Chapter 7

It wasn’t until the highway began heading south-west two hours later that he really felt he was in the mountains that he’d only seen from a distance previously. Four hours later he was driving on a two-lane highway that ran between high, rocky cliffs on one side and a rushing stream on the other. Towering pine trees dwarfed the few cars on the road and there were times—like when he’d pass a small side road—that he was tempted to turn off and explore the surrounding territory. Only common sense and the need to make Faircrest before dark descended kept him going forward.

He left the mountains, entering an area with low foothills off in the distance, fields between them and the highway. Around four-thirty he drove through a small town that for a moment he thought was his destination until he saw a highway sign telling him he still had another twenty miles to go.