People hear that sentence and think I’m being dramatic. They imagine some family argument, some old country phrase about being kicked out. But I mean it literally. We were shoved out of a truck at night in the mountains outside Laramie, Wyoming, with the wind cutting like broken glass and snow coming down so hard it swallowed the road behind us.
One minute I was sitting in the passenger seat with blood drying on my lip, my father trying to reason with men who had already made up their minds. The next, the door flew open, boots hit my ribs, and I rolled into a ditch full of ice.
I can still hear the sound the truck tires made as they spun away. That ugly, wet crunch. That sound stayed with me longer than the pain did.
My name is Caleb Mercer, and until that night, I thought I knew what cold felt like.
I didn’t.
Not really.
Real cold isn’t just a temperature. It’s a living thing. It crawls into your sleeves and under your skin. It steals your thoughts first, then your hands, then your hope. It makes you want to lie down and become part of the white ground, because fighting it feels heavier than dying.
