The Drop (6 page)

“How many times did you see him talking to these guys?”

“Just once.” I wasn't even certain that Dave was telling the truth. It all seemed too vague. I figured he was just scared and looking for any reason
not
to have to go closer to the drop. “So, are you getting off?”

In answer, he pulled his helmet back on and reached around for the bar. “All right, hold on,” I said.

We crept to the edge of the drop. The snow being flicked up was hard and felt like pieces of rice bouncing off my face. The moaning was loud at the edge. Like a million souls crying out from the depths of hell. Hope was standing up on her snowmobile, slowly moving along the edge. I was impressed. She wasn't showing any fear. She went as far down as possible, then did a half circle and started back up the mountain. As she was passing us, she stopped.

“I can't see anything there,” she said.

“I can't either,” I replied.

“But there has to be some way down.”

I shrugged. “Keep looking, I guess.”

The sun had been moving down in the sky for some time, and the light was starting to dim. I pulled my sleeve back and looked at my watch. Almost four thirty. The sun would be setting in the next hour, and then it would be completely dark. I did not want to be here in the dark.

“We only have about half an hour of light left,” I said.

Hope nodded and twisted the accelerator.

We drove as far up along the drop as possible and back down again. We couldn't see anything through the snow. In a couple of spots we could see into the distance, where it looked like there were a couple of gentle slopes. But we spent most of our time wiping the visors of our helmets and trying to breathe with our lips tight.

Eventually I pulled up beside Hope. The sun was gone, leaving only the flickering glow of a west-coast sunset.

“We have to go back,” I said. “You lead.” She nodded, gunned the snowmobile and shot back into the trees. It took less than fifteen minutes for us to return to the cabin, but by the time we arrived, it was pitch-dark outside, and there was still no sign of Bryce.

chapter ten

Sam was asleep on his bunk, his mouth open and pumping out gurgling snores. The air smelled heavily of alcohol.

“Wow. He sure seems concerned for our safety,” Dave said. The satellite phone was on the dining table. I picked it up and tried to turn it on.

Nothing.

Hope went into the bathroom. The click of the door closing snapped Sam out of sleep. He sat up and wiped a bit of spittle off his chin.

“Where have you been?” he said.

“Looking for Bryce,” I said as I removed my jacket and hung it over the back of a chair.

“You took the snowmobiles. You took off without telling me. You have to tell me when you leave. I was worried.”

“So worried you fell asleep?” Dave said.

Sam swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He tilted a little as he stood and then steadied himself. “I guess you didn't find him.”

“No,” I replied. “And he didn't come back here?”

Sam shook his head.

I was angry with Sam. He was the adult here. He should have been the one out looking for Bryce. He should at least be the one trying to figure out what to do next. He didn't even seem concerned about Bryce. I mean, it seemed pretty self-centered to me. Like this whole Backcountry Patrol thing was just some kind of sideline, a way for him to make money. But didn't he feel responsible for us at all? He walked across the room to the kitchen area. I lit one of the lanterns, and Sam seemed to scurry away from the light. It was almost six o'clock, but in the heart of winter, six o'clock means complete darkness.

“Do you guys want something to eat?” Sam asked. “Pasta? Beans?”

“Pasta,” Dave said. “And lots of it. I'm starving.”

I was starving as well, but I wasn't going to say anything. I stared at Sam for a minute.

“What?” he said.

“What are we going to do, Sam? We're out here on the side of a mountain. Someone has gone missing. We have no idea where he is, or who took him.”

“Whoa, whoa. Who said someone took him?”

Hope had just stepped out of the bathroom. “How else would he have left?” she said. “He wouldn't just go out for a walk and not be able to find his way back, right? We're on the side of a mountain.”

“He could have,” Sam replied.

“If that's what happened, then why aren't you out going up and down the mountain looking for him? He's
your
responsibility,” I said.

“You three took the snowmobiles, remember?” This was true.

“So what's the plan, Sam?” I said.

Water was boiling in a pot on the stove. Sam turned and dumped in some spaghetti, sending hot water splashing to the floor. “Eventually someone will come for us,” he said, not looking at us. I thought, That's it? That's your plan?
Eventually someone will come
?

“That's it?” Hope said what I was thinking. She was shaking. “We wait for help?
That's
your answer.”

Sam stirred the pasta. “What do you want me to do?” he said, turning to her.

“We have to find out who took Bryce,” Hope yelled. “Someone took him over the drop.”

Sam squinted at her. “Why would you say that?”

“We found tracks out there. The only place they could have gone was over the drop.”

“What kind of tracks?”

“Yeti,” I said. “Snowmobile, what else? You do know how rich Bryce's family is, right?

Sam looked at me and shook his head. “Sure, but I never really thought about it.”

“Well, think about it now,” Hope said. “His dad is really, really rich, and really, really rich people's kids sometimes get kidnapped.”

Sam smiled at her. “You guys have some great imaginations.”

“Do you have another explanation?” Hope said.

Sam put some pasta sauce in a pot and turned the heat up. He didn't answer Hope's question. And it didn't seem he ever would.

Sam Jenkins might have been great back in the day. He might even have been the best snowboarder that ever lived. But now he was just an instructor who had no idea what to do when trouble hit. Another celebrity who had become so full of himself that other people stopped meaning anything to him.

It was up to us to save Bryce.

chapter eleven

In the morning, as the sun first poked into the sky, I woke Hope up by prodding her in the side with a stick of kindling.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Get up. We're going over the drop.”

“Huh?” she muttered sleepily.

I gently poked her again.

“Stop that. It's annoying,” she said.

“We're going to get Sam to show us where it isn't a huge drop, and then we're going over.” I was already fully dressed in my snowboarding gear. “We have to get going.” She threw her legs over the side of the bed. “And we have to take our boards.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Do you want to jump off a cliff on a snowmobile?”

“Whoever took Bryce did.”

“Yeah, but they likely knew
exactly
where to go. We'll be guessing.”

“But Sam knows,” she said. “He told us he did.”

“And you trust Sam?” I whispered.

She suddenly had a look of determination in her eyes. “Well, we're going to have to,” she said. “At least a little.”

“Good,” I said. “Because I think you should go first.

Her mouth turned up into a little smile. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

We packed our bags with some food from the cupboard, mostly just energy bars and cereal, and hooked our snowboards onto the racks on the back of the snowmobiles. I went inside for one more stop in the bathroom. By the time I came out, Hope had somehow convinced Sam to show us where it would be safe to go over. He still didn't offer to go himself.

Sam drove one snowmobile with Dave on the back. Hope drove the other. The safety bar on the back of the snowmobile was covered by our boards, so I had to wrap my arms around Hope's waist to hang on. I was surprised by how thin she felt. She gunned the engine, and we shot forward. Then she let off the gas, and I was flung forward, my nose sinking into the hair that fluffed out beneath her helmet.

“Sorry,” she said. But I didn't mind. She actually smelled pretty nice.

We peeled away from the cabin toward the chute in the woods and then to the drop. We went straight toward it rather than weaving around, as we had the day before. It only took about twenty minutes.

The rushing waves of snow were still washing the edge of the drop. I wondered if they ever stopped. There was almost no wind where we stood. “You shouldn't be doing this, guys,” Sam said. “It's just not safe. And anyway, what are you going to do if you find Bryce? Or what if you
don't
find him? Then what? You can't get back up the drop. That's just not an option.” He shook his head as he spoke.

“I guess we should just stay in the cabin then?” Hope said. “Wait for the food to run out? Or what's your other idea? Someone will come and find us? There has to be something at the bottom of this mountain. A road or—or
something
.” She pointed at the drop. “Just show us where it isn't that much of a fall.” Sam looked up and down the length of the drop.

“I don't know,” he said.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “You told us you did.”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “I know a general area. But if I'm wrong, you'll just…fall.”

“Where?” I demanded. Hope had slid off the snowmobile and unhooked her snowboard. Sam looked up and down the drop again. Then he pointed.

“You can't do this. You could both be killed,” Sam said.

“We can't just sit here and wait for someone to find us either,” I said. “And anyway, Bryce could be in serious trouble. Don't you want to help him?”

Sam shook his head. He was looking at the drop as though it might reach out and grab him.

“Someone needs to stay at the cabin in case Bryce comes back,” he said. He looked sad. As though he wished he was capable of more than he was. Finally he just pointed. “Right there,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Hope asked. She had her backpack over her shoulders, her fluffy pink sleeping bag tied to the top. It made her look a foot taller than she was.

“Yeah. Right there. It's probably no more than five feet down. Maybe ten. I think.”

“You're not positive?” She had her board on now. I pulled my snowboard off the back of the snowmobile and put my feet in the bindings.

“As far as I can remember. But it's been a long time since I went over there.” He looked sad again as he stared at the drop. I had my snowboard strapped on and was beating my hands together trying to get blood pumping through my body.

“Right there?” Hope said again, staring at Sam.

“Like I said, it's been awhile. But, yeah, I think so.” The spot they were pointing at was about fifteen feet down the hill. It looked like any other spot.

“All right,” Hope said. Then she clapped her pink gloves together, tightened her goggles and leaned forward to get moving. She did one quick turn just past the snowmobiles and then shot straight past the place Sam had pointed out. She did a quick turn, carved along the edge of the drop, cut out and back in, and then disappeared into the wash of white.

It was entirely silent after she disappeared. Then the moaning started up again. It seemed like the mountain had swallowed her. Sam was just staring at the drop—at the empty space Hope had left behind her.

“Do something, Sam!” I said. “She missed the spot.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Sam yelled back.

I climbed up the hill to where Hope had started her run. “We have to go get her.”

Sam shook his head. “She made a choice. I told both of you that you were on your own if you decided to go over that drop.”

“You mean all three of us,” I said. “Right, Dave?”

Dave looked away from me when I spoke to him. He stared at the drop, then up at the sky.

“Dave?” I said.

“I'm not going,” he said.

“What?”

“I'm not going over there. I don't even like Bryce. I could get killed.”

“You mean you're intimidated by him, Dave. That's the word you're looking for.
Intimidated
.”

“No, I'm not. He's a stuck-up rich kid. That's all.”

I shook my head and clamped my goggles over my eyes.

“Why should I risk my life for him?” Dave continued.