The Drop (3 page)

The bounce turn sent me up into the air. I kicked out and landed on my toe side, cutting softly back toward the forested area. There seemed to be hundreds of saplings in front of me. I didn't really feel like getting beat up again by them. So I shifted back onto my heel, trying another turn in the deep powder. It felt good. Actually, it felt amazing. It was everything I had ever wanted from life, right there.

Then I saw the snow squall along the edge of what had to be Dead Man's Drop. Sam was right. It looked like waves crashing on a shore. The snow would come up, shoot straight into the air, then fall back down along the edge of the drop. There was no way of telling how much of a fall it was. A hissing, howling sound accompanied the squall. It sounded like voices, like people moaning down there. I stared for too long, and by the time I thought to watch where I was going, I was almost to the edge. I dug in hard on my toe side and put my right arm down on the top of the powder to turn as quickly and tightly as possible. The waves of the drop brushed over me, covering my goggles with a thin wash of snow. I brought my left hand around to try and wipe it away. When I could see clearly again, I was about five feet from a tree. I had no choice. I bailed.

Hard.

I came to an abrupt stop face-first in the powder, my board spinning out above me and bending my legs. I pushed my hands down and tried to roll over, but the snow just gave way. I sank deeper. I could still breathe, but it was getting harder. The snow was light and fluffy on the surface, but when it was pounded down, it became as solid as concrete. Everything was dark. I shook my head and tried to think. We'd been taught what to do in a situation like this. My training came back. Sam's voice in my head. “Get on your back. The last thing you want is to feel like you're in a coffin. Look at the sky.” But how? How do you go from being facedown in the snow to lying on your back? I tried twisting, but that didn't work. So I jammed my board down until it stayed steady. Then I rolled myself over.

There was no sky. Just darkness.

The clouds had settled in, and everything above the trees was black. To my left, the horrible moaning from the drop continued. Snow shot up into the sky. It truly was a terrifying place.

I started pumping my legs, trying to get my board underneath me. The sooner I got away from here, I thought, the better.

The trees to my right bent under the press of the wind. I tried to slow my breath and calm down. Panicking here could be deadly. I pushed my hands into the snow, but this just made me sink deeper. I sat still for a minute and looked at the cold, dark sky. I wasn't going to get lost out here. If I was going to be a Backcountry Patroller, I had to be brave enough to get myself out of this kind of predicament. I wiggled my legs until I got my board free and beneath me. Then, in one quick motion, I stood up.

The wind blew ice into my face. It felt terrible. Like a thousand bees stinging all at once. Now that my face was wet from the snow, it felt even worse. I had to get somewhere warmer quickly or risk serious frostbite on my face. I took a last glance behind me at the rolling, churning wash of the drop. Then I jumped as hard as I could, kicking snow from the top of my board, and cut back into the woods.

It was quieter there. I took some deep breaths and tried to stay as horizontal to the slope as possible. I wasn't at all worried about finding the object or winning the prize. I just wanted to get out of there and inside the warm cabin. Maybe listen to some music to get the terrible sound of the drop out of my ears.

I had traveled halfway across the wooded area when I came to a clearing. It was almost peaceful in this little square where no trees had found root. The sun filled the space with heat. I turned from my toe side to my heel and cut along the tree line, looking for a place to drop into the deeper woods, finally comfortable being surrounded by trees. There was a bit of a chute ahead of me. Maybe ten feet between trees. As far as I could see, this kept up for the rest of the wooded area. I steered toward it. And then, just as I was about to go onto my front edge again and drop into the chute, I spotted something leaned up against a tree. At first I couldn't tell what it was. A lump of blue and orange fabric, like a jacket left outside through a long winter. Then I got closer, and I could see exactly what it was.

A person. A big person.

chapter four

My heart jumped in my chest. I swung around the tree until I was right beside the body. Its head was tilted forward and down. Its arms hung limp at its sides. I couldn't see skis or a snowboard. Just a jacket and snow. How long had he been out here? Was no one looking for him? I got a little closer and thought about checking for a pulse or something, but it was too much.

Way too much.

So I just started yelling.

“Help, help! Over here. There's a guy. Help.” No one came. I had totally forgotten about the two-way radio. “Come on, man, get up. Just stand up and walk away from this,” I said. I was beginning to wonder if he was alive. The jacket was so puffy, I couldn't tell if he was breathing. He didn't move. I yelled again, but no one responded or swept in to help. It was all up to me.

I took a glove off and reached my hand out. I forced myself to move my hand past the collar of his jacket and beneath his neck warmer. His skin was cold and spongy. I yanked my hand out, hitting his goggles on the way past. They fell to the ground, and his dead eyes stared back at me. But something wasn't right. His eyes looked dead, for sure, but his eyebrows were strange. As if they were painted on. And his nose was deformed—hacked off at the end. Yet there was no blood.

I reached out and lifted his tuque. His hair was painted on as well. He had no ears. No mouth. Just a painted on slit. Everything was fake because
he
was fake.

A dummy.

The two-way radio snapped to life.

“Did you find Keith Richards? Over.” Sam's voice.

Was he nuts? “Who the hell is Keith Richards? Over.”

“The Rolling Stones? You seriously don't know who the Stones are? Over.”

“What is this about, Sam? Over.”

“You found the object, Alex. Congrats, man. Over.”

“The object? Over.”

“Yeah. The prize is yours. Over.”

“And what would that prize be? Over.”

“You get to carry Keith Richards down to the cabin. Over,” Sam said.

I looked at the mass of plastic I'd thought was a person. “I have to carry a dummy down to the cabin? Over.”

“Alex, Alex. Please don't call Keith a dummy, it's not nice. Over.”

The wind roaring up the chute was cold and deafening. The button keeping one of my pant legs tight across my boot had popped off and was waving in the breeze, leaving my ankle to freeze. I took my other glove off and tried to fix it.

“You still there, Alex? Over.”

“Yeah, I'm still here. How am I supposed to carry this thing? Over.”

“That's for you to decide. But be gentle. As you can see, Keith's been through a lot recently. Over.” I got my pant leg secured over my boot. Then I pulled the dummy out of the snow. He was heavy. An absolute deadweight. At least he didn't have a board on. In fact, he didn't even have legs.

“Oh, and Alex? Over.”

“What? Over.” I had lifted the dummy up and had to drop him back down again to push the button on the radio.

“You scream like a little girl. Over.”

I flicked the radio off and put it back in my pocket. It took me a minute to figure it out, but finally I decided that putting the dummy on my back and tying the sleeves of his jacket over one shoulder and under the other arm would likely do the trick. He was heavy, and it felt strange once I got him attached. Every time I shifted from heel to toe, he flung out beside me, throwing me completely off balance. I looked down the long chute out of the woods and wondered just how far away the cabin was.

chapter five

“Keith!” Sam yelled when I stepped in the door of the cabin. It was just after three o'clock. It had taken me over an hour of falling, swearing and heaving the stupid dummy to get to the cottage. A journey that likely took the rest of the Backcountry Patrol hopefuls about fifteen minutes.

I dropped the dummy on the ground, face-first, and stepped on him.

“Have some respect,” Sam said. “The man is an artist.”

“What's he talking about?” Dave said. He and Hope and Bryce were seated around a table, steaming bowls of stew in front of them.

“Yeah, Alex, what's going on?” Bryce asked. “Sam said you won the prize, but he wouldn't tell us anything else.”

I gave Keith Richards a kick in the head. Then I walked across the room to where a woodstove was pumping out heat. “The object,” I said, “was that. A dummy.”

“Ahh, man, what did I say about that? He's no dummy.” Sam had gathered the dummy up in his arms and was cradling it like a baby.

“The prize was carrying that stupid thing all the way down here,” I continued. Sam placed the dummy in a chair, stroked his painted-on hair and shook his head.

“Who told you that?” Sam said.

“You did.”

“I said no such thing. I said you'd found the object. I said you screamed like a girl. But I never said carrying Keith Richards was the prize.”

I knelt in front of the stove and rubbed my hands together. I was sure some part of me must have frostbite. Maybe a few parts. But I wouldn't know which ones until I started to thaw.

“So what
is
the prize?” Dave asked.

Sam smiled. “Alex doesn't have to haul Keith down the mountain tomorrow.”

“Great prize,” I said. “Seeing as I just
did
that.”

“Ahhh, but you see, it is. Because tomorrow these three”—he gestured at Hope, Bryce and Dave—“will be carrying the Jonas Brothers downhill. And those three are certainly dummies. The plan for tomorrow is as follows.” Sam turned to the other three. “I will go out early and hide the Jonas bothers. You will go out and find them.” Sam went to a built-in closet and opened the door. Three identical dummies hung from hooks. It was kind of spooky. “When you each find your victim, you will perform cpr. Then you will carry your victim to a designated location farther down the mountain. A spot, I will add, that is double the distance Alex just carried Keith Richards here.” Sam slammed the closet door and sat down beside Keith Richards.

“That's not fair,” Hope said immediately. “They look really heavy. I mean, I'll try to carry one, but…”

“They are heavy,” Sam said. “Well, not
that
heavy. Not as heavy as a real person. Likely half the weight of anyone you'd ever have to haul off this mountain, unless garden gnomes suddenly take up extreme sports.”

“I still don't know if I'll be able to carry that kind of weight,” Hope said.

“And
I
know you can.” Sam tapped his head. “It's all in your head. If you know you can do something, you can.”

“The heaviest thing I have ever carried on a board was that stretcher last week with the first-aid kit.” Hope looked worried. She stuck a finger in her mouth and started chewing the nail. “Carrying one of those dummies all the way down the hill. That's tough…”

Sam stared at her for a moment, then grabbed a large satellite cell phone off the table beside him and began pressing buttons.

“What are you doing?” Hope asked.

“Calling base camp. I'll have them send a chopper up in the morning to get you out of here.”

“Why? What did I do?”

“If you can't carry one of the Jonas Brothers down the mountain, then you may as well quit now.”

“But what if I ca…?” Hope's voice trailed off.

Sam put the phone back on the table and glared at Hope. “What did I tell you last week about that sentence? Huh? Anyone?”

“If you say you can't,” Bryce said, “you won't.”

Sam pointed a finger at him.

“Exactly. Say you can't and—guess what?—you can't. That simple. So, Hope, if you want to give up, give up. Drop out. Go home. It's fine with me. I can put in a recommendation to the lift operators or, I don't know, maybe the Baby Bushwhackers. You can help five-year-olds bang into poles all day.”

“No way. I'm going to be a Backcountry Patroller,” Hope said.

Sam stood up quickly and crossed the room. He grabbed a free chair and banged it on the floor a couple of times. He seemed to be overreacting. I had no idea why. Hope had really just been thinking out loud. A little encouragement likely would have been a better idea.

“Then act like one!” Sam yelled. “Say I pass you. I mean, dream with me here. Say I pass you, and you end up being in Backcountry Patrol and you're out here one day alone.”

“Backcountry Patrollers never work alone,” Hope said.

“All right,” Sam said, a bit more calmly. “You're out with a partner and you're looking for someone who has gone down and hurt himself. Then your partner—
whoosh
—over an edge.” Sam sent a hand out before him and fluttered it off a makebelieve cliff. “Now you're alone and you have to carry some guy down the mountain. If you don't get to him and help him, he will die. Would that be fair to him?”