She was breathing hard when she reached covering snow and stepped into the skis again. A deep breath and she was off; she’d escaped!
She headed in the general direction of Lion’s Head, the trail they’d climbed the previous day, but her goal was Tuckerman, the awesome ravine with 55 degree walls, whose Headwall is the Mecca of springtime skiers - expert daredevils who carve check turns down the precipice, now closed to them until the end of avalanche season. Beyond the base of the Ravine is its bowl and a rise called the Little Headwall from which the Sherburne Ski Trail sinks below tree line. Once in the evergreens, she’d have cover all the way to the Appalachian Mountain Club center, a bustling complex with guides, winter hikers and service personnel on New Hampshire’s Route 16. And telephones. That would leave the men following little time to dump their deadly tanks; maybe so little they’d be forced to make a run for it.
She wished for her own skis, something broader than the narrow cross-countrys. And better edges, these weren’t made to grip Tuckerman’s sheer walls. She was almost at the Ravine when there was the sound of another engine, and above the noise, rifle fire! It couldn’t be from the snowmobile... The helicopter! Damn! Mt. Washington has a bald head, no sanctuary tree clumps in which to hide. She could only keep going and hope the swaying of the plane hampered their aim, feeling the wash of its blade as she reached the Headwall. She crested the lip, her whole being suddenly alive to the breath-taking thousand foot drop that opened before her, but straining to focus on just the first few feet for a turning spot. A volley of fire followed her over the edge.
Then an ominous groan from the mountainside. Cilla had heard that sound before. Her one trip abroad, skiing in the Alps. And she never wanted to again. They’d lost a member of their touring group that day to an avalanche that had swept down the side of the mountain taking everything in its path. She herself had been buried for over an hour when they dug her out. This time the shots had started it, or the plane. There was no looking for a place to turn; it was head to the bottom and pray.
Over a half century before, a daring skier had won himself a race and a place in history by taking the Tuckerman Headwall without turning. No other racer had done it, or come close. Oddly for a run over frozen ground, the race was called the Inferno, and had been abandoned until recent years. But the name Toni Matt would never be forgotten in skiing lore. She knew his skis had been wider and more supportive than those she was wearing. Her only hope lay in modern ski technology, that hers might be stronger. She spread her legs wide for balance, and crouched low over the skinny ‘boards’. Behind her was growing thunder. A flash of relief; she’d apparently come over the lip at a good point. Under the snow, lurked giant boulders. If one lay in her path and the snow wasn’t deep enough it was all over, for there’d be no way to turn. Apparently none did. Her speed continued to increase; she was blind from tearing, would have cheerfully sold her soul for a pair of goggles. The thought flashed through her mind that perhaps she already had, for the devil was behind her, and this was her inferno. She hurtled down the mountainside with speed closing on eighty miles an hour, hands holding poles locked close to her skis, reaching the Ravine’s floor almost at the same instant as the cloud bearing hundreds of tons of snow and ice. A clod hit her back staggering her as she shot up the Little Headwall, but she regained a measure of control and crested it as the avalanche settled with a WHOMP that shook the ground around her. At her speed there was no way to quickly stop the plastic boards under her feet, certainly no genuflecting turns, the sort usually employed with that type ski. She risked a quick swipe at her eyes with a frozen glove in an effort to clear them, then bolted into the Sherburne Trail, gradually gaining enough control to slow her speed. She’d made it! The thought had no sooner appeared in her mind than her right ski caught on a projecting chunk of ice, and she flew through the air, tumbling down the trail, ending up in a gnarled hemlock. For the second time that day she lost consciousness.
“The place has become a hospital annex,” growled E. Wallace Carver, from the bed he felt he’d left a year or two ago.
“Your family keeps my work interesting,” agreed Dr. Jim Evans. “There’s nothing wrong with you though, that a few days in your own bed won’t cure. You’re exhausted. When did you last get some sleep?”
“On the plane. Damnit, Jim, don’t fuss around me like an old woman. Take care of Loni.”
“Her leg’s fine. You wouldn’t be if she hadn’t insisted you get back home. Think you’re still in your twenties?”
“Seductive female. Cilla had to call the governor to get on a military plane. Loni cozied up to a colonel.”
“You made it hard for her. She tells me it took two airmen to drag you onto the plane.”
“Jim, Hudson’s out there somewhere, in the Arizona desert. The body they found wasn’t his. I should be there.”
“To do what? Sit in the desert waiting for him to come by?”
“What the hell am I contributing here? I...” Suddenly the lights in Carver’s upstairs bedroom went out.
“Oops. Must be the storm,” said the doctor.
“Storm? Just a few flurries. There’s a candle and matches on the bureau behind you.”
The doctor fumbled his way across the darkened room. “No, there’s a blizzard headed our way. Up to a foot and a half expected; a couple inches on the ground when I arrived.” There was rustling from the bed. “You stay put, Wallace Carver. I’ll see to the folks downstairs.”
“You don’t know where the candles and flashlights are,” growled the patient. “And don’t you start ordering me about in my own house.”
By flickering candlelight the two made their way down to the ground floor. “Candles in the sideboard. Flashlights in the cabinet next to it,” barked their host, attired in a brightly striped bathrobe, to the four illuminated by flames from the living room’s fieldstone fireplace. “Put the candlesticks only where I tell you, so no wax gets on the furniture.” After-dinner coffee and tea cups were carefully placed on magazines or newspapers, as the troops mustered at the call of the general.
Bob Gold struggled up with the help of crutches, under the apprehensive eye of Frances Ingalls. It would do more harm than good to tell him the others could manage these primitive lighting arrangements with substantially less effort.
Andre, visiting Bob, had recovered from the shock of seeing Loni. She’d quickly explained that her disappearance had been at the insistence of the FBI, who would permit her no contact with anyone, even him. But while their greeting was cordial, it was obviously not a reunion of lovers; Loni’s heart had - as perhaps it always would - danced away to a bright new melody. He quietly took a chair in the corner of the room, his thoughts kept to himself.
“It’s coming down hard,” Loni shivered. The wind had risen, its surges causing the French doors to shudder. Flecks of snow beat against its panes.
“Settle in, Doctor,” said Carver. “Wait for the town plow. No point in testing Ledge Road or Swallow Hill now. Andre, you’d better plan on spending the night with that city car of yours.” He brushed away Adams’ protests as he might snow from his parka. Outwardly his usual gruff dictatorial self, inside he was tired and empty. First Hudson, now Cilla. No word from her since she and Kurt and Todd had taken off on that insane mid-winter scaling of Washington. And this storm looked to be a big one here on the flat. On the mountain with “the worst weather on earth” it could be cataclysmic.
“It better be soon. I’m due back at the hospital.”
“Just be glad you’re not a National Guardsman out checking rivers,” said Bob.
“Are they still at it? I haven’t seen a TV.”
“They’re everywhere. We’ve had it on all day.”
“And nothing yet?”
“Nada. But on the other hand, there’ve been no reports of bug deaths. Everyone not searching or evacuated has barred themselves at home.”
“Except the one who never gets the word,” said Frances. “A man was shot in Laconia while ice fishing.”
“When we came in,” said Loni, “what was it maybe an hour ago? They were showing a soup line in a Boston church, people who’d been burned out of their apartments cause firefighters can’t get through the streets to
