Williams, Arizona turned out to be a good town for what could have been a bad accident.
They were all nice to him, sympathetic and helpful. Right away they got him a tow truck.
He remembered when he’d first started driving, some of the other drivers had warned him about black ice.
At the beer distributor’s warehouse down in Phoenix, they told him that when you drive over black ice you’d better see it coming.
Take your foot off the accelerator. Steer the way you’re going. Don’t fight the direction you’re locked into. Don’t be afraid to slide for a while, just glide over the black ice because it won’t last long, probably no more than 20 or 30 feet.
But it did last long. A hundred feet he reckoned.
His truck packed with cases of Coors Banquet sailed off the road in Williams, Arizona, tore through a barbwire fence, ripped out some sage and came to rest in a stand of desert bitterbrush.
A rancher picked him up and drove him into town. He called down to the warehouse from the café and the secretary who answered the phone told him not to worry about it.
She went and found his boss and put him on the line.
His boss said black ice is a rite of passage, happens to every one of us. Now you’ve got your stripes. Glad you didn’t get hurt. Get yourself a motel room and take it easy for a day while they do the alignment and get new tires mounted.
After breakfast he walked over to the Coconino Pointe Inn. Taped up in the front window was a Barry Goldwater for Senator poster.
A bookshelf covered an entire wall of the room they used for a lobby. He thumbed through the books, a long run of Zane Gray, some Louis L’Amour and an Owen Wister.
The sallow woman who checked him in gave him the impression she was holding something back, something he may have found useful.
Up in his room in Williams, Arizona, he thought about the day’s deliveries he wouldn’t be able to make.
The guys at the Cattleguard in Springerville would miss him.
