He slams the knife down toward his side. Then, snap! The whole seat falls and I am lifted into the air with one sudden jerk of the rope. My face and body hit the snow hard and I am dragged about five feet into the trunk of the tree. The impact is painful. I can feel where I’m going to bruise on my shoulder.
“Paul,” I shout. “Paul!”
I adjust my body and straddle the base of the tree, hooking my legs around it, and hold on for my life.
“Paul! Can you hear me?” There’s no answer, but his weight is still pulling against the tree.
“Paul!”
Nothing. Then suddenly the rope goes slack, and there’s no longer any pressure on the line. I scream.
“Paul!”
“You need to do as I say,” he calls back. “On the count of three, can you walk away from this cliff?”
I am flooded with relief.
“Yes, but count to ten; I’m kind of tangled here,” I shout.
“Just say when, okay? But try to hurry.”
I crawl back under the tree and free myself. The rope feels slack. I walk back to the edge and peer over. Paul is now standing in the tree and has one hand on a nub of rock. He’s planning on climbing up the wall. My walking is supposed to assist him.
“What if you fall?” I call down.
He looks up and smiles.
“It’ll be romantic, Jane. We’ll die together, like Romeo and Juliet.”
I take a big gulp of air and breathe out. What an ass.
“Nothing personal, but I don’t want to die with you, Paul.”
“That’s extra incentive for you, then. Don’t slip.”
I make sure the knot around my waist is tight.
“Hold on a second,” I call. “I have an idea.”
I scurry back to the tree and crawl under and around again, creating a primitive pulley. Instead of walking away from him, I pull in all the slack, and then walk sideways, parallel to the ledge.
“Go!” I shout.
With his weight displaced against the tree, I use my lateral force to help move his weight up the mountain. I can’t see him, but every time I step into fresh powder, I can sense his weight moving up the mountain.
Come on, Jane, I think. I leverage all of my one hundred and eighteen pounds into each step. Then I hear myself let out a grunt that turns into a scream, from deep inside that I didn’t know was there. It’s primal, like life itself announcing its return to my body. Pull, Jane, pull.
My feet lift out of the powder with an unbelievable force, and step after step, I feel a sense of euphoria taking over my body. Then the weight pulling against me disappears, sending my body flying forward into the snow.
I sit up and turn around, brushing snow from my face. For a second I see nothing but white. A hollow feeling fills my gut. I look to the ledge and then back over the landscape, which is flat and empty. Then, like an animal waking up after a long night hidden beneath the snow for warmth, Paul Hart pops up in my line of vision. Where did he come from? His chest heaves up and down. His face is bright red and his broad grin tells me he’s okay. I start to cry as I walk over to him, I can’t help it. He is still kneeling down. He looks up at me; his smile just gets bigger. He falls onto his back and lets out a big laugh.
“Jane Solis,” he shouts, still flat on his back, “you pull like a donkey.”
Like I said, what an ass.
Chapter 16
With some effort, Paul lifts himself into a sitting position and then stands. He looks around, surveying the area.
“Which way?” he says, still breathing heavily. “To the plane, I mean?”
No hello or “thank you for saving my life.” Just “which way?” I chalk it up to his nearly dying, the thin air, and general guy-ness.
I pull out a pair of gloves and a hat and hand them to him.
“Here.”
He nods and pulls back his hoodie to put the hat on, and then the gloves, but doesn’t say thanks for those either. Really?
I point at my footprints, which are fading quickly but still visible.
“It’s that way. Follow my tracks.”
“Right?” He looks at me for confirmation. “Come on.”
He turns and marches toward the cabin. The wind whips with a new ferocity, and the air is so cold it makes it hard to breathe. Paul walks in front, shielding me a bit from the wind with his large frame, but my teeth chatter. My throat is raw and parched and my head aches, and I realize for the first time how incredibly thirsty I am. I need water. I drop down to my knees and grab a handful of snow and start eating it. Paul turns around to see why I’ve stopped and reaches out to swat the snow out of my hand.
“Don’t eat the snow!” he shouts.
“Why?”
“Just don’t do it,” he says harshly. “It can kill you.”
I look directly at him for the first time. His blue eyes are bloodshot, watery, and distant. I realize I don’t know who Paul is. He could be a killer or a rapist or bonkers. I laugh a little at that last one. Maybe he’s crazier than me. I look down, trying not to get emotional or show any weakness. Never show any sign of weakness with a psycho; they get off on it.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Stay close behind me,” he commands.
He turns and trudges into the wind with his forearm covering his face. The snow has eased up a little, but the temperature has dropped and the wind is still fierce.
My nose hairs and snot freeze, and it is hard to keep my eyes open, even with a mask on. I don’t know how he does it, but Paul soldiers on at a strong clip as if he were walking through a puddle on a spring day. No matter the force of the wind, he keeps a steady pace, face forward.
As we approach the plane, he stops and stares at the captain’s head.
“It’s the captain,” I whisper, thinking he is in shock like I was when I first saw it, but then he turns to me with a weird grin on his face.
“Fuck,” he says, with a nervous laugh. “That’s some bad karma. Maybe if the dude had his head in the game, we wouldn’t have crashed.”
What a dick, I think.
I turn away and kneel down for a second, pretending to look for something while I try to catch my breath. When I look up, Paul’s already moved on toward the captain’s leg, which is sticking out of the snow. I want to run up and grab his shoulders, turn him around, and slap him across the face. Remind him that these are human beings, that life is sacred even if it’s mostly just a pile of shit.
But I know it’s a waste. He’ll laugh in my face. This is why great comedians end up on drugs or killing themselves, according to BS. If everything in life’s a joke, then nothing has any meaning. If there’s no meaning, why live? You get the logic.
I watch Paul from a safe distance. He’s digging the snow around the leg and the body. After a few minutes, he unearths the headless body. He opens the captain’s jacket and sticks his hands in the inside pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, which he stuffs in his own jacket, and then he pulls out the captain’s aviator sunglasses and holds them up like he’s found buried treasure. He puts them on and turns to me, pointing to his new shades with a “what do ya think?” look on his face.
I’m disgusted, but I hold my tongue. I have to be with Paul until we get ourselves out of here. I need him. I can’t afford to piss him off.
“No lighter. We need a damn lighter.”
