The Jack Was Riding Chase

The night before, somebody made a sensible decision. The good jack — the tall one with the wide base that actually works on sand — went into the chase truck, because chase carries the heavy stuff. Everyone agreed. It was written down.

What nobody accounted for was that the prerunner would leave two hours earlier, in a different direction, to scout the north end.

The left rear went soft at about mile forty. Not dramatic. A slow lean and the steering going vague, and then the sound of a tire that has given up. They pulled off into a flat spot, which was the one thing that went right all morning.

The bottle jack that was actually in the truck was a factory unit built for a paved shoulder. On soft ground, with a heavy truck and big tires, it sank. They tried a rock under it. The rock sank too. Somebody dug for a while to find something firm, which in a wash bottom is a theory rather than a plan.

So they got on the radio and asked chase how far out they were, and chase said about forty minutes, and then the day became waiting.

It was not a bad forty minutes. It was hot, there was shade on the east side of the truck, and there was a long conversation about whose fault this was that everybody enjoyed more than they let on. Somebody found a warm Squirt in the door pocket and it got split three ways.

Chase rolled in, the good jack came out, and the swap took nine minutes flat with three people on it. Then chase left in the direction they were already going and everybody carried on.

The rule now is simple and it's on a laminated card in both trucks: whatever you'd need to change a tire alone rides in the vehicle that leaves first. Everything else can chase.