cleated the thread of snow along the base of the rock wall. My whole body quivered with exhaustion. A tree limb appeared from the rock wall and I reached up and grabbed it. Sandra settled onto my other hand, nearly too small for her boot. Not clinging by fingernail, chin, pelvis and toe-tip was a huge relief. We did not speak, just resting.
It was time to move on. I told her we were almost there even though the chute did not seem to end, ever. The thread of snow would thin every few feet, making every inch without slipping a triumph. Having to hone my concentration blocked out the fact that we were moving too slowly and that night was only a couple hours away— that we were still, after all this time and effort, near the top of the mountain, thousands of feet above the meadow.
Locked into a pace, disciplining myself to be grateful for the progress, time passed, until I realized Sandra’s boot was no longer touching my numb shoulder. I tilted my head to find her ankle. Not there. I looked up.
I was three or four feet below her. Both her arms reached high as if she were stretching out to sleep, even stranger because she was in a nearly vertical position.
Sandra. Get the stick down, I ordered. Push to your left.
She drew her knees under her stomach as if trying to stand up.
No, I yelled. Stay down.
From her knees she toppled over and plunged into the funnel, her limbs clambering as if trying to run uphill.
With my left hand I jabbed the withered stick into the snow. I reached for Sandra with my right hand. As I reached, her trajectory into the funnel shifted, routing her straight down. Her fingers struck my bicep and then her body plowed over me. I saw my hand grope her fancy boots—too far below me suddenly. She rocketed headfirst into the center of the funnel.
Norman! she screamed.
I was sliding too and I reached with my other arm and blindly grabbed a tree poking from the rocks.
My eyes never wavered from Sandra’s boots, spewing thin vapors of ice. The fog swallowed her head, torso, and finally sucked away her feet. I heard her call my name one more time. It echoed and I heard it bouncing around in the fog.
You overreached. How could you do that? I snapped at myself in a harsh Nick-like tone. You failed to grab her and she was on top of you. Why were you lunging so far out?
One hand gripping the tree limb, I shrank under the judgments pounding inside my head. Bewildered, I gazed at my other arm dangling toward the funnel—a weak sapling, a worthless twig. I hung there, dwarfed by failure.
I have to make up for my mistake. Get to her quickly. I tried to move and slipped right away, grabbing the tree just in time. There was no rushing, no coercing the ice. I slowed down.
I followed her trail of blood smearing the center of the funnel. The thread of snow along the rock wall finally dissolved and I was forced into the funnel. On the left side where the ice was a millionth of a degree more supple, I moved fairly quickly, compared to before.
It’s so much easier without the anchor. Now I have a chance to beat the night.
No, I scolded myself, smothering the image of Sandra weighted on my shoulders as I braced her perpetual fall.
Before the image had a chance to stir again I buried the terrible thought.
The ice curtain in the funnel demanded my every resource. I steered my whole mind onto the split-second decisions at the tip of my nose, drowning out my monumental mistake and the shameful relieved feeling that followed it. At one point the fog got so thick I ended up in the very center of the funnel where that millionth degree of harder ice tapped deeper into my single-minded concentration. It’s too risky to try to get out of the center, I decided. More dangerous than just going with its flow.
I followed the trail of blood for a long time. I had determined that without an ice axe, or at least gloves, I would at some point lose traction—no tree or rock to save me this time. My hope was that I wouldn’t go off a cliff or hit a tree on the way down, or collide with one of the trees at the bottom of the chute. But I was now hundreds of feet below the crash site and still alive, still conscious. It’s just
Slowly the funnel became shallower, less scooped out, and I made my way out of it onto the hard crust. I was back on the side of the chute we had started from, before getting sucked into the funnel. Thirsty, I rested for a few minutes and ate some snow. I noticed that both hands were raw to the bone across my first knuckles. There was no pain. It was too cold for pain. I ate snow until my thirst was quenched. Then I started down again.
I stayed close to the funnel, tracking the blood smear, which finally ended at a tree trunk—the first big tree since our descent began. There was no blood below it. I looked around for Sandra. I called out for her. No response. Only a rush of adrenaline urging me to find her, to make up for my mistake. It sickened me and I peered under wafts of fog, shuffling around, trying to shuck off the noxious shame.
Then I was inching downward again, trying to worry about the ice, not my mistake. I expected the pitch to ease—instead it seemed to dive away forever. I worried about that instead.
Just then streaks of red appeared in the snow. Sandra had hit that tree above me and kept falling. The shame registered again, but it lost out to the demands of the chute.
A splinter of malleable snow led me horizontally across the chute, away from the funnel, toward the other rocky border. Such firm ground for my hands and feet was impossible to resist. I followed it higher to a cluster of trees growing out of the rocky spine. I climbed up an embankment of snow onto a flat rock. I wrapped my arms around a trunk and worked myself onto my feet, numb to the bone. The trees reflected light and it was good to be out of the gray foam, and to feel a living thing—to hold it and sturdy myself with it.
The rocky spine bowed away into the fog and I stood on my tiptoes. Looking between two layers of gray— over the crest of fog and under the blanket of clouds—I caught a glimpse of the roof. It was closer, but I was still way above it. And now that I was farther down the chute the massive ridgeline was clearly too big to climb over. I would have to find a way through the gulch. What if there is no way through? My legs withered and I choked trying to get air into my lungs.
I imagined being trapped in the dark gulch, scratching at the rock walls trying to escape.
I glanced up, as if hoping to see the helicopter again. If they couldn’t spot me when they were right over my head and the fog was thin, I thought, there was no chance under this lead ceiling. The peaks and valleys rambled for miles around here, gullies and dense forests. I was just a speck lost in it all.
Swinging astride the trunk I dropped my body over the spine of rock, hanging into the chute. I knew the snow was pulpy just below me so I let go of the tree and scaled down the embankment into the chute.
Move faster. It’s getting late, I urged. Don’t want to be up here in the dark. Then my foot hit a hard patch of crust and whoosh—I was flat on my belly and my sweater lifted to my chest and my belly rasped against the ice. I flopped onto my back, dug my heels, rebuffed by the impenetrable ice. Roaring now I flopped to my belly again and scratched at the ice.
Got to find soft snow!
I rolled to find it, snagged my knee on a crown of snow, and the abrupt halt pitched me into the air and I landed with my head leading the way. I thought of Sandra hitting that tree, and I heaved myself to one side, desperate for softer snow.
Several rotations. I was dizzy and slipping in and out of consciousness. The ice under my body felt as if it was thawing. Instinctively I dug in the heel of my palms, flattened my belly, and my hips and legs began to drag against the snow. It was a long, drawn-out deceleration. A blown tire limping to a stop. I lay there whipped and ragged.
CHAPTER 24
