The Fall Line

by Mark T Sullivan

  “I think that’s the point,” Farrell said.

  Tony held the radio up to Page’s ear again. Page’s shoulders rose, then fell. Tony nodded and knelt in the snow right next to Page’s boots. He pointed his camera into the cinched waist of snow below Page’s skis.

  “He’s going,” The Wave whispered.

  Page pushed off, stripped of the blindfold, and fell almost immediately, a rifle bullet in a chimney flue. For a second Farrell feared that the human bullet would strike the wall, that Page would start to ricochet down the mountainside. Twenty-five feet into the slim passage, Page drifted left and his arm caught a bush. It jerked him as if a stranger had hooked his elbow while he ran through a crowd. He tilted in space for a moment; Farrell thought for sure Page would twist and spin away backward. At the moment inertia should have taken him, Page wrenched his arm free of the limb and dropped out of the flue into the open air.

  Page landed so square and solid that Farrell expected him to flush triumphant and bellow. But no joy blazed in Page. His jaw was set hard as he raced by Inez, then Farrell and The Wave, and down the mountain.

  Inez trudged through the snow toward them. “Bring the camera down. We continue after the lunch.” She seemed disappointed.

  “What’d you say to him there?” The Wave demanded.

  “C’est mon affaire,” Inez said wearily.

  “This is our affair,” The Wave said. “He could be toast right now.”

  Inez spun, hands on her hips. “I do not ask you to do anything of which you are not the capable one. This is the film of skiing the extreme. This is not the travelogue.”

  “We’re not skiing the extreme,” The Wave said. “We’re skiing your extreme, your inventions.”

  “And deep down, you love this or you would not still be here,” Inez said. With that she climbed on the back of the snowmobile. The driver kicked it to life and they roared off down the mountain.

  Farrell stared after her, mesmerized. He turned and saw The Wave felt the same way.

  They found Page staring down at a bowl of fruit: bananas and sliced apples and two soggy pieces of tangerine.

  “What sort of jabber was she laying on you?” The Wave asked.

  “Forget about it,” Page said. “It was nothing.”

  “I think we have a right to know,” Farrell said, feeling immediately guilty that he hadn’t told Page that Inez had been spying on him; but then again, he’d have to admit spying on the both of them.

  Page cocked his head. “She asked me if the blindfold reminded me of the darkness in the woods the night I lost my eye.”

  “That’s fucking cold,” The Wave said in disgust.

  Page nodded. “Kind of shocked me. But not because it was said cold. No, she said it warm, like she cared.”

  “She does care. About what I don’t know,” The Wave said. “She knows about us, things about you.”

  Page snorted and took a drink. “Not much to know about me she doesn’t already know. I’m an open book. Take out the glass eye, you can look right into my head.”

  “I think you still have secrets,” Farrell said.

  “Secrets,” Page repeated. “Come to think of it, we don’t know the first damn thing about you, Collins.”

  Farrell avoided the challenge, “You jumped anyway.”

  “Yeah, well, I figured it was better than being on film as a chicken,” Page said. “Tony told me I was on the Chimney. Even then, it was like jumping into the unknown. Never realized light could fuck you up like that. Anyway, probably made her happy.”

  Farrell ran his thumb over his fingers, reviewing the events of the morning. Just being apart from Inez gave him some perspective. When she wasn’t around, he could see she might hurt all of them. Even so, he felt this overwhelming attraction to her. What he couldn’t figure out was how to reconcile the competing emotions.

  “Maybe making her happy isn’t our job,” Farrell began. “You could have hung up on that tree and had nowhere to go but the bottom.”

  “Well, look who’s found the voice of reason,” Page replied. “The guy who tried to hip-check me in the middle of the Y Couloir.”

  “I’m not saying it makes any sense,” Farrell said.

  “Tell me about it,” Page said.

  “Start by thinking like this,” The Wave said. “We just make it.”

  Page shook his head. “I’ve never thought that way about anything, and I never will. Too limiting. Too damn depressing.”

  Page grabbed his gloves and hat and walked out the door.

  By early afternoon, the granite outcroppings of the Main Line Pocket above Emigrant Peak had simmered in the sun for almost four hours. The entire crew except Inez and Tony stood at the top of the lift, examining the steep band of rocks and ledges. The snow and rock had a different look than the day before, Farrell thought. Less snow clung to the stone, and the scoring in the rock was changed by the steady light; it was more deeply etched, here and there highlights of silver and gold shone.

  “How long we going have to wait?” The Wave asked when Tony came sliding off the lift.

  “Said she’d be up soon,” Tony said. He reached into his pack to pull out a white racing helmet with a tiny video camera strapped to the top with silver duct tape. He handed it to Page. “She wants you to wear this for the next run. Wave, she says you should rest this one out.”

  “Fine by me, mon,” The Wave replied. “Nine lives of this cat are down to seven.”

  “No blindfolds?” Page said.

  “No blindfolds,” Tony replied.

  “Nothing artificial, mon?”

  “Just the helmet.”

  During the short climb, Farrell told himself it would be over soon; they’d finish the jumps tomorrow, get to Jackson Hole, and be in the backcountry again where Inez and the rest of the crew would again be under his orders. No need for anything artificial; the Tetons were brutal enough even for Inez. And the information from Europe would come soon. He’d begin to sort it all out.

  At the top, they heard the buzz of the snowmobile below them and then another. Inez climbed off the first, 200 yards down the side of the cliff and across the slope. Her driver dug a pit in the snow. A man with silver hair, sporting a black jacket and pants got off the second machine and stood, watching her.

  Inez set her camera in the deep snow a football field to the left of the Pocket. Ann and the Wave climbed to a position opposite and above Inez so Farrell and Page would be sure to be caught in the crossfire of lenses. Tony would anchor himself behind the jumpers again.

  “You can pretty much pick your spot,” Page said as Farrell and Tony struggled the final thirty feet to the top of the rise. “There’s a whole bunch of stuff to handle. I guarantee it will all look spectacular on film: great light, great angles.”

  “I noticed,” Farrell huffed. He threw down his pack. “Any suggestions?”

  “The column on the right-hand side as you’re looking up is always exposed, so stay back from it,” Page said. “Other than that, it’s as free and as wild as you want it.”

  Farrell had developed a blister on the heel of his right foot. He pulled at the stocking, trying to relieve the heat. Then he hung his head out over his knee and stretched.

  “Who’s that guy down there with Inez?” Page asked Tony.

  “Don’t know,” Tony said. “She was talking with him before lunch. Older guy from around here. She said he was going to help her set up.”

  Farrell cupped his hands around his sunglasses to shut out the glare from the cloudless sky, to see the man with Inez. Though they were far away, Farrell could make out that he was taller than Inez and much older. The man stood in the sunny silence at a harsh angle, one leg higher up the hill than the other, slanted, and he held his elbows away from himself, akimbo, like a gunfighter’s in an old movie. But Farrell couldn’t make out the man’s face. He seemed to be doing nothing more than watching. Farrell decided he was an investor or a local with ideas on how to film the shot.

  �
��Looks like Collins is ready to go, Page,” Tony said. He lay on clear plastic tarp he’d placed on the snow so he could get the low perspective on them as they took off.

  Page was still staring off toward Inez and the man. Farrell clambered over to him. “You know that guy?”

  Page jumped slightly. He’d lost some color in his face. “Didn’t hear you come up.”

  “You know him?” Farrell repeated.

  “Thought I did for a minute,” Page said. “A guy I used to know. But it isn’t him. That guy died a long time ago.”

  “This kind of light can play tricks on you,” Farrell said.

  “That’s probably what it is,” Page said, but he appeared preoccupied as he got ready. “Let’s try to take first turns at an angle away from the sun, so we don’t have to ski Helen Keller.”

  Page spoke into the radio, alerting Ann and Inez that they would be ready to ski in five minutes. Tony adjusted the helmet on Page’s head, then flipped the switch that activated a red recording light.

  Farrell’s knees shook slightly when he stepped into his binding. His groin ached from the day before. And for the second time that day, the wonderful sense of being numb that usually preceded an assault on a dangerous situation did not come. He was raw again. He pushed off before the shaking could begin. He leapt into an extremely steep initial loop that forced him down toward the tails of his skis. He managed to whip the tips around into the air, where he dropped thirty feet. Owing to the angle he’d taken, there was no illusion of drift or lift this time; it was a direct fall, gravity punching him between his legs, coming oh so close to spurring the same fetal position response he’d fought the day before. Farrell cracked hard on the snow beneath the ledges, lost his balance, and tumbled twice. He felt another hard tug in his groin muscle. Grimacing, he skied down to Ann and The Wave.

  Back on top, Page had moved to the left of where Farrell had descended. From there Page would have to turn, glide directly into the air, drop twenty feet to a ledge, balance in an instant, and plunge for another thirty-five feet. To the left of the ledge was a clump of finger-width stumps, which could snag the tips of his skis should he approach them.

  “That’s a bad idea, mon,” The Wave said.

  Farrell surprised himself by nodding. Ordinarily, he would have wanted to see Page try the stunt, but for some reason he didn’t want Page to take such a foolhardy risk. He further surprised himself by picking up Ann’s radio and asked Tony to let him speak with Page.

  “What’s up, Collins?” Page said.

  “Bad line,” Farrell said. “Those saplings will get you.”

  Inez interrupted: “Where does he plan to ski?”

  Farrell described it to her, then told Page, “When I came by that area, I thought I could see rotten snow and rock showing through.”

  “No problem,” Page said. “I’ll be light on them. Dance over.”

  “I’m telling you it looks funky—”

  “Collins, you were not asked,” Inez interrupted. “Page says go. So we film him. This is his spectacle.”

  “Fine, Inez, get your spectacle,” Farrell barked into the radio. He tossed the device back to Ann, who scowled and slid it into her chest holster.

  “She’s wild when she sees this stuff about to go down, isn’t she?” Ann said.

  “Wild isn’t the word,” The Wave said.

  Page handed his radio back to Tony, who had tied himself to two climbing cords, then edged out over the lip of the rock so he could hang down and get most of Page’s drop in his lens.

  Later Farrell would say that Page would have made the jump fine if he hadn’t shifted to look down at Inez and her companion one more time. But what would have been an off-hand glance in a man with two eyes subtly changed Page’s center of balance; he was out of sync before he even started. Page managed to get his boards turned into an initial glide before liftoff, but it was not far enough. He flew off the ledge poised on his uphill ski. Once airborne, his chin snapped back in the recognition he’d blundered. There came a jerking pause when Page missed the first ledge and landed in the little sapling stumps; and then he whiplashed crazy over the brow of the outcropping, over the gray ice, over the highlights of silver and gold. He continued to spin around and around in the perfect spring light against the remarkable angles in the rock until he hit. A flare of snow etched itself across the afternoon sky, then wisped and settled.

  The thud echoed.

  Farrell, The Wave, and Ann scrambled up the slope toward Page expecting to find him limp. Page, mainlining on adrenaline, was back on his feet within moments. He jumped around and waved to them.

  “Jesus!” he stammered. “What a header! What a freaking header that was! But I’m okay, okay!”

  Then he tottered. His knees buckled. He lay down in the snow, in the sun.

  Farrell kept the lights low in Page’s motel room that evening. Page sat propped against three pillows. He drank from a beer can in one hand and from a glass of Jack Daniel’s in the other. He had just gotten out of his third bath of Epsom salts, looked like shit, knew it, but refused to admit it.

  The trip to the emergency room showed Page had cracked one rib and bruised two others. He had dislocated his thumb on his right hand and driven a three-inch splinter from a branch through the other palm.

  “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Page,” the doctor had said.

  Inez had paced up and down in the hall outside the room; then broke into tears and hugged Farrell when he told her Page would be fine. She snuffled and said, “I am so worried of him since he crashes.”

  “Were you?” Farrell asked somewhat sarcastically.

  “Like he was my brother,” Inez snuffled. “I do not feel so well now. You come to my room later, no? We talk. Have the drink. Friends?”

  “I don’t know if I trust you,” Farrell said.

  “I know,” Inez said. “Some things I do wrong. This has made me think. I want to talk.”

  Farrell nodded. He watched her as she left, excited at the notion of being alone with her despite the anger and resentment he had felt since Page jumped.

  Now in Page’s room Farrell remembered that after they put Page on the toboggan for the ride down the hill, the second snowmobile and the older man in black were gone.

  “Feel like I ran into a house riding a motorcycle,” Page said.

  “You going to tell me who the guy with Inez was?” Farrell asked.

  “This isn’t so bad, two bruised ribs. Plenty of tape, I should be able to ski tomorrow,” Page said. “There’s no real airtime to speak of, just a deep breath, a hard left-hand turn, and stay on your edges until it’s over.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Farrell said. “You’ve got as much chance of making another jump tomorrow as I do of having a full head of hair.”

  Page locked on an awful oil painting of the mountains that hung above the desk. His eyes quavered and almost shut. Farrell got to his feet in alarm; the doctors had said to watch for signs of shock.

  Page sighed. “I’d bet that was my old man.”

  “It couldn’t be,” Farrell said, his thoughts racing back to Inez following Page the previous evening and knowing it could.

  “I haven’t seen him in ten years and that guy was a long way off,” Page said. “He’s lost a lot of weight. But I think so.”

  Farrell looked at the ground, not knowing what to say. Finally, he asked, “You hate him because of the eye?”

  “I deserve to, don’t I?” Page said. He drank from the whiskey glass. “You ever hit your old man?”

  “No,” Farrell said.

  “After that night, the night he hit me, we kind of avoided each other until just before I split for college. It was always like he was scared to look at me. Anyway he’d been up five hundred dollars early in the evening. Left the card room past midnight seven hundred down. Over the years I’d seen the price of a beating drop: two hundred bucks would set his hands in lazy motion, seven bills a flurry.

  “I stepped in again. He kind of l
aughed, drunk, asked me if I was looking to own a seeing eye dog the rest of my life. He didn’t realize how quick you get being on the mountain every day.”

  Page winced and rearranged the pillows at his back. “You hit your old man with your fists, it changes everything. Worst of it is, my mom still went to him, picked him off the floor, and cleaned him up. Haven’t been back there since.”

  “Sure you have,” Farrell said. “I saw you the other night in front of an old green house on the south side of the lake.”

  Page’s jaw dropped. “You followed me?”

  “Inez was following you. I followed Inez. She talked to that same woman in the casino.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “No idea,” Farrell said. “I didn’t want to get that close.”

  “My mom,” Page said. “She said he moved out two years ago and has been in therapy, but it’s bull. Her cheek was bruised. She said it was a fall, a real fall, but I know how it is. Said she sees him in a neutral place once a week. Said he wants to talk to me.”

  “You think that’s why he was up on the hill?”

  Page dropped his right hand heavy onto his thigh. He lifted the hand and dropped it again, repeating the action for almost a minute.

  “Could be,” he said at last. “Then again, when I was a kid … I remember he used to like to watch me ski. Said it was like watching the dice run across the table.”

  Chapter 17

  FARRELL LEFT PAGE ASLEEP holding the glass of whiskey in his hand. Back in his room he lay on the bed, unsure of what to do. If the man in black was Page’s father, Inez was more than he’d imagined; she was an extreme. Who knew what she was capable of? With that thought, he tasted a Northern Spy apple in his mouth, tart and fresh and biting. The room began to whirl. The grain in the ugly wood paneling seemed to smear. The plaster on the ceiling turned into an ocean churning with whitecaps.

  Suddenly, the taste of the twirling turned sickeningly cloy. He paced, torn between wanting to go to Inez’s room for their little talk, to let her make his whole world spin, to make the air itself tart like a Northern Spy, and wanting to lock himself in the bathroom and sink in hot water until all movement stopped.