by Lisa Jackson
“Are you crazy? It’s a pit! Beyond a pit! Should have been condemned fifty years ago. Probably was.” Bryan flopped down on one of the two mattresses they’d brought. He propped his head on his rolled sleeping bag and scowled at his new surroundings as if he’d just been locked into a six-by-twelve prison cell.
“Give it a rest, Bryan,” Travis warned, even though he, too, saw the problems with the old lodge, maybe clearer than his son.
Cobwebs trailed from the ceiling and the leftover meals of spiders—dead, drained insect carcasses—vied with mouse pellets for space in dark corners. The pipes creaked, the lights were undependable and all the old linoleum would have to be replaced. Toilets and sinks were stained and the grout between what had once been beautiful imported tile had disintegrated. Fixing the place up would probably cost him as much as his original investment, but it would be worth it, he silently told himself, stacking kindling on ancient andirons. Any amount of money spent would be cheap if it meant saving his boy.
He glanced over his shoulder at Bryan and saw the sullen expression in his son’s eyes, the curled lower lip, the ever-present baseball cap on backward and tattered, black clothes that were three sizes too big for him. His fashion statement wasn’t really the problem, nor did Travis object to Bryan’s earring or the streak of bleached-blond hair that contrasted to his natural deep brown, but Bryan’s general attitude needed an overhaul, and fast.
“You’re gonna love it here,” Travis said, striking a wooden match on the hearth. Sizzling, the match flared and Travis touched the flame to bits of old newspaper wadded beneath the firewood.
“In your dreams.”
“Give it a chance, Bryan. I’ve heard that you can see eagles and deer, maybe even elk and rabbits.”
“Big deal.”
The fire began to crackle. “We both agreed that we needed to change—”
“No, Travis,” he said, rarely calling his father anything but his given name ever since the divorce. Jabbing a thumb at his chest, he added, “I didn’t agree to anything. This was your deal. Not mine. I would have stayed in Seattle, with my friends.”
Travis bit down hard on his molars so that he wouldn’t make some snide comment about the friends Bryan chose, not necessarily bad kids, but the kind that seemed to scare up trouble wherever it was hiding. Bryan’s choice of friends had been one of the reasons that had prompted this move to Oregon. One kid had been caught smoking marijuana several times; another had convinced a few pals to skip school, which ended in a joyride cut short when he wrapped the car around a telephone pole, sending several boys to the hospital; and a third had attempted suicide. Not a healthy environment. “Staying in Seattle wasn’t an option.”
“Yeah, because I don’t have any say in anything that happens to me.”
“Not true, Bryan.”
His son’s lips folded over his teeth in annoyance and he popped his knuckles. “Did anyone ask me what I wanted when you and Sylvia got divorced?”
“Your mother and I—”
“Got married ’cause she was pregnant with me and then you found out that you didn’t love each other. The only reason you stayed together so long was because of me.” He made a sound of disgust in his throat and glared at the ceiling. “I don’t know why you bothered.”
This was getting complicated. Travis walked to the vacant mattress, which lay only a few feet from Bryan’s. He sat on his rolled sleeping bag and clasping his hands together, hung them between his legs as he looked his boy straight in the eye. “Your mother and I weren’t the greatest match, it’s true, and yes, she was carrying you, so that pushed up our wedding plans, but we’d already committed to each other. We were going to get married and have kids, one way or the other. It just didn’t work out.”
Bryan’s lips tightened.
“We tried.”
“Who cares?”
“You do, I think, and I feel badly that you got hurt.”
“I’m not hurt, okay?”
Travis felt like giving up, but he gritted his teeth.
“I just want to move back home,” Bryan said.
“This is home now.”
“Never,” Bryan muttered.
“Look, Bry, it’s complicated and hard, I know, but you have to realize that Sylvia and I each love you very much.”
Levering himself up on an elbow, Bryan stared straight at his father, his gaze, so like Travis’s boring into him. “So that’s why she took off for France.”
“She needed time and space.”
“It’s been three years!”
“She likes it over there.”
“So she can be away from me. Doesn’t have any responsibility then, does she? She can hang out with that gigolo—you know, Jean Pierre or whatever his name is.”
Damn! Travis had to bite his tongue. His ex-wife wasn’t a bad person, just incredibly self-centered. Half of what Bryan was saying about her was true. Sometimes it was impossible to explain that whimsical woman who thought more of herself, her “freedom,” than she did of her family. But then she alone wasn’t to blame for the divorce. Travis, in his own way, had neglected her and their son. “Your mother’s just unconventional. Always has been.”
“Does that translate to basket case?”
“No.”
“Then it must be a fancy way of saying she doesn’t give a damn about me!”
“Bryan, listen—”
“Oh, just forget it.” He flopped back on the sleeping bag and stared at the ceiling again. Making an angry motion with one hand, he said, “I don’t want to think about her, anyway. I don’t want to think about anything.”
“Things have a way of working out,” Travis said, cringing inside at the patronizing ring to his words. “You’ll get used to living here, maybe even like it.”
“Why? Why would I want to live in some little Podunk town?”
“You needed a change.”
“You mean you did.” Bryan eyed his father disdainfully and Travis was suddenly painfully aware of his jeans and flannel shirt as opposed to the suits that Bryan had seen him wearing since the day the kid was born. He couldn’t deny the fact that he’d been little more than a part-time father at best, spending more hours with his fledgling businesses than with his son in the first few, formative years of the boy’s life. He’d kicked himself to hell and back for his mistakes, but it didn’t make any difference. The past was the past. Now it was time for a new start.
“Look,” Travis said, climbing to his feet. “We worked hard today. Let’s spoil ourselves and go skiing tomorrow afternoon.”
“What? No more chopping wood? Splitting kindling? Mopping floors?” Bryan sneered.
“Careful, or you’ll find yourself doing just those things,” Travis warned, though he smiled. “We’ll check out Mount Echo. May as well since it’s practically in our backyard. What do you say?”
“Anything’s better than hanging around this place,” Bryan growled, but Travis had noticed a spark of interest—the first since they’d moved here—in his son’s sullen eyes.
* * *
The next day Travis and Bryan headed to Mount Echo. After skiing together for a while, they split up and agreed to meet at two o’clock. Now, Bryan was looking down a very steep run. He had heard about Devil’s Spine from Marty Sinclair, a friend of his in Seattle who had bragged about “getting twenty feet of air,” by jumping off the spine. Marty had bragged and laughed as he’d rolled a joint and offered it to Bryan, who had declined and been rewarded with a cloud of smoke exhaled in his face. Bryan had determined for himself that if Marty could make the jump, so could he. Never mind that he was already late meeting his dad at the lodge, never mind that the run was obviously closed and he’d had to cross-country it over to the ridge, never mind that he was cold and tired and was, deep inside, a little bit chicken about doing
this. He had a point to prove. To Marty. To his dad. And especially to himself.
He’d eyed the jump and it was nowhere near twenty feet. Maybe six or eight, but twenty? No way. Poised at the top of the narrow canyon that wound steeply between trees and cliffs on either side, he screwed up his courage, planted his poles and took off. Tucked low, faster and faster he sped, his skis skimming over the trail. The snow was glazed with ice, bumps carved into the pack so hard they sent shock waves through his legs as he raced through the narrow channel. But there was no turning back. Fir branches slapped at his face, but he didn’t care. He took the final turn and the world seemed to open up as the trees gave way and there was nothing in front of him but cloudy sky. With a final push, he was airborne, soaring through the frigid air, wind rushing at his face, his entire body free and sailing through the sky.
Adrenaline charged through his bloodstream as he looked over the tops of trees. His heart nearly stopped when he finally glanced down, preparing for his landing. He braced himself, keeping his knees loose. It’ll be okay. If Marty can do it, so can I! But his heart was pounding in fear. His mouth was dry. What if he didn’t land right? What if he turned an ankle. What if—
Bam!
His skis slammed into the ground. His body jarred. He was speeding downhill. He’d done it! Exhilaration swept through him just as his right ski caught an edge. He tried to right himself and overcompensated. Before he knew what was happening, he was falling, head over heels. One binding released. His ski flew off and he was tumbling ever faster toward a small fir tree. The second biding broke free. He tried to break his fall, but couldn’t dig in. The sky and ground blurred. “Oh, God,” he yelled, snow filling his mouth.
He careered into a tree, his body jerked by the force. With a yowl, he felt pain—intense, blinding and hot—scream up his leg and he realized that he was all alone, on a part of the mountain that was closed, where no one would find him. He tried to yell, but blackness swirled in front of his eyes and he had to fight to stay awake. He screamed before the darkness surrounded him again and this time, though he struggled, he passed out. His final conscious thought was that he was going to die. Alone.
Not that his parents would care….
CHAPTER TWO
VERONICA ANGLED HER skis, cutting the edges into the fresh snow as she glared up at the summit of Mount Echo, a jagged, craggy peak nearly concealed by the clouds that clung to its uppermost reaches. A terrain of savage beauty, one journalist had written. Treacherous. Unforgiving. Cruel. “Damn you,” she whispered, then snapped her goggles over her eyes.
This is crazy, Ronni! You can’t keep blaming the mountain for Hank’s death! It’s been four years. Enough time to heal. Time to move forward with your life.
Then why did she feel that she couldn’t breathe sometimes, that the need to get back at someone or something was so great it suffocated her? She’d suffered through a grief support group, cried on her sister’s shoulder, forced herself to smile for her child’s sake, but had never completely come to terms with the fact that Hank was gone—irretrievably and forever.
“Get over it,” she told herself, dismayed that she’d actually sworn at the mountain. Adjusting her straps, she turned her back to the wind that whistled above the timberline and planted her poles. Expertly she skied down a wide, tree-lined bowl. Most of the skiers seemed to be handling the gentle slope of North Alpine Run without much difficulty, though a few hotdoggers and snow boarders barreled at breakneck speeds past their more cautious counterparts.
Veering to the left, Ronni steered down a narrow cat track that headed into rougher territory, where the steeper grade of Redrock Canyon usually took its toll on less experienced skiers. As part of the rescue team, she patrolled the slopes, helping stranded or injured skiers get back to the lodge safely. Years ago, before the accident, she and Hank had worked the slopes together and after his death, she’d continued her association with the rescue team, helping the injured, vowing to prevent Echo from taking more victims, hoping to assuage the guilt that still kept her awake some nights. It was her personal quest—her vendetta against Mother Nature.
She spied a little girl in a pink ski outfit who seemed alone and lost. The child, around twelve, judging by her size, was standing on the edge of Jackpine Run, a trail that changed from softly rolling terrain to a steep mogul-filled slope. Veronica was about to see if the child needed help, when a man—probably the kid’s father—swooshed up to her and together they tackled the difficult terrain.
All in all it had been a quiet day, thank God, but the temperature had dropped, the wind had picked up and on the east face even the groomed runs were icy. Treacherous. Unforgiving. She plunged her poles into the snow and started downhill. For years she’d told herself to give up this part-time job. Between managing her growing mail-order business and being both mother and father to Amy, she had her hands full. But she couldn’t stop. It was as if she was compelled to tackle Mount Echo, to try to save lives, to help the injured, all the while spitting in the face of the mountain that she loved and hated.
She probably needed to see a psychiatrist, she thought, someone to help her quit blaming herself and the mountain for Hank’s death.
Skiing down a final slope, she weaved easily through the throng that had collected around the base lodge. Skiers and snowboarders were moving in all directions, heading for the warmth of the lodge, the lift-ticket lines, the chairlifts, rope tow or parking lot. On the back deck of the lodge a crew was still barbecuing chicken. Black, fragrant smoke curled to the sky, and each time the lodge door opened, the sound of music added a throbbing backbeat to the general hubbub.
Maneuvering to the emergency hut, she was just pushing out of her bindings when Bobby Sawyer threw open the door. “We’ve got two new ones, Ronni,” he said as he stretched his fingers into his gloves. “Both on the north side. One on Double Spur, the other in Devil’s Hollow.”
“Let’s go.” She snapped off her skis, held them against her and together they climbed onto a waiting snowmobile. Bobby drove and Ronni tucked her head against the wind. The snowmobile roared up an icy cat track, away from the skiers.
Yelling to be heard over the noise of the engine, Bobby filled Veronica in on the details. “I’ll go up to Double Spur, that’s where a little girl slammed into a tree. There’s a possible head injury and we may have to life-flight her.”
Ronni’s heart sank. No! No! No! This mountain couldn’t claim another life, not that of a child.
“The other injury is a kid who was taking a jump off the rocks on Devil’s Spine. I think he ended up tangling with a tree. From the reports it sounds like leg problems. Tim’s already coming with the sled.”
“When did it happen?”
“Someone saw him less than ten minutes ago.”
“I thought the spine was closed today.”
“Either the guy can’t read or he ignored the warnings.”
There was always some fool who didn’t think the rules applied to him and took off on his own. Bobby dropped her off near the empty chairlift that linked the base lodge with all the runs shooting off Devil’s Hollow and Veronica snapped on her skis. She sped under the lift, shot through a narrow trail that cut through the trees to the ridge of boulders and run that was known as Devil’s Spine or just the spine. Icy and treacherous, the mountain wasn’t giving an inch on this side. She caught a glimpse of the downed skier lying in the snow beneath the rocks. Both skis had been thrown off. One lay split near the protruding red boulders that formed the vertebrae of the spine; his other ski was tangled in the broken branches of a small fir tree.
“Hang in there, kid,” Veronica said under her breath as she skied down to him. “Hey, you all right?” she said when she reached him.
He didn’t move.
“Oh, God.”
First-aid training swept through her mind.
She was
out of her skis and next to him in an instant. “Hey, are you all right?” she repeated. “Can you hear me?”
Eyes, a startling blue, blinked open and focused. A good sign.
“How do you feel, hmm?” she asked, watching as consciousness slowly returned.
“Like hell,” he finally whispered. He tried to move and winced.
“I’ll bet that was quite a fall you took,” she said, just talking to keep him awake. He lifted his head, then closed an eye.
“Just lie still.”
“My leg,” he whispered, blinking rapidly as the tears started to form in those incredible eyes.
“Shh. Let me look at it.”
He tried to move again. “I can’t get up,” he said with an edge of panic to his voice.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of you. All you have to do is relax and don’t move.”
“It hurts,” he said, then uttered an oath under his breath. He had the look in his eyes of a wounded, cornered dog and Veronica’s heart went out to him.
“I’m sure it does,” she said, offering him a smile. “Hang in there, we’ve got a basket coming and we’ll get you down. Do you hurt anywhere else?” She was touching him gently, looking for signs of injury. He had a bruise forming on his chin, but thankfully there were no signs of other head injuries.
“No.”
“No headache?”
“No.”
“But you did pass out?”
“Yeah—” He looked around and blinked again, “I guess I did.”
Aside from his leg, he didn’t appear to have sustained any other injuries, but she had to check and the fact that he’d lost consciousness earlier wasn’t a good sign. Either he’d hit his head or nearly scared himself to death. “How about your back, neck or arms?”
“Just my leg, okay?” he shouted, then clamped his mouth shut and looked guilty as sin. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly, realizing how scared he was. He was big, five eight or nine and probably somewhere between the ages of twelve and fourteen, but he still resembled a little kid. “How long have you been here?”