Boney whined again, and she looked down. Near her knee was the tip of a red snout, barely visible between a tree trunk thick as her thigh and an ice sheet compounded of many individual icicles woven through with slender willow branches. She crouched, stripping off her glove and sticking her hand up to the dog’s nose. A fraction of tongue attempted to lick it, but the canine mouth was well and truly wedged.
“You idiot. How did you get in there?” Lacey leaned back and looked along the curtain of ice. Beau stuck his head into a gap a few feet behind her. She yelled, “Stop!” Beau stopped. She stumbled over, took his collar, and guided him well away. “Sit,” she told him. “Stay.” He whined but didn’t move. Boney whined, too. Suddenly, it was a whining competition. “Lord Jesus. I should have left you guys at home.”
Clemmie appeared around the next bend. “Did you find him?”
Lacey pointed. “In there. Can you keep Beau out of the way?” She brushed away the ruffled snow and looked into the gap. The icicles at this end were thin, easily broken away, but where Boney’s tail lay, barely visible in the overhang’s shadow, they were thick as her thighs and interspersed with saplings. Kicking them in would not only hurt her, it would panic him. He’d damage himself struggling. Hell, claustrophobic as she was, going in there would be a test of her own resistance to panic. Still, a body length in, and she could pull him out backward. She’d be in there only thirty seconds. A minute, tops. “You freakin’ idiot,” she muttered, with feeling, and crawled into the roughly triangular tunnel formed by the rocky overhang and the icefall along its front. The light was dim and bluish. In places the ice was thin and pure, like window glass. She wasn’t trapped. She was fine as long as she could see out. She tucked away her sunglasses and crawled on, her knees grated by gravel and chilled by frigid earth.
When she reached Boney, he tried to turn, but his snout remained wedged, like a toddler’s head stuck halfway through crib bars. Beyond him the tunnel narrowed, but there was more light up there, where the saplings ended. She could go out that way if she had to. She wasn’t trapped. A minute, maybe two, and she’d be out in the open air. She spoke to Boney before gripping his hips. If she could pull him gently backward, so that his neck was straighter …
He yelped.
“You’re hurting him,” Clemmie yelled unnecessarily.
Ya think? Lacey crawled in farther, conscious of the tree trunks blocking her view outside, and the ice-chilled air settling onto her sweat-dampened spine. Get the dog and get out. A minute, two, tops. She propped herself awkwardly on one ski boot and one knee. Leaning precariously forward to grab Boney’s head, she eased it sideways. He thrashed, his back claws tearing at her thigh.
“Okay, easy now, boy,” she said, stroking his ears and gritting her teeth against the sting in her leg. “One more try. Nose down, neck up, and …”
His head popped out. He flung it back, whacking himself against the back wall, then shook until his ears flapped. It was impossible to tell if he had cuts on his muzzle. As soon as they were out in the light, she’d check him over.
She was on her knees, crawling backward, dragging the fidgeting dog’s hindquarters along with her, when Clemmie shrieked. A shower of cold white powder swirled into the tunnel.
Avalanche!
She threw her body forward and tried to protect her head while shielding Boney. Ice cracked and fell in on them. Snow billowed in and a cold heaviness pushed down on her, crushing her hips against the dog.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A yell ripped through the peaceful wilderness. Zoe spun toward the sound. Kai lay sprawled in the bushes. Snow slid beneath him, exposing a frozen stream. The whole mass was tumbling over the ledge to the creek bed below. Branches broke as he grabbed at them. As his head neared the edge, Calvin flung himself down on the track and grabbed Kai’s ankle. Momentum pulled them both another few feet before Calvin was able to dig the toes of his boots into the hard-packed track and stop them. Kai’s head and shoulders dangled in mid-air. Aidan and Ari jumped in and pulled the pair back from the edge.
From a clearing farther down the ski track, Lizi waved. “Everyone okay up there?”
A second shriek came from below. “Help! Lacey’s buried.”
Lizi kicked off her skis and scrambled down to the creek bed. Zoe snaked past the guys and sped down the slope. Abandoning her skis in turn, she scrambled over the icy rocks and fell to her knees beside the girls, who were digging furiously at a tumbled bank of fresh snow. One red dog prowled at their backs, pushing between them to paw at the ice.
Zoe took a quick survey. The avalanche field extended barely two body lengths along the cliff and one outward. At the cliff wall, it couldn’t be deeper than her waist. They ought to see something of Lacey by now. “Where exactly was she standing?”
“The snow didn’t hit her.” Clemmie wiped the back of one snow-covered mitten over her face. “She’s behind the icefall with Boney. There’s an overhang. Lacey, can you hear me? Boney? Speak, boy. Speak.”
“Clemmie, take my shovel. You and Lizi sink a trench right along the icefall. Not wide, but as deep and fast as you can. We’ve got to make an air hole.” Zoe tipped her head back. “Guys! We need all the shovels down here now!”
They quickly developed a rhythm, Lizi and Clemmie scooping snow out of the trench and Zoe pushing it clear. The dog prowled the length of the snowbank, whining. When the guys arrived, Zoe took one look at Aidan’s shocked face and sent him off to get a fire going. He’d be having nightmares about his brother’s fate. If Lacey didn’t make it …
Clemmie pried up icy chunks and flung them backward without a glance. Calvin and Ari bracketed her, shovels digging in. The trench deepened, and through the built-up layers of ice, the dark rock of the cliff was revealed.
Zoe checked her watch. How many minutes now? How big was Lacey’s air pocket? Ski rescue should be called, but she couldn’t waste a digger to go hunting for a cellphone signal. The first priority was to get air wherever Lacey’s face was. All her kids had CPR training. With five people, they could keep Lacey breathing for as long as it took help to arrive. They had to get her out alive, though. Everything else could wait.
Kai finally arrived, limping a bit, and Zoe turned him back. “Go help Aidan with the fire. She’ll be freezing when we get her out … Keep digging, guys. We don’t need a body-sized hole, just an air gap.”
At last the ice showed blue and white across all four diggers. They were below the rock wall. She put her hand on Lizi’s shoulder, stilling the frantic work. “Call the dog, Clemmie.”
The girl did so, her voice tight and high. For a moment there was only the breeze and a trickle of moving water somewhere. Then a bark reached them, from a place near Clemmie’s knees. “He’s here!” she shouted. “Lacey, can you hear me?” A faint scraping came; a shadow pressed on the icefall in front of her. She tapped back with her shovel. “Cover your eyes. We’re going to break through.”
Ari flipped his shovel and pounded the ice with the handle. An icicle as big as his wrist fell inward. He smacked the one beside it, but it didn’t budge. Still, they had an air hole. Was it in the right place? Zoe leaned over his shoulder.
“Lacey? Are you in there?”
Lacey’s gloved hand emerged from the hole and waggled its fingers.
Alive! Zoe sank back on her heels.
Clemmie leaned down. “We see you. Can you breathe? Are you hurt? We’re going to get you out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ten interminable minutes after that first icicle fell in on top of Lacey, Boney scrambled through the new hole in the icefall, sending a shower of icy snow down into the hole. She dragged herself in his wake. Her feet were back there somewhere, she knew, but she couldn’t feel them any longer. Her neck muscles had also locked up, so tight that she couldn’t lift her head to look for the sky she so desperately wanted to see. She awkwardly rolled onto her side and wriggled her body until her head and shoulders pushed t
hrough to the snow trench. Sunlight bathed her face and stung her eyes. Boney scrambled over and licked her cheek as the others crowded around.
“Pull her out,” a man’s voice said.
“No! Clear the way so she can come out level. Clemmie, take the dog.” Zoe bent down. “Lacey, can you keep moving under your own power? We shouldn’t yank you out in case your spine’s damaged.”
To get out of this death trap, Lacey would pull herself all the way to Calgary if she had to. Above her, Zoe’s arms spread out, pushing everyone back, giving her room. Glorious room. Space to breathe. She thought she might be grinning like a fool.
Shovels scraped away the tight-packed snow beyond her head. “Try now.”
She forced herself farther out on the snowbank. Her hips stuck in the opening for one panicky instant, but she got them past the tight spot, lined up her useless legs with the hole, then eased the rest of her body out of the icebound trap. She lifted her bare, freezing hand. “Hi.”
Above her, voices muttered about “core body temperature” and “careful warming” and some other phrases that probably were important, but seemed less than vital in her current blissful freedom. Still, “911” meant something. She rolled onto her back, spreading her arms wide to reassure herself she really could stretch at last. “What’s the emergency?”
One of Zoe’s stepsons crouched at her side. “You are, luv. Up to your arse in icicles for half an hour. You’re probably hypothermic.”
“Oh.” Lacey ran through her mental first-responder tool kit for hypothermia symptoms. “I was lying half on top of poor Boney, so I didn’t lose much to the frozen ground. I’m not shivering, but I can’t feel my feet. Is my speech clear?”
He nodded. “Like satellite radio. Can you roll up on one side? We need to get this thermal blanket under you.”
Lacey rolled. Once the blanket was under her, she sat up and took stock. “Nothing broken, and the feeling’s already starting to come back to my legs.” With a vengeance. Probably they’d been asleep as much as frozen. She sucked in a pained breath.
“Your leg’s bleeding.”
“Boney did that. And now I can feel where his claws dug in. Anybody got a first aid kit?”
She heard crinkling as a second thermal blanket was wrapped around her shoulders. Zoe, almost in her ear, said, “What about your fingers? Frozen? One of your gloves is missing.”
Lacey flexed her shrunken, white fingers, took off her other glove, and wrapped her warm hand around the cold one. It stung. “Ouch. Thawing already.” With difficulty she dissuaded the anxious group from calling for an evacuation. Clemmie assured her Boney was fine except for a scrape on his nose, and insisted she shove a couple of clickable heat packs under her coat.
“Right into your armpits to reheat your core,” she said, her brown eyes lined with worry. “You coulda lost five degrees of body heat in there. You have to put it back.”
Lacey obeyed, shivering as she pulled her coat and sweater away from her skin. The damp inner layer had probably cost her another degree. She re-zipped her vest and pulled the foil blanket tighter around her. How many calories had she burned through in her barely-contained panic at being trapped? She’d need fuel to replace those. “Food?”
Zoe nodded. “Hopefully Aidan has hot drinks and snacks waiting at the fire. We’ll load yours up with sugar. Ari and Calvin will chair-carry you. Girls, gather up the gear.”
With no further effort on Lacey’s part, she was soon huddling on a log by a campfire, swaddled in foil blankets and more heat packs. Her tingling fingers clutched a plastic mug of hot, very sweet tea. Aidan had cooled the first mug with a bit of snow and insisted she get it inside her at once. She’d been shuddering by then, colder almost than she had been half an hour ago. There was a scientific term for that — after-chill or something, when the cold already in the body worked its way deeper while the outside was warming up. The first infusion of heat and sugar had thawed her nerve endings. She held the second mug with steady hands and gulped down more tea. Heat up those insides; get the blood warmed up another degree. Melt the frozen flesh.
She sat up straighter and looked around. They were at a trail junction in a sunny aspen glade. A large signboard showed their location amid a maze of crossing trails. There was, she noted with relief, a short, straight one back to the parking lot. She’d had enough wilderness for today. She swallowed more tea and turned her head. Calvin rummaged in Aidan’s backpack. On the far side of the clearing, Lizi threw sticks for the dogs. Kai knelt at her feet, unzipping a first aid kit with practiced hands.
“Let’s see about that leg.”
Clemmie leaped to her assistance, holding the space blanket up while she slid her pants down to her knees. She sat and was wrapped up again, leaving only her gouged thigh exposed.
While Kai was wiping the claw-marks with antiseptic, Zoe came over with a plastic tub of cookies, gnarly oatmeal ones studded with dates, cranberries, and some kind of seed. “Take two,” she said. “And one for Kai when he’s finished his medic stint.”
The cookies further restored Lacey. Her shivering stopped and her head cleared. More than cleared, in fact. When she’d left home three hours ago, her whole being had felt shaky, like she wasn’t quite touching the earth. After that close encounter with death, her feet, itchy as they were in the sweat-soaked socks, felt more firmly connected to the ground. She was alive. She slugged back the rest of her tea and held her mug out for a refill.
As Kai stowed the first aid supplies, having bandaged her to his satisfaction, Calvin approached. “Here’s some dry socks,” he said, “and a sweatshirt when you’re ready.”
Clemmie unlaced Lacey’s boots and removed the right one. She towelled it gently and examined the toes. Lacey jerked her foot away. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. I had to check. I don’t see any blistering, so I guess they didn’t freeze hard. The skin might crack later, though.” The girl carefully rolled a fresh sock over the foot and eased the boot back on. Then she did the left.
What a relief to have warm, dry feet. Lacey sighed loudly, then looked up to find several sets of eyes on her. “I’m okay, really. It feels good, that’s all. Sorry I spoiled the ski trip. The rest of you should go on, and I’ll head back.”
That suggestion set loose a chorus of objections, but in the end Clemmie and Calvin volunteered to accompany Lacey while the rest tackled the next section of trail. Kai insisted his ankle was fine now that he’d taped it, and he wasn’t going to miss a minute of the skiing unless Lacey needed help reaching the parking lot. Aidan said he was done skiing for today and he’d help if Lacey needed it. With that settled, Zoe’s family skied away. Aidan sent Calvin and Clemmie to check for any equipment forgotten at the icefall. He shoved his folded shovel into his pack.
“We really ought to take you in for a medical evaluation.”
“I’m okay. Honest. You guys were really well prepared and did what was needed.” Even jittery Calvin had been calm under pressure.
“I didn’t,” Aidan said, looking pained. “I panicked. We’ve all had backcountry safety training, but when it counted, I couldn’t use it. Is that what happened to my brother? Did he panic? Why else would he abandon his car and all his survival gear?”
Lacey summoned her old cop reserves and met his gaze firmly. “Whatever happened to Eric is not your fault. He was caught in a bad situation, and I’m sure he did the best he could to survive, just like you would. I see Clemmie’s coming back. She doesn’t need to be worried about you, too, does she?”
He glanced over his shoulder and made an effort to pull himself together. “No. You want a snowmobile sent back for you? They have one that pulls the trail-grooming machinery.”
In the end, Lacey walked tamely back to the trailhead facilities with the happily tired dogs while Aidan, Calvin, and Clemmie formed a kind of honour guard, laden with her skis as well as their own. She changed her shirt in the washroom, shivering again as she replaced the heat packs with fresh ones from Aidan’s
seemingly inexhaustible supply. When she emerged, Clemmie was waiting with a cup of hot chocolate for her.
“Whipped cream, too.” Aidan, she added, was making a report about the icy bend in the trail. Her eyes had a haunted look, and Lacey pulled herself up to deal with another onslaught of grief and guilt. It didn’t come. Clemmie wasn’t about to spill her woes to an adult she’d barely met. “I gave the dogs a drink.”
“Thanks.”
Leaving the Anders group in line for restorative snacks at the ski shack, Lacey put the dogs into their compartment before she crawled into the Lexus and cranked up the heated seat. It wasn’t good environmental practice to idle a vehicle, but she wasn’t yet mentally or physically fit to drive those fifteen minutes home. Nor could she drive away before the rest returned. She still had the pamphlets and forms to give to Zoe, and she had to repeat her thanks to all of them for digging her and Boney out. She leaned the seat back, pulled the car blanket over her body, and shut her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A tapping at her side window roused Lacey from her doze in the car. She tilted the seat upright. It was Calvin, holding yet another steaming cup. “Tea,” he said, handing it in through the open window. “And here’s a power bar. Hope you aren’t allergic to nuts.”
“Nope. Thanks.”
The nap had cleared Lacey’s head considerably, and the chill air pouring in the open window did the rest. She rolled the residual stiffness from her neck. “Where are the others?”
“Aidan and Clem are in his car. The rest aren’t back yet.”
“Climb in and talk to me for a bit, would you?”
He got into the passenger seat. “I saw you go into the Cochrane RCMP offices yesterday. You a cop?”
“Victim Services volunteer.”
“I don’t have to talk to you, then, right? And if I do, you don’t have to report everything I say?”
Where the Ice Falls Page 15