The highway patrol accident report noted there weren’t any skid marks where the truck left the road. It was as if Henry had simply missed the turn and drove right off the edge and down the five hundred foot embankment. The lack of skid marks was because Henry had never touched the brakes. He had fallen into a deep sleep behind the wheel and had been ejected from the truck almost immediately after it left the road. He woke only after he hit the ground and thudded to a stop against a tree. The truck, with Annie and Josh still trapped inside, continued flipping and rolling down the side of the mountain. He couldn’t see the truck, nor was he fully aware of what had happened, until the truck came to a stop near the bottom of the draw, then burst into flames. It was only then the gravity of what had just happened came crashing down on top of him.

He had broken his arm and two ribs in the fall, and had a six-inch long gash that ran from his left eyebrow, up and over the top of his head, through his scalp and exposing his skull. Still, as soon as he had his wits about him, he jumped to his feet and scrambled down the hill calling frantically for his wife and son as blood poured down his face and stung his eyes.

Because the terrain down to the bottom of the draw was so rough, it took Henry what seemed like an eternity to get to where the truck had come to its fiery rest. By the time he got there, some of the nearby bushes and trees were either smoldering or burning, with more looking as if they would explode into flames at any minute. Still, Henry ran through the fires and over to the truck. He was quickly forced back because of the intense heat the truck was putting off, and no matter how hard he tried, he was only able to get within fifty feet of the wreck. By the time the fire and ambulance crews arrived, they found an unresponsive and bloodied Henry standing near the wreckage, staring blankly at the twisted heap. The fire had subsided, but the truck and its occupants were unrecognizable.

Annie and Josh’s funeral was held a week later and was attended by over fifteen hundred people. Henry stayed by the gravesite for two full days and nights, not eating, sleeping or drinking, until Leon Geyser, one of Henry’s childhood friends, came to take him home. In his grief, Henry quickly found he was unwilling and unable to stay in the house where he, Annie and Josh had spent the last ten years. Within days he was sleeping either in the barn, or in a tent he pitched down in the lower pasture. He spent as little time in the house as possible, and even less time taking care of the ranch.

In his effort to stay away from the house, Henry took to driving the old, barely road-legal ranch truck into town, and doing nothing more than driving up and down Main Street over and over. Eventually, he might stop in one of the three diners, order a cup of coffee and sit for hours staring out the window. As night fell, he began stopping in the Wheel Bar, and even though he never was much of a drinker—not even in his rodeo days—he would order a beer and sit in the corner until closing time.