“Roger that, Norseman. The lifts close to the public at sixteen-thirty; that’s twenty minutes from now. Hat Trick wants to know if Goldilocks wants to keep going, or if we should wrap it up. Over.”
Scot turned to Amanda, “Your dad wants to know if you want to have them keep the lift open for us, or if you want to make this the last run and we’ll ski back to the house?”
“My toes are getting kind of cold. I think I’ve had enough skiing for today. Let’s make this the last run.”
“Sound, Goldilocks wants to little piggy. Over.” “Little piggy” referred to the children’s nursery rhyme where the fifth little piggy went wee, wee, wee, all the way home.
“Roger that, Norseman. Hat Trick concurs. Let’s meet at the last lap. Over.”
“Last lap, roger that, Sound. Norseman out.”
When Scot, Amanda, and their security detail reached the meeting point known as the last lap, the president, Sam Harper, and the rest of the team were already waiting for them.
“Hi, sweetheart,” said the president as his daughter skied up, and he gave her a hug. “How’s your skiing coming along? Notice any difference now that you’re sixteen?”
“Sixteen doesn’t make any difference, Dad. But I have gotten better.”
“Is that so?” replied the president, glancing at Scot.
“Yes, sir, Mr. President. Amanda has come a long way this afternoon. I think she could take us all down Death Chute if she wanted to,” said Scot.
“Death Chute?” said Amanda. “You’ve gotta be nuts. I wouldn’t even snowplow down that thing!”
Several of the Secret Service agents laughed nervously. Death Chute was one of the most difficult of the off- piste chutes that fed back to the area where the presidential party was staying. The home the president was using was located in the ultraexclusive ski-in, ski-out Deer Valley community known as Snow Haven.
The Secret Service agents’ nervousness was well founded. Death Chute required a tremendous amount of skill to navigate and would have been a nerve-racking challenge for even the best of them. Not only were there lots of rocks and steep vertical drops, but as the piste began to flatten out before dropping off again, there was a wide plateau filled with trees.
Quite an accomplished skier, the president loved tackling a new chute each day on his way back to the house. He skied easy runs with his daughter in the mornings, and then they split up after lunch so he could ski the more difficult trails. The superchallenging, end-of-the-day chutes he had to choose from were technically known as backcountry and not part of Deer Valley’s marked and maintained trail system. Therefore, the chutes had not required a lot of work for the Secret Service to secure. All of the routes feeding into them were simply made off- limits to any other skiers.
As the president’s confidence grew, so did his desire to tackle harder chutes. The “rush” he got was a rewarding way to end the day. All of the chutes he had tried up to this point were grouped in one area. Death Chute stood alone, a bit further to the east, and the Secret Service knew it was only a matter of time before the president decided he wanted to give it a whirl.
The only person who could possibly have given him a run for his money on Death Chute was Scot, and he was skiing with Amanda’s detail today. Amanda would take the long, easy way down, as she had all week. That was okay. The last thing the president wanted was for his daughter to get hurt.
“So, honey,” began the president, “what do you think? You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be sippin’ hot chocolate afore ye?”
“I might beat you yet!” yelled Amanda as she gave herself a push and started shooting down the longer, yet safer of the two routes. Scot and the rest of his team smiled at the president’s group and took off, quickly catching up with Amanda. She seemed hell-bent on beating her father back to the house, an impossibility unless she dropped over the rim of the bowl and shot straight down. Even with her growing skill and confidence, Scot knew she wasn’t ready to tackle something that serious yet.
Amanda used her poles to push herself forward and picked up more speed. One of the agents skiing to the right of Scot shot him a look suggesting, Somebody’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’- and before Scot could return the look, Amanda caught an edge and tumbled down hard. First she lost a pole and then a ski, then the other pole and the other ski.
When she finally came to a stop, her gear was scattered across thirty feet of snow uphill from where she lay. Scot caught up to her as she stopped sliding.
“Impressive! If you’re gonna go, go big. That’s what I always say.”
Amanda was on the verge of tears, her pride hurting more than anything else.
“That’s not funny,” she said, sniffling.
“I’m sorry. You’re right; it’s not funny. Are you okay?”
“What do you care?” she said, wiping the snow from her face.
Scot started to laugh.
“It’s not funny, Scot. Cut it out!”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry, Mandie. You were really flying, though. You looked good. Right up until the point you biffed. You know, we should have tagged your gear before you decided to have a yard sale.”
“Stop it!” Amanda managed before breaking into a fit of laughter.
“Oh, so that was a mistake? There wasn’t supposed to be a yard sale today? Whoa, then I better gather up the merchandise before we upset any of the neighbors.”
He told Amanda to sit still and joined Secret Service agent Maxwell, who was uphill gathering her equipment. When Scot reached Maxwell, he saw that he was staring into the distance at the presidential party making their way down Death Chute.
“Glad I’m not on that detail,” said Maxwell as he handed Scot one of Amanda’s skis.
Scot dusted the snow out of the binding, checking for damage as he waited for the next ski. “Maxwell, the reason you’re not on that detail is that when it comes to skiing, you suck.”
“Fuck you, Harvath,” said Maxwell as he shoved the other ski at him, confident he was out of Amanda’s earshot.
“No, seriously. I heard that Warren Miller was looking to shoot a little footage of you for his next ski film. It’s going to be a spin-off of that movie Beastmaster, only worse. He’s going to call it Biffmaster. Nothing but your wipeouts-”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m not kidding. Nothing but three hours of wall-to-wall Maxwell face down in the snow.”
“Fuck you.”
“There’ll be some of those trademark Maxwell-fully-geared somersaults, some awesome face plants…I think you could be up for an Oscar, my friend.”
“Harvath, which part of fuck you do you not understand? I mean, I’m good to go on explaining either of the two words to you-”
Scot laughed as Maxwell lost his balance reaching over to pick up one of Amanda’s ski poles.
Looking off toward Death Chute, Scot, too, could see the president and his detail still making their way down. The detail was doing a good job of keeping up with him. Everybody was right on the money. As he turned to take Amanda’s gear back to her, he glanced once more at Death Chute, just in time to see the president’s group near the trees and two Secret Service agents wipe out.
Maxwell had already recovered and gone down to Amanda. He was handing over her poles when Scot skied up.
“Well, Maxwell, it looks like the heat will be off your skiing at dinner tonight.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I think I just saw Ahern and Houchins bite it going into that part of the chute with the trees. But, with all the snow falling, it’s hard to tell.”
“At least I’m not the only one who bought it this afternoon,” said Amanda as she got to her feet and dusted the remaining snow off her jacket.
“I told you,” said Scot, “the end of the day is when most wipeouts happen. You’re more tired than you think, and some people push it a little too hard.”
Agent Maxwell took the skis from Scot and let Amanda lean on his shoulder for balance as she put them on. “I hope nobody hit a tree,” he said.
