The Red Mitten

by Stuart Montgomery

  It was a sensible assumption. But it didn’t help them find the canes. All it did was use a lot of time.

  So once again they huddled together and this time Richard said, “We’re going to have to do it the Scottish way, without canes. According to the GPS we’re only one and a half kilometres from the cabin - so maybe another hour and a half at the speed we’ve been going.”

  Cally realised it was a familiar-sounding estimate. Richard had said another hour and a half the last time they’d stopped, and at least an hour had passed since then. But she knew there was no point in saying anything. Richard was no fool, and Neep would be as aware as anyone that their progress had slowed. His increasing tiredness was the main reason for it.

  As they pressed on through the mirk, Cally had a conflicting sense of vastness and constraint. She knew that they were on the edge of a huge area of wild country, and that if they got the navigation wrong they could ski for days without finding shelter. But on the other hand she could see almost nothing – just the hooded figure of Richard in front of her and her own ski tips moving steadily over the snow.

  Every few minutes Richard glanced back to make sure they were keeping together. He continued to shine his optimistic smile, but it was soon obvious that their pace was slowing even further.

  Richard checked the GPS frequently and he always knew exactly where they were. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was: how to get from where they were, to where they wanted to be. The GPS couldn’t help with that. It couldn’t recommend a safe way across terrain that pitched around, tilted this way and that and was booby-trapped with boulders and dips and low ridges of snow that were almost invisible in the mist. And it couldn’t cope with the times when the visibility grew so desperately bad that they could only just make out their own skis.

  It was in one such moment that Cally became separated - or thought she did. She took her eyes off Richard for an instant, on a downhill section where the wind was pushing her off balance and she was struggling to control her skis. And then, all of a sudden, Richard vanished and she was alone and - she thought - speeding down the slope. But then Neep came plodding past her and she realised she wasn’t moving at all. The slope had run out to flat ground and she had come to a halt.

  The whole thing was over in a few seconds, but that was long enough for the panic to start to rise. She fended it off by fussing over Neep. “You’re covered in snow,” she said. “Here, let me clean it off your rucksack. And your goggles are all steamed up.”

  The sight of his face when the goggles were removed knocked her back into kilter. His skin was white and his eyes were wide and staring. He was obviously near the point of exhaustion, and Cally realised that if he fell down many more times, he simply wouldn’t have the strength or the will to get back up.

  Richard had come back and he too could see the state that Neep was in. His own face was starting to look white, and the smile had gone. “Let’s take another short break,” he said. “Just long enough to have some more food and drink.”

  He turned away to check the map again and Cally took her chance. She wasn’t sure that she really needed yet another pill, but after the near-miss she wanted to play safe. It was vital to avoid having one of her old attacks. On a day like today she simply could not be the weakest link.

  This time Richard didn’t see her put her hand to her mouth.

  When he turned back he said, “Until the conditions improve, I’d like to do this the old-fashioned way. I’ll take a compass bearing and then send you ahead as far ahead as visibility allows - one behind the other. Then I’ll shout directions to you to move a little to this side or that, to keep you in line with the compass needle. Then I’ll catch up with you and repeat the process.”

  Cally was reminded of the man with the string.

  And soon, when Neep fell again, she was reminded of something else, a ski club talk she had attended. It had been on the eighth of December the year before last, the blessed day when she learned that Filshie had left town, and it had been titled The harsh arithmetic of calamity. The speaker was from the mountain rescue and his point was that in a bad situation difficulties don’t add; they multiply.

  Neep was showing the truth of that, for his fall was a sore one, a proper face-plant, and because he was tired he crossed his skis and landed especially badly, wrenching his knee. He had to be helped to his feet. The injury made him lose confidence in his skiing, so at Richard’s suggestion they all put on their climbing skins. The skins would prevent Neep’s skis from running out of control on the downhill sections, but they would make him go slower over the flat ground as well. And the business of putting on the skins made him even colder – and demonstrated just how tired he had become. The task of getting the long strips of nylon out of their bag and then pressing them on to the bases of his skis seemed almost too much for him. The bag blew away in the process, making a bright orange flurry until it was swallowed by the mist.

  Then, just after they finally got moving again, Cally’s new benzo kicked in. And, probably because she hadn’t eaten much, it kicked in hard.

  She was able to keep going - she had no choice - but now she realised she wasn’t quite sure where she was going. She knew they were heading for a cabin, but the Norwegian place-names were impossible. If she was remembering it right, the original plan had been to sleep tonight at a place called Storhøliseter. Then they had changed their minds and had skied past a junction with a sign to another place, called Skirurusten.

  Richard had pronounced the names like stor-hooli-seter and she-roo-roosten. They sounded to Cally like something from one of those crazy heedrum-ho songs that Aberdeen kids are forced to sing at primary school, a brief nod to a Gaelic heritage that they could then safely forget for the rest of their lives. You could get a good song out of Storhøliseter and Skirurusten together: hoolly, hoolly, roosten, roosten! Hoolly, hoolly, roosten, roosten! A memory flashed in her mind of little girls in kilts and white blouses, dancing and clapping and whirling around, while their carers filmed every insane second. Roosten, roosten, hoolly, hoolly! But this new place, the one they were now going to, Storkvelvbu, it would be harder to sing. It was hard enough even to say it. But it would great for Scrabble, with all those high-value consonants.

  Her skis kept moving steadily. Her brain kept doing cartwheels. She was glad the goggles and balaclava were hiding her face.

  Richard pressed on, manfully conducting his ill-chosen companions through the gloom. But their pace was now desperately slow. The daylight - such as it was - was fading noticeably when he brought them to a halt once more.

  He had to shout to make himself heard over the wind. “It’s going to be dark soon. So we need to make a choice. Either we keep trying for the cabin, and risk getting benighted on the high point of the hill. Or we bale out now, forget about the cabin and start back down to the valley.”

  Neep asked, “How far are we from the cabin now?”

  “Just over a kilometre.”

  “The last time you checked, you told us it was one and a half kilometres.”

  “That’s right. We haven’t been moving very fast.” Richard looked away, as if regretting the accusation in what he had said.

  Neep said, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been holding us back, but I’m trying hard and I don’t think I can do much more of this.”

  Richard turned to Cally.

  She said, “I think we should go down. If we keep going and miss the cabin then we’ll have to dig a snow hole, in the dark and with just the one shovel. It would take hours.” She realised she was slurring her words and added quickly, “Sorry, but I can’t speak properly. My face is freezing.”

  Richard was careful not to look at her. “It’s unanimous then. Let’s try to get out of the mist while we still have some daylight, and then find a way down to the main road.”

  They changed course and started off, picking their way carefully, now unquestionably glad of the climbing skins that allowed them to walk down the slopes without sli
ding headlong.

  As they lost height Cally had the impression that the cloud was thinning, but it was hard to be sure, for the daylight was definitely going. And then there came a brief clear spell, a wonderful clear spell when the clouds parted long enough to let them see a safe way down. There would be some more steep ground to descend and then they would be in a high valley, from which a much gentler slope would take them steadily down toward distant trees, to safety.

  Cally could see that they still had a long way to go. Even if Neep could manage to ski without the climbing skins, if he had the strength and balance to let his skis glide down the slope instead of just walking on them, it was going to take hours to get down to the road. Then they would need to work out how to get back to Vesterheim. So it wasn’t going to be easy. But at least she could put out of her mind the thought of dying on a mountain top.

  The cloud was closing in again when Neep shouted. “Look, down there! A cabin!”

  It was maybe a kilometre away, not much further than Storkvelvbu had been from their last stopping place. But it had two advantages over Storkvelvbu: it was downhill of them, and they could see it.

  And that was good enough for Neep. He said, “Come on! Let’s get there before dark”, and led off down the slope, moving much faster than he had done all day.

  It took them half an hour to get there. Even with the climbing skins Neep fell repeatedly.

  When they got to the cabin they saw it was an L-shaped structure which looked like it had been built in two stages, the smaller part as a lean-to. A metal chimney poked above the shared wall. Each part of the cabin had its own door, and the doors faced each other across the angle of the building.

  Cally felt sorry for Neep when she saw how securely the doors were locked. The one in the smaller part of the hut, the part with no windows, had a hefty padlock. The padlock on the other door was smaller: an easier target, but not an easy one. The single window, beside that door, also looked very strong. They would have to go down to the valley after all.

  But Neep was not to be deterred. “I’ve read about this,” he said. “In Norway, even if a cabin is locked you should just break in, and then you leave money to pay for the repair. It’s regarded as an okay thing to do in an emergency.”

  He had already unclipped from his skis and now he picked them up and held them base-to-base and then used them like a battering-ram, hitting the smaller padlock with the tails of the skis.

  Cally had never seen him in such a frenzy. She looked at Richard, hoping he would intervene. But although Richard had unclipped from his skis, he stood impassively, his expression somewhere between disappointment and relief, and let Neep get on with it. He stepped in only after his friend, having partly loosened the clasp of the lock, started to use his skis as a lever.

  He said, “Neep, that won’t work. It will only damage your skis. Let me try.”

  Neep pushed him away. “I can do it!”

  Then Cally heard a tearing sort of crack and saw Neep fall backwards into the snow. He was still holding his skis - or most of them at any rate. He had left big pieces of their tails behind the clasp.

  Richard pulled the broken pieces of ski away from the lock. Then he planted his poles firmly in the snow, took a step forward and launched a vicious kick at the door.

  It swung open.

  By now the daylight had almost completely gone, and Cally and the men had every reason to believe they’d had a lucky escape.

  Chapter 15

  Inside the cabin it was dark. Richard unshouldered his rucksack and took out his head-torch. He switched it on and set the focus to wide-angle. Cally followed the beam round. Just the one room, empty but for a rough table, a couple of old dining chairs and a bench. A metal stove with a cooking pot on top and a log-box beside it. Nothing on the walls. An incongruous pair of heavy curtains at the window. A big stain on the floor as if something had spilled.

  Cally knew she wasn’t making the floor any better by dripping snow on it, so she took off her wet jacket and shook it in the doorway. Then she fished out her own head-torch and started to help Richard get the place organised. Eventually Neep struggled free from his rucksack and then slumped on to the bench, seemingly unable to talk.

  Richard found a length of cord in his rucksack and rigged a line on which he hung his jacket, gloves, hat, climbing skins. Cally added her own kit. Everything was soaking wet.

  The metal stove seemed to be in working order, and the box held a few logs and some kindling and even a couple of newspapers that were reasonably dry. So Cally made up a fire then rummaged unsuccessfully in the log-box for matches. The table had a drawer so she tried it. No luck; just some playing cards and a key.

  “Look in the top section of Neeps’ rucksack,” Richard said. “There should be a lighter in one of the smaller stuff-sacks, in a plastic box.”

  She found it and lit the fire. Richard took the cooking pot outside, brought it back full of snow and sat it on top of the stove.

  Neep hadn’t moved from his bench. Cally wanted to shout at him, Get changed, get warm, help us get this place organised. But she stopped herself. Instead she said, “Neep, give me your wet jacket and fleece, and get your duvet out of your rucksack.”

  “I’m okay, just let me sit.” He sounded angry.

  She went back to his rucksack and searched until she found a stuff-sack that felt soft. She opened it and took out his duvet jacket. “Here, put this on.”

  “Cally, I said I’m okay.”

  “And I said put your jacket on. You’re already in a bad state and you won’t get any better sitting there in your wet clothes.”

  He stood up moodily, like a scolded child, then did as he’d been told and sat down again. With a sigh Cally went back to his rucksack and got out his food-box and thermos and put them on the table in front of him. She took out a sandwich and poured him a cup of saft. Then she remembered, and went back into the rucksack for his jelly babies. She set a handful beside the sandwich and then put the rest of the bag in the table drawer, out of the way.

  Then she pulled off her damp fleece and got into her duvet jacket. She was glad to feel its heat. And glad to see Neep stop sulking for long enough to take a drink and a few of the sweets.

  She was surprised at how good she was feeling, in the circumstances. Tired, but not exhausted. And no aches or pains, probably because she hadn’t taken any falls today, in spite of the awful conditions. It really had been an epic. Now that the last benzo had stopped zapping her brain she had the familiar sense of calm and of warmth. She wasn’t sure how long the warmth would last, though. There weren’t many more logs in the box.

  She remembered the key in the drawer and had an idea. She would have to go outside sooner or later anyway, so she might as well go now. Putting the key in her pocket, she said, “Richard, I need to go out for a minute.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  She laughed. “No. I definitely don’t want you to come with me.”

  Richard had wedged one of the chairs against the door to keep it shut. He took it away and said, “Just bang on the door when you want to come back in.”

  Cally went out into the storm and heard the chair go back into place. Though it was now fully dark she turned off her head-torch, wanting to see if the sky had cleared, hoping for a glimpse of moon or stars. But there was nothing. She switched the torch back on and adjusted it to narrow-angle, to get the long-distance beam. Again there was nothing to see – just a wall of mist reflecting the light back at her. The smell of wood-smoke came and went in the gusting wind.

  As she walked round to the side of the cabin, her boots sank into the snow. She hadn’t realised that so much had fallen today. It had drifted against the side wall, where she undid her clothing and squatted, leaning her back against the wall. That put an end to the feeling of warmth - well and truly. Still, if her guess was right there would be more firewood in the other part of the cabin.

  She sorted herself out, went round to the locked d
oor and shone her torch on the padlock. Her hands were cold and it took several attempts before the key fitted. She turned it and heard a click as the lock opened. She pulled the door but it was blocked by drifted snow. She kicked it away, down to an icy layer that seemed darker in colour. When she pulled the door again it opened a little before sticking on the ice. A stuffy smell came out, like a kitchen bin that needed emptying.

  Kneeling on the snow, she reached a hand into the space, hoping to find a log that she could use to bash away the ice. There was something. She brought out her hand and took off her glove, then reached back inside. The something felt like a boot. She tried to move it but it was too heavy. Her hand moved up the boot. There was a gaiter, and when her hand went higher she could feel there was something inside the gaiter, something that felt like a leg, but was too hard to be a leg.

  It was only when she pushed her torch into the space, and saw there was a second boot and gaiter, that she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

  She stood upright, held her torch in front of her face and pointed the beam through the gap.

  The face of a dead man stared back at her. His eyes were grotesquely hollow and dry.

  There was a sickly smell of rot.

  She wondered why she didn’t scream. She moved away and leaned against the wall, waiting for the vomit. It came as a thin bile. When it finally stopped, she stayed where she was, needing time to recover.

  Then there was the beam of another head-torch - and Richard’s voice saying, “It’s ok Cally, I’m here!”

  She had to cough and spit before replying. “No, it’s not that. Look!”

  Neep had also come out. So after Richard succeeded in wrenching the door open, they were all able to follow the beam of his torch as it moved over the gruesome face of the man, then over the blood-stained green jacket, over the green trousers, the gaiters and the boots. Over the pool of frozen blood on the floor.