The SUV surged and its high beams flooded the cabin white.

Panic went off in my chest, hot and bright, and I put it down. I couldn’t outrun a heavy truck on black ice. But I’d learned to drive on these roads, and no hired man out of the city knew them the way I did.

“Hold on,” I said.

I killed the headlights.

We dropped into total darkness, running on nothing but the faint blue glow the snow throws back at you. I braked and hauled the wheel right, sliding us down the unplowed service road behind the old textile mill.

The SUV, blind in the whiteout, went straight past the turn — brake lights flaring furious red somewhere behind us, then gone.