Elias had two choices. He could sit on the bumper and wait for a passing truck—which, on this backroad, might take until Tuesday—or he could start walking.
Elias was a man built on the philosophy of the "Hard Way." When he was twelve, his father taught him to fix a fence by hand rather than using the tractor, saying, "A machine makes you fast, but the sweat makes you remember why the fence is there."
He didn't need the shortcut. He needed to know that when everything else broke down, he was the one thing that still worked.