About three hundred feet from the gate entrance was a dip in the road, two-and-a-half feet deep and twenty feet wide. It was part of a dry creek bed that ran just outside the Rafter Seven’s boundary line. As is the custom in many arid parts of the country, creek beds like this are simply left as dips in the road, as opposed to placing a bridge over them, as might be the case in a wetter part of the country. In this case, when the weather was dry, it was simply a dip in the road. But when it rained, the dip in the road would become a two-foot deep, twenty-foot wide, swift running creek, which it now was. A half hour or so after it would stop raining, the water in the ditch would dissipate to a point where you never even knew there was water in it.

Henry brought the truck to a stop about ten feet from the edge of the creek. He stepped out into the pouring rain and staggered to the front of the truck. The headlights shone over the rushing water, and had Henry been sober, or even a little more sober than he was, he more than likely would have just turned the truck off and slept there for the night. By then the rain would certainly have stopped and the creek would have gone down.

Ironically, had he done that, nobody would have been the wiser. The creek started flooding about an hour after it started raining. The ranch was on the southern most edge of a gigantic storm that would dump eight inches of rain over nearly the entire western half of the United States. Here, however, it would have blown out by morning. Had Henry just slept in the truck, folks on the ranch would have figured he got back after the creek started flooding and would have understood he couldn’t get across. They would have figured he’d been sitting there in the truck all night, instead of sitting in a bar.

But Henry slid back in the truck and slowly backed up for over a quarter mile, repeatedly almost sliding off the slick and muddy road. Once he’d traveled what he considered a sufficient distance from the creek, he threw the truck in gear and floored it. At first, the tires spun wildly in the mud and gravel. Then, after several seconds, they picked up traction and the truck started for the creek. Henry went through the gears quickly and even though he was fishtailing wildly, he was also traveling nearly fifty miles per hour by the time he hit the creek. The truck hydroplaned over the creek, throwing gallons of water on the windshield and making it impossible for Henry to see.

By the time it reached the other side, the truck was turned slightly to the right, and it rolled up on the right side tires for just a second. Henry couldn’t see what was going on, but he could feel it and he instinctively threw the wheel to the left, bringing the truck back down on all fours. The truck lurched back to the left, shot across the road and into the rain-soaked desert on the other side. Henry floored it once again and cranked the wheel to the right, trying to get back on the road, but the truck simply slid farther to the left.