The setting sun cast long shadows across the narrow highway that hugged the craggy mountainside. Our van crept down each steep decline, rounding tight hairpin turns and struggling up to the crest of yet another ridge. Sheer drop offs fell away from the side of the road, way, way down to the rocks below.
The van was packed to capacity. My brother Dale’s family of five, from NC, and seven from our family had left home long before dawn that morning. A tray, attached to the hitch of the van, carried a small stack of firewood and a disco* which we had used for cooking lunch at the Thousand Foot Falls.
Three little Indian boys had lurked on the outskirts of our lunch time gathering, savoring the fragrance of potatoes and hamburger sizzling in oil over the fire. A mangy dog with one blue eye and one green eye salivated in the near distance. We had prepared plates of food for the boys and inadvertently spilled enough to make the dog happy before hiking to the falls. Indian women sat on the blankets they’d spread over rocks, displaying their woven baskets and shawls.
After leaving the falls, we had driven another couple of hours to the El Cerrito mission among the Tarahumara Indians. That had been an interesting experience, hearing about the challenges those missionaries face – a fire, a baby without a home, a sister who faces opposition from her family, and a bad case of homesickness.
And now, tired to the bone, we were heading home with our capable nineteen-year-old son, Harlan, at the wheel. Suddenly, at the bottom of a mountain, in the middle of a curve where the ascent of the next mountain began, the van stopped and Harlan said quietly, “We don’t have brakes. When I step on the pedal, there’s just nothing there.”
For an instant not a sound could be heard except maybe my heart thumping in my chest. No brakes! Somebody would be coming down the mountain behind us in a minute – we couldn’t just sit there! There was certainly no place to pull off beside the road but how could we negotiate all those curves without brakes? I thought about the family whose bus had crashed down the mountainside in Honduras after brake failure. The parents had died. I thought about our two school-aged sons who had stayed at home. “God help us,” I prayed.
Phil and Dale and the four teenage boys climbed out of the van to take a look. The brakes were hot as asphalt on a summer day.
“We’ll have to go on,” the men decided. “Let’s just keep our eyes open and pull off to let the brakes cool at the first place where there’s enough space to park.”
Slowly the van eased up the mountain. Inside, all eyes were glued to the shoulder, looking for a place to pull off.
“There’s one,” Harlan said. “I doubt we’ll do better than that.”
The men decided the best thing was to drive past and back onto the rock table beside the road.
“I’ll get out and motion you in,” Dale said.
“Grab a chunk of that firewood to chock the wheels,” Phil suggested.
Since we were going uphill, it wasn’t hard to grind to a halt but my heart fluttered in my throat as Harlan inched backward onto the handkerchief-sized piece of real estate. What if the chock wouldn’t hold us? What if the bank caved away?
I’ll never forget Dale standing there in the dusk with a chunk of firewood in one hand, signaling with the other, and the relief that washed over me as the van came to rest, free of the road, and high above the valley.
We climbed out, stretched our stiff joints and peered down over the precipice. Through the scrubby trees we could see a sprinkling of adobe huts clinging to the steep mountainside. Dogs barked. The lonely wail of a guitar wafted toward us. Real people lived here. I couldn’t help but wonder what hopes and fears made up their lives as they eked their sustenance from this barren soil.
The chill evening air nipped at us and we drew our jackets closer.
“Let’s build a fire with the leftover wood,” Phil suggested.
The men laid the kindling and placed the wood, teepee style over the small sticks, blowing the flickering flame to life.
Meanwhile my nephew Anthony gathered small rocks. “I need to set up a marker for time to come,” he said, spelling out the words, ‘FRENOS CALIENTES’ (hot brakes) with the rocks.
Sitting there in the glow of the fire on that rocky mountain ledge, helpless to improve our situation, but saved from harm, God suddenly seemed very near.
“Let’s sing,” I suggested.
Together, our voices rang out over the still valley, echoing off the rocks, and rising to our Father, “Oh, Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made… Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God, to Thee, How great thou art! How great Thou art!”
*A disco is a blade off a farm disk, with the center hole welded shut and three short legs welded to the bottom. Place the disco over the fire, pour a puddle of oil into the center and cook finely diced potatoes and hamburger in the oil until tender. Serve wrapped in a tortilla with refried beans, guacamole, peppers and onions.