Denver by Morning

Abstract

On the last day in June, had you been driving northbound on I-25, the piebald peaks of the Rockies flanking the horizon, you might have been diverted on the stretch just south of Denver. The cause: an early-morning, single-vehicle accident. If you got there before the detour was in place, you might have seen the six-horse goose neck trailer flipped over in the drainage ditch, the cab of the truck so smashed in that it would be hard to believe when you heard later that the driver and passenger both walked away unscratched. Depending how soon after sunrise you passed that way, you might have seen two frantic women pulling at the door to the trailer, wait ing for someone to come, or you might have seen the firefighters reaching into the mangled heap of metal with the jaws of life. You would have encountered a delay throughout the day, though later on, you might only have been able to see the row of uprooted guard rails leading to the scene, then a thick clot of highway patrol cars and camera crews and caution tape. Perhaps you would have called your wife, to say I'll be late, and lit up a cigarette to pass the time, tapping the ashes out the driver side window into the violently blue Colorado summer.