From "Ferris' Bluff" by Fred Limberg

The roller coaster ride through the heart of the Ouachita Mountains on the two-lane twisty goddamn no-shoulder snake of a road was scenic as all hell—but it had been a brutal frightening thing.

Regiments of towering deep-green pines slashed through with scarred gray-white granite wounds and mystical fog shrouded mountainsides demanded his attention. Dark shadowed valley views beckoned. The vista was like a siren’s song—beautiful and haunting, a soul-soothing panorama, primordial…and damn near deadly.

He barely survived the life-or-death battle between the lure of the bewitching scenery and the sudden switchbacks and cliff-side curves. A shaggy big-eared deer played chicken with him. That was exciting—in an adrenaline spiked, holy-shit, gravel slinging kind of way. A mommy hauling ass in a mini-van full of kids, hell-bent for somewhere, wasn’t scared a bit by the cliffs or the deer or anything, it seemed. She laid on the horn, yelling at him to pull over and get the hell out of the way.

Where? Off the damn mountain side?

And then, as if God flipped the scenery switch, the land and his heart rate leveled out. The mini-van mommy gave him the finger when she sped past.