seven and eight " Cabin Four " far end of the row. Pay in advance, phone and TV extra. You’ll need quarters for the TV.” He took two keys off the board behind the desk and pushed them over to me.

I handed him a ten and picked up the keys. “Bar open?”

“ ‘Til two.” He didn’t look happy about it.

I nodded. “Thanks, never mind the TV.” I headed for the car. The line of cars on the highway was gone. I hadn’t heard a crash. I got in the Galaxie and drove to Cabin Four. “C’mon, you get room seven,” I said to Kathy. As she got out, I opened the trunk and grabbed her suitcase and overnight bag. “We’ll be leaving early.” I unlocked the door to room seven.

“I thought we were going to drive straight through,” she said. “I can drive if you want.”

“Nah.” I dropped her bags on the floor. “I need some real sleep. Besides, there’s too much construction and too much rain.” I turned to the door. “You get some sleep.” I closed the door and headed back to the bar.

“Scotch,” I said to the old man. “Double, over ice.”

The door opened, and a smallish, and very wet man came in. “I’m buying,” he said. He sat down next to me and dropped two singles on the bar. “Jack Daniel’s,” he said to the old man. To me he said, “Tom Stevens.”

The old man poured the drinks, and set them on the bar, scooping up the bills with the same hand.

“Keep the change,” Stevens said. To me, “That your Galaxie out there?”

“Yeah.” There didn’t seem to be any point in explaining about my brother.

“Nice driving. Thought I had you a couple times.” Tom threw back his drink. “Again,” he said, throwing another single on the bar.

“So did I.” I sipped the Scotch. “Especially when you blew me off the road at the end. Thought I was done for sure.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, but you musta backed off the gas. I had to pass you. No brakes. Weren’t much to begin with and I lost ‘em right at the start.”

“Uh-huh. Good thing you didn’t try that pass on the mountain. It would’ve been all over.” I swallowed more of the whiskey. “How far did you run?”

“Three miles. Got outa that truck soon as she stopped. I ain’t goin’ nowhere for a few days.”

“I am,” I said. “To bed.” I finished the Scotch and got up. “Good luck with the cops. I’ll be gone before they get back.” I turned to the old man. “Call room eight at six.”

The old man looked up. “Yuh,” he said. “You take it easy, now.” He walked over to the desk and made a note.

I left the bar and walked slowly back to my cabin. The rain had stopped. I looked up. “Couldn’t’a done this an hour ago?” I opened the trunk. I pulled out my travel bag and closed it.

As I dropped into bed, I thought about the trucker. “Bet he was more scared than I was,” I muttered. Then, “Nah, not possible.” I wasn’t sure I could sleep, but I fell asleep almost instantly. I expected dreams, but if there were any, I didn’t remember them in the morning.