“Disaster Peak,” she said. “That’s what you were looking for, right?” Her voice was as pretty as she was—like music. I could imagine her singing. I could imagine losing myself in that voice.
“What makes you think that? Are you a mind reader or something?” I know. Not even remotely clever. But I couldn’t think of anything except how pretty she was.
“It’s what everyone wants to know. Where it is, how high it is and how it got its name.” She strolled into the room. “I’m Annie. I work here.”
“Are you one of the guides?” Because brother, she could guide me anywhere.
She shook her head.
“Instructor?” I bet she could teach me a thing or two.
“I wish. But no. Think kitchen.”
“You’re the chef?”
“You’re making me feel like a failure.”
So, not the chef.
“I wash dishes,” she said. “And I don’t mind a bit as long as I get to hang around in the mountains and ski in my spare time. Which is exactly what I get to do. What about you? You here with your folks?”
I wanted to say no, because if she worked here and wasn’t in school, she had to be a few years older than me, and I didn’t want her to figure that out—not right away anyway. I didn’t want to tell her that I was here with my grandma either. I don’t know why, but it seemed kind of lame. On the other hand, if she worked here—and she did—then she would probably see me with Grandma sooner or later, so what was the point of lying?
It turned out I didn’t have to say anything, because a guy appeared. He was tall, with a sun-and-wind-tanned face and sun-bleached blond hair tied back into a ponytail with a strip of leather.
“Hey, Annie.” He grinned and ducked his head a little, like he was getting ready to plant a kiss on her. But she elbowed him and nodded at me.
The guy gave me a once-over.
“Yeah, so? You think this squirt’s gonna tell on us?” He started to go in for another landing, but Annie pushed him back with both hands.
“First of all, he’s not a squirt. He’s a guest, and for all you know, he may need a guide, so I’m sure you want to make the best-possible impression, Derek.” She turned to me. “Derek works here too. As a guide and ski instructor. Derek, this is…”
Her voice trailed off, and she waited for me to fill in the blank.
“Rennie,” I said.
“You ski much, Rennie?” Derek asked.
“I did when we lived in Alberta. And when we lived in Quebec. But where we are now, not so much.”
“How old are you?”
I could have said almost fifteen, but he would hear it as fourteen. “What difference does it make?” I said instead.
“Liability, pal,” Derek said. “You have to be eighteen to get on some of the slopes around here, and for sure to do any backcountry skiing. You have to sign waivers, and you have to be legal to do it. Mommy and Daddy can’t do it for you.”
“Leave him alone, Derek.” Annie sounded like a big sister standing up to the schoolyard bully. “You’re going to scare him.” And like I was her baby brother. “Don’t listen to him, Rennie. It sounds like you have all the skiing experience you need to have a great time here.” She checked her cell phone. “I’m late! Gaston is going to explode. I gotta run.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss Derek’s cheek, and then she disappeared.
Derek took off. I went outside for a walk. That’s how I found out how Disaster Peak got its name. There was a big billboard on the side of one of the buildings, with a map of the area and some history.
The name went back to the 1880s, when a party of pioneers lost their guide after his horse spooked and threw him. They decided to push ahead on their own. They ended up in the Sierras, lost, freezing and starving. It didn’t turn into another Donner dinner party or anything. Nobody ate anyone else. They didn’t have the chance. An avalanche buried all twenty-seven men, women and children.
Avalanches are a real threat today, the billboard said. FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, STAY WITHIN MARKED BOUNDARIES.
That reminded me of the booklet Grandma had given me. I know the Major thinks I’m a screwup. He’s always pissed off at me for something. But I’m not what he thinks. For example, maybe I hate school, but I’m not stupid. And maybe I don’t bother with hospital corners—or military corners or whatever; who cares?—when I make my bed, but I’m not a pig, and I do make my bed. Every single day. And yes, I like speed. Who doesn’t? But I know to wear a helmet because, like the Major, I’d prefer not to be dead or, worse, brain-dead. So I guess I knew enough to be careful in avalanche country because I for sure didn’t want to end up buried under three meters of snow and ice and whatever was in its way before it got to me.
So when I got back to my room, I pulled out the booklet and read it straight through. I have to tell you, if the person who wrote it was trying to scare people, he did a great job. For example:
Avalanches can reach speeds of 80 miles per hour within five seconds.
The deadliest avalanche in American history was in 1910 and killed 96 people.
If a victim can be rescued within 18 minutes, the survival rate is greater than 91 percent. The survival rate drops to 34 percent after 19 minutes. After one hour, only one in three victims buried in an avalanche is found alive. The most common causes of death are suffocation, wounds and hypothermia.
Once the avalanche stops, it settles like concrete. Bodily movement is nearly impossible.
And advice? If you get caught in an avalanche while skiing, you can try to head straight downhill to gather speed and then veer left or right out of the slide path. If you can’t get away? Try to grab onto a tree. No tree to grab? Swim. Hard. Why? Because a human body is three times denser than avalanche debris and will sink quickly. Remedy? As the slide slows, clear air space to breathe. Then punch a hand skyward.
I had an even better remedy. Don’t go anywhere near an avalanche zone. Being buried alive didn’t appeal to me. Not even remotely.
FOUR
True to her word, Grandma poked her head into my room first thing in the morning.
“Rise and shine!” she chirped, striding into my room and throwing back the curtains. I pried open one eye. It was still mostly dark out, but Grandma was already dressed for the slopes.
“I’m going down for breakfast, Rennie. Get dressed and join me. Then we’re off for a day of skiing.” She beamed at me and mimed shushing down a clear run before letting herself out.
I rolled out of bed. Normally I hate getting up early. But that’s because normally my alarm clock is the Major bellowing, Hurry up! You’re going to be late for school! like he is a drill sergeant and I am a raw recruit. Grandma is a lot nicer in the morning. Plus, she never makes me get up early unless there is a good reason for it and that good reason has something to do with having a good time.
The dining room was full of early birds serving themselves from a buffet table or giving their orders to the cook at the grill behind the buffet. Grandma was seated at a nearby table with a tray in front of her—oatmeal, orange juice, soft-boiled egg, toast, coffee. She waved to me.
The buffet had everything a guy could want for breakfast. I loaded up with two eggs over easy, bacon, sausages, home fries, toast and strawberry jam, orange juice and chocolate milk.
“My goodness,” Grandma said. “Well, I guess that answers that.”
I took a bite of egg and sausage. It tasted great. I wondered if I could go back for seconds on the sausage.
“Answers what, Grandma?”
“How you got so tall since the last time I saw you. You’re almost as tall as your father.”
“Maybe I’ll end up even taller.” That would be sweet. The Major is average in height. That didn’t make him any less scary when he wanted to be. But it would be cool to be able to look down at him.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Grandma sipped her juice.
“Was Grandpa tall?”
She thought for a moment. “Yes. He was.”
“Because Grand-père isn’t.” The Major’s dad was shorter than the Major. The Major said a lot of Quebecois of his father’s generation were short. He said it had to do with their diet. “Maybe I’ll take after Mom’s side of the family.”
Grandma nibbled on her toast. She added milk to her coffee and took a sip.
“How are things going, Rennie?”
I shrugged. How were things ever going? “Okay, I guess.”
“And with your father?”
How were things going with the Major? How did things ever go with him? As long as you did what he said, they went fine. If you crossed him or balked, you’d get the trouble you must have been looking for.
“They’re okay, I guess.”
She studied me for a moment.
“It was an accident, Rennie,” she said.
Right. A preventable accident. An accident I could have prevented by not hounding my mom to do something she didn’t want to do in the first place.
Could have.
But didn’t.
The Major knew it. He knew it the minute he found out where it had happened. He put his hands on my shoulders and asked, What were you doing on that road? Why weren’t you on the highway? He looked at me and knew right away that I was the reason she’d taken that detour. That it never would have happened if it hadn’t been for me.
That it was my fault.
I’m sorry, Papa. I’d started to sniffle.
His hands fell away from me. He didn’t say a word. He sank into a chair and stared at the wall until a police officer came over to ask me some questions. I don’t remember a single one. I was concentrating on holding myself together until I could get out of there. When we eventually got back to the motel room the Major had rented, I got in the shower and stayed there until the Major yelled at me for the third time to get out. It was the only place I could cry.
That was nineteen months ago.
“Your father needs a little more time,” Grandma said. “So do you. Now eat up. You’re going to need your energy if you plan to keep up with me, young man.”
I forced myself to eat even though I’d lost my appetite. The Major had that effect on me.
Rod was waiting for us when we went to pick up our ski equipment.
“I’ve got a little present for Rennie,” he said. He held out a small bundle. “It’s an avalanche kit. I gave one to your mother when she was a girl, except, of course, the technology was different then.” He showed me a collapsible probe used for trying to find someone buried by an avalanche, a shovel that snapped together so you could dig and the pièce de résistance, an avalanche beacon that could send out a signal if you got buried or receive a signal if you were looking for someone.
“Good heavens,” Grandma said when she saw the gear. “You’re going to encourage him to stray, Rod. Rennie, you are not to go out-of-bounds. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Grandma.” Geez, did she think I wanted to end up as a Popsicle?
“Of course he’s not going to go out-of-bounds. But a man should always be prepared up here, Melanie. Isn’t that right, Rennie?” He slapped me on the back.
Right. The shuttle to the chairlift was just arriving, so I had no choice but to strap on the gear. I was glad to say goodbye to Rod.
Grandma gazed at the snowy slopes, the rugged mountaintops and the clear blue sky as we rode the lift. She breathed in deeply, squeezed one of my hands and winked. That was her signal that we were going to have fun.
It sure looked promising. The slopes were spectacular! I knew because I’d overheard someone in the dining room say there was a solid base and that a layer of new snow had fallen during the night.
When we got to the top, Grandma scouted out the various trails.
“What are you up for, Rennie?” she asked. “Do you want to start slow, or are you ready for some adventure?”
I have to be careful with Grandma’s questions.
“Um, how much adventure, Grandma?”
She had coerced me into cross-country skiing the previous winter. I’d agreed to take the advanced trail because I’d thought, how hard can it be to basically walk on skis? It turned out there was more climbing than walking, the walking was really striding, and there were a lot of tricky downhill parts of the trail that, because of the turns and the obstacles, not to mention the skis, were tougher than I’d expected. I pretty much ate Grandma’s snow dust that whole day.
“I was thinking this one would be fun.” She pointed to a trail on the large map near the top of the lift: Devil’s Sorrow.
“Are you sure, Grandma?” Anything that made the devil sorrowful had to be one hell of a trail.
“Of course I’m sure. And if an old lady like me can do it, then so can a strong young man like yourself who is in his fifteenth year.”
With that, she pushed off. What else could I do? I followed.
It’s a good thing I did. Followed, I mean, instead of led. It meant that I was right there when Grandma took that spectacular fall. I am not kidding—she went literally head over heels before landing with a muffled thud on the snow. She lay there motionless while I covered her with my jacket and went to get help.
FIVE
By the time two ski-patrol guys showed up, Grandma was conscious, but she couldn’t walk. I found that out when I tried to help her to her feet. She let out a yelp and sank back to the snow.
“I think I sprained something,” she said. Her face had turned gray, like ash.
“Broken,” one of the ski-patrol guys said after examining Grandma. “Ankle. I’m afraid you’re going to be on crutches for a while, ma’am.” He and his partner bundled her in a blanket. He stripped off the jacket I had covered her with and tossed it to me. “You’re going to freeze, pal. You have to take care of yourself too. You can’t take care of the injured if you put yourself at risk.” I zipped my jacket. Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his grandma. They secured her to a stretcher and started to make their way slowly down the mountain. I followed.
By the time we got to the bottom, an ambulance was waiting to take Grandma to the nearest town for treatment.
“My purse,” she said. “Rennie. I need my purse.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Melanie,” Rod said. He’d been waiting with the ambulance when the ski patrol showed up with Grandma. “Rennie will get it, and we’ll follow you into town.”
Grandma settled back on the stretcher when she heard that. “Thank you, Rod.”
He told me to fetch whatever she wanted, but I stuck around when he asked the paramedics, “How is she?”
“Definitely a broken ankle,” one of them said. “And they’re going to want to check her over for head injuries. You said she was unconscious for a few minutes, right?” He looked at me. I nodded.
“A couple of minutes. I can’t remember how many.” It had seemed like forever. I had screamed down another skier, who told me, No worries. I’ll get help. He was as good as his word. But I couldn’t tell you how long it took the ski-patrol guys to get to us either. All I know is that I sat in the snow beside her, saying, Grandma? Grandma? over and over to try to wake her up. When she finally opened her eyes, I felt like crying. But I didn’t.
“It’s a good thing she was wearing a helmet,” the other paramedic said.
That was Grandma. She told hair-raising stories about the scrapes she had had as a girl, but she said she’d learned that there was often a hair’s breadth between risk-taking and foolhardiness. She said any boy who wanted to survive to be a man should learn the difference between the two.
The ambulance took off, and I ran to Grandma’s room to get her purse. It wasn’t a typical women’s purse. It looked like a courier bag. That meant I didn’t look like an idiot with it slung over my shoulder. Rod was waiting outside in a four-wheel-drive. I climbed in.
For a while we drove in silence, which was fine with me. I was thinking about Grandma. The paramedics said they’d want to check her at the hospital for head injuries. That scared me. W
hat if she had permanent brain damage?
“That paramedic was right. It’s a good thing Melanie was wearing a helmet,” Rod said without taking his eyes off the road. It was narrow and winding.
I stared straight ahead. He hadn’t asked me a question, so I didn’t have to say anything. That was good, because I was busy wondering how I would explain to the Major that not only was I not at home and attending school like I was supposed to be, but Grandma had suffered brain damage. For sure he would blame me for that.
Ka-BOOM!!
I jumped so high in the seat of Rod’s trusty four-wheel-drive, which itself seemed to have lifted clear off the road for a second or two, that I hit my head against the roof.
“Geez!”
Snow swept down around us, blanketing the sky and covering everything in its chill, white canopy.
“What was that?” My heart pounded in my chest. I glanced at Rod. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t reacted. The vehicle hadn’t swerved. It hadn’t gone even a little off course. It was as if Rod hadn’t heard the explosion.
He laughed. I hate when that happens, when someone knows something you don’t but instead of telling you, they think it’s funny to let you run smack up against it yourself.
“You heard that explosion, right?” I asked.
“I did.”
That’s all he said. Then more silence. If I wanted to know anything else, I was going to have to ask. It was like with that shrink Grandma and the Major had made me go to every week for a whole year after Mom died. She’d sit there in her leather chair opposite me and say, How was your week, Rennie? and then expect me to entertain her by telling her all about it, especially how I felt about it (How did that make you feel, Rennie?) like feeling stuff was important and I should tell her—a complete stranger, someone who probably wouldn’t give me the time of day if she wasn’t being paid, which she was—how I was feeling.
Well, forget about that. And forget about games. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise I don’t care. Grandma is the only person who understands that. Mom used to. But Mom was never the kind of person who played stupid mind games. She was a regular person. A nice person. The kind of person you’d enjoy talking to, if you met her, because, no matter what, she would never make you feel bad.
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