High Lonesome

by Tanya Chris

  He sighed. Why was he even surprised Tanner had been misrepresenting himself? Tanner was an addict. It was what addicts did. But a mountain top in a snowstorm was a foolish place to be an addict. If he’d come here to try to kick his habit, he’d brought a supply with him, and there was no addict story he’d ever heard that ended with having some left over.

  “I thought we were just going to take a hike,” Tanner said, probably wondering why Joe was standing there staring at him. “Like we did yesterday.”

  “Snow’s a lot deeper today. If we’re tied together, I’m better positioned to help in case anything happens to you.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “Hopefully nothing, but you could slip over an edge, get buried in an avalanche.”

  Tanner shivered.

  “Or you could sit in front of the stove and nod off.”

  Tanner scowled. He’d caught on that Joe had caught on. “I’ll go,” he said, but there wasn’t as much enthusiasm behind it as there had been.

  He trod wearily up the stairs to change while Joe went over to the staff cupboard and began rooting through it looking for enough webbing to fashion a makeshift harness. He straightened up, his arms full of webbing and biners and one of the coils of rope they kept on hand in case a rescue was needed, to find Pyotr watching him from the doorway to the great room.

  “Looks like fun,” Pyotr said.

  He had a hard time meeting Pyotr’s eyes because what those eyes were suggesting was too appealing. He turned his back, ostensibly to sort through the gear, but really to hide the fact that his cock had leapt up like he was in seventh grade and had just caught sight of David Beckham in an underwear ad. He should’ve beaten off when he’d had the chance.

  “Tanner and I are going to take a hike,” he said, trying to make it sound casual.

  “Out there?”

  He turned to see Pyotr staring through the window that ran from door to wall. The snow was still coming down, but the flakes were fat and lazy now. Another inch, he figured, before they tapered off entirely. Susan had told him that the forecast called for a lull, followed by a second squall overnight and ending by morning. Then maybe they could start the process of digging out.

  “We won’t get far,” he admitted. “We’ll be postholing the whole way. That means our feet will sink into the snow,” he added, remembering that Pyotr didn’t seem to know any more about how to survive a summer snowstorm than Tanner. He had a pair of snowshoes, which he’d been planning to use, but he didn’t have a second pair for Tanner or the patience to teach Tanner how to use them, so postholing it was. “But it’s beautiful out there and it’s a workout.”

  “That’s how you keep so fit. I didn’t see a weight bench.”

  “There’s a lot to do around here, whatever the season. I stay active.”

  Pyotr ran his eyes up and down his body speculatively. He knew Pyotr couldn’t really see anything, not with all the layers he had on, but he felt evaluated none the less.

  “I’ll join you,” Pyotr announced. He headed towards the stairs without waiting for him to agree.

  “Your boots are probably still wet,” he called after him, but Pyotr didn’t slow down.

  He sighed again and headed back to the cupboard for another wad of webbing. He hadn’t planned to drag two beginners along behind him, but he preferred having Pyotr and Tanner with him where he could keep an eye on them over leaving them to their own devices in the hut.

  He fetched his harness from his room and put it on, then tied Pyotr and Tanner into a rigging of webbing and biners. Neither one of them really had the right clothes for the job, but the snow and wind had died off to the point that they’d be getting wetter from the inside, thanks to their own sweat, than from the outside. Hypothermia wasn’t as big a threat today.

  From the porch, he surveyed the landscape. The sky was still leaden, but the ceiling was higher, high enough that the day was bright. Snow fell slowly, sparkling in the ambient light. If the forecast was right, even the light snowfall would stop over the next hour. They might even see the sun before it set.

  “Keep the rope tight,” he instructed after placing Tanner in the middle for maximum protection. “If someone starts to slide, you drop. Like this.” He mimicked a starfish pose. “Make as much contact with the snow as you can. Your body in the soft snow will form a natural anchor, but don’t let slack build up in the system. If a body picks up momentum, the force required to stop it increases.”

  He had a mountaineering ax to assist in self arrest, but even if he’d had a spare ax, he wouldn’t have handed it over to someone who didn’t know how to use it. They’d be as likely to injure themselves with it as save themselves. Dead weight was the best he could hope for from them. He’d count on himself to provide the rest.

  His first step off the porch had him sinking most of the way up to the knee before the snow supported his weight. The snow was too fresh to have formed a crust that would hold and too dry to compress into a firm surface. Yep, this was going to be a battle. Even going slowly enough to allow Tanner to keep up, he’d get enough exercise to allow him to sleep well that night.

  “Walk in my footsteps,” he told the two who waited on the porch behind him as he crossed the gully that led down to Ganymede. Not only would their struggle be easier with him breaking trail, it’d prevent them from stepping through any unexpected holes or over any unnoticed edges. He led the way towards Muir, away from the steep slopes that the path to Flume traversed under.

  With half a rope length between him and Tanner, it was almost like being alone. He couldn’t even hear Tanner’s undoubtedly heavy breaths. Heroin suppressed lung function, even under ideal conditions. He couldn’t imagine what kind of suffering Tanner was subjecting himself to on these outings. It had never occurred to him to go for a walk in the mountains back when he’d been using. His interest in hiking and climbing came after he’d gotten clean and had initially been more about running away from something than running toward it.

  This world he trudged through was beautiful, but dangerous. Everything was white—the slopes off to his left, the ground under his feet, the sky. Even the rock face, normally a yellowish-grey, was dotted with so many clumps of clinging snow that it was more white than rock. Overhanging the cliff were cornices, great swoops of snow that could release unpredictably.

  It wasn’t hard to believe he was the only living thing in the world. Only the occasional tug of the rope coming tight reminded him he was dragging two people behind him. When he checked on his companions, he found their heads down, each caught in his own white and silent world.

  About a third of the way to Muir, he stopped at the overlook where he and Tanner had turned around the day before and watched Tanner slog wearily towards him. When he reached the overlook, Tanner made as if to drop into the snow before Joe caught him.

  “Never sit in snow,” he told him. “It feels like it’ll help, but it won’t. Just stand there and catch your breath.” He could see he’d pushed Tanner too far again. Why didn’t the kid speak up? Such a fierce, hopeful spirit. He put an arm around him and pulled him into his side, taking some of his weight.

  “My God, that’s gorgeous.” Pyotr huffed up to join them, his breathing deep but even.

  The valley that swept out below them was so far down that it was green, not white, like a portal into another season. Somewhere out there, the sun shone. He could see the brush of light over the rooftops of the small town nestled between the rolling green hills. He’d seen this town from this angle many times, but the funny thing was that he’d never been down to it, wasn’t even sure which town it was.

  From a distance, it looked idyllic, with white-spired churches and tidy rows of houses lining the main street. Branching out, there were smaller roads, the houses spaced further and further apart, some with fields behind them, others standing like sentinels on a swell of hill, alone and proud.

  If he ever visited this town, he supposed he’d find it like any o
ther—filled with gossips and busy bodies, housing its share of addicts and alcoholics. The churches would host services for the self-righteous in the mornings and twelve step meetings for the battered and broken in the evenings. The cops would give warnings to the rich and jail sentences to the poor. Children would bully each other for being gay or disabled or born into the wrong religion or body.

  But from up here, the town was paradise. Green in the summer, white in the winter. Quiet year-round.

  Tanner finally raised his head. He surveyed the view with listless eyes for a moment, then turned to huddle closer against his body, shielding himself from the wind that swept across the ridge. Joe tightened his arm and brought up his other one to circle Tanner between them.

  “Too much for you?”

  “There’s no way I’ll make it back.”

  “You will. You have more strength than you give yourself credit for.” He brushed a kiss onto the skin that peeped out from under Tanner’s wool cap, wondering if he was being encouraging or territorial. He glanced over at Pyotr and found him watching them with an expression he couldn’t make out.

  “It’ll be easier going back,” he told them both. “Trail’s already broken.”

  “You were the one breaking it,” Pyotr said. “I don’t know how you did it.”

  “This is my territory.” Truth was, he could feel it—in his legs, in his back. The first snow of the season was always hard. “See that?” He pointed to a mass of darkness edging its way in behind the bright skies over the valley. “That’s the next front.”

  “We’re getting more?” Tanner’s voice was fearful, frantic. “Why does it keep snowing? It’s August.”

  “Who knows why anything with the weather these days. Don’t panic,” he added, because Tanner looked like he was panicking. “This is just a few inches, a follow-on storm, nothing like that blizzard.”

  “We’ll never get out of here,” Tanner mumbled. He wrapped his arms tighter around Joe and shivered. Now that they’d stopped moving, the sweat was cooling rapidly on their bodies.

  “Let’s head back,” he said. “Remember, keep the full length of the rope between us.”

  As he followed his own footsteps back towards the hut, he listened for the distinctive rumble of an avalanche or the crack of rock breaking free. The snow had stopped and the day was warming, the struggling sun breaking through in spots to melt slopes that had previously been stable. Ironically, it was when conditions improved that things got the most dangerous.

  The rumble started to his right as he approached the hut. He stopped, swiveling his head to spot where the snow had released. It was a small avalanche, originating on the slope above the path to Flume and washing down into the gully. It came in a barrel of hardened chunks of snow churning across the space between the hut and where he stood to tumble past him down the trail to Ganymede. Spray washed over him, drifts of snow coating his hat and coat.

  “Holy shit.”

  “What are you doing?” He turned to find Pyotr next to him along with Tanner. “This is the exact reason we’re supposed to be maintaining distance between each other. You want all three of us to be caught up in the runoff?”

  “Sorry,” Pyotr said, sounding both apologetic and awed. He had an arm wrapped around Tanner’s waist and appeared to be holding most of his weight. “Tanner’s not doing well at all. I think he’s going to be sick.”

  Joe turned to evaluate him. Yeah, it was a good thing they were back at the hut. Tanner was crashing hard. His lungs would be heaving and his stomach wouldn’t feel much better.

  The avalanche had played itself out, the churned up snow settling, leaving the air clear enough to see that the path they’d been about to cross had been totally obliterated.

  “Wait,” he ordered. “One at a time crossing this. Got it?”

  “Yeah, sorry. How would the rope help though, if one of us were caught up in that? I mean, we’d still be dead, right?”

  “If I can find you, I can dig you out.” Maybe alive, maybe not, but he didn’t say that part.

  He crossed the path the avalanche had taken cautiously, testing each step for fear of triggering another slide. The footsteps he’d left earlier were gone but the avalanche debris was firmer and blockier than fresh snow so his journey was more like boulder-hopping than postholing. When he’d made it to the hut, he anchored to one of the posts supporting the overhanging roof and gestured for first Tanner, then Pyotr to cross.

  Tanner disappeared while he was still belaying Pyotr across the gully, vanishing into the hut with a loud bang. Joe figured he was headed upstairs to shoot up quick, but by the time he and Pyotr had made it inside and were knocking the snow off their boots, Tanner was back downstairs. He hadn’t taken his boots off to run up the stairs, which meant there were puddles of water all up and down them, and he had his pack in one hand even as he was stuffing clothes into it wildly with the other. It was the fastest Joe had ever seen him move.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, intercepting Tanner at the bottom of the staircase.

  “I’m getting out of here while I can.”

  “Not now you’re not.”

  “If not now, then when? Another storm is coming and what happens after that? Another one? I’m not spending the winter up here trapped in this hut.”

  “You’re not spending the winter here. Relax.”

  Tanner tried to dodge around him. He grabbed him by both forearms.

  “I can’t let you go out there.”

  “You can’t stop me. I’m a free person. I’ll call the police.”

  He laughed, not a genuine laugh but a frustrated one. “With what signal? Look, Tanner, you saw what just happened, right? The trail to Ganymede runs down a gully which happens to be a funnel for every avalanche in the area.”

  “I don’t care.” Tanner dropped his pack, giving up on dragging it past him, and wrenched free from his grasp, but Pyotr caught him before he reached the door.

  “I think he’s right,” Pyotr said. “Stay put another couple of days, hmm?”

  “Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me.” Tanner escaped from Pyotr’s grasp and ran back to him, ducking behind him as though he hadn’t just been trying to get past him.

  “Is it Pyotr?” he asked. “Is that why you want to leave?” He looked over at Pyotr who seemed more concerned and confused than threatening. “Did you force him to do that to you?”

  “Fuck no.” Pyotr shook his head violently. Drops of melting snow dashed from the blond tips.

  “He has a gun,” Tanner said from his position behind him.

  Pyotr stepped towards them. “You looked through my stuff?”

  “Oh, like you weren’t looking through mine.”

  What? Why did Pyotr have a gun? And why was he searching Tanner’s bags? Or vice versa for that matter.

  Pyotr stepped closer again, circling his way around him to get an arm on Tanner. They stood there in a tense triangle, each of them with one arm on Tanner—him looking at Pyotr, Pyotr looking at Tanner.

  “I understand why you’re scared of me,” Pyotr told Tanner softly. “You think you know who I am, but you’re wrong. That’s not who I am and I’m not here to hurt you. I promise.”

  “We don’t allow firearms in the hut.” He had no idea what was going on between these two, who, as far as he knew, had met the night before, but he knew there didn’t need to be a gun in the mix.

  Pyotr turned his attention to Joe with a thoughtful look. “Can anyone else get here?”

  “They’d be crazy to try.”

  “Assume they’re crazy. Could someone make it here?”

  He didn’t ask Pyotr why that was so important. Maybe there were some things he didn’t want to know, like why Pyotr had a gun and why he was giving off this aura of needing it to protect someone.

  “I’ll call down to Ganymede.” He looked between the two men, at Pyotr’s hand wrapped around Tanner’s frail bicep. He didn’t want to leave Pyotr and Tanner together, but he
didn’t trust either of them alone either. Tanner might try to slip out. Pyotr might do whatever he was up to with that gun.

  “Go sit over there,” he told Pyotr, motioning to the bench by the door, “and don’t you dare touch him.”

  Pyotr reacted like he wanted to assert authority over him, but then he took a deep breath and lowered himself onto the bench with his arms crossed and a glower on his face.

  “Just stay there,” he told Tanner. He stomped with unnecessarily heavy footsteps into the great room. Fuck all this drama. And he’d thought an off-season storm would give him a few days of solitude. As if.

  He fired up the shortwave and rang Ganymede, tapping his fingers against the table as he waited for Susan to come on the line. She laughed when he asked if there were any trekkers en route to the hut.

  “Should there be? I assumed conditions up there weren’t good, but if you want me to open the gates, I’ll let people through.”

  “No,” he said hurriedly. “Conditions are terrible. I was just making sure you weren’t going to let anyone through.”

  “Of course not. We did have a woman try to slip past us this morning—little blond thing in a big parka. She pitched a fit when we stopped her at the first switchback and wouldn’t let her continue up. Said she was meeting someone. You expecting anyone?”

  He snorted. “We have reservations on the books, but whatever. I won’t miss them. Maybe she was pissed about losing her deposit.”

  “Highly possible,” Susan said. “Definitely the type who’s used to getting her way. Maybe she had a date.”

  If she was looking for a man, she’d be disappointed up at Longline. As far as he could tell, he was the only one interested in women, and he had his hands too full with a pair of attractive-but-aggravating men to add someone else into the mix.

  “So how are things up there?” Susan asked.

  “The usual. No power, avalanche threat levels at high, but we’ll survive. I got another guest last night—an unexpected drop-in from Muir. That’s why I asked if you were sending people up.”