Rings of Ice

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Noon—but the depth of swirling cloud blanked out any suggestion of the sun and made the air chill. She stood forlornly on the approach to the Interstate highway, knowing the chances were fifty-fifty that any car that stopped for her would mean trouble for a lone young woman. But trouble or no, she had to get a ride; time was running out.

She saw the small bus as the first fat drops of rain slanted down. The vehicle was moving slowly around the loop of the approach, feeling its way. There was no reason to assume it was slowing for her.

She forced her eyes off it, watching the rain smash into the dry dirt embankment beyond the road. The huge drops actually excavated little craters. Meteorologically, she knew, this was known as rain-drop blast, and it could be a substantial if little-known source of erosion. The construction company should either have paved the embankment or seeded it with grass. Perhaps that had been scheduled for next week. As it stood, a few good storms would carry down so much earth that the job would soon have to be done over.

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