ONE

I’m going to die. It’s as simple as that.

The thought makes my heart feel hollow, but what can I do?

I drag one foot up out of the snow. Snow! It’s only October. I will it to move forward and feel it sink again into the whiteness. I pray that it will find solid ground and not a bottomless crevice.

My foot touches down on something hard. I know that not because I feel it land—I don’t—but because I’m lifting my left leg, which I could only do if my right foot were firmly planted. I force myself to plod on.

I have no idea where I am, except that it’s somewhere in the interior. At least, I think it is.

I have no idea how long I’ve been here.

I have no idea what direction I’m going in or what direction I should be going in.

I have no idea how far I’ve gone or how far I need to go.

The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not going to make it.

I know my feet are down there at the ends of my legs, but I can’t feel them. I can’t see them either. I can’t see anything except white, and I don’t know if the white I see is snow or snow blindness. My eyes are burning. They’re also watering, and that makes me afraid they will freeze solid in my head. I’ve stopped shivering, but I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. At first when the shivering stopped, I ached all over. I know what that’s from—muscle fatigue from so much violent trembling or pain from the cold. Either way, it scares me because all I can think of is the amount of energy I’m expending. It takes a while before I realize I’m not cold anymore. Maybe the snow is insulating me. Or maybe—this is the part I don’t want to think about—maybe you stop shivering when your body temperature falls below a certain point.

I’m going to die.

So why don’t I surrender? Why don’t I stop slogging through snow that’s up to my knees, making each step feel like the equivalent of ten? Why don’t I sit down and just let it happen? Or, even better, lie down and give in to it? The snow is soft. It’s thick too. If I lie on it, it will feel like a feather mattress or at least like what I imagine a feather mattress would feel like. I could stretch out and relax myself into the next world, assuming there is a next world. It wouldn’t hurt. That’s what they say anyway. They say when you freeze to death, you just lie down and go to sleep, and the next thing you know (except you don’t really know, because how can you?), you’re gone. You’ve slipped away. Passed over. Ventured to the land from which no one has ever returned. What Shakespeare called the undiscovered territory. (Thank you, Mr. Banks; you always said that knowledge of Shakespeare provides a person with a wealth of images to draw on later in life.)

I drag my foot up again and coax it to take another step. Come on, leg. Don’t fail me now. Don’t let it end this way, in the middle of nowhere where I’ll never be found.

I think that’s what keeps me moving—the thought of never being found. That and the fact that I’ve never been known to back down, let alone surrender.

And the fact that the one thing I do know is why I’m here.

I take another step.

I think about the Major and everything he’s tried to pound into my head for the last seventeen years. If there’s one thing the Major hates, it’s a quitter. He says no one was born composing symphonies (except maybe Mozart). Everyone has to start somewhere. You have to walk before you can run. Every journey starts with the first step.

And continues with the next and then the next.

You have to stick to it. They didn’t put a man on the moon by giving up after the first rocket fizzled. Wars aren’t won by armies who are prepared to surrender after the first defeat.

I pick up my foot again. I still can’t feel it, by which I mean I can’t tell if I’m actually wiggling my toes or if I just think I’m wiggling toes that are way past being able to wiggle no matter what orders the brain sends down the line. But I do know that someone must have tied a couple of cement bricks to each of my ankles, because I can barely lift my feet. After a couple more steps, I sink to my knees. I’m done. My goose is baked, as the Major would say. I can think of another way to put it, but the Major has this thing about four-letter words. He says anyone who uses them is displaying the pathetic state of his vocabulary. If he hears one, he sends me to the dictionary to find five alternatives. If he were a drill sergeant, the army would be a whole different place.

The wind sweeps snow over me as I try to breathe rhythmically, a trick I was taught to keep me calm. It’s not long before I’m up to my thighs in snow, and it’s funny how it makes me feel warm.

I crouch down until I’m sitting on my heels. I tell myself that it’s just for a few minutes, that all I need to do is catch my breath. It feels good to be resting. It feels so good.

My head jerks up, and I realize I’ve been asleep.

I panic.

I try to scramble to my feet and end up facedown in the snow instead.

I panic again. It’s something I’m getting good at.

I push myself up to a squatting position, which sounds like it should be easy to do but isn’t. From there I try to stand up. I fall again. Blackness envelopes me—the blackness of terror. I really am going to die. If I don’t get up and get moving, it really will be over.

Another thing the Major likes to say: You can’t win if you don’t play.

You can’t get anywhere if you don’t take at least one step, Rennie, I tell myself.

I manage to stand. I sway against the wind and the snow. I feel dizzy. I’m going to fall again.

And then something kicks in. It’s not a survival instinct, not really. No, instead it’s what I’ve been told is my worst quality and my principal character defect: the need to get even. I may not know where I am or how I got here or, more importantly, how I’m going to get out of here. But I remind myself that I do know why I’m here.

I take a step.

I know why I’m here and I know what I’m supposed to do here. I’m supposed to disappear. I’m supposed to vanish without a trace, leaving anyone who knows me to shake their head and say, “He did it again. Rennie’s been a screwup ever since, well, ever since forever, so it’s no surprise that he screwed up again. What do you expect from a kid like that?”

Except that that’s not what happened.

I didn’t screw up this time. No, for once it was someone else. Someone who wants me out of the way.

I take another step. It isn’t any easier, but I don’t even think about stopping or resting. Another Major-ism: You can rest when you’re dead.

I’m not taking the fall for this. I am not going gentle into this miserable night (another nod to Mr. Banks and his second idol, Dylan Thomas). Not me. Not Rennie Charbonneau.

No, I want to get even.

I want revenge.