We made slow progress.
We couldn’t carry our boards and roll snowballs at the same time. One foot strapped to the board was awkward too. The best we could come up with was keeping our boards leashed to our leg. The resort required anyone on their trails to wear a cord around their leg that clipped to their board to prevent the board from sliding downhill when they stepped in and out of their bindings. This was the only time I was thankful for that rule, but dragging a snowboard wasn’t too much different than walking a dog that was walking his owner. Our snowboards either got caught up in the terrain behind us or it slid in front of us when the slope steepened.
Pax stayed an arm’s length to my right. No way would I lose him this time. I kept my phone off to preserve what little battery life I had left. I hoped when I turned it back on we’d have a location with enough bars to contact the Main Lodge.
“How are you doing?” I asked when I noticed Pax’s pace slow.
He tossed another snowball out in front of us. “Tired. And my toes feel numb. Actually my whole face feels numb.”
I licked my wind-chapped lips, the dry skin rough beneath my tongue. The wind blew furiously around us. Sometimes it pelted us with snowflakes-turned-frozen-ice and other times the wind felt like icy fingers that gripped me through my layers of clothes—layers my brother didn’t have.
“Let’s stop and check my signal.” We turned to each other until our helmets touched and shielded the phone with our bodies. I restarted my phone and waited for the screen to power up—12 percent battery life. Two bars appeared in the left corner. Yes. I tapped the ski shop and “Calling” appeared on the screen again. “Please work. Please work.” Silence filled the phone pressed to my ear.
“Anything?” Pax asked.
“Not yet.” I checked the bars—still there. Finally, the best sound in the world filled my ear. The phone rang. “It’s ringing.” And rang. And rang. And rang.
“Well?”
“No one’s picking up,” I said as dread filled my mind.
“They can’t be closed. Ollie knows we didn’t stop by the shop yet.” Pax pulled away, his breath heavy. “They can’t close the lodge with us still up here. Right? Can they?”
“Calm down.” I reached for my brother’s arm and he pulled out of my reach. The phone clicked in my ear like someone picked up. “Wait. Hello?” As if the wind knew I was close to escape, it picked up, forcing to me to turn and brace against it.
“What are they saying?” Pax called, shielding himself as well.
“Hello?” Between my brother and the howl of the wind I couldn’t tell if it was a bad connection or I couldn’t hear the other person on the line. “Hello?”
“Jess—”
“—don’t freak out on me now, Pax.” The phone beeped in my ear with another message box: 5 percent battery. Power save mode.
“I don’t know what else to do. We can’t survive out here.” Pax’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “All I know is I’m cold and tired. I can’t feel my feet or my hands, and I’m so hungry at this point I’d eat that liver dish mom makes.”
Even with Pax’s goggles covering half his face, it couldn’t hide his hopelessness. I had put him here, and I didn’t know if I could get him out. I wished I had something to say, some way to fix this, but the truth was I didn’t.
Pax must’ve seen it in me. Without another word he turned and walked down slope, past the last snowball he threw, with his snowboard trailing him.
“Where are you going? You can’t just walk ahead. You can’t even see where you’re going!” I shielded my face against the wind with my arm.
“Does it even matter anymore, Jess?” Pax trudged forward.
“It does. Maybe someone is looking for us. Maybe Ollie assumed we were lost when we didn’t show up.” I followed after him. The strain of wading through the rising snow and endless wind drained me with each step. I wasn’t even sure I believed my own words. Would a rescue team even risk more lives to find us in a whiteout?
Pax stumbled in front of me. When I helped him up, he swatted me away and continued his trek into nothingness. With his every step I half expected him to disappear before my eyes. Somehow we slogged forward in the storm. Every yard of progress brought another inch of numbness into my limbs. I focused on Pax’s snowboard as it slid through and skittered over the snow.
White, white, and more white. I couldn’t even tell if we were going anywhere anymore. It was like we were walking on one of those moving walkways in the airport terminals except in the wrong direction. If we stopped maybe it would carry us back to the top of the mountain. I entertained myself with the thought until a dark silhouette appeared out of the corner of my eye.
Could I be seeing things? I resisted the urge to tug off my goggles. More darkened shapes appeared around us. Pax’s head was down as he continued forward. He hadn’t seen what I saw—pine trees. We couldn’t be at the base of the mountain yet. My mind went back to the natural landmarks of the mountain I saw from the Main Lodge, the lines Dad traced from our den window, and the line I’d plotted from the summit. I knew where we were at, which meant one thing.
I summoned all my energy and ran to cut off Pax before he walked right off the cliff. “Pax, stop!” My feet were heavy with fatigue, like they were cement blocks. Pax didn’t lift his head. “Pax!” I called again and reached for his jacket sleeve. He stopped as I slid in front of him, my snowboard swinging a large arc across the snow. I could feel the weight of it as it skidded over the edge of the cliff and that was enough to knock me off balance. The snowboard leash attached to my leg snapped and pulled me back a step. One second I stood before my brother, and the next, I was falling.