Phantoms in the Snow

by Kathleen Benner Duble

  Noah put his hands out to stop himself. He tumbled forward over and over, down the side of the hill until finally, he came to a stop. He was on his back, his legs spread apart, the skis pointing in opposite directions. Amazingly, nothing seemed broken, yet Noah was shocked by how fast the skis had made him go.

  There was a loud swishing sound, and his uncle came flying up beside him. He stopped suddenly, sending a spray of snow into Noah’s face and laughing so hard his cheeks were beet red.

  “I wish you could have seen yourself, Noah boy,” his uncle cried. “You were all legs and arms, kid. They were going every which way.”

  His uncle laughed again. Noah glared up at him, swung one leg over to meet the other, and tried to stand. But the skis wouldn’t let him. They kept slipping away again.

  “How about some help?” Noah finally grumbled to his uncle.

  His uncle shook his head. “That’s the first lesson in skiing, and one you’ll have to learn by yourself, boy. If you’re ever out skiing alone, you’ll have to know how to stand without help if you should fall.”

  Noah gritted his teeth. How was he supposed to do that on his own? It was impossible with these big boards on his feet!

  Still, he did as his uncle instructed and tried to get himself up. But just as he came almost to standing, he started to slide down the hill again. Immediately, Noah was back on the ground.

  “Turn the skis into the hill, boy,” his uncle said, bending down and showing Noah how to turn the skis parallel to the slope. “Like this. See?”

  Then he handed Noah his poles. “Now, try again, using these.”

  Noah dug the poles into the snow and tried to push himself up. His arms collapsed under his weight.

  “Gotta build up those muscles, it looks like,” his uncle said. “Don’t exercise much, huh?”

  Noah looked up at his uncle. “I exercised, sir. I farmed and fished. I had a lot of chores to do. Those chores were hard work.”

  His uncle snorted. “Don’t I remember! Your mom and I grew up on a farm not too far from here. All that farm work was so boring. I used to sneak off, though, with these old skis I’d found in somebody’s trash that I fixed up and hid in these mountains, and I’d ski my heart out. Bet you wanted to do the same thing, huh, Noah boy?”

  “Not really, sir,” Noah said. “I lived in Texas, remember?”

  “Ah, you just haven’t got a feel for fun yet,” his uncle said. “Come on. Try getting up again. You’re going to have to do this a lot today. And then tomorrow, I’ll get Daniel Stultz to teach you. He’s a darn good little skier for a kid from the Bronx. I’ve got to get back to military matters myself.”

  Noah pushed and pushed and finally managed to get himself up. Then his uncle showed him how to attach small, narrow sealskins to the bottom of his skis to help with the climb back up the side of the mountain. Noah shuddered as he attached the skins, the small hairs soft to the touch when you brushed them one way, prickly when you brushed them the other. Noah wondered how many seals had been killed so that skiers might find an easier way up the mountain.

  The skins grabbed the snow, preventing the skis from slipping downhill. Still, Noah could feel his heart pounding fiercely in his chest and sweat running down his back with each step he took.

  When at last they reached the top of the hill, Noah’s uncle turned and smiled. “Don’t worry, boy. Forty or fifty more times of this, and you’ll ski like a pro for that general.” Then his uncle threw back his head and laughed once more.

  The rest of the day was a blur to Noah, a blur of snow: in his face, down his pants, in his gloves, in his eyes. Over and over again, they went down the hill. Each time Noah fell, he struggled to get himself standing again and climb back up the mountain.

  When they returned to the barracks, Noah’s hands shook as he unlaced his leather ski boots. Every part of his body ached beyond belief. Never from all the work he had done around the farm had he been this tired.

  “Bet you’re ready for a good meal, boy,” his uncle said, taking the boots from him.

  Noah didn’t answer. He just slumped forward onto his bed and fell fast asleep.

  When he woke, it was dark. Noah turned over. Someone had pulled a blanket up around him, and for once, he felt warm. And then he noticed a pillow under his head. He wanted to thank whoever had given it to him, but he felt too weak to move.

  He heard a door open and the sound of footsteps.

  “How is he?” came a soft voice. It was Skeeter.

  “Still sleeping,” his uncle whispered.

  “I brought you some dinner.”

  “Set it down by the boy’s bed, if you don’t mind,” James Shelley said. “He may wake and be hungry tonight.”

  Noah heard the clink of glass and silverware close by. He could smell the sweet aroma of food, but he was too tired to roll over and sit up to eat. It was too warm, too easy just lying there without saying a word.

  “How’d he do today?” Skeeter asked.

  “Good,” his uncle said. “He done real good. He was able to snowplow at the end.”

  Noah drifted back to sleep as Skeeter and Shelley talked in low tones. Then he heard his name and was pulled back awake.

  “I got some info for you, Shelley. A response came in an hour or so ago from that minister with an answer to your telegram. The kid’s only fifteen.”

  Noah held still, not wanting them to know he was awake. His ears strained to hear what they were saying in the dark of the bunkroom.

  James Shelley whistled softly. “Great. What am I going to do? There’s no other place for him to go, and I won’t put my sister’s kid in no orphanage.”

  There was a silence.

  “Maybe this little piece of information should stay between us, huh, Skeeter?” James Shelley finally said.

  “But what if we get shipped out?” Skeeter asked.

  “I don’t know,” Shelley said. “I can’t think that far ahead.”

  “He’ll have to go through combat training.” Skeeter’s voice was worried. “If we say he’s sixteen, they’ll make him act sixteen.”

  “Well, he lied to us about his age, so now that’s his age. Besides, a little hard work never hurt nobody.” James Shelley chuckled. “It’ll be good punishment for the lying.”

  Skeeter chuckled, too. Then they were quiet again.

  “Think we can pull it off?” Skeeter whispered.

  “I hope so,” Noah’s uncle replied.

  “You getting attached to that boy, Shelley?” Skeeter asked.

  There was a pause. “I ain’t never been attached to no one, Skeeter, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Right, Shelley,” Skeeter said.

  Noah heard footsteps walking away and a door opening and closing. Then he heard the creak of a chair being dragged toward his bed. His uncle sat down heavily and did not move.

  Noah knew that he should be worried that he’d been found out. He knew that he should be upset about maybe having to face combat training, with possibly no way to stop it. But he was too tired to think about that now.

  His uncle sat beside him without saying a word. And Noah fell right back asleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Noah could barely turn over when his uncle shook him awake the next morning. Every inch of him ached.

  “You have to have a bath today, Noah boy.” His uncle’s voice boomed out above him. “Don’t want any smelly bodies in my barracks.” Then he was gone and out the door.

  Noah pushed himself out of bed by rolling onto his knees. His arms couldn’t support him. How was he supposed to go and ski again today? The very idea gave him a headache. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t. Not without a hot shower at the very least.

  Noah moved painfully between the bunks until he reached the boy who had offered to show him where the showers were yesterday morning.

  Wiley grinned at Noah with slightly crooked teeth. “Ready to join the sane ones, huh?”

  Noah nodded.

  James Shelley c
ame flying back into the barracks, his ice bucket slopping water all around. “Okay, Noah, bath time.”

  Noah looked at the ice water in the bucket. “No, sir.”

  The barracks suddenly grew still.

  The boy, Roger, let out a slight whistle.

  “What did you say?” Noah’s uncle asked, his voice low and threatening.

  Noah felt a shiver run down his back. In all his years, he had never said a direct “no” to his mother or father, though he’d wanted to enough times. It just wasn’t the way he’d been raised. But Noah was too tired and too worried to care anymore. His whole body cried out for a hot shower, and he felt that if he didn’t get one, he would break down, in front of all these soldiers. The idea was too embarrassing to even consider.

  “I said no, sir,” Noah repeated, lifting his chin a little.

  Noah could hear the boys draw in their breath and watched their eyes turn back to James Shelley. The big man stared so long at Noah that he began to feel his courage ebbing away.

  Then, in one quick step, his uncle was by Noah’s side, taking him by the arm and pulling him roughly away from the others.

  “No, no, boy,” his uncle whispered in a harsh tone when they were out of earshot of the others. “Don’t you dare change your mind now!”

  Noah blinked. Had he heard his uncle right?

  “I can see those little wheels turning,” his uncle continued, “and I can see you’re feeling bad about standing up for what you believe in. It’s ’cause of all that polite stuff you were raised on. Well, don’t you do it. You want a hot shower, then say you want a hot shower. And don’t let me or any other man bully you into doing what you don’t want to. You said no. Now stick by your decision and forget about it. That’s the proud and right thing to do, Noah Garrett. Be your own man.”

  Then his uncle turned from him and went back to the bucket and began to wash his face. Noah was so shocked, he didn’t move or say a word.

  His uncle turned to them all, a towel in his hands. “Noah, if you’re going to the showers, then get going! Now! And what are the rest of you big blockheads doing there, staring at me like that? Get dressed! We’ve got maneuvers today! And not one of you had better even entertain the idea that because that boy is going to the showers, I’ve grown soft. No way! The rest of you will do as I say and like it. I will entertain no arguments! Now get moving!”

  The barracks was a sudden flurry of movement. Wiley touched Noah on the shoulder. “Come on. Let me show you where the showers are.”

  The hot water felt like heaven as Noah let it pound on his aching shoulders, arms, and back. But with the luxury of hot water came the memory of the conversation he’d overheard last night.

  What was he supposed to do now? His uncle knew his age and was willing to let Noah go through combat training to keep the secret. How could he stop this insanity? Tears slipped down his cheeks and blended in with the water from the shower. Noah let the tears fall. At least here, no one would see him break down.

  Then a face popped up over the wooden wall next to him. Noah quickly turned his head away so Wiley wouldn’t see him crying. Wiley switched on the shower in his own stall, the hot water sending puffs of steam into the air.

  “Aw, now,” Wiley said, “don’t be embarrassed. You should have seen me bawling like a baby in these very same showers the afternoon I came back from my first day skiing out here. I made such a waterfall, they had to call the flood patrol out.”

  Noah couldn’t help it. He laughed and turned back to face Wiley, wiping his eyes. The boy’s freckled face was an orb of goodwill.

  “Nah,” Wiley continued, “it ain’t easy here, that’s for sure. But man, I’ll take training with these guys any old day compared to being in the unit my brothers are in.”

  “Your brothers are signed up, too?” Noah asked.

  Wiley rolled his eyes. “Signed up? We were born into the military — all of us. My father was in the army. He’s stationed in London right now. Two of my brothers are somewhere off the coast of France with their naval units. And my sister is in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. And as for my mother …”

  Here, he paused and grinned again. “She ought to be in the military the way she can yell and boss us around like some tough old drill sergeant.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “But she’s a lovable sergeant at that.”

  Noah smiled.

  “Look, it’ll be hard going for a while,” Wiley told him, turning and picking up a bar of soap, “but then one day, you’ll wake up and you’ll be all fit and relaxed and you won’t believe how good you’ll look. It’s a fine feeling when that day comes. So hold on for it. Where you from, by the by?”

  “Texas,” Noah answered.

  “Texas?” Wiley said, his eyes widening. “How the Sam Hill you learn to ski in Texas? I ain’t the best in geography, but I don’t remember no mountains in Texas.”

  Noah looked carefully at Wiley. He liked the boy’s open look and his humor. He’d never had a close friend before, but strangely, he felt that Wiley could be one.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Noah asked him.

  “Well, sure. You can trust me,” Wiley said, pausing in his soaping up.

  “I’ve actually never skied before,” Noah whispered. “And the general swore I had to be skiing as well as the rest of you in eight weeks, or I was out of here.”

  Wiley let out a loud guffaw, shocking Noah.

  “Oh man, you’ve got to relax,” Wiley said, rubbing shampoo deep into his hair. “Half the officers in this unit can’t ski worth a hill of beans. And the other are so wild about the sport, they got no military discipline at all. They’re desperate for recruits. You look athletic enough. A day or two more, you’ll be skiing good enough. I’m sure of it.”

  He rinsed the shampoo from his hair and then stuck his hand over the stall wall. “We ain’t been properly introduced. My name’s Wiley Evans. I’m from New Hampshire. Been with these guys about nine months now.”

  “Noah Garrett,” Noah said, enthusiastically shaking Wiley’s hand, grateful for his encouragement.

  “Was that tent pulled down around you while you were training here?” Noah asked, referring to the story he’d heard on his first night at Camp Hale.

  Wiley laughed again and shook his head. “Nah, that was in Kiska, Alaska, one of them Aleutian Islands. Some of us boys were sent up there to rid the island of Japanese who’d invaded it awhile back. It was the first time out for a lot of us, so we weren’t real smart about setting up tents in the wind.”

  “Did you see any Japanese?” Noah asked, surprised at the casualness with which Wiley referred to his first time in combat.

  “Not a one,” Wiley said. “They’d slipped past the U.S. of A.’s estimable navy in the fog, and by the time we got there, they were long gone. ’Course that didn’t prevent us from scouring the island ourselves, trying to find them and frightening ourselves silly each time we ran into one another. We kept thinking those Japanese were holed up somewhere and about to pop out at us.”

  “Sounds scary,” Noah said without thinking, feeling himself blush as he said it. Would Wiley think he was a coward?

  Wiley guffawed again. “You got that right. I almost crapped my pants half the time.”

  Just then, Noah heard the door to the barracks open and his uncle’s voice calling his name.

  “Over here, Uncle Shelley,” Noah shouted back.

  His uncle came and stood by the shower stall. “You going to stay in there all day or what?”

  Noah turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping a towel around himself. Wiley’s words had given Noah back his confidence. He was sure, now that he was warmed and showered, his muscles relaxed, that he could take on the skiing today without a problem.

  “Well, boy,” his uncle said, “let’s get you on over to Daniel Stultz. He’ll be taking you out.”

  Wiley let out a long whistle. “Not cutting your nephew any slack, eh, Shelley?”

  Noah’s uncle glared
at Wiley. “You got him his shower, Wiley. You’d best not mess with me again.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Wiley said, grinning.

  “Who’s Daniel Stultz?” Noah asked, as he pulled on his pants.

  Wiley stepped out of the shower, too, toweling himself off. “Just the best ski instructor in the unit, and the toughest, on himself and everybody else around him.”

  “How much tougher can it get?” Noah asked.

  “With Daniel Stultz?” Wiley said with an edge of contempt in his voice. “You survive a day with Mr. Gloomy, they ought to give you the Medal of Honor.”

  “That’s enough, Wiley!” Noah’s uncle suddenly snapped. “Daniel’s a part of this unit, and an officer. I’ll expect you to show him the same respect you show your other fellow soldiers. Is that understood?”

  Wiley blinked with surprise, all the joking now gone. “Yes, sir.” He turned away to put on his pants, but Noah saw the color rise in his face.

  Noah felt sorry for Wiley being reprimanded so harshly right in front of him, but he could think of nothing to say to smooth things over.

  “Get dressed now, Noah,” his uncle commanded, a roughness in his voice. “I’ve got to get to maneuvers.”

  Noah scrambled to put on his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. “What will I be doing today with Daniel?”

  “Nothing you can’t handle, boy,” James Shelley responded firmly. “Nothing you can’t do.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The campground was a flurry of activity as officers and soldiers ran around preparing for the day’s training. Mules brayed loudly amid the confusion. Noah walked behind his uncle, trying to still the nervousness he felt.

  Back at the barracks, his uncle ordered him to grab his skis and poles and put on his ski boots, a wool hat and gloves, and wool ski pants. Then they were out the door, into a jeep, and driving a few miles from camp until they stood at the bottom of another mountain where a rope with upside-down metal Ts scaled the side.