Pete’s eyes had filled with tears while she checked him, and his voice cracked several times as he answered “No,” to her “does this hurt?” questions. She stroked his face and held his good hand as Mark made a makeshift splint for his wrist and tucked it into his coat for comfort.
They helped him sit up, and then they were quiet for a moment. Pete looked at them all staring at him. “Thanks, guys,” he said, his face pale. He probed the area on his left side, grimacing as he found the injury.
He looked up the slope, seeing the destruction for the first time. “What happened?” he said softly. “I mean, we had done everything right, hadn’t we?”
Cassidy was sitting close to him, their legs touching. “It’s my fault,” she said.
“What?” Mark said. “No, Cassidy, this isn’t anyone’s fault. We did this thing by the book. It was just a freak accident.”
“Yeah,” Tara said, touching Cassidy’s knee. “The layers in the pit held. We stayed off the face.” She shrugged. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said to Pete.
Cassidy remembered the windblown snow on the trees during their descent. Had she interpreted something wrong? Had the terrain features funneled the wind differently halfway down the slope, making it more unstable than at the top? Should they have dug another pit at the halfway mark before continuing? A sick, guilty feeling crept into her thoughts.
Pete’s face was still white, like he might be sick. “I thought I was a goner. I just kept rolling over and over. I tried to fight, you know? Like all the stories you hear where the victim kicks and swims and all that?” He breathed for a moment. “But I just felt like I was getting buried deeper and deeper. The snow was punching me everywhere. It was so strong. I felt like nothing, like it would crush me,” he finished, his voice catching. “At least I managed to make an air pocket,” he said.
“It probably saved your life,” Tara said somberly.
“No, you guys did,” he said, meeting all of them in the eye. Then he seemed to go inside himself.
Cassidy surveyed the snow slope around them, her adrenaline fading, and in its place, a strange feeling of heaviness overtook her. Their packs were ripped open, contents spilled out, their ski poles marking Pete’s location as if they had been playing treasure hunt; their shovels abandoned at three opposite corners. Cassidy remembered Pete’s ski tip poking out of the snow, and realized that they must have been ripped off during the slide. There was no sign of his poles, either.
Mark left with his shovel, and they heard him digging. He returned with Pete’s ski. “Let’s get you out of here, buddy,” Mark said.
Getting the traumatized Pete out posed a significant challenge, what with his broken rib and wrist. Cassidy knew she needed to rally, but her energy felt drained.
“I’ve always wanted to mono-ski,” Pete said. He tried to smile but it faltered and his eyes brimmed with tears.
Thirteen
St. Joseph Hospital, Bellingham
January 10, 2016, 10:38 pm
Cassidy waited in the examining room for Pete’s return from the X-ray, reliving the avalanche: the horrible crack as it let loose, the blast of pressurized air knocking her off her feet, realizing that Pete was gone. Her fingers began to shake and she stood to get a drink of water, realizing how thirsty she was.
After taking all of his gear from his pack, Cassidy, Mark, and Tara had skied Pete out. On the way down through the slide zone, they had discovered another one of Pete’s poles, and Cassidy donated one of hers so he could pole plant, though the action caused him significant pain. She gave him Advil but knew it would do little good.
With the three of them helping, they finally reached their cars at eight o’clock, then drove the fifty miles to the city of Bellingham. While they waited in the ER, Mark offered to contact the sheriff about the slide.
The doctor who examined Pete, Dr. Harris, glided back into the room, his coat billowing like the wings of a giant, white bat. “So, Cassidy,” he said, his tall frame looming over her. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut so short it looked like sand glued to his scalp. “What about you?” he asked, his large hands holding a clipboard had surely gripped a basketball at some point in his life.
“Me?” she said. “I’m fine.” Earlier, Cassidy had stood by while Dr. Harris listened to Pete’s tale of being swept away by the avalanche. He completed a hands-on exam—a duplicate of Cassidy’s on the mountain, then asked a series of questions. Meanwhile, her emotions swirled. She remembered the terror of fearing that either they wouldn’t find Pete or that they would, only to be too late, alternating with a firm belief that her solid training would prevail. I’m good at this, she remembered thinking. I’m going to find him.
“Mark tells me you were in the avalanche’s path,” he replied.
Cassidy tried to remember. The blast had struck her, but she hadn’t hit her head. She hadn’t lost consciousness. “No,” she said. “It just knocked me down. I’m fine.”
Dr. Harris’s serious gaze washed over her, and she squirmed.
“Humor me, okay?” he asked, tapping Pete’s exam bed.
Reluctantly, Cassidy climbed onto it.
Dr. Harris looked in both ears and palpated her head and spine.
“No pain?” Dr. Harris asked.
Cassidy shook her head. “Pete’s broken rib didn’t puncture his lung, did it?” she asked. “He threw up a few times on our way out. I don’t think he told you that,” she said.
“He has a mild concussion, but his lungs seem fine,” Dr. Harris said. “The X-ray will show us for sure.” He gave her a steely gaze, his jaw flexing.
