TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
1. FLIGHT FOR LIFE
2. GEARING UP
3. RINGING THE BELL
4. COMPLICATIONS
5. THE CURSE
6. DEEP POWDER
7. BULLDOZERS
8. OUTRACED
9. THE RIVER PEOPLE
10. CONNECTIONS
11. CHEATERS
12. PURSUIT
13. AVALANCHE CHUTE
14. STAIRWAY
15. THE RACE
16. THE ENVELOPE
17. BLESSING
AFTERWORD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
THIS NOVEL IS DEDICATED TO TOM SIMON.
HE MAKES A SNOWBOARD SING.
TOR WAS AWAKE the moment the door to his room opened.
“Torin?”
“I’m up, Mom,” he said, sitting up in bed.
His mother came into the room and turned on the light. Tor squinted. The room was full of boxes, some open, some still taped shut. Tor had been too tired to do much more than throw some blankets on his bed last night. He hadn’t even unpacked his books or his CDs.
“I have to go into the clinic. Now. I don’t want to leave you alone, so I need you to come with me,” his mother said. She started rummaging in the closet. “Where’s your snowsuit?”
“My snowsuit?” Tor asked, and for a moment wondered if he wasn’t as awake as he thought. Weren’t snowsuits for little kids? He was twelve years old, not six.
“Overalls, coveralls—what are they called around here?” his mom said, frantically throwing clothing out of the closet. “We have to go, Tor. Now. There’s a boy at the clinic and I need to get there right now—there!”
Tor scrambled out of bed and grabbed the ridiculous blue snowsuit his mom was holding out to him. Somebody needed his mom’s help. He hadn’t gotten used to thinking of her as a doctor after all those years she’d spent in school and in training. But she was a doctor at last, and someone needed her.
He pulled the blue suit over his pajama bottoms and T-shirt. His pj’s were printed with blue waves and tiny California surfers. Yesterday he’d been a California kid. He stuffed his feet into the brand-new snow boots his mom had bought. Zip went the suit. Done. He flipped the attached hood forward and looked at his mom, who was dressed in a similar suit. Hers was red. He and his mom looked like two characters from a really lame Saturday-morning cartoon. He wanted to say what he was thinking, but his mom’s face was too serious, almost scared. He said nothing.
“Follow me,” his mom said, and Tor clumped after her.
When Tor followed his mother outside, his lungs instantly stopped working. His breath froze. He started coughing. This was like outer space. The air felt like knives going into his lungs. There was a tiny crackling sound as all the moisture in his nose froze. That was so gross. Tor didn’t want to imagine frozen snot, but too late, he did.
His fingers started tingling, and he shoved them into his pockets. Huge puffs of vapor came out in a cloud around his mother’s head as she pulled the door shut behind them and locked it. Tor looked at his new hometown. He’d seen it for the first time that afternoon when they’d driven in. Crowds of skiers and shoppers had filled the streets. Now it was late at night and Snow Park was silent.
He looked up and down the streets and saw only a single set of tire tracks in the powdery snow. Streetlights on every block cast down pale circles, but no one walked on the sidewalks and no lights shone in the buildings. Tor’s new house was a block off the main street of Snow Park and stood near the top of a small hill. The streets below him were decorated for the Christmas tourist season, and green wreaths and red ribbons decorated every storefront.
Snow Park could be a miniature town inside an enormous snow globe. Tor almost expected to see a department store dummy standing at the corner holding a fake pile of Christmas boxes. This vision was so instantly creepy he shivered.
“This way,” his mom said, starting down the sidewalk. Tor followed, glancing back at the garage where the car was parked. His mom saw the look, or somehow knew what Tor was thinking. “The car would take longer to start than we have time,” she said. “We’ll be at the clinic in just a minute. It’s only two blocks. Can you breathe okay? Put your glove over your face—oh, I’m sorry. No gloves yet. Try to breathe through your jacket collar. It must be twenty below out here.”
“I’m good,” Tor said. He wasn’t going to complain. He hadn’t thought that breathing might be a problem, though. He tucked his chin into the warmth of his snowsuit. The snow was so cold it didn’t crunch. It squeaked like Styrofoam under his feet. Tor tried to ignore the cold as they hurried down the street.
“Dr. Sinclair!” someone yelled.
“Here,” Tor’s mom called. Tor raised his eyes and saw the Snow Park Medical Clinic. The building was small and had a deep porch and a steeply pitched roof. The windows were now brightly lighted. There were two cars parked outside the clinic, and as Tor looked, two more cars turned a corner and headed toward the clinic, their tailpipes sending plumes of exhaust into the cold air. Another car turned the corner from the other direction and crunched down the street. Whatever was going on, a lot of people apparently knew about it.
“Doctor,” someone said, startling Tor. He hadn’t seen the man standing in the darkness of the porch. His voice was thin and high and anxious. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” Dr. Sinclair said.
Tor followed his mother up the steps. The man was now gripping his mom’s arm, his fingers disappearing into the fabric of her snowsuit, dragging her inside the clinic. Tor followed his mom, still looking down to keep his face deep in his hood. In the warmth of the clinic his nose and cheeks started tingling and stinging. He drew a deep breath and was grateful it no longer burned his lungs.
There was someone lying on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket. A man knelt at his side. Tor peered, trying to see.
Suddenly the door burst open behind them and Tor turned to see two teenagers, both wearing identical blue coats, their eyes wide and frightened.
“What’s going on?” one of the boys said. “Coach?”
“Excuse me,” Tor’s mom commanded, and the room hushed instantly. Dr. Susan Sinclair’s curly brown hair stood out from her head and her nose was red from the cold. She wasn’t tall, and she was slender, but there was no doubt that she was in charge.
Tor’s dad hadn’t wanted his mom to go to medical school, all those years ago. Tor wasn’t sure why, exactly. He thought sometimes that his dad hadn’t wanted his mom spending all that time away from him. Or maybe he really didn’t think she could do it. Tor’s dad had told his mom that she couldn’t get into medical school because the exams were too hard. But she had taken the pre-med courses one by one, studying nights and weekends, and she’d passed them. Then he’d told her that medical schools wanted young people, not moms with kids. But she’d applied and was accepted. Then he’d told her she was too little and frail for all the tough things that doctors had to do—crack chests, give CPR, and deliver babies.
Tor’s dad had gotten a little desperate at the end, but nothing worked. She’d left them, finally, both Tor and his dad, and his parents had divorced. Now, six years later, she looked every inch the doctor she’d wanted to be. Tor wished his dad could have seen his mom the way she was now, back then. Maybe things would have turned out differently.
“Everyone out except relatives,” Dr. Sinclair ordered. “Tor, I need you to sit over there.” She pointed at a chair in the far corner, and Tor nodded. He knew his mom needed to work on the boy who was lying on the floor, and he felt strange that she was the person everyone was looking to for help. He sat down.
The two blue-coated teenage
rs turned for the door. One of them looked at Tor with an expression that Tor couldn’t figure out for a moment. Then he got it. The boy was glaring at him with complete and utter hatred.
“It’s the curse,” the boy spat. The other teenager saw Tor’s expression and he grabbed his friend’s arm.
“Shut up!” he hissed, and they hurried from the room.
Tor turned back to his mom to ask her what the boy meant, but she was busy. She had snapped on surgical gloves and had turned to the sick boy—a teenager, really—on the floor. Tor saw the frothy pink blood coming out of the teenager’s mouth and nose. The boy was gasping, and pink bubbles came out his nose every time he drew hoarse breath.
This was the first time Tor had seen something like that, and he wondered if he was going to get sick like people did in movies. Evidently, he wasn’t like those people, because he didn’t feel sick at all. He was, instead, powerfully interested. The blood was pink, not the dark red of a nosebleed, and it was full of bubbles. Why was that?
“You’re his father?” his mom said to the man who knelt by the boy. She’d finished a quick examination and now she expertly slipped a mask on the boy’s face and turned a knob on a green tank. There was a loud hiss like an angry snake and then a steady hissing sound after that.
“Yes,” the man replied. “I’m Dempsy Slader.” Mr. Slader was wringing his hands, his face twisted in anguish.
“I’m Coach Rollins,” said the man who had led Tor’s mom into the clinic. The coach looked calm, but a muscle jumped under his eye and his skin was so pale Tor thought of a fish he’d once seen washed up on the beach, long dead.
“My son,” Mr. Slader continued, “he got back late from a strategy meeting for the snowboarding team. Later, after he went to bed, I heard him coughing and it didn’t sound right, it sounded horrible. Then there was the blood. I called Coach Rollins, but he said nothing had happened at the meeting. He didn’t know what was going on either—”
“We called you, and then we brought him here,” the coach said.
“His name?” Dr. Sinclair asked.
“Brian. Brian Slader.”
“Brian, listen to me,” Dr. Sinclair said, turning to the boy on the floor. “You’ve got a bit of pulmonary edema in your lungs and we have to get you to a lower elevation right away. You’re not poisoned, you don’t have a disease, but we do have to call a Flight for Life helicopter right now. Nod if you understand me.”
Tor saw the bloody boy nod, very slowly. Dr. Sinclair squeezed his arm kindly.
“Don’t try to talk,” she said. “This oxygen mask is going to give you some good air and you need to keep it on. That’s going to help you breathe.”
Tor watched as his mother pressed her fingers to Brian’s wrist. She had a stethoscope around her neck and she took it and listened to his chest. Her face didn’t change expression, and Tor thought that was probably not a good thing.
“You need to call a Flight for Life helicopter?” Mr. Slader said. He looked paler and even more frightened than before. “You said—he’s going to be okay?”
“I think so, yes, but we need to get him down to a lower elevation immediately,” Dr. Sinclair said smoothly. “If you don’t have insurance—”
“No, it’s not that,” Mr. Slader said. “I’m just—a helicopter?”
“Your son is seriously ill,” Dr. Sinclair said. She had taken out a cell phone and dialed a number, and now she raised the phone to her ear.
Tor looked out the clinic window at the shapes in frost-cloaked car windows. The two teenagers had gotten into one of the waiting cars but they hadn’t driven off—the cars just sat there, the exhaust plumes from their running engines sending white clouds into the black sky. As Tor looked out the window, two more cars drove down the street and nosed into parking spots.
Coach Rollins left the room and went out to speak to one of the teenagers in the cars. He stood up and made a commanding, waving gesture to all the cars that could only mean: Go home. He came back in and put a comforting hand on Mr. Slader’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Dempsy. We were all together tonight, just a few hours ago, and I wanted to know if something had happened to Brian after we ended the strategy meeting. I called Jeff to see if they’d gone out for burgers after the meeting. Jeff, he must have called everyone else on the team to let them know Brian is sick. That’s why they all showed up here. They just want to help.”
Mr. Slader nodded but Tor didn’t think he’d heard a word Coach Rollins had said.
Dr. Sinclair was already on the phone and Tor could hear part of the conversation. It seemed to be held in a world of doctor-speak, with “stats” and “emergent” thrown in with words like “edema” and “ringers.” She hung up and turned to Mr. Slader. “I need you to get a gurney so we can get him off the floor and in some heated blankets. Have we met before, Coach Rollins?”
“Randy Rollins, ma’am. We’ve met, but I was in my uniform.”
“Deputy Rollins?” Dr. Sinclair said.
“That’s right,” he said. “I’m also coach of the high school snowboarding team. Brian’s on the team. He was fine tonight. We weren’t working out at all, just talking over strategy at our team meeting—”
“Can’t we just drive him—” Mr. Slader interrupted, but Dr. Sinclair held up a hand.
“There are two mountain passes between here and Denver,” she said. “He needs to get down in altitude now, or he’s going to be in serious trouble. We can’t spare the time to drive.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Slader said, sounding like he’d been punched in the stomach.
“Brian here is going to be all right,” Dr. Sinclair said, and squeezed the boy’s hand. Tor looked at Brian, who was indeed looking better under his oxygen mask. There was still bubbly pink blood coming from his mouth, but his eyes weren’t so strange and distant anymore, like he was looking at something nobody else could see.
“I’ll get the gurney,” Coach Rollins said.
“I need a few minutes to get him an IV and warm up blankets, and we’ll get the ambulance to take him to the airfield,” Dr. Sinclair said.
She looked over at Tor and, before she could say anything motherly, he immediately spoke up.
“I’m good.”
She nodded at him approvingly and turned back to her patient.
When the Flight for Life helicopter came in, collected Brian Slader, and took off, it was the strangest thing Tor had ever seen. The beating helicopter blades swirled powdery snow around until there was nothing but smears of light in a white cloud, some red and green and some pure white, and behind it was the total blackness of night. The blades kept appearing and disappearing in the clouds of snow until they looked like beating wings. Suddenly the wings swept up into the sky and disappeared into the darkness.
Tor sighed and pressed himself closer to the heating vents of Mr. Slader’s car. They weren’t giving out anything even close to heat, but there was a vague sort of warmth there.
His mom appeared out of the snow, which was settling back down to the ground now that the helicopter had gone. Mr. Slader was with her, along with Coach Rollins.
The car door opened and his mom, looking cold and tired, clambered in. Mr. Slader got in on the driver’s side and all the tiny bit of warmth that Tor had managed to build up blew out the doors and was gone. The coach waved a hand at them and walked away.
“You need to drive to Denver to be with him,” Dr. Sinclair said. “I’m sorry you couldn’t go in the helicopter but they need to be as light as possible to get over the passes.”
“My wife is packing right now,” Mr. Slader said. “Let me take you home first.”
“Put your seat belt on, honey,” Dr. Sinclair said to Tor. “I’ve called on too many people in the ER who didn’t wear their seat belts.”
“Called?” Tor asked.
“Called, as in, called the time of death,” Dr. Sinclair said matter-of-factly. “Put your seat belt on.”
Tor put his seat belt on. So
did Mr. Slader.
Tor’s mom followed him into his room. He stepped out of his boots, stripped off his blue snowsuit, and was deep in the covers before his mom had finished kicking off her own boots. She stood in the doorway and looked at him with a smile that made him feel warm clear through but also embarrassed.
“Thanks for being so good, Tor,” his mom said, unzipping her suit. Her stethoscope was still around her neck. She was very slim, and Tor had once thought she was the prettiest mom ever. When she was around, that was—before she decided to leave Tor and his dad and go to medical school.
Tor knew he looked a lot like his mom, except his brown hair didn’t curl because he kept it cut short. Their eyes were the same, though—a pale leafy green that looked blue in the sunlight and turned as muddy as swamp water when they got mad. They used to rub noses like Eskimos when Tor was four years old, rub noses and giggle and bat their long brown eyelashes against each other and stare into each other’s identical eyes. It seemed like a million years ago.
“I don’t mean ‘good,’ really,” she continued, sitting on Tor’s bed and taking his hands in hers. “Your hands are like ice!”
“I’m warm,” Tor said, although he wasn’t yet. His feet were still freezing. Still, he thought he would be soon. The blanket on his new bed was a fluffy down comforter and it had already started to heat him up. There was something inside him that was tightly clenched, like a fist. He hadn’t even realized he was tense. His mom was still holding his hands, but she wasn’t being gooey about it. She was just holding them.
“Is that guy going to be okay, Mom?” Tor asked.
“I think so, honey. Before I was a doctor, I probably would have said, ‘Sure.’ But now I’m a doc, and I’m never sure.”
“I thought doctors knew everything,” Tor said.
“Not everything,” his mom said, and her eyes were sad. They weren’t exactly talking about Brian Slader anymore. She stood up, giving Tor’s hands a squeeze before she let them go. “Before I forget, tomorrow, during clinic, I’m going to send you down to the Pro Shop. They’ll get you your gear.”
The White Gates Page 1