by Helen Wells
When the cable car arrived, Val and Cherry stepped into it with the others. They stood amiably squeezed in all together; the skiers spoke in several languages. Below them, the village and highways dwindled to toysize. The cable car rose steeply above treetops; then above rocky fields, up to glittering peaks where they could see clouds to snowy mountaintops and icecaps jutting above the clouds. Cherry looked straight down and wished she hadn’t.
“There’s nothing under us but a mile of open space!” she exclaimed. “Skiing in Colorado and Vermont was never like this!”
Val took her arm to steady her as the cable car paused and dangled before a wooden platform. “It’s not this steep on the side where we ski. Quick! Hop off now!”
He led her along a short ice tunnel where, with the others, they emerged onto a sunny, protected terrace. Here it was mild. Although the wind whipped the Swiss flag and blew the girls’ hair, the sun shone warmly on the picnickers reclining in deck chairs. Val explained that at this altitude—nearly a mile up—there was less atmosphere between them and the sun’s rays; the sun burned more fiercely as they came closer to it.
Val, greeting his friends, found two chairs. He handed Cherry suntan cream and the lunch to unwrap.
“There’s Toni,” he said. “He’s coming over.”
Cherry could not tell whether Val sounded pleased or a little annoyed.
“Hello. I see you have lunch, and I’m hungry,” said a lighthearted voice in back of Cherry’s chair. Toni came around and squatted down next to her. He was small and slight, a lively sprite, an elf in worn-out ski clothes. “Val, introduce me immediately to this very pretty girl.”
Toni’s face crinkled with mischief—rubberface, Cherry thought, as well as rubberlegs. Toni’s eyes, though, were shrewd.
“I’m Poni Teeter—I mean, Toni Peter.”
Val laughed at him. “I warn you, Cherry, my friend Toni Peter is a charmer. He’s always hungry, so please give him the biggest sandwich.”
Cherry handed Toni a thick sandwich. “Hello, Toni. I’m Cherry, and thank you for the compliment—your extravagant compliment.”
“Not exaggerated at all, Cherry.” Toni shook hands, then took a big bite of his sandwich, not waiting for her and Val. The boy must be ravenous, Cherry thought. He even looked hungry; his cheeks were hollow and the bones of his short, muscular body stuck out at shoulders, hips, and knees. Even his rather baggy ski clothes could not hide his being underweight. “Do you ski, Cherry?” he asked with his mouth full.
“But of course she skis,” Val said. “See her ski boots? The question is, How well does Cherry ski? Is she out of practice, or—”
“I’d like to teach her,” Toni interrupted. “Let me teach her, eh, Val? I’ll work for half fee.”
“I’m going to teach Cherry myself.” Val was firm but good-humored. “Come and watch, after we eat. Give us some pointers.”
“I will,” Toni said, “unless Mr. and Mrs. Girard decide to let me give them a lesson.”
Cherry suddenly noticed Val’s expression change—a flash of pity that he hid at once.
“Listen, Toni. I spoke to my father about getting you a job at our hotel as you asked me to—”
He glanced in embarrassment at Cherry. Toni, not a bit embarrassed, helped himself to another sandwich and borrowed Val’s sunglasses. Cherry excused herself. She went to speak to Dr. Portman’s two patients, then spoke to a young family who were guests at the Chateau Nicholas, and then she admired the view. When she came back to the two young men, Toni looked excited. “If he were a puppy, he’d be wagging his tail,” Cherry thought.
“Well, I am doing my best for you,” Val was saying as she rejoined them.
“Thanks, Val. I surely hope your father will hire me,” Toni said.
The three of them discussed the skis and poles Cherry had borrowed from Mr. Nicholas. At the school Val had had her try on the skis. They were a satisfactory length for a girl of her size, but Val said her ski poles were too long. She needed a shorter pair.
“Toni, stand up. Look, Cherry! You and Toni are about the same height. Will you lend her your poles for a few minutes? I want to show Cherry—”
Toni handed Cherry his two poles. They were the usual slim, hollow poles, made of lightweight metal, each equipped with a wrist strap. At the bottom, a circle of spokes called a “basket” would stop the pole from sinking into the snow.
Toni’s poles fit Cherry; from the ground they reached as high as her armpits. Val manipulated the poles with her and showed her how to use them for turning or climbing, or jumping over small ridges, or in getting up from a spill. Toni mimicked the motions Val described, and ended up clowning. Everyone around sat laughing at Mr. Rubberlegs.
“Excuse me, now,” Toni said, “I see the Girards!” Toni took back his ski poles and smoothed his hair. “Awfully glad to meet you, Cherry.”
“Wait, don’t be in such a hurry!” Val caught the boy’s arm. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Ah—I don’t know yet—I’ll look for you here on Mont d’Argent. Agreed?”
Toni sprinted off, still wearing Val’s sunglasses. Val shrugged and looked for a sandwich.
“None left. Toni must have eaten them all. He’s nearly starving, poor fellow,” Val said. “Come into the lodge, Cherry, and we’ll have some lunch there.”
The wooden lodge was perched precariously on a steep ledge of the mountainside. When they were seated at a table, Cherry asked:
“Forgive me for asking, Val, but there’s something I don’t understand. I can’t help wondering why Toni is nearly starving. He seems perfectly able to work and earn a living.”
“Not here at Eagle’s Peak,” Val defended him. “Because he’s not certified by the Swiss Ski School as a ski instructor, as I told you. The few lessons he gives are—you probably know this—outside the law. He has to use discretion about whom he teaches.”
“Or someone might report him?” Cherry asked.
Val bridled. He seemed annoyed that Cherry should have any doubts about his friend. For an instant Cherry was afraid she had been tactless.
“Yes. Toni is living on his wits.”
“I see. Is he a good instructor?”
“Excellent! And good company.” Cherry heard doubt in Val’s voice. “Well, he’s just right for certain pupils. If and when he can find any.”
Apparently Toni could not or would not take the required training and examinations, as did the local, hardworking ski instructors.
“Well, then,” Cherry asked, “could Toni do some other kind of work? If not in Eagle’s Peak, then in Morten?”
“Toni doesn’t want to work at anything except skiing—or do anything except ski,” Val said. “He’d rather go hungry.”
Cherry almost asked: “Isn’t that pretty spoiled and self-indulgent of Toni? Isn’t that saying Toni doesn’t want to work—just ski and enjoy himself?”
But Val sympathized with Toni’s love for skiing and the mountains. He admired Toni’s nerve and daring on skis. “Toni saved my life about a month ago, near one of the high peaks. I was exploring a valley I’d never been in before…. No, not in this area. He grabbed me in time to save me from skiing down into a hidden crevasse. That’s how we met. I told him to see the Nicholases if he ever came to Eagle’s Peak.”
Cherry nodded, listening, not saying anything. Val went on:
“Living as best he can from day to day—that takes courage, too. My mother calls Toni a wanderer, a gypsy, irresponsible. But she doesn’t understand. Toni has never had a chance in life.”
“What does your father think about Toni?” Cherry asked.
“As I do. Even though we haven’t known Toni very long. Father is a skier and mountain climber, so he values Toni. Toni is no ski bum! He wants to work for my father, and—and he—”
“And you like him very much,” Cherry interrupted, laughing. “Never mind Toni! You were supposed to tell me about you.”
Val flushed slightly. “I’m just another
one in the long line of Nicholas men.”
After lunch, they went out on the south slope. Up there they put on their skis. The sun on the snow was dazzling, the air mild and sparkling clean. Val had a class to teach soon but he gave Cherry half an hour of private instruction. He had her try out first on the easiest ski slope, just to be careful.
“Let’s see you take a snowplow position.” Cherry turned in her ski tips. “Good. Now show me a traverse across the hill. Skis together, bend your knees, weight on the downhill ski, poles behind you. Smooth movements, glide…don’t rush…. Good again. Now let’s see you do a sideslip, then a stem turn. You’re no beginner, girl! You’re good, very good!” Val said, after giving her a thorough workout.
“Out of practice,” Cherry said. “The rhythm of skiing is coming back to me, though.”
“Can you parallel? Not well? Come on!” Val led the way to where the intermediate markers were placed upright in the snow. They skiied downhill slowly, then faster, making a turn, then traverse, then turning in a zigzag course.
“I’m proud of you!” Val said at the bottom of the incline. “Where did you learn to ski?”
“Sugarbush, Vermont,” Cherry puffed, and sat down ingloriously in the snow. They both laughed.
During the ski lesson, Val confided to her that he felt uneasy about Toni’s teaching illegally. Toni could be subject to pressure from any dishonest person who knew that he could be arrested for teaching without being certified by the Swiss Ski School, or knew that Toni was hungry. As a friend, Val said, “I’d feel happier if he had a legitimate job with us. He’d live at the chateau with us. That way I could keep an eye on Toni, the way I’ve done with my younger brothers.”
Cherry asked—as offhandedly as she could—where Toni came from. Val admitted, “I don’t really know.”
Cherry saw how careful, how very tactful, she would have to be with Val on the touchy subject of Toni. Toni seemed willing to do illegal things—and Val, the soul of decency, trusted him and opened his home to him.
Late that afternoon Val called Cherry to the chateau’s desk telephone. “The Gold Ribbon Watch people will be on the line in a second or two,” Val said. He handed her the telephone.
“Thank you, Val. Let’s listen together, in case I get into language difficulty,” Cherry said.
A man’s voice came on in French. Cherry inquired whether Jacob Lenk worked there.
“Do you mean our new messenger?” the man said. “Ah, yes, mademoiselle, Jacob Lenk is at work here.”
“May I speak to him?”
The man hesitated. “You are calling long distance?…Who is this, please?”
“Cherry Ames. I’m a nurse who helped a little when Mr. Lenk got sick in Lugano.”
A long pause followed. Had her call been disconnected? Then the polite, suave voice said, “I am sorry but Lenk is out just now. May I take a message? I am his supervisor, Mr. Vreener, head shipping clerk at this factory. Or do you wish him to phone you back?”
“Thanks, that won’t be necessary,” Cherry said. “I just wanted to know that he is well and safe.” She hung up, feeling satisfied.
Almost too patly satisfied? she wondered, struck by Val coolly appraising her. She remembered Hendrix in the clinic, warning that several people would watch her unknown to her.
“But surely I can trust Val!”
CHAPTER IV
Trouble with Toni
“EVERYBODY SING! OR YODEL!” PAPA NICHOLAS CALLED out. The voices started good-naturedly to the music of Papa’s accordion.
“I can’t sing or yodel,” Cherry grumbled.
“Then dance!” said Scott Robinson, standing next to her. He was one of Dr. Portman’s patients, with an arm in a cast but two perfectly usable legs, and he whirled Cherry around and around the room. When the singing and accordion paused, they found themselves laughing in front of the fireplace, facing Val.
“So this is how you help your patients convalesce!” Val teased Cherry. “Who wants hot drinks? And hot fondue?” he called out.
Everybody crowded up to the buffet table. After a day spent outdoors on the slopes, skiing or just watching, faces glowed and appetites were sharp. Cherry ate a surprising amount of fondue—bubbling melted cheese into which the guests dipped their pieces of toast. Scott and his sister Nancy—with evening dinner still to come—admitted being hungry enough to eat even the red geraniums in the window boxes. Mama Nicholas promised to give them early dinner instead.
Cherry loved the after-ski parties. They went on every day after four o’clock, Val said, in all the inns and restaurants, and many of the private houses of Eagle’s Peak. “That’s how my parents met,” he said with a smile, “right in this chateau. That’s how I hope I’ll meet my future wife. Do you see”—he drew Cherry to a window—“our church at the end of this street? The Nicholases have gotten married there ever since about seventeen hundred.”
“How romantic, and how lovely your church is.” Cherry was impressed. “I’m glad your parents met, and have a son named Valentine.”
His smile widened. “I’m glad I wasn’t born in seventeen hundred. I would miss meeting you.”
She laughed. “I’m in favor of here and now.”
“Here and now reminds me,” Val said. “Try to—”
Just then the middle-aged French couple staying at the chateau stopped by to chat. Cherry viewed the interruption as “a chance to practice my French.” After five minutes of conversation, she and Val were again alone in the crowd.
Val touched her hand. “Try to forget that ugly incident, Cherry. Why don’t you come with Toni and me tomorrow afternoon? We’re going to look over a site for a new ski run together…. No, no, you won’t be in our way at all!”
Cherry said she’d love to go with them. She noticed that Toni was not at the after-ski party. Val’s two ski instructors were there, and she danced with the one named Fred. Hadn’t Toni been invited? How that skinny boy would love all these refreshments!
Toni Peters never showed up on Sunday afternoon. He never even sent word to Val and Cherry, waiting for him in the sun and snow.
“He vanished last Sunday, too! I’m getting tired of his breaking dates with me,” Val complained to Cherry. Then he softened. “Unless Toni is in trouble on his skis somewhere—”
“But if Toni is such an expert skier,” Cherry asked, “why do you worry about him?”
“That boy takes terrific chances. Uses no judgment. Look!” Val waved, and his troubled air gave way to a wide smile. “Here comes Joe Wardi.”
Cherry swung around on her skis to see who was coming. An answering smile creased Wardi’s leathery, stern face. He came trudging toward them on skis, a rough-hewn figure in plain, worn clothes. Cherry thought he looked ageless—a sort of wise Old Man of the Mountain—as weathered and rugged as mountain rock. At his waist he wore a short hammer and picklike tool, and a coil of rope—the climbing equipment of a mountaineer.
“Eh, there, Val!” the man called out in a strong voice. “Are you giving a lesson?”
Val shook his head and beckoned him to come over.
Val introduced the mountaineer. “My American friend, Cherry Ames. I must tell you, Cherry, Joe Wardi has rescued so many lost skiers and climbers that he’s become almost a legend.”
“Enough, enough,” Joe said. “You are on the volunteer rescue patrol for this area, too. Anyway, I could not rescue that Italian boy, could I? He died frozen to the mountain wall.” Cherry listened in horror. Wardi noticed her distress, and said, “He called to us. I figure he died about fifteen minutes before my partner and I could reach him….”
“You and your rescue crew saved all the others,” Val said. “Tell me, Joe, what are you doing alone on the mountain?” Val turned to Cherry. “No one ever climbs or skis alone. Always twos, threes, better four or more.”
“Of course I did not go out alone!” Joe said that his climbing partners, the two Geiger brothers, and he had been over to Mont Vert—the next mountain—for a lo
ok through their telescopes across the valley of Eagle’s Peak to Le Solitaire and Spirit mountains. The Geigers were to take a climbing party up the face of Le Solitaire next week, so the mountaineers were checking snow and climbing conditions in advance.
“But I will tell you who skis alone,” Joe Wardi said. “That Toni! In an untracked area, besides! What is the matter with that young fool? Miss Cherry, we have plenty of challenging ski trails inside the tracked areas—on almost every mountain around here. Why must that young daredevil—?” Wardi broke off in disgust. He stood silent.
From here Cherry could see various ski runs, marked with colored markers. The runs ranged from “easy” up to “very difficult—caution!” Each had its own color of markers. Skiers were expected to stay in the general tracked area. If you got lost or hurt in this area, you simply waited until someone came by. People skied here all day long, so someone would come in a few minutes, usually twenty minutes at most. They would notify the rescue patrol—volunteer local men—to bring you in. But if, Cherry thought, you got lost or hurt in an untracked, unpeopled area—“Well, Toni surely should have better sense than to go off alone,” she said aloud.
Val mumbled, “He likes the silence and the empty peaks.” But even if Toni had such feelings, Cherry thought, why take risks?
“I saw Toni,” Wardi said to Val, “about an hour ago, through my binoculars. He was alone in that deserted snow valley that leads from Mont Vert to Il Guardiano Mountain, on the border—”
He meant the Swiss-Italian border. Cherry knew that from her stay in Lugano.
Val pushed back his light-brown hair, blowing in the wind. “Well, Joe, that’s typical of Toni. He could easily go to Forge and from there take a cog railway or a cable car up Il Guardiano Mountain, then ski down. But that’s too safe and conventional for our Toni, I guess,” Val said.