The Stump Creek Special

1049 words

         The sky was blue. There was one cloud. It was puffy white and seemed to be laughing. Joe lay there wondering if it was laughing at him. He was afraid to move. He wasn’t even sure he could move. The cloud traced a path across the clear blue sky and Joe began to take stock of the situation. He was numb. He was lying in three feet of snow. His nose itched. He was facing uphill. Somewhere, off to his side he heard a groan. He wasn’t alone. There were other survivors, at least one anyway.

         Lifting his head, he saw a swath of carnage unlike any that he had ever seen. He closed his eyes, trying to blank out the view. Carefully, he opened one, just slightly. The carnage was still there. He laid his head back on the snow and moaned. Like the mating call of the bull elk, somewhere off to the left, a corresponding moan responded.

______

         “ Whoa, Fellas, next weekend they’re holding the annual Chestnut Springs Iditarod Sled Race out at the Bottom-Dropped-Out Ski Resort. First Place is 1000 dollars. What’ya say guys? Are you in?”, asked Little Jim while they all sat at Moe’s Bar and Fine Eatery sipping Yoo-Hoo.

         “No way!” said Goose.

         “Count me out,” retorted Skitch.

         “I’m busy that day.” offered Moe.

         And Joe? He sat there nursing his Yoo Hoo, contemplating the assorted nuts in front of him. Ahh... the ones in the bowl.

         “You know…” he quietly began, “it might be fun.”

         A collective groan went up. If Joe said they were going sledding, they were going sledding.

         Jim was put in charge of sled procurement. Moe updated his will. Goose quietly thought about mutiny. Skitch ordered another round of Yoo-Hoo.

         The big day came. With a bang and a rattle Jim’s truck rolled into the parking lot and came to a stop wedged up on a bent over spruce tree and a 4 ft. plastic snowman.

         Towed behind the truck all the way from Chestnut Springs sat the sled. It was 14 ft long, and 14 inches wide. It was the workbench from his garage. Before that it served as a plank on the town bridge over Stump Creek. Don’t ask.

         In the front were two olive drab skis marked US Army. Attached to them was the steering column from a Packard station wagon. A milk crate was next, held to the plank by a rope. Behind that were a John Deere tractor seat, a bar stool, bass boat seat and recliner, respectively. All were fastened with prodigious amounts of duck tape. Underneath the recliner sat two more skis rigidly mounted to the plank with bolts that looked suspiciously like the ones used to fasten it to the bridge.

         At precisely noon the race started. There were 15 sleds and going into the first turn everyone was even. They disappeared for several moments. When the first sled reappeared, there was a look of sheer panic on the driver’s face. The reason became apparent as the remaining 9 sleds came into view. With Joe at the wheel and little Jim at the other end acting as counterweight, and the others along for ballast, the Stump Creek Special was careening wildly down the slope, taking out unsuspecting foliage and other sleds with equal abandon. If the other 7 remaining sleds had been canoes they would at this moment have been frantically paddling for shore. Luck was not with them. Combining the laws of Euclid and Newton with the expert craftsmanship of Jim and the questionable steering capabilities of Joe left no chance for survival. One by one the sleds fell victim to this sledding tsunami, until at last, there was only one. Now it was man against mountain and mountain did not give up lightly.

         Two thirds of the way down was Slingshot Curve.

         They were going way to fast. Jim had anticipated this. At the last moment just as they were entering the curve Jim released his secret weapon, which consisted of two 30 ft long tow chains attached to about 14 boat anchors. The anchors landed in a puff of white and the attached 60 ft of chain whistled between Jim’s legs. The chain snapped tight and the anchors became airborne, bouncing along the surface of the snow. Two, then three skips and the next time they landed they wrapped around the base of a huge hemlock tree. The sled skidded and the sudden change of direction caused everyone to fall forward onto Joe, who fell forward onto the steering column, snapping it off.

         Then things got bad.

          Like a rubber band, stretched to its limit. The hemlock tree, anchor, chain contraption suddenly contracted, completely reversing their, until then, forward motion. Like a rocket they shot back up the curve and out the other side. Several snapped trees and frightened species of wildlife later the sled entered the realm of complete silence. Gone were the creaks and groans, the noise of ski against snow. It was replaced with an almost silent whistling of the wind as they shot out over Bottom Dropped Out Gorge. The silence lasted only moments. The peace was shattered by the collective screams, in harmony, of the sleds occupants, as they became aware of their geophysical location. Their glide ratio was like that of a brick.. Their velocity however was relatively good. That, and the fact that the gorge was narrow resulted in a semi-controlled landing on the other side. For a moment they sat perfectly still on a very steep slope. Skitch sneezed. The sled moved. Joe whispered. “Don’t anybody move.” The sled moved again. Moe sat back and lit a cigar. With the click of his Zippo the sled took off like a rocket, backwards. The glowing end of a cigar could be seen settling to the snow behind them. After encounters with a number of trees, boulders and one very upset hibernating bear, it all ended when they hit a huge drift of snow at almost the bottom of the mountain. Almost was the operative word.

         The sky was blue. Lying there, watching the one laughing cloud pass over, Joe could just see a lone rider,a late entrant, young Jimmy Davidson on his flexible flyer, cross the finish line first. Joe never liked that kid.

Author's Note: I feel it is imperative to make the reader aware of several things. First, children of all ages,it is highly recommended that you do not try this at home. Second, if you do try it, Little Jim recommends borrowing some helmets from the high school football team. Something he thought of about half way down the hill. And third deals with the somewhat suspect veracity of the story. As a writer of fiction, it is easy to assume that what I write is...well...fiction. I offer only this. In my father's workshop sits a workbench made from a 14 ft, 14 in plank from the town bridge. Behind the shop, buried in a number of years of falling leaves, lies the remains of a steering column from a 1936 Packard station wagon, and oh yeah, he lives on the side of a mountain. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.