The villages got fewer and farther between, and it was much longer now between times when we'd pass someone on the road.  The sun had made its silent journey across the sky, pulling us farther and farther along, carrying us from one time zone to another -- and from one world to another.  As soon as the sun set, the temperature fell dramatically and people took shelter in the warmth of their homes.  Only an occasional jack rabbit would dart across the road, or an owl swoop through the dim beam of our headlights.
     It was 2:00 in the morning, seventeen hours after we left Moscow, when we finally reached Urzhum, the last town of any size -- and only twenty-five miles from our destination.  Here we came upon a lone man walking his dog, the heads of both bent down against the wind and the cold.  We stopped the man to ask about the condition of the road.  His breath hung in the air and froze as he spoke.  His dog pawed at clumps of ice dangling from the matted fur on either side of his nose.  Of the two roads open, the man advised, the one to the right was the more likely to be passable.
     We drove on past the last few houses but, on an intuition, Nikolai stopped at the very last house and knocked gently on the lower right pane of the front window.  The curtain pulled back showing the weary face of a man who nodded understandingly.  The drape fell limply back into place and then, moments later, the man appeared from behind the courtyard door.  He, too, confirmed that the road to the right was the better chance.
     We started out again peering reluctantly ahead as the road grew more and more impassable: a sea of frozen ice heaved up here -- or with gaping holes there.  We inched along, straddling huge ruts, and holding our breath every time the ground groaned and cracked beneath us.  Finally, the ground simply gave way and the road disappeared before our eyes.  Half the car lay engulfed in an ice hole.  Every attempt to get out proved futile and only dug us in deeper.  There was no alternative but for me to wait in the car while Nikolai went for help.
     My main thought was to keep warm.  I drew my hood over the hat I was already wearing and began running my hand across the seat feeling for my mittens.  At last, my fingers felt a lumpy object beneath them.  I heard myself gasp. . . .  It wasn't my mittens.  It was Nikolai's hat.  The temperature was below zero and Nikolai is totally bald.
     At that point I had no way of knowing that, as Nikolai walked through the night, the man to whom he last spoke had left his home to find us.  Together the two of them walked thirty minutes to the home of a man with a large truck.  It was nearly 3:30 in the morning when the bright headlights broke through the darkness where I watched.  Nikolai emerged from the cab and gratefully put on the knitted cap still clutched in my hand.  He was noticeably chilled -- even before the nearly hour of numbing work it took to get us out.
     I clambered over the chunks of ground strewn across the road, calling out to the men, thanking them over and over again.  At last, one of them motioned me to be still. "Woman, why are you thanking us as if we just saved your life?  Nothing awful ever happens!  It's all just an adventure!"  And with that, our unknown helpers disappeared into the stillness of the night.