by Amy Waeschle
“Are you going to write about it?” she asked, stroking his arm.
Pete shook his head. “I can’t right now. Not with the immigration series deadline staring me in the face. I haven’t even started writing, and the first piece is due Thursday.” He sighed a deep breath. “Besides, the only contact I have here is Max, and I think after tonight he’s tapped out, so I’d be starting from scratch.”
“You’ve done that before though.”
“Yeah, maybe someday I can get back to it.” He caressed the back of Cassidy’s hand, his mind elsewhere.
Cassidy stroked the side of his serious-looking face. Their eyes met and he leaned in to kiss her. “We should head to bed,” she said.
A slow smile crept over his face, and he kissed her again, slower this time. “Seems a shame to waste this couch,” he said.
Cassidy’s jaw dropped. “What?”
But Pete was already burrowing under her sweater to kiss her abdomen.
Cassidy woke in darkness in her usual way: first, the dream she was experiencing faded, which always confused her because the dream hadn’t actually ended, so she came to feeling disoriented. The thin mattress felt strange until she remembered that it wasn’t her bed at Casa de Rocas. As the facts came into focus, she reached for the warmth of Pete’s body. But the place next to her was vacant. Cassidy strained her ears. Was he in the bathroom? Or had he woken up inspired and was pecking away at his laptop in the other room? But the apartment felt quiet. She looked at her watch: 2:11.
Worried now, she rose from the bed and wrapped herself in a blanket. The bathroom was empty. She peeked into the tiny kitchen, expecting to see the glow of Pete’s laptop, but it was dark. She lowered into one of the kitchen chairs, wondering what to do. Why would Pete be out? No good could come from being on the streets of Catania at 2:00 a.m. She remembered his notebook and got up to search for it, but it wasn’t on the couch, the table, or in his backpack on the chair. Cassidy stood in the middle of the kitchen, unsettled. A fleet of goose bumps rose up on her skin, and she pulled the blanket tighter. Immediately, she searched for his other things—her mind in panic mode. Had he left suddenly? Her deepest fears rushed to the surface. He’s left you. You’re no good. But his suitcase, toiletries, and laptop sat undisturbed next to his side of the bed. She sighed in relief, but the reprieve was short lived.
Where had he gone?
When Cassidy heard the door creak open she leapt out of bed. Pete was mid-tip-toe across the kitchen when she entered. His eyes went wide.
“Where the hell were you?” she demanded. She was shaking, but whether or not from relief or anger she didn’t know.
Pete removed the notebook from his back jeans pocket and placed it on the kitchen table. She noticed that he had dressed in sneakers and a button-down shirt, his typical fieldwork outfit.
He sighed. “I just needed to get out for a bit.”
“At two in the morning?” She tried to check her hysterical tone with a deep breath.
“Sorry,” he said, then looked away. “I just kept thinking about those girls. I thought . . . ”
Cassidy pulled the blanket tighter around her.
“I thought I could find others. Maybe one of them would talk to me.”
Alarm bells started ringing in her head. “How is that safe? You know Catania has like the highest murder rate in Italy?”
He looked surprised. “I just walked to the waterfront. I didn’t see the harm. It wasn’t like I went down any back alleys or anything.”
His nonchalant tone frustrated her even further. “Why didn’t you leave me a note or something? I was worried.” Cassidy knew this was an understatement. She had lain there wondering what to do, wondering if Pete was okay, searching through her memories for a missed sign that something between them was wrong, and he was out trying to think up ways to tell her. The longer he stayed away, the bigger her fear became.
“I did,” he said, his eyes pleading with her. “Didn’t you see it?”
Cassidy looked around the room. “Obviously not.”
Pete hurried to the bedroom and returned holding a scrap of paper. “On your suitcase.”
Cassidy sighed. “I didn’t think to look there.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and took her in his arms.
His cotton shirt felt rough against her bare arms, but holding him melted away her unease. “I was so worried,” she said again, unable to let go.
They stood there in the dark kitchen for a long time. Finally, she pulled back.
“Well, did you find anything?” she asked, the relief that he was here deflating her anger.
Pete shook his head. “But I did talk to a street hustler. Smart kid. He dropped a few hints.” He sighed, looking troubled.
She squeezed his hand.
“I just wish I had more time,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s a story here, Cass, a real story. I don’t think anyone’s dug into it.”
A shiver went down her spine. “Maybe there’s a reason for that.”
Pete’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”
“C’mon, we should get some rest,” Cassidy said. “We have a long flight tomorrow,” she added, relieved when Pete gave no resistance.
Eleven
Mt. Baker backcountry, Washington
January 10, 2016
Cassidy Kincaid rounded the hairpin turn and accelerated her truck up the snow-packed mountain road. The back wheels fishtailed but she quickly regained control and grinned at Pete who had been pouring coffee for her from the thermos. He raised an eyebrow in that playful way that made her heart bounce. The moment felt magical: she was going backcountry skiing, and she was in love.
The previous summer they had been apart for an agonizing two months while Cassidy taught the undergraduate field geology course in Montana, and Pete traveled for several new stories: a groundwater contamination outbreak in Spokane, immigrants in America’s work force in San Francisco, and a series on an illegal fish farming operation in Oregon’s Coos Bay. Pete had also started researching a future book on the lives of immigrants in the U.S.
Since their reunion in October, Pete had become a regular figure at Casa de Rocas. He had taken over a drawer in her dresser, and a duplicated collection of his toiletries filled up the left side of her bathroom sink. They hadn’t yet talked of the future and of what would happen after Cassidy finished her PhD in the spring. She knew she wanted Pete to come with her while she completed her postdoctoral but she didn’t know how to ask.
Entering the adjacent ski area’s overflow parking lot, Cassidy slowed and drove across the plowed surface to the trailhead. A Tahoe idling a few cars down blinked its headlights.
“Mark and Tara are here,” Pete said before exiting the truck.
Cassidy swallowed the last of her coffee and followed.
“Guess who won the bet?” Mark said in a teasing voice.
“What bet?” Pete asked.
“The bet on how many minutes late you’d be,” Mark replied, smirking.
“Uh, you did,” Pete answered.
“Yep, Tara guessed seventeen and I said twenty-four.”
“Sorry,” Pete said. He slung his arm around Cassidy. “We just couldn’t get out of bed this morning.”
Cassidy gave him a playful shove. “Let’s get a move on. I’m freezing,” she said.
They suited up in the early dawn, the air so cold it burned like ice in her lungs. Cassidy slid the strap of her avalanche beacon over her head and around her back, snapping the clip tight against her body. Pete did the same—his a slightly different model, newer than hers. Then they layered up with fleece and Gore-Tex jackets, neck gaiters, and hats. Pete blew on his fingers and did little hops to warm himself while Cassidy finished snapping down the buckles on her ski boots.
“We should probably stay off the face today,” Pete said.
Cassidy nodded. “The ridge line or the trees should be good,” she replied, remembering the details of the avalanche forecast they�
�d listened to during the drive from Seattle. As a former ski patroller, Cassidy understood that a “moderate” avalanche forecast was the most dangerous, partly because it meant conditions were unpredictable, and partly because skiers considered “moderate” to mean “not that risky” and entered the backcountry believing that they were safe. Cassidy would never make that mistake. True, Washington’s snowpack was much wetter and had longer dry periods than Tahoe’s, but snow was snow and she understood how to read the layers.
When everything was ready, they shouldered their packs containing the remaining safety gear, extra clothes, water, and lunch. Cassidy was particularly excited about the smoked salmon sandwich Pete had made her and the chocolate-covered espresso beans. Pete closed the tailgate and their eyes met—his a shiny grey-blue, sometimes so pure they seemed to pierce right through her, stealing her breath in the process. He leaned down and kissed her, his lips cold to the touch, then pulled back and grinned.
“I love you, Cassidy Kincaid,” he said.
“I love you too,” she replied, feeling a giddy pulse of joy pop into her chest.
Mark and Tara met them at the edge of the parking lot where a packed, wide trail led into the basin.
“What’s with the bunnies, bro?” Mark asked Pete, pointing at his retro-style ski hat adorned with pink bunnies—a recent find from a thrift store.
“Don’t be dissin’ the bunnies,” Pete replied. “They’re my secret weapon.”
“Oh, right,” Mark replied. “I forgot you’re really a spy.”
After the teasing, they completed a quick check of their beacons, making sure each signal transmitted.
“Ready?” Mark asked, his bushy eyebrows raised.
“Oh, shoot,” Tara said, and asked Mark for the keys.
Mark frowned. “What now?”
“I almost forgot the cookies,” she said, then dashed back to the Tahoe.
Mark rolled his eyes, and they waited through an uncomfortable pause for Tara to return. She returned to the group and handed back the keys to Mark without looking at him. Then, after lining up at the edge of the slope, the group pushed off and glided down the trail, the blue dome of the sky yawning before them.
They traveled single file through the bottom of the valley. The climbing skins attached to the bottom of their skis sliding forward then arresting with each stride, until they reached the back of the cirque, a broad bowl rising nearly three thousand feet to a knife-edged ridge that shone like a silver ribbon in the early sun. Such bluebird conditions were rare, and Cassidy stopped several times just to admire the vast and splendid view. Mark snapped several shots with his compact SLR.
After a quick break to discuss the ascent—definitely a zigzag through the patch of forest on the north side of the cirque—they began the climb, with Mark breaking trail. The space between them grew, each person intent on the work, and slowly they snaked a path through the trees. The snow under the canopy was chunky and frozen in sections, and the north sides of the trees were blasted with a layer of wind-blown snow. After an hour and a half of climbing, they broke out of the trees near a bald, rocky outcrop that tapered into a broad ridge. Cassidy had skied the ridge several times in the three years she had lived in the Northwest. Today it was untracked, with eight glorious inches of new snow just begging to be carved. But with the forecast of “moderate” and the recent storm, she was pretty convinced that the open slope would be too risky. Which was fine—she could ski anything, even the chossy snow in the trees. But to make sure the ridge was safe, they would dig a snow pit, of course, and evaluate the layers for instability before making the final call.
“Looks like that last storm came in with quite a bit of wind,” Cassidy said to the others when they had all reached the rocky knoll. Pete was gulping water from an insulated bottle, his hot breath making tiny clouds in the mountain air.
“Yeah, I saw the trees,” Mark said.
“And the drifts,” Tara added, unzipping her coat to vent some heat after their climb.
The sun’s rays had eked over the ridge to warm the slopes and ridges, making them sparkle like a sea of white diamonds. Cassidy took a few pictures of the view down the valley, then one of the group, and tucked her phone back into her pack. Mark’s shutter snapped regularly.
Cassidy dug out her snow shovel and Pete and the others did the same; then the four of them traversed out to the top of the broad ridge and excavated a large snow pit. Cassidy’s shovel, the biggest backcountry one available—experience had taught her that every inch of blade counted—cut down into the layers. When evaluating skiing conditions, finding the weak layers mattered because that’s where the snowpack could fail. Add the pressure of a skier on a slope with a hidden fragile layer—caused by a dry spell, or a large temperature gradient—and it would collapse, sending the top layers loose in a steamrolling wall of snow.
Breathing hard, they dug down several meters and carved out each side from the slope, creating a three-sided block. Cassidy dusted the front to make the layers more clear and squatted to get a close look at the deposits. It always amazed her how different each snowfall looked up close. Some were pure white, with uniform texture—the best snow for skiing—old layers could be yellowed, and solid, and the wet layers were bluish and granular, like the ice in a snow cone.
The strata in their pit held few surprises. A few very thin weaker layers, probably from that winter’s stop-and-start beginning, and a few other interesting finds that might either be dangerous or completely stable.
“The top’s definitely wind-deposited,” Pete said.
“And that’s hoarfrost,” Tara added, pointing at a layer about a half-meter deep.
Cassidy took off a glove and scraped at the thin layer with her finger. Tiny needle-like crystals broke apart like glass and sifted down the wall. A tickle of apprehension fluttered in her gut.
“Let’s try the ski test,” Pete said.
Tara, the closest to their gear stash, retrieved her skis, put them on, and glided over to the slope above where they had carved out the block. Slowly, she side-slipped down so that her body weight pressed on the layers. Cassidy watched for any movement, or sounds from the snowpack beneath Tara’s skis.
“Jump,” Cassidy said.
Tara gave a little hop, but the layers held.
“She’s solid,” Mark said. “Let’s burn some turns!”
Cassidy gave the layers one last look, then swiveled to evaluate the descent. Despite the layer of hoar frost, the snowpack seemed solid, at least on this side of the ridge. She would like to dig a few more pits to be sure, but the others were already putting on their skis.
Cassidy crawled out of the pit and hurried to get packed up.
“So we stay to the north side of the ridge. Agreed?” Pete said, slinging his pack straps over his shoulders.
“Aye,” Mark agreed. “It seems a shame not to put our mark on that south face, though.”
“But the wind deposits will be much thicker there,” Tara said.
“I know,” Mark said with an impatient sigh. “I’m just sayin’.”
The four skied over to the top of the run. Mark asked to go first, so he could stop partway down to take photos. The rest of them would follow one at a time in the agreed-upon order: Tara, Cassidy, Pete.
Cassidy jiggled her knees in excitement.
Mark zipped his camera inside his jacket and pushed off. He connected a series of short turns, sending puffs of powder into the air. After he stopped in a patch of sun and hooted his delight, Tara slid onto the slope, her slender form moving like a snake through water. Mark trained his camera on her as she linked turns past him and continued down the slope. As per their plan, she stopped halfway down at the edge of the trees. The sun covered the top third of the descent now, and Cassidy savored its warmth on her cheeks.
“See you at the bottom,” she said to Pete.
“Leave me a line, will ya?” he replied with a grin.
“You want to go next?” Cassidy said. “I don�
��t mind,” she added.
“Naw,” Pete said.
He gave her a quick kiss, and then she pointed her tips downhill. The slope steepened, and she carved a long, deep turn, her skis slicing through the powder. The snowpack was dense at the top, so she found it easier to pick a straighter line to keep up her speed. She gave Mark a hoot as she passed him, his face hidden behind the lens. The ridge broadened slightly, and she bounced down, turn by blissful turn, paralleling Tara’s tracks. Her leg muscles began to burn, but she pressed on as the joy of floating filled her up. Why would anyone ski at a lift area when they could have this instead?
Cassidy pulled to a stop just above Tara, her chest heaving and her grin a mile wide. She looked up the slope to where Pete waited, and gave him a wave with her pole. He swiveled his body down the slope and quickly gained speed, cutting a path in the sunlight that had now crept to halfway down the slope. Mark lowered to one knee, following him with his lens as Pete shot by. Puffs of snow-mist shaken loose from his turns erupted into the blue alpine air and evaporated like smoke.
A loud cracking sound exploded like gunfire, and everything happened at once: a fracture line appeared between Mark and Pete, stretching from the ridge to halfway to the trees, and large blocks of snow broke away from the mountain.
“Pete!” Cassidy shouted, but the roar of the avalanche silenced her cry.
Pete was trying to keep on top of the freefalling jumble, his arms spread wide. Even from a distance, Cassidy could see the look of terror on his face.
“Oh my god!” Tara screamed.
The avalanche had picked up speed and was racing towards them.
“Get into the trees!” Cassidy yelled.
Tara pushed off and raced into the forest.
Cassidy knew she should follow her, but she needed to keep her eyes on Pete so she knew where to start her search when the avalanche stopped. But it was coming for her too. She turned to go when a blast of snow and pressurized air hit her like a freight train, and everything went black.