“You can both stay here. There's the spare bedroom downstairs. I'll clean the place up,” I tell her quickly, wanting to press my advantage while it lasts. “I'll make you both dinner. I'll serve you breakfast in bed. And I'll throw in some serious lovemaking. Quiet lovemaking for once, so he won't hear. I'll even throw in some earplugs, just in case. And maybe a muzzle for you.”
Rebecca laughs.
More seriously, letting out everything I feel for her and trying to put it in my voice, I say, “Stay with me, 'Becca.”
She manages to ignore whatever she hears in my tone. “He's already made the condo reservations, but we'll see. We'll be getting in late. Meet us at a restaurant called the Granary at nine o'clock. We'll see where we go from there.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE DAWN IS UNUSUALLY DARK, with low clouds blocking out the stars. According to the weather-forecast recording at the park headquarters, these clouds, which could hang around all day, offer little hope of rain for the parched valley. When the sun starts to brighten the eastern horizon it looks like a gauzy curtain has been draped over the Teton Range.
Where we're headed isn't one of the big mountain chutes Cali has on her tick list. There's not enough time for that today. I want to find Myron Armalli before the sun goes down—before Rebecca arrives—and I can't risk the uncertain schedules caused by the higher peaks. I need to be back on the hunt by noon. The northeast face of Mt. Wister initially sounded dull to Cali, but when I explained that we just might find two thousand vertical feet of late-season powder stashed between the peaks there she agreed to give it a try.
At seven o'clock we're two hours up the trail and sharing an orange at the start of the North Fork of Avalanche Canyon. Mungo, on a long leash tied around my waist, sniffs at every plant or mineral protruding from the ground. Below us is the steep wall of Shoshoko Falls, which we'd just ascended by switchbacking up through mud and snow and downed trees. The number of splintered trunks lying shattered near the wall's base gives literal meaning to the canyon's name.
Mt. Wister's steep north face is hidden by the clouds even though it can't be more than a few hundred yards to our left. The entire cirque, formed on the north by South Teton, Cloudveil Dome, Shadow Peak, and on the south by Wister's three summits, is completely shrouded. All that's visible ahead is the still-frozen surface of tiny Lake Taminah.
Sucking down the orange slices Cali insists on feeding me, I feel a breeze rise up behind and below us. The mist, mingled with the waterfall's spray, is wet on the back of my neck. I turn to look back down the canyon, hoping the wind will lift the fog enough so that I can spot the mother moose and the calf we'd passed near the base of the headwall. We'd had to hurry past because Mungo was doing her best to pull me off my feet and send me mud-skiing behind her in pursuit of moose burgers.
There is something moving down there, but it's not a moose's gangly shape. It's upright and walking very slowly. The parka is indistinct at this distance—it could be blue, black, or green. The hump of a dark pack is also evident. I watch it as it drops into a crouch, maybe studying our tracks.
“Looks like we're not alone,” I say.
Cali looks down and spots him, too. “Should we check him out?”
Then the breeze dies and, like a sheet being spread over a bed, the mist drops again. There's nothing to see now but particles of moisture suspended in the gray air.
“It's probably just a hiker,” I say. But I think it's probably Roberto, being a pain in the ass. I'd checked for headlights following us to the trailhead but hadn't noticed any. I realize now that I should have employed a simple countersurveillance technique and pulled over at some point.
He'd shown up again last night just as I was getting off the phone with Rebecca. I smelled him before I saw him. And Mungo, who'd joined me on the porch, had smelled him long before me. She'd been lifting her head in the direction of the forest on the other side of the lane, snuffing at the air, and wagging her tail for several minutes. The scent of sweat, sunburnt skin, and wood smoke reached me as I pushed the button to end the conversation.
Across the road a match flared and my brother's lean features were revealed in its orange light. He was lighting a joint that he'd rolled as tight and as expertly as a commercial cigarette. Illuminated by the match, I could see that the backs of his hands and his fingers were wrapped with dirty athletic tape. The tape was dark with blood.
I'd followed Mungo as she danced up to him.
“What's shaking, che?” he asked.
I fanned the marijuana smoke away into the night. “How was the climbing?”
“Fantastic. You should've been there. The Rat ate his fill and then some. I'm just mellowing out now.” He took a long drag on the joint and held in the smoke. “So, you hook your boy yet?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. It could be the cop you saw around here last night, but it's looking more and more like it might be another guy, a twenty-one-year-old psychopath who knew her when she was a kid. The cop, Wokowski, he might be lovesick and bent, but this other guy's a certifiable wacko.” Then, with a smile, I added, “No offense, 'Berto.”
After listening to him chuckle out the smoke, I described Armalli, adding, “He's a guy you can grab if you see him skulking around here.” I thought it would be nice to wake up in the morning and find Armalli bound and gagged on the porch. It would save me the trouble of going looking for him myself in that combustible hollow.
“Be a lot more fun to bag the cop.”
“Only if you want to get yourself shot, 'Berto. Or end up back in prison.”
“When are you going to get this wrapped up? Time's running short, bro. I'm turning myself in on Thursday, you know. That's in four days.”
Buoyed by my talk with Rebecca, I made a decision that I will climb with him one more time. Blood is more important than the risk to my deteriorating career. I couldn't let myself forget that.
“Day after tomorrow, I hope. I'm going to ski in the morning with the girl in there then try to find the demente in the afternoon. After that, I'm having dinner with Rebecca. Give me a call or something the next morning.”
Roberto's ever-present smile grew broader. “How 'bout I come along in the morning? You got some extra boards, don't you, che? Keep you on the straight and narrow, pure for your little reporter.”
I'd like nothing better than to see my brother ski again. He might even be a match for Cali—whatever skill he lacks he more than makes up for in gusto.
But I had to look my brother—who's risking his deal with the Feds and his freedom to get into the mountains with me—in the eye and say, “You can't come. She's a prosecutor, 'Berto. And I'm a cop. I can't even have you hanging around like this.”
Who could say whether Wokowski would barge in right then to profess his love, or whether Myron Armalli might decide to pay a visit with a new stun gun and another roll of tape. In either case it would be hard to explain an escaped fugitive's presence in my cabin. Or his accompanying us on a skiing jaunt.
The grin fell away from my brother's face. Most people would have flinched at what replaced it, but I knew him too well. It was hurt he was feeling. Rejection, not anger.
“I thought you said you told her, and that she was cool with it.”
My voice was almost pleading as I said, “Yeah, but being seen with you is something else. I'm willing to take the chance, but I can't put her out on the edge like that. I'm supposed to be protecting her, not getting her into more hot water.”
Without another word Roberto faded back into the dark forest.
“Ready?” I ask.
Cali smiles at me, her green eyes bright behind the yellow lenses of her sunglasses. “Ready.”
We climb through snow interspersed with patches of talus up the south side of the cirque. Although Cali and I find ourselves struggling to posthole through the deep snow, Mungo dances on the surface with her big snowshoe-like paws. The prints she leaves are as big as my hand when I spread my fingers. Soon the rock wall of Wist
er's north face is visible through the mist, as is the steep snowfield to the left. We seem to be reaching the top layer of clouds. Although the saddle between the summits remains murky, the slope itself looks even better than I'd hoped.
It is wide, several hundred feet across, and not quite as steep as what we'd skied two days ago on Teewinot's East Face. The angle appears to be no more than forty-five or fifty degrees but because of the mist it's a little hard to tell. White and untracked, the snow is bright even beneath the gray sky and it looks like soft powder. There's far more of the stuff than I'd expected. Because of the northeast aspect of the face and the cirque's high, shielding peaks, hardly any sunlight would reach it. Here it might as well be midwinter still.
I plow on up through deepening snow and angle for the right side of the snowfield, where it meets the steeper rock. I'm moving faster now, resolving to ignore the fact that my brother may be trailing us and getting more and more excited by the thought of making turns. We're only at the base of the snowfield and already I'm sinking up past my thighs. As difficult as it is to wade up through the stuff, Cali is close at my heels and is clearly getting excited, too.
We pause to leave Mungo at the last semiflat spot. Unable to find a horn of rock to loop her leash around, I slot a wired nut into a crack in the granite and clip the leash to it with a carabiner. Mungo looks unhappy at the prospect of being tied up and left behind. Her long face grows longer.
“Stay, Mungo. We'll be right back, girl.” The wolf faces away from me and stares mournfully down into the cirque. “Think about how lucky you are that I brought you this far.”
The logic of it seems to have no effect on her mood—she won't look at me. Cali and I keep churning our way uphill through the soft, white powder.
“We should have brought beacons,” Cali says when we're halfway up, referring to the radio devices that allow a skier to be located after being buried under an avalanche. I'd been beginning to feel the same apprehension.
“I didn't think we'd need them this late in the season. I didn't think there'd be this much snow.”
In Alaska, avalanches occurred year-round. But I hadn't seriously considered the danger here, not in late May in the lower 48, especially not after a weeklong heat wave.
“We're still going to do it, aren't we?” she asks.
To the left the snow looks so perfect. Like a brilliant white canvas, just begging to be painted with a half-helix down its center. The only marks that mar its surface are three vertical columns of rocks that define the entry chutes at the top. But there's also an ominous bulge beneath the small cornice on the opposite side of the slope. It's a two-story-house–sized mass of snow stuck to the side of the incline, the kind of convex hair trigger that a skier's weight could easily pull.
“Let's dig a pit.” I stamp out a platform to hold my pack then shrug it off. I assemble the shovel that's strapped to the pack and start cutting into the mountainside, throwing snow. The first few scoops are easy—the snow is almost without mass. Deeper down the blade starts to crunch a little and the snow gets heavier. Ten minutes later we have a pit almost six feet deep with a vertical wall on the uphill side. Finally the blade scrapes on stone.
What I see at the bottom of the pit isn't encouraging. Instead of broken talus to anchor the snow, it appears that the slope sits on a smooth slab of rock. I hope it's just in this one place where I happened to dig, but I know it's dangerous to make assumptions like that. Worse still, the bottom layer of snow has been crystallized by the unseasonably warm weather into little ice pellets the size and shape of ball bearings. I scoop out a gloveful and make a fist, compressing it. When I open my palm the snow remains uncompacted and sifts through my fingers. It wouldn't take much additional weight to cause the snow to collapse down onto those pellets and get the whole thing rolling on the granite slab.
It had been sensible to dig this pit. Not so sensibly, I decide to ignore the implications.
“It's sketchy,” I admit, “but I've never heard of a big avalanche this late in the season. We should be all right. But we'll have to watch each other, go down one at a time and avoid that bulge over there.”
Above us at the top of the snowfield are the three chutes leading down from the right-hand edge of the ridge. I head for the one closest to the rock wall because it looks less steep and the cornice at its crest appears smaller.
Thirty minutes later I'm using my ax to knock off the cornice's whipped-cream swirl, carving a path to the ridge top. I swim more than climb up it and find myself on a knife-edge spine between Wister's easternmost summits. On the other side is a verticle drop that disappears into the cloud. While Cali swims up after me, I set about stomping out a new platform and cutting away at the cornice with my ax. Unlike the cornice atop Teewinot, which was so hard as to be almost ice, this one is like a pile of fluffy cotton.
“Have you seen the hiker?” Cali asks.
The cirque is so hazy with mist that I can barely make out Mungo, wagging her tail anxiously twelve hundred feet below us.
“No, but I can't see much. Don't worry about it. It was just a hiker.”
Cali throws her pack down in the snow and begins unstrapping her skis. “I can't get it out of my mind that it could be the guy, you know?”
“If you want to know the truth, it was probably my brother, okay?”
She stops what she's doing and stares up at me with a questioning look. “Why didn't you tell him to join us?”
“Do you want to go to jail as an accessory?”
“No, but I'd like to meet him. No one would see us together up here.”
The truth is that I don't want to be in her debt more than I already am. I already owe her for keeping his presence around my cabin a secret. Having her actually meet him would just be like doubling or tripling the outstanding sum.
When I don't say anything she goes back to readying her skis. “What if it's not him?” she asks.
“I'm going to go down first, so if whoever it was did follow us up the canyon, I'll be able to check him out. Don't worry about it. Just spot me, okay? If it slides, keep an eye on where I am.”
Despite the familiar adrenaline beginning to leak into my bloodstream, I can't entirely dismiss a rising anxiety about the stability of the slope. But I snap into my bindings anyway, and set my poles under my armpits and lean out to pick my line.
“Make it a good one,” Cali says, reading my thoughts and following my gaze. “I'll eight you if you don't make a mess out of it.”
I plan my route. I'll make the elevator-shaft drop dead ahead—jump turns at first until the angle eases—then cut right. Start making real turns, staying to the left side of the face until beneath that fat house-size bulge. Then carve it up right down the middle.
“Watch me,” I tell Cali again.
“Go go go!” she says.
I shove off and hit the snow fifteen feet below, sinking in nearly up to my waist. The snow explodes silently under my weight and starts spilling downhill. My next twisting leap lands me in the middle of the mini-avalanche of fluff I've set off. My heart rises into my throat and I hear myself shout something delirious and ecstatic.
Just as they had been on Teewinot, my first turns in the chute are a little bit jerky, a bit unbalanced. I lean back too far and start to lose control. I barely manage to keep from blasting into the rock rib flanking the chute. With a conscious effort I throw my body forward, downhill, and the skis follow. Big bursts of loose snow slide with me on each turn, but as I pick up speed I start to outrun them. The snow is so light it feels like nothing more than tiny clouds are wrapped around my legs. The wind begins to roar in my ears and I can feel the Rat snarling with delight in my chest as he presses down on the accelerator.
I wonder if my brother's watching from somewhere in the shrouded cirque. He'll be grinning, too.
A few more 180-degree leaps and I'm out of the chute and onto the snowfield proper. It's less steep here and the snow is deeper still. I begin to carve instead of leap. Forgettin
g the line I'd picked from above, the Rat spins the steering wheel to the right where the snow looks so light and deep I might need a snorkel. I don't pay any attention to the threatening bulge as I drive into the fluff beneath it. All I can hear is Cali hooting from above.
The three sharp cracks sound like blasts of lightning.
They echo off the ridge, the peaks, and the canyon walls. Someone's shooting—but with the echoes it's impossible to tell from where or at whom. I almost go down as I whip my head back and forth and try to slow.
I manage to come to a stop in the waist-deep powder. I look up, taking a big breath to shout a warning to Cali.
That's when I feel more than hear a groaning sound coming out of the snowfield itself. From directly beneath my skis. Like a bomb going off. The mountain bucks beneath my boots.
TWENTY-TWO
THE EARTH IMPLODES. The Tetons are collapsing.
The ground gives way so quickly, so suddenly, that it heaves me onto my uphill shoulder. I try to stop the fall by reaching out with my arm but it sinks all the way into the hissing snow a fraction of a second before my head does. I'm sucked in. The mountain rears up and swallows me whole. Avalanche! My soundless scream echoes around the inside of my skull as the light goes out and the cold, stinging snow washes over my face and shoves down the neck of my jacket.
I come up only to immediately go under again. The snow around me presses in with greater and greater force as it compacts with the thrashing velocity of a steep downhill slide. It spits me out a second time, blinding me with white light. My skis jerk upward and my face pops out and then my legs are yanked over my head. In a single, snapping gulp the mass of snow swallows me again. It's seizing and tearing at my limbs with incredible force, releasing momentarily before grabbing somewhere new. It punches and kicks me and stomps on my flesh. I'm being savaged. Ravaged. Torn apart. The noise that fills the air is like a freight train rolling over me.
At one point I somehow manage to get my skis pointed downhill so that I'm riding with the rush of frozen water. It's gripping me up to my chest, whipsawing my torso and legs at different speeds, but at least I'm able to breathe. I try to angle to one side as my legs are sucked back and forth, up and down, and in opposite directions. The pressure on my knees is almost unbearable. Cut your way out! Lean back! You can make it if you can keep your feet! Then an enormous slab strikes me in the upper back—like a major-league slugger swinging a bat—and it sends me diving head over heels into what's become a gushing torrent of semisolid cement. I start to scream—out loud this time—but the sound is chopped off as my face goes in once again.
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