Now he looked up at the slopes and had a moment of regret.
The practice had gone better than Barry had any right to expect. He had skied out of the shoot on the experts' slope. The slope angled downhill to a sheer forty-five degrees. His speed neared seventy miles an hour, and he made perfect christies. He had forced himself back into a routine, even agreeing to teach a beginners' class as therapy.
Unfortunately, his afternoon was spoiled by a difficult pupil. A practical joker by the name of Willie was constantly interrupting him and cutting up. If the kid got out of line one more time, Barry was determined to leave him behind after they skied this run.
He waited a short distance down the slope and called out to a young woman: "Bend your knees and turn."
She did precisely the opposite—leaning back, failing to flex her knees forward—and flopped on her can. He sidestepped up the slope and helped her get back in her right ski. He adjusted the binding. Above them Willie was shouting at the woman, "Fat horse, you need a sled!"
"Shut up, Willie!" Barry called out angrily. It took a great deal for him to lose his cool, but this monster was the limit. Now that the woman was back on her skis, Barry took her arm and guided her down past a mogul. "Press your ankles against your boots so that you feel them, and keep those knees bent," he counseled. They reached the spot near the cross-country trail and stopped. Barry waved on the class one by one; several of them were making progress, Which pleased him.
"Okay, Willie, you're doing fine . . ."
Despite his obnoxiousness, the boy had that fearlessness that comes with ignorance. He made two perfect turns, but then, instead of stopping at the rear of the group, he gathered speed and headed directly for the five people in the class. In their anxiety to get out of his way, they were forced to lurch sideways, and they tripped over their skis. The whole class, including Barry, fell.
"Got you, fatso," Willie cawed at the woman, who had just gained some confidence after Barry had led her down. Willie skied past them without losing his balance and headed for the cross-country trail. His middle finger was raised in a "screw you" gesture.
Barry struggled to his feet and shouted, "That's it! You're finished! Now, goddamn it, stop and wait for me!"
Willie skied through the patch of forest alongside the run. A pine forest dense with trees almost sixty feet high blocked off the afternoon sun. The snow from the branches was whipped off in sudden flurries by wind gusts. Willie looked up and saw the gondola cars passing slowly above him. He bent down and picked up a hardened piece of snow. He was transfixed by the bright crystalline light it threw off. He sniggered with delight, visualizing packing soft snow around it and slamming the ski instructor right in the face with it. He put it in his pocket; he would save it for the right moment.
He skied down a small hill. Something in the distance caught his eye. He'd been right last night. He had seen something move, trailing the gondola. Surrounding him were a series of enormous wedge-shaped tracks, leading deeper into the forest. If this was a new species of animal and he discovered it, he'd become world-famous and make a fortune. He'd buy all the condominiums and resell them at a huge profit. The tracks led to a clearing, and he peered through some high evergreen bushes to see where they continued. The trail became bumpy, and he almost lost his balance as he tried to separate the bushes to get a better perspective.
He stopped moving when he heard an odd humming sound coming from somewhere behind him. Through the thicket of trees, a sharp ray of light struck a mound of snow beside him. He shielded his eyes from the intense glare and jumped back when the snow burst into flames. It smoked, then turned black, and he began to scream.
The animal was moving toward him. Lurching back to avoid it, Willie fell. It was making a sound like a bear. Long, gnarled fingers groped toward him; then he saw sharp claws flick from the fingers, like switchblade knives.
He began to cry and plead, but the claws ripped at his parka and he was lifted off the ground. He was carried higher and higher, almost to the tops of the trees. Blood oozed from his mouth. The claws were tearing at his flesh. He looked down and saw that his right leg had been torn off at the hip. He fell into deep shock.
"Willie, Willie, goddamn you, if you're hiding I'll bust your head!" Barry struggled along the narrow cross-country path. He stopped and picked up a short ski pole. "Willie, are you okay?" The snow became heavier, and Barry dropped his goggles and strained to see where he was going. Behind him the snow hissed as though it was on fire, and the smell became putrid as though flesh was burning. Barry wanted to vomit. As he moved more surely now, where the mouth of the path widened, an explosion of blood and tissue descended from above him, drenching him.
"Oh, God, no," he said weakly when he saw the giant horned gray body towering over him. There was a hideous grinding of teeth which threw off blinding sparks, charring his clothes. He flung himself against a tree to put out the fire on his sleeve. He was suddenly seized by his head; teeth were driving demonically through his flesh.
Bradford sat with Cathy on the porch of the warming hut, drinking a rum toddy. His attention was caught by some kind of trouble on the slopes. A siren from the ski patrol resounded frantically. Moving down the center run was an object traveling with tremendous speed, which the skiers were attempting to dodge. Bradford rushed down the metal-runged steps and held up his binoculars.
"What happened?" Cathy asked.
"Oh, shit, no!" he said, dropping the binoculars. "Don't look," he said, turning her away forcibly, but she had already caught a glimpse of it.
"I—" She began to weep, and held her hand to her mouth.
Coming to rest at the ski school was a headless bloody torso with one leg still attached to it.
A sheet of heavy snow obliterated Bradford's vision as he rushed up to the school. People on the slopes were injured, screaming for help, and rolling down head over heels. On the P.A. system, over the siren, a man's voice kept repeating "Code Three, Code Three . . ."
The wailing of the people gained intensity until it reached a crescendo. Ski instructors jammed onto gondolas and lifts in an effort to rescue the people who had fallen. A low underground noise gained force. Gigantic séracs crumbled below the summit and thundered down the runs in enormous blocks, creating tremendous fissures in the ice.
The mountain itself appeared to cleave open for an instant as the avalanche spread, jarring eaves of snow into enclosed valleys on the mountain's flanks. These cwms overflowed with snow and ice and were unable to contain the rocks and boulders which came down in a steady, unrelenting cascade.
Bradford helped a middle-aged man to his feet, then grabbed hold of two crying children and carried them down to ground level. Ambulances and police sirens whined in the background.
In just over an hour the lodge resembled a military field hospital. Dozens of people had broken arms and legs; others had suffered fractured skulls and concussion.
Nine were dead.
Chapter Sixteen
Cathy watched the gondola taking the men up the mountain. The wind cut at her face as she tried to keep it in sight; she wanted to keep alive the final brief moment she had had with Bradford. When most of the injured had been carried to ambulances, he had assembled his men outside the lodge. Then he had taken her aside and put his arms around her.
"I'll be back."
"I won't count on it," she replied.
"It wouldn't have mattered to me one way or the other a while ago, but now it does."
The gondola vanished and she headed back to the lodge. There was a crush of people in the lobby—grieving and panic-stricken, searching for their mates and lost children. Squads of state troopers tried to restore order, and one of the officers kept repeating over the loudspeaker: "Keep calm. Please return to your rooms. Don't attempt to leave yet. The roads have to be kept free for rescue squads." His voice was drowned out by caterwauling cries of terror and hysteria. People were being knocked down as others flooded the exits. There was no place that was safe
.
Cathy slipped out of an emergency exit in the bar and ran toward Monte's office. Red and amber lights on the mass of squad cars wormed a dizzying pattern as they flashed across her line of sight. She became disoriented for a few moments and leaned against the porch rail of a deserted town house. The door was open; skis, boots, and clothing were scattered on the floor. Water was running in a bathtub which had overflowed; it seeped slowly across the floor. She caught her breath and pushed through a group of reporters, who had arrived in helicopters from all over the state. Cameramen with miniaturized hand-held cameras panned across the shattered runs. Interviewers shoved microphones in the shocked faces of eyewitnesses, who babbled incoherently about the avalanche.
She knocked on Monte's locked door and shouted her name. The door opened a few inches, and Ashby let her in. The phones rang, but no one in the room seemed to have the will to answer them. She took the receivers off and looked from Ashby to the sheriff. Monte sat numbly at his desk, impotent and frightened.
"What are we going to say?" she insisted.
"Ice weakness caused by an earthquake," Ashby said.
"Jim, you've all been lying to me. Now I want to hear the truth. No one's going to believe that we had a tremblor. Something killed those people on the mountain," the sheriff insisted. "The same thing that attacked that girl?"
"There's a giant bear loose . . . a new strain that nobody knew existed," Monte said.
"You've sent a group of men up there. Are they game hunters?" Garson asked.
"Yes," Ashby said. "Monte brought them in when he realized that there wasn't anyone local who could handle it."
"Jim, why didn't you tell me this at the beginning? Your friendship isn't worth a damn," Garson said. He looked scornfully at the three of them. "I had a responsibility. I'm going to have to swing for this—and so help me, I'll put the three of you under arrest for withholding evidence if I don't get the truth."
People were pounding on the door, and Garson picked up his walkie-talkie and instructed his men to clear the building and ask the state trooper captain to come up.
Inside the gondola Bradford scanned the mountain with his binoculars. Contour lines had altered; he could make out through the sheets of snow new fissures in the glacier—crevasses of great depth running in crazy zigzag patterns. The scope of the avalanche had not been as great as it had first seemed from ground level.
He was worried about the condition of base camp; if it was buried they would have to return to the lodge and wait for more equipment to arrive from L.A. But as they moved higher the weather was clearer. The storm had changed direction, which was in their favor.
They left the gondola at the experts' slope and broke into three parties, Bradford's consisting of himself alone. They were at the source of the avalanche and could not begin to climb higher until they tested the stability of the lower slopes. They would be forced to use dynamite at this altitude and hope that the upper slopes would not be disturbed.
Bradford gave out hand charges of dynamite for them to set off at various points of the mountain, in an effort to shift the weak walls of snow and ice and allow the huge mass of rock to consolidate. He could see that the various depressions were now blocked with ice; this would make the climb easier.
He gave the others the simpler tasks of skiing to the intermediate and beginners' slopes. He would blast at the higher runs. He nervously skied under a new cornice, the mass of snow precariously overhanging a contorted ridge. He set off two charges on four minute fuses, dropped them under the cornice, and skied along rock stubble into a wooded copse which the avalanche had bypassed. He jammed cotton into his ears. The blast shook the ground beside him and shifted a group of screes filled with loose stones under the cornice.
At a signal, Packard and Spider skied down to the intermediate slopes and repeated the action beside a moraine where debris had been brought down from the snout of the glacier. Jamie and Pemba were at about thirty-five hundred feet on the lower slopes, and they skied in opposite directions to clear two immense séracs which had blocked the runs. In twenty minutes the three groups had set off forty charges, and it was with a sense of relief that Bradford studied the mountain for any further sign of weakness. He discovered that it had firmed up; it would become more durable as the temperature dropped.
They reconnoitered at the gondola hut when he sounded a hand siren. The climb up to the base in the waning sunlight was not as difficult as he had anticipated. They were on familiar terrain, and the route was girdled to avoid newly formed screes. The sangar had been out of the path of the avalanche and the camp remained as it had been left. Bradford checked the radio transmission.
"This is Survey One," Bradford said over the mike.
"Identify yourself," Sheriff Garson answered.
"Who is this?"
"Sheriff Garson. Repeat, identify yourself."
"Daniel Bradford."
"How many men are with you?"
"Four."
"Okay, Bradford. Get your men together and come down."
"I can't. We dynamited, and the area around the lifts is blocked."
"Well, then give me your grid position and we'll send a rescue helicopter up for you."
"The weather's bad," Bradford lied.
"Can you hang in till morning?"
"Sheriff, we're not coming down."
"Look, if you don't you'll all be under arrest. The mountain's been officially closed by my office." When there was no response, he asked, "Do you read me?"
Bradford had closed down the radio transmission, but Garson persisted. "Bradford, I don't want you dead. Now fire some flares . . ."
Garson shook his head disconsolately and said to Ashby, "You disgust me . . . anything for a story."
Ashby sensed that he had Garson boxed in. He could still manipulate him so that he would come away with his trophy.
"Pat, I'm not going to apologize, but I'm going to give you some realistic advice. If you go out there and tell those vultures that you believe there's a Snowman on the mountain, you'll be finished. There's no real evidence yet. Sure, you can show them the pictures of the footprints, but who's to say they weren't doctored? And you can't show the pictures of the girl or they'll hang you for keeping quiet so long. Stick with the story of a giant bear and an ice weakness and you've got a chance to ride through this. Especially since you've got professional climbers already up there.
"I'll run a special edition describing how you took control of the situation. The choice is yours. Either you come out a hero or an incompetent who didn't know what the hell was going on in his own town. You'll be vulnerable, and no matter what you say to the contrary, it'll look like you were part of a conspiracy to hush this up because you wanted to protect vested interests. Man, they'll send a couple of hot-shit reporters down from L.A. and they'll eat you alive because I'll cooperate with them. So before you shoot your mouth off, think about it . . . you'll be spending the rest of your life in courtrooms and giving lawyers depositions. I wouldn't want to see you in that position."
Garson shambled out of the room, broken and dispirited.
In the kitchen tent, Pemba cut thick slices from the smoked pork they had brought up. He fried them with eggs and pinto beans on the primus stove and boiled some snow to make coffee, which he spiked with rum.
After dinner, Spider took charge. He brought out cards and started a four-handed game of low-ball, which took the men's minds off what lay ahead.
The first day's climb would be the hardest, because they would have to establish a temporary camp on the icefall. They'd all be carrying upwards of forty pounds of weight, and both Spider and Packard would have trouble breathing without oxygen in the rarefied air. The going would be slow and laborious.
Crouched low outside his tent to avoid the violent hack of the night wind, Bradford stared into the darkness. The sky was bright with clusters of stars; he prayed for snow during the day rather than at night, so that when the Snowman came out they'd have a better chance at h
im. He decided to initiate a three-hour watch, which would give them all six hours of sleep. He had brought along a supply of Doriden as well as Dexedrine to combat drowsiness. The lack of humidity would cause them all to have insomnia for several nights until they adjusted to the sharp, arid, dehydrating air. The pills would allow them to have uninterrupted sleep until they were acclimatized.
He shone his flashlight up the flank of the slope. Perhaps the Snowman responded to light. Was there any way to bring him out, or were they completely at his mercy?
He took out his ice ax and climbed a short distance above the camp, so that he could get some perspective on the Snowman's path of attack if he left his hiding place during the night. Would it merely be snow that brought him out, or some other primitive instinct? Could he smell or see them now? Was he watching? Did he attack only for food or to defend his new domain? If only there was some way to incite an attack so that they could be ready for him.
Bradford was on a small, firm, rectangular snowpacked shelf, exposed to the wind; sharp-honed ice needles bit into his skin. He listened to the men complain when Pemba won a pot. They'd be all right; Pemba would hold them together. Bradford flashed the light at another section, and in the whine of the wind he thought he heard the muffled cry of an animal.
He climbed down from the shelf and headed for his tent. He set his wrist alarm for midnight, the curfew he had imposed on the men. He would take the first watch. He pulled off his boots and climbed into the rectangular sleeping bag. The bulky ensolite pad was raw with cold, and made his skin burn on contact. He rolled over on his side and softly chanted, "Om Mane Padme Om . . ." until his lids became heavy and he saw Cathy's face touching his.
The gray morning carried gelid blasts of air which bit into their faces. Pemba wore a Sherpa balaclava. The woolen hood covered his head and neck and left only a small opening for his face, which was coated with oil.
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