“Carter! C’mon! Let’s go!”
Carter crouched over, hurriedly scribbling something on a piece of paper. At the last second he had decided he needed to leave a note for Julie. He ripped a sheet from a small notebook, folded it, and crawled into the tent, hoping she’d return and find it.
Dammit, Julie. Tony clenched his fists and grabbed the sled towline from Will, clipping it on the harness. Why couldn’t you just have waited a little longer? Now Carter was freaking out and wasting time. Time they didn’t have.
“Ready?” Will squared his shoulders. “Left, right, left, right,” he coached Tony, and together they moved forward, back onto the trail Will had made coming down. Now it was all uphill. Tony took a steadying breath and leaned into the weight, not looking back. Carter could catch up.
Right, left, right, left. Tony staggered sideways on the incline.
“We just need some momentum,” Will said. “A little faster and we’ll smooth out.”
“Okay,” Tony huffed, wondering if this was how a sled dog felt. He poked the snow with his poles, matching his stride to Will’s. “I think I got it.”
“Good.”
A few strides later the load lightened, and Tony glanced back. Carter, in his snowshoes, pushed doggedly at the rear of the sled. He had his skis crisscrossed and attached to his pack, and it looked like a more difficult job than the one Tony had.
“Good pace, guys. Steady on. We’ve got a thousand yards,” Will said, eyes straight ahead. He pulled out a walkie-talkie from his side pocket without breaking stride. “I’ll let Ryan know to call UCH and tell them we’re coming.”
“UCH?”
“University of Colorado. They have a helipad that can handle us.” Will relayed a series of commands through the receiver, and the pilot responded through the static. Tony wondered what their conversation meant. A lot of tens were spoken. He guessed it was all walkie-talkie lingo. Will said things like, ten-nine repeat, ten-twenty-five for UCH, ten-twenty-three stand by. The volley went back and forth for a minute before Will uttered a final “ten-four.” It was the only thing Tony understood. Message received.
“Does the pilot know? Did you tell him?” Carter panted. “He needs to know!”
“Yes.” Will didn’t slow down, but continued his relentless stride forward. “I let him know about your friend Julie. He’ll radio the sheriff. Like I said, they’re already out looking.”
“And they’ll find her? Can you tell them where to look?”
Tony didn’t like the sound of Carter’s voice; he wished Carter would just focus on the sled, which was difficult enough. Sid made little groans and gasps when the sled went over a bump or jerked sideways. Good, Tony thought. He’s still there. Complaining was fine. And while Tony wanted to say the right thing to Carter so he would calm down, he didn’t have a clue where to start. So he did the next best thing—he ignored him. “Do you guys work for the park service?” Tony asked Will, trying not to sound like he was going to faint. He’d never passed out before, and given their circumstances, couldn’t afford to find out what it was like. “Like the rescue crew or something?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to clear the throb in his temples. Sweat drenched his back. He wanted to stop and remove his coat, but that was more wasted time. Ignore it. Keep going. Right, left, right, left.
Will shook his head. “This isn’t national park land. It’s national forest.”
“Oh.” Tony didn’t understand why that made a difference, though he remembered Dylan saying something about that the night of the party.
“The jurisdiction is Grand County.”
“Oh.”
“We’re volunteers.”
“Volunteers?” This time Tony did stop; his right foot slid so far forward he almost did the splits. Recovering, he jerked the harness with such force, he felt it in his throat. These people volunteered to go out and search for us? To search through an avalanche? To risk their own lives? And it wasn’t their job? They weren’t getting paid? He opened his mouth, trying to say the words, wanting to thank Will, wanting to fall down and cry, wanting to run and hide. I’m so stupid, Tony thought. Stupid and careless. Up until this point, Tony didn’t imagine there were other people in the world who were much different from him. People who didn’t always think about themselves. People like Will. Like Ryan the pilot. Like the strangers searching the woods for them right now. Knowledge was a hot, shameful flood inside him, filling straight up to his eyes.
If Will noticed Tony’s tears he didn’t mention it, but kept pulling forward, eyes looking ahead on the trail. “Well, I always thought this was more interesting than fishing.”
Tony didn’t know what to say to that either, but managed to nod.
“Thank you, Will,” Carter said from the back.
“Yeah,” Tony said softly. “Thank you.”
Will bobbed his head in a quick nod, concentrating on the incline ahead. The snow was soft, sloppy, but the skins on the skis prevented them from backsliding. Every muscle in Tony’s back and legs screamed, but he ignored it, putting his entire one-hundred-forty-five-pound frame into the climb. After what seemed like an hour of pulling, the incline flattened out.
“Great job!” Will did not slow down. In fact, he did the opposite, picking up speed. Tony had never seen another person with this kind of robotic strength. Will was not much bigger than him, but showed no signs of fatigue. There was a hardness about his physique, as if his arms and legs were made of steel cables and iron rebar. “We’re close.”
They skied around a wedge of evergreens and the helicopter came into view, red and white and glowing in the sun. And though Tony wasn’t religious, his reaction to the sight was as if he were the most devout Catholic now beholding the face of the Virgin Mary. He fell to his knees in the snow and crossed himself.
• • •
The engine burr vibrated Tony’s bones, and he watched the long blades whip the surrounding treetops into submission. The helicopter, starting up, sounding more like a jet engine progressively building into a supersonic scream. A few moments later he felt the dip and sway as it left the ground. Tony gripped Sid’s hand, holding fast ever since Will and Ryan had loaded him on a stretcher, and watching the trees shrink away as they rose. The sight was so dizzying Tony had to focus on something else, something stationary. Puking here was not an option.
“How long?” he called, his voice barely audible above the engine. Both the pilot and Will had on headsets, communicating back and forth, but Tony couldn’t guess the severity of their conversation. They also wore mirrored sunglasses, leaving their faces undecipherable.
Sid’s face, in contrast, was drawn, his lips dry and slightly parted. His exhalations were as slight as an infant’s. Dark, threadlike capillaries stood out like stains on his eyelids. “Hang on, Siddhanth,” he whispered. “We’re almost there.”
The hospital was twenty minutes away, according to the pilot, and the sky was clear. They should have a fast flight. Carter sat opposite Tony, with his head pressed against the window, scanning the ground with restless eyes, his fists balled against his thighs in such a way that he reminded Tony of a jack-in-the-box, tightly wound and ready to pop.
When Tony looked out the window again he felt less ill. The helicopter was moving forward fast enough that the initial stomach-tilting sensation had left him. Sunlight gleamed off the snow, and Tony examined the terrain below. According to Will, Denver was a thirty-minute flight from their location. Thirty minutes to civilization. A half hour to hope. Tony guessed by the way the ground flew past them that they were going at least a hundred miles per hour, and he did a mental calculation on the possible distance. At least fifty miles. The mountains in the distance, however, seemed immobile.
A flash of red caught Tony’s eye. It was a slight, quick thing. Just a dot in all that white. There and gone, and he leaned his head against the window and squinted. What was it? Just a fraction of something, but definitely red. Or was it pink? A color somewhat between the two, and Tony remembered the word. Coral. That was the color. Wasn’t Julie wearing a coat that color? He couldn’t remember, but it was something bright and pretty. Tony pressed his lips in a tight line. Sunlight bounced off the glass, and the sharp glare forced his eyes back to the interior. Nothing, Tony decided. It was nothing. Just a trick of the light. He squeezed Sid’s hand, keeping perfectly silent, perfectly still. They can’t stop anyway. They can’t even hear what I say.
Across from him, Carter sat hunched over, his head bent to his chest, and he held himself still. Tony bent his head too, eyes on his brother’s face, and swallowed hard.
He didn’t see anything. Nothing at all.
Outside, a thin gray line took shape on the ground. Interstate 70 heading east into the city. The helicopter flew on.