Something sharp stabbed through his coat, under his armpit. “Ow!” Snow rained down on his head. Tree branches snapped and catapulted fluffy powder into the sky, as though they had just exploded into dust. Still, there was nothing solid underneath him, and he continued to fall. The astringent, tarry scent of tree sap was everywhere. Boughs splintered and cracked. Limbs shuddered as he grabbed and kicked, his vision swimming around him so fast it was as if he was inside a storm. A cyclone of snow and pine needles.
Wham! He finally hit something hard enough to stop his freefall. The ground. Snow pelted his back, and he pedaled his legs, pumped his arms, and pushed himself frantically to his knees, determined to get himself upright before he was buried. Sticky branches and fir needles stung his cheeks and poked his eyes as he thrashed about in the soft snow. When he reached the trunk, a huge wall of snow caved in behind him.
He pressed his face so tight to the bark he could taste it.
“Matt!” Leah was above him; she sounded close.
“I’m here!” Fear distilled his thoughts into one. She could fall in too. “Don’t come over here!” he screeched.
“I know! It’s a tree well!”
What the hell is that? By tilting his chin up, he saw gray sky through the thick branches, and around him walls of snow, which were still sliding toward him. It was like being at the bottom of a well. A well that was collapsing on him.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so!”
“Can you get out?”
“It’s deep!” The snow around the base of the tree was piled to his waist, and he shifted back and forth to make space. “I’m about fifteen feet down!” His hands, thankfully, were free, and that gave him the ability to scoop away snow until he could bring his knees up. He pulled carefully on a broad limb, hoisting himself up slowly, and as he did he felt the snow slide down to fill the hole he left. He clung to the trunk like a frightened squirrel.
“That’s deep!”
“No shit!” I’m in deep shit. And by shit I mean snow.
“Are you by the tree?”
“I’m ON it!” He was suddenly painfully aware that it was the only thing that saved him.
“Really? Can you climb it?”
“I’m going to try!” Fatigue was a heavy blanket, paining him even to speak. How would he have the strength to get out?
“Do it!” Leah shouted. “I can’t get any closer! If you climb up halfway I can throw you the rope!”
“Okay!” Matt’s fingers were swollen, burning bright with cold, and he climbed gingerly, scraping against the bark. The higher he went the less space he had to maneuver, and by the time he got above the well, he was debating how he would manage the feat. It wasn’t like climbing up some sturdy-limbed oak or maple tree. Everything bent under his weight, throwing him off balance. Branches slapped and poked him. Sap stung his windburned cheeks. Cursing, he kept going.
“I see you!” Leah shouted as his head emerged between the branches. “Can you catch the rope?”
“Uh.” She was ten feet away, holding the loop of rope like a lasso. “I’ll try.”
“Do or do not,” she deadpanned. “There is no try.”
“Thanks, Yoda.”
“No problem.” She swung the coil, ready to hurl the knotted end at him. “Okay, get ready!”
Six throws later it got close. But he wouldn’t let go to reach for it. On the seventh try it snagged a branch next to his shoulder and he grabbed it, winding it tight around his wrist. “Got it!” He tugged it to his chest. “Now what?”
“Now you have to jump.”
“How?” His feet were balanced on several limbs, each one swaying under his weight. The farther he moved from the trunk, the more unstable his perch became. But he would have to jump. There was no other way out.
“Turn around,” Leah ordered. “Push off and jump out. I’ll pull you when you’re in the air.”
It sounded crazy. But Matt couldn’t think of a better plan. He seriously doubted there was one.
“Don’t worry!” she told him. “The snow is deep.”
“I know!” A wave of nausea broke across his face as he remembered the tumbling sensation, the stomach-dropping fright of almost going headfirst into the hole. “That’s the whole problem!” He clenched his teeth at the image of snow piling down around him. A stabbing pain started behind his ears, throbbing in time with his pulse, and he stayed crouched in the tree like a gargoyle, immobile with thoughts of disaster.
“You just have to jump out! That should get you clear!”
That should get him clear. Or was it: That should get him clear.
Leah snapped the rope. “Jump out like you’re jumping out of a plane!”
“I’ve never jumped out of a plane! And I don’t plan to!”
“That helicopter’s not coming back!” Leah hollered. “At least, not anytime soon. So you might as well jump.” A second later she laughed. “That’s a quote for you! Van Halen!”
“I know that.” He didn’t see how she could find any humor in the situation.
“Of course you do, Matt. You know everything! You even know about tree wells.”
Smart-ass, he thought, wondering if she was trying to piss him off on purpose. Make him forget his fear. Make him just do it already. “Yeah, I have personal experience. I’m practically an expert.”
“Great! Let’s go, then.” She pulled the rope, looping a section around her glove, and Matt saw it was tied around her waist, finished with a complicated-looking knot centered below her chest. “Jump out, keep your arms close to your chest but in front of you.”
“Okay.” He didn’t ask why.
“Count of three, okay?” She stepped back into a fighting stance, removing the slack between them. “One . . . two . . .”
“Three!” He jumped, pushing off as hard as he dared, busting through pine boughs that threatened to slap him back. He looked straight ahead, focusing first on the mountain horizon line, then on Leah’s face, some distance away but zooming closer. His arms jerked forward as if he were being pulled up on water skis as she heaved him back, like she was trying to win the ultimate tug-of-war contest. She yanked the rope so hard she landed flat on her back.
He cleared the tree and ended up in a modest-size drift, sinking down onto his hands and knees. After the initial panic subsided, he crawled forward, panting like a dog. Then he turned his head and started retching. Fortunately, nothing came out.
Leah sat back up, leaving a strange snow angel impression behind her. “You know, I didn’t want to say this before, but ninety percent of people who get trapped in a tree well can’t get out.”
Matt wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Can’t get out?”
“Not by themselves.”
“Ninety percent?” He focused on the horizon line, waiting for the nausea to drift off.
“Looks like you’re the lucky ten.” She wound the rope into a tight loop. “I think you’re the luckiest person I’ve ever met.”
“We only met two days ago.”
“That’s long enough to know.”
“Well, I’m lucky you’re with me.”
She shrugged. “I think you would’ve gotten out on your own.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He cringed thinking about it, then the image of his near plummet off the cliff returned. “I’m very, very glad Carter made you bring the rope.”
“Me too.” Leah nodded. “I have a new appreciation for its uses. I’ll never take a long piece of nylon cord for granted again.” Gratitude lit her face like a shaft of sunlight, and even Matt saw what she was thinking. Because he was thinking it too.
Thank you, Carter.
JULIE
Location: Heading east from abandoned NFS cabin, Arapaho National Forest
Elevation: 9,000 feet
Julie had not intended to leave. But then, she was not the type of person who intended a lot of things. Spontaneous by nature, these things just seemed to happen to her, often without he
r consciously deciding anything. It was near dawn when she’d found herself skiing away from the boys in one quiet moment, and only when a crack of tree limbs in the distance caught her attention did she even notice how far she’d gone. She stopped suddenly, like a sleepwalker who’d just been awakened.
She turned her ski tips, rested on her poles, then checked the phone she’d taken from Carter’s pack while he slept. No signal. Not yet. But the compass worked, and Julie was enormously pleased to see that she was going in the right direction. This way, she thought. She didn’t feel that bad about taking it; Tony still had his, and if she could climb up above the tree line she was certain the phone would work. Where Matt and Leah might have failed, Julie was determined to succeed.
I’ll get up to where it’ll work, she told herself, not dwelling on the fact that Matt and Leah had left hours ago for that specific task. But something must have happened to them, and in Julie’s mind it was because she hadn’t gone with them. She gritted her teeth; her stomach growled so loudly in the quiet that it startled her. But it wasn’t unpleasant. For Julie, hunger was a good thing. It made her feel sharper somehow, putting everything into focus. Letting her forget about Carter and what happened in Dylan’s apartment two nights before. What she let happen. But Carter was, well, Carter. Her first . . . everything. She let herself have one moment of weakness. One moment of nostalgia. And now she could never take it back. Carter was right. She felt guilty. She shouldn’t have said what she did. She knew that, but knowing it didn’t really help things, not now. And drowning in her guilt wasn’t going to fix anything either. She had to act—leave her regret and shame behind.
Another crack in the distance, sharper this time, and she swiveled around trying to find its location. The noise reminded Julie of a rifle report and she caught her breath in excitement. Someone else could be out here! Hunters? She turned her ski tips in a new direction, energy renewed. Maybe Matt and Leah did get a call through—there could be rescuers out there right now combing the woods. A burring whine punctured the silence around her and Julie smiled, certain that this was the sound of a snowmobile, and she pushed off vigorously into the growing light.
TONY
Location: Tent at abandoned NFS cabin, Arapaho National Forest
Elevation: 9,000 feet
“Carter?”
“Mmrf.”
“Carter, wake up!” At first Tony thought Carter was dead—a human Popsicle propped up in his thermal sleeping bag against the snow wall. Tony hesitated to touch him. His face was so pale it looked like milk, but then Tony remembered Carter’s face was that pale anyway. “Carter!” He poked the side of his head reluctantly. “Wake up! I heard something!”
“W-what?” Carter opened his eyes, which were streaked bloodshot, making his irises glimmer like bright emerald chips. “Heard what?”
“Something different.” Tony had been sleeping himself, bent over Sid’s feet, which seemed to be the only place on his brother that wasn’t injured. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep again; he didn’t even remember doing it. Before, sitting out in the snow with Julie, he’d been too angry to fall asleep, and eventually she had, snoring softly in the dark. And when Carter came to relieve him, he’d only been too happy to leave the snow fort and go back to Sid. That had been at least two hours ago. Now a soft light was dissolving the dark, turning the iron gray landscape to pewter. It must be past dawn. “Something mechanical.” He knew it hadn’t been the wind or the trees, or an owl or woodpecker, or any other animal. “I think it might have been a helicopter.”
Now Carter was fully awake. He jumped up, his sleeping bag still snugly around him so that he resembled a giant red caterpillar. “Really?”
“I think so.”
Carter shimmied out and reached for his phone, which wasn’t in his backpack. “Shit! Where is it?”
“It’s almost six,” Tony informed him, understanding what he wanted.
“Six?” Carter sounded utterly astonished by this. “Okay, okay, okay,” he muttered, swiveling around while he stared at the sky. “Where did the sound come from?”
“Um.” Tony followed his peering stare. “I don’t know. I just know I heard something.”
Batabatabatabata. The thick fluttering noise returned, and Carter spun in a circle and almost fell over. “I hear it! That’s definitely a chopper!”
“I told you!” Tony was triumphant, and as he ran back to the tent to tell Sid the good news, the helicopter appeared, thundering over the treetops, red and white and shining in the sky. Tony waved his arms at it like a maniac. “Hey! Hey! Here! We’re here!”
Carter swung his sleeping bag over his head in an insane dance. They would have to see that, Tony decided, but when he looked up again the helicopter was gone. “What!” he hollered. “Carter?”
“Don’t worry! They saw us! They saw us!” Carter hopped up and down. “They can’t land right here! Too many trees!”
“What do we do?” Tony’s excitement turned to hope. They did it. Matt did it.
“Get Sid ready! They’re coming!”
“Yes!” Tony spun around, noticing something he hadn’t before. Two thin parallel lines, leading off into the trees. Fresh ski tracks. Why would? Who . . . Tony turned one more complete circle and stopped. No. Nononononononono!
“Julie!” he hollered into the trees, hoping he was mistaken. But as he screamed her name, hearing only his own echo, he knew Julie had left, either too impatient to wait any longer for help or too angry at Carter to stay. Maybe a little of both, but the end result was the same. “Julie!” But the trees stayed silent.
Julie was gone.
“Sid!” Tony burst through the flap of the tent, half expecting her to be there. He blinked in the dimness, looking for her to be crouched in a corner. Nothing. No Julie. “They’re coming, Sid! The helicopter! It found us!”
But Sid didn’t answer. He didn’t even flinch at the shout, and when Tony stood over him, then bent down to listen, the only breath he heard was his own. He bent closer, and with shaking fingers touched his brother’s neck, feeling for a pulse.
“Carter!”
MATT
Location: Unknown river
Elevation: 9,000 feet
Matt heard the river before he saw it, the steady white noise of rushing water. There was not much snow here, as if they had entered spring through a door in the forest, leaving winter behind on the mountain.
“Is that water up ahead?” Water might mean a hiking trail, a road, or best yet, other people.
“It better be.” Leah began to trot in anticipation. “Maybe a river.”
“Do you know which one?” He followed her through the brush. The ground was still steadily sloping down, and here it was damp and spongy, smelling like green wet cedar, loam, and dirt. Rocks jutted up between the trees like giant toadstools.
“There’s probably a few streams out here,” Leah said. “But I don’t know what they’re called.”
They’d been walking all morning, and Matt had spent almost every step trying not to think about why. Instead, he concentrated his few thoughts on the simple things in front of his face. Trees. Rocks. Snow. Leah’s green jacket and red curls. Things under his feet. Snow. Ice. Dirt. More snow. He kept a running tally of every twinge in his muscles, every spasm, every quivering ache. How the wind felt on his face, the sharpness of it, making tears bead up in the corners of his eyes. He concentrated on everything but the tight line of fire in his stomach. Right foot. Left foot. Don’t trip on that rock. Keep your eyes open. What’s that sound? A bird? A squirrel? Something else? Is that a blister growing on my pinky toe?
That was the pain he couldn’t ignore. With every step his feet shuddered and burned. But he couldn’t stop walking—that was not an option. He was uncomfortable, to say the least, and that made him remember what Tony had told him once, when they were running wind sprints in basketball tryouts and Matt was just about ready to stop: “Hey dude, you need to get comfortable with pain.”
I just
need to get comfortable with pain, Matt thought, but with every scorching step the vision came back. The edge of the cliff in the glacier field. The way it looked, how it seemed to just be waiting for him, and he tried to understand what he saw, what he’d been thinking during those last seconds when it was obvious what was going to happen. He couldn’t seem to hold on to any specific thought. It was like trying to hold water in your hands. Eventually it all trickled out, leaving you with wet palms and nothing to drink. In some ways it felt as if he’d dreamed it, or that it happened to someone else. A scene from an old movie. Not real. It wasn’t real. He was not real. How did he know he was here anymore? Did you even know it when you died?
Matt’s tailbone radiated pain through his butt. He was on the ground, sitting with his legs twisted underneath him like a pretzel, but he didn’t remember falling.
“Matt?” Leah’s face was close in front of his. “What are you doing?”
“Umm.” Pink and green blobs flashed in front of his face. “I think . . . I’m not sure . . . I don’t . . . know . . .”
“Did you faint?”
“Uh . . .” He huffed and pulled himself together into a crouch and watched the blobs disappear. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “Maybe it was the beer.”
“Huh,” Leah said. “You don’t look like a lightweight.”
Was that a fat joke? Then he remembered he wasn’t fat anymore, not even considered overweight. Technically he was in great physical condition, according to his gym teacher and basketball coach. The only problem was right now he couldn’t feel it. Right now, he figured, he couldn’t even spell his own name. “P-probably elevation. Not used to this kind of exercise.”
“Me either,” Leah agreed, but Matt saw she wasn’t breathing hard. Not like he was. And she barely broke a sweat. After their beer break he had lifted her pack, which turned out to be just as heavy as his. Another reason he decided to carry the rest of the food. To even out the weight, he told himself. To be fair, not greedy. “But we’re getting close.”
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