by M K Dymock
“Can you think of anything to help us, anything at all?”
“Keep it as quiet as you can. You wouldn’t believe the madness that descended here. Between those people chasing Bigfoot, the hunters going for bear, and everybody else in a panic, we had to rescue no less than five people lost in the wilderness. The body count could’ve easily grown.”
Advice that was a little too late. “Thanks. I’ll call you if I need something else.”
A text message flashed. She sighed when she saw it was from Ryan.
We still on for lunch tomorrow? I can meet you at the resort.
Her finger hovered over the keys as a typing bubble appeared.
I figured you’d be skiing.
She typed out a response.
Doctor said we should be inside.
Of course. How about we eat inside and call it a compromise?
Okay, but I want hot chocolate.
He replied with a winky face emoji.
Mina shouldn’t meet him. He blamed Bigfoot, for crying out loud. He honestly, truly thought a mythical animal ripped a human being apart. He was a distraction, she finally decided, and she didn’t have time for a distraction, not in winter and especially not this winter.
Still, he’d come with her. He could’ve stayed in the car.
25
Christmas Eve morning the skies cleared and the temperatures plummeted. Had Mina been anyone else, she would’ve huddled inside with a fire, wrapping gifts.
Her friends had been blowing up her phone with texts the last few days. The best powder in a decade, they said. Epic couldn’t begin to describe it.
Ski patrol, including Patrick, had been going nonstop performing avalanche control. Their opening new terrain would be the perfect Christmas present to every powder hound.
Ignoring the frostbite and doctor’s orders, Mina found herself at the edge of a bowl with no tracks. The closed canyon and beast rumors had kept out the tourists, and only those lucky enough to be locals could lay claim to this winter world.
Patrick waited behind her with a GoPro on his helmet and avalanche beacons on both their backs. A handwritten sign had graced the ticket window that morning:
To get on Summit chairlift, guests must have the following:
A shovel
A beacon
A buddy
Everybody had to take a selfie in front of it and post to Instagram. The resort couldn’t pay for better advertisement than that. Monster or no, the road up the canyon would fill in the next few weeks.
With a deep breath through the small holes of her face mask, Mina shoved off the edge of the bowl and dropped into the powder. She immediately sank to her hips and knew there would be very little turning today. The snow demanded long, fast skiing, and she gladly acquiesced.
Patrick dropped in behind her, as did a few others. The hoots and hollers of adults who knew how to have fun echoed across the mountain.
They rode the lift back up, basking in the glow of just being them. “This is it for me,” Patrick said. “I’ve got to go place some fences before the resort gets more crowded.”
Her face rubbed against the mask, the sting reminding her of the toll each run took. “I should call it, too. Plus, I’m meeting someone for lunch.”
“Is it that guy?” The last word came out dripped in unsaid insults.
“What guy is that?”
“The guy you got lost in the woods with?”
“Yes.”
“He’s lucky you were there to save his butt,” Patrick muttered. “Skinny nothing.”
“When did you meet him?”
“Saw him at the store with all those wackos. You can do better.”
“I suppose.” She wanted her tone to convey his jealousy didn’t matter to her. Whether it did or it didn’t would be a question she would continually push down the road.
They split up at the top, and she headed to a place she’d been avoiding—the grove where she’d found the body. She slipped through an opening in the rope, a gate marked as experts only, and dropped into the trees.
The bright day belittled the bloody event that had taken place.
Mina didn’t expect to find anything like tracks; the series of storms would’ve taken care of that. She wasn’t sure if she expected to find anything, or if she needed to face what had been haunting her.
The few strips of crime scene tape she’d hung about four feet off the snow level now lay wrapped in the snow. She pulled out what she could and stuck the pieces in her pocket to dispose of later. Hers weren’t the only tracks in the area, as other skiers had ripped through the powder.
Why did the victim climb up here? There were only two ways into this area: one would require skiing in, but that would mean getting off at the top and dropping in; the other would mean a climb up a five-or-so-foot cliff that had laid bare that day, wearing ski boots in a blizzard.
In a storm, instinct would’ve encouraged him downhill or at least through easier terrain. A good reason why everyone insisted it had to be an animal attack. Something killed him below and then dragged his body up here.
Where had he actually died? And where was he when she first climbed through these trees? Had his body already been moved?
If so, the blood in the trees hadn’t been there when she first passed through. Something killed him below without leaving much blood. Then something dragged his body up into the trees where it had been torn apart. If not by an animal, then what?
Mina, her legs spent from holding a line in the powder, pushed into the trees. She turned around a few tree wells, careful to stay out of their vortexes, and slid to a stop. The pines were tight here and didn’t allow for speed.
Not far from where she stood had been the worst of the body. Like before, the sun didn’t shine through the thick branches, and no sounds of other skiers or the chairlift broke through the silence.
She whistled and then shook her head at her own stupidity. Then she cursed herself even more as she couldn’t help but listen back. She’d spent far too much time with Ryan.
The cliff she’d skied off the first time had disappeared under a sharp bank of snow. It only took a few minutes to be back under the lift.
This spot would be the closest he could’ve fallen to where they found him. If he’d fallen.
If? He got on the lift and he never got off. What other answer could there be? If he did fall, that was horribly bad luck. Fall off a chairlift, get injured, then attacked by wild animals. All in a fairly short timeframe. She’d skied the entire run within a half hour of him being reported missing. He wasn’t there.
If he didn’t fall, what then? He jumped off and then somehow still died? He was pushed? By whom? He loaded the lift alone.
Mina skied down the mountain and headed to the chairlift. Her luck held. David ran it, and no one waited in line. The better powder was on the other side of the resort in the chutes and bowls that had been opened only that morning.
David nodded as she shuffled up. “Don’t tell me how amazing the powder is.”
“Why? Aren’t you going up on your lunch break?”
“Nope.” He scowled. “Everyone called in sick today.” He used his fingers to put quote marks around “sick.” “Don’t nobody tell you it pays to be the boss’s son.” David’s dad had been general manager for fifteen years or so.
“Not enough skiers on the mountain to ski this out before tomorrow. You’ll get yours.”
“Better.”
She stopped just shy of the lift. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think about that day, ever?”
David didn’t take his eyes off the chairs as each one went by. “Every day.”
“I do, too. Wonder how I didn’t see him when I came down.”
“I wonder if I had just closed up a few minutes earlier. I wanted to, you know. The resort had emptied out. Before him, I had one skier that entire hour.” The radio crackled next to him. He paused, but it was for another l
ift. “I was pulling the ropes off the lift line when he pulled up, and I just waved him through. Didn’t mention the conditions, nothing.”
Mina had been so focused on her own guilt, it didn’t occur to her the guilt went around. “It was up to the resort to close the run, not you.” A skier came through, and they paused until she was on her way up. “Did you see what he looked like?” Mina continued.
“Like any other skier. Dark clothes and a helmet with his goggles down. I told Sol he didn’t say a word, only nodded.” David left the chair to fix one of the ropes marking the lift line that had tipped over. “I was taking down the ropes, and he didn’t need help. You getting on?”
She hadn’t been on that chairlift since that day. Even earlier, she had dropped into the trees from another nearby peak. “Yeah, might as well.” She shuffled forward, and the chair lifted her off the ground.
This chair mainly crossed over open runs until it neared the top, where it went over a ridgeline maybe only fifteen feet from the ground and between two trees. One tree was close enough to touch, and over the years people had thrown Mardi Gras beads and—in some cases—their underwear into the pine. The spot where the body was found was maybe 50 yards away.
He could’ve jumped off here. People certainly had before in attempts to curry likes on Instagram. Riders leap off to the cheers of their photographing buddies below, yelling, “Send it!” Most of the time the resort didn’t know it had happened until the tagged videos showed up on social media or ski patrol got called in to haul off the failed sends.
That day, though, it would’ve been a foolhardys to attempt a jump. There hadn’t been enough snow to cushion the fall, and with the warmer temps and then cold wind, the snow had iced over.
Mina couldn’t get over that thought. If he’d fallen.
By the time she got to the top, it was noon. Ryan would be waiting for her—another mystery to solve. She zoomed down the run, unable to enjoy the bumps and powder.
26
Mina stopped in the bathroom before meeting Ryan, her hair a smashed, black mess of tangles she hadn’t taken the time to braid in the morning.
Behind her, a toilet flushed, and Adrienne walked out wearing a uniform, proving someone still worked. As if reading her mind, she smiled and said, “Kids of locals, who didn’t want to miss the powder.” She put on her jacket. “They were all picked up just now; no full-dayers and no tips.”
“Sounds about right.”
“So, what’s up with you and Patrick? I heard he moved back in with Justin. Weren’t you two living together?”
“No.” She didn’t like to talk about her love life, or lack thereof, to someone whose name she barely knew, but she would not let that rumor fly. “I don’t know where he was shacked up.” Or who with, she added under her breath.
“So, if you’re not going out with him…” Adrienne left the question unsaid but understood. They were an incestuous bunch in this small world, which required not caring—or pretending not to care—as couples disintegrated and reformed.
“The pickings are slim this season, aren’t they?” Mina was allowed a small dig, wasn’t she? “I heard that guy who stood you up called back.”
Still, as slim as the pickings were, men still outnumbered women, making the odds on the female’s side. Mina tried to run her fingers through her hair to put it in some semblance of a braid.
“Yeah. Apparently, he’s on his way to Africa and said he’d be out of phone service for a few months. The life of a reporter. Surprised he even thought to text me. See you later, I’m meeting someone.” Adrienne dashed out the door.
Mina’s phone buzzed. Ryan had arrived in the parking lot. She beat him to the dining room, where few people sat. Some skiers, like Patrick, would swallow a sandwich on the chairlift and call it good. Others would trail in a little later, holding out until the powder had turned their legs into mush.
Speaking of mushy legs, Ryan came through the door walking with a limp—if you could have a limp on both feet. Going by the redness of his face and his stride, he had not spent the morning taking it easy.
Mina shook her head at him as he sat down. In response to her unspoken chastisement, he broke into a boyish grin and returned the gesture. She was in no place to judge. They ordered hot chocolates to get started.
“Did you find Bigfoot?” Mina asked after the waiter left. “Can I make an arrest?”
He sat down, taking off the first of several layers. “Not today.” It was his turn to tsk at her. “I thought you were going to keep your face covered up.”
“I did.”
“You look like you’re growing a new layer of skin.”
“Don’t those rich ladies get chemical peels or such things? This is my version. How’s the dead toes you’ve been walking on?”
“Coming back to life in a very painful way. I didn’t walk too far.”
“I didn’t ski too much.”
The waiter brought their hot chocolates. “Can you bring some marshmallows for my friend?” Ryan asked.
“No, I’m good,” Mina protested.
Ryan ignored her. “Please bring what you would consider an embarrassing amount of marshmallows,” he told the waiter.
The waiter nodded. “The toddler amount.” He walked off.
“Ryan.”
“You said in the cabin that’s what you wanted.”
“Now I look silly.”
“Mina, I can’t imagine you ever looking silly.” He took a sip of his, leaving a large whipped cream mustache. “Embrace being odd.”
“You would know.”
The burgers came, and they dug in without speaking. The cold worked up an appetite that demanded attention. She didn’t know how the others did it with a quick sandwich on the lift. “How was the skiing?” he asked once half his burger and steak fries were gone.
A smiled cracked her face and a blister. She flinched. “Totally worth it. How was your search today?”
“Totally worth it. You know there are people who go their entire lives without something to get crazy passionate about?”
She thought of her parents, who seemed to lose joy as the years went on. She’d tried to convince them to take a class, join a club—anything but Netflix. “They’re comfortable, I guess.”
A familiar voice interrupted their conversation. “Mina, Ryan.” James stood at their table with Cate and the kids behind him. The kids rushed around to hug Mina and launched into an itinerary of their morning, which included skiing their mother through trees.
Cate bopped the closest twin with an affectionate fist on her helmet. “Dragged me is more like it.”
“You and I will have to go without the kids,” Mina said. “Get you up to speed.”
“It’s okay,” one of the twins said. “Mom skied with us to this little cabin in the woods.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mina said. “Snowshoe Sam’s cabin. The oldest building at the resort. Lots of fun trails in there for kids.” Those runs weren’t too far from where the body was found. It was good to see people making their way over. Maybe the snow would bring back the crowds.
James reached out to shake Ryan’s hand and nodded at Mina. “I was just telling Cate we need to invite you two over for dinner. Thank you properly.”
Mina resisted the urge to reach up and scratch her raw nose. “You would’ve done the same for us.”
He put an arm around Cate, pulling her close. “You got me home to my family for Christmas.” With his other arm, he grabbed his daughter who’d drifted off a few steps.
“Ryan,” Cate said, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Phil about organizing a Bigfoot gathering, but he’s proving as elusive as the beast. What do you think? We could do it during the slow season but announce it now while we have—”
“Cate,” James said, “we’re all standing in our ski boots; let’s get off our feet. You guys can talk later.”
“Of course,” she said over her shoulder as James hustled them away. “I’ll call.”
They finished their meals, and while Ryan offered to pay, he didn’t argue when she refused.
“Can I get a ride back to town?” he asked. “Phil dropped me off. I’m back staying with him.”
Mina glanced out the window to the blinding sunlight, though the temps still hovered in the single digits.
“You’re not going back out there, are you?” Ryan asked.
She gave off an exaggerated sigh. “No. Much as I’m not worried about scarring, I don’t want the nose to fall off completely. Stupid frostbite.” A flash of guilt filled her as she watched him struggle to his feet. She didn’t risk losing a toe. Kind of needed toes for skiing, surfing, and a whole lot of other stuff.
They climbed into the car and the questions she’d been needing to ask couldn’t wait anymore, like holding on the bladder when you finally reach a toilet. “What did you see, Ryan?”
“Something I’m sorry you had to experience.” He slammed the door shut but kept his face calm. “I don’t like to remember it.”
“I ran a check on you, and I talked to the sheriff in California.”
“Bet he had a good story for you.”
“He thought you thought you were telling the truth, mostly.” She cranked up the heater. “But he also thought you weren’t being honest about something. And he wondered about your background, what with the camp being for juvies.”
Ryan leaned his forehead against the side window. “I wasn’t a juvenile delinquent. The camp worked with the state, but it also took in other kids. My parents didn’t do that great of a job checking it out. They just wanted me out of their hair for the summer.”
Mina could whine about her parents with the best of them, but they were at every teacher night, band performance, and school play. They were the ones who snapped her into a pair of skis at age three. “What happened out there, Ryan?”
“The body was a girl, a counselor at the camp,” Ryan said, his voice fading like a memory.
27
Fourteen-year-old Ryan had tried to catch up with the others, but his gym shoe slipped on a moss-covered rock. He had only recently obtained his height and hadn’t yet learned how to control it. He hit the ground hard. Gasping for breath only brought pain, and he curled up in the mud until the burning in his side stopped.