“What do you mean? What match?” Ellie says.
Grahame’s laugh echoes across the snow. “Seriously? With all the alone time you two have had, Q hasn’t told you about how Ceo, his BFF, cratered his scholarship?”
Ellie says, “Colin, you had a scholarship to CGA?”
“‘Had’ is the right tense.”
“I didn’t know prep schools gave out athletic scholarships.”
“Technically it was a student-athlete grant. It was funded by the local tennis patrons association, not the school. They award two every other year. A kid transferred out. I applied and got lucky.”
Grahame says, “In order for Q to get the scholarship—excuse me, grant—he had to keep his grades up and stay in the top two spots on the team. Since I’m basically unbeatable, the number two spot was his only hope. Coach schedules challenge matches between players in the fall to determine the top eight when the season starts in the spring. He and Ceo had played two matches and were tied, one to one.”
“Grahame, let’s focus on Ceo, okay? He’s—”
“Ceo isn’t going anywhere. Trust me.” He looks at his phone. “You’ve got twelve minutes left. Goalie girl needs to know why we’re tromping around in this miserable fucking forest.” As if responding to him, a nearby tree takes a dump by shedding a load of snow. It thuds softly ten feet to our left. Grahame starts walking again. He says, “So Q is playing Ceo for the tiebreaker match. The winner gets to challenge me for the number one spot. Ceo wants to beat me more than anything. But Q’s playing out of his mind. He’s crushing Ceo. I’m playing on the court next to them, watching Ceo get more and more pissed. I’m thinking, Yeah, Q. Beat his ass.” Grahame stops to examine some tracks in the snow, then continues down a short easy slope.
Ellie says, “Can you move this along?”
Grahame says, “Now it’s match point. Colin comes to the net; Ceo hits a passing shot. Q makes the right call, and says it’s out. Colin wins. But Ceo goes absolutely bat-shit. He calls Q a cheater, screams and yells. Smashes his racquet on the court, flings it so far it lands on the roof of the PE building.” He pauses. “Now it’s your turn, Q. Tell her what happened next.”
I say, “There’s nothing to tell.”
Grahame says, “Ha! What happened is that Q did what everyone always does. He caved to Ceo and replayed the point. Double-faulted. Lost the game, then tanked the rest of the match. Ceo won. Q dropped to number three. Good-bye, grant.”
“That’s awful. Colin, can you appeal?”
“No. The board made it very clear when I accepted the grant. The athletic funding stays with the position, not the player. It’s been like that for forty years. They said I’ll still get the academic funding, but that isn’t enough. Coach talked to the CGA board. They said all the aid packages are already assigned for this academic year.”
Ellie says, “Why did Ceo do this to you?”
“He didn’t. I did it to myself.”
Grahame says, “Bullshit. Ceo’s had a hard-on for beating me ever since I transferred in. This year is, make that was, his last chance. Poor Q was in his way.”
“So all this is an ego thing?”
“Pretty much.”
“And I thought ODP soccer was cutthroat.” She coughs, hacks something up.
I stop, offer her some water. She takes a few sips, then says, “So what are you going to do?”
“Go back to Vermont, finish my senior year. Live with my mom and work. Save up some money, then probably go to Castleton.”
Grahame says, “Hey, maybe after this shakes out, your situation on the team might, you know…improve.”
I can’t believe he said that. I say through clenched teeth, “He’s still alive.”
Grahame looks at his phone. “Yeah? For about seven minutes.” Then, after twenty steps of blessed silence he says, “Ellie, you ever heard of kittens in a blender?”
And there’s the cliff. That’s where he’s been headed all along. What will it take to shut him up? Measuring the closing distance from me to him, I hiss, “Grahame. Not another fucking word.”
But Ellie doesn’t answer his question. I don’t hear her walking behind me.
Grahame says, “Ceo knows he did a shitty thing to Q. So he decides he’s going to fix it by—”
Ellie says, “Hey, didn’t you say there were two trees that made a V?”
The log is barely visible under the snow. But the branches, crooked and moss covered, rise up to shoulder height. They make her think of spider legs, upside-down and dead. She doesn’t like this spot, this small clearing in the woods. It feels darker than it should. As if light is not welcome here. The snow is smooth, undisturbed. At peace. There is no hint of the violence that happened yesterday, other than a creeping sense of unease. There are no lumps on the surface suggesting a body underneath.
They shed their packs, lean them against the tree.
Grahame stands close to the branches, ax in hand.
Colin yells, “Ceo!” He waits. “Ceeeee-oooohhhh!”
Silence.
Ellie thinks: There isn’t even an echo here.
Grahame says, “I was standing like this. Ceo was right there.” He points to a spot six feet behind him. “Then I swung like this.” He unshoulders his ax and moves it in a slow horizontal arc that starts low, ends high. In her mind she sees Ceo’s head spinning sideways from the impact. Hears the blade slicing through skin, shattering bone. Teeth and blood splaying in the wind.
But there is no sound except her pounding heart.
And Grahame’s feet sinking into snow as he moves two strides back.
“He landed about here, then fell backward to…here. This is where he should be.” Grahame starts kicking the snow. Colin joins him. They move randomly, stomping down to dirt, churning the snow into cottage cheese.
Grahame says, “C’mon, Ceo. Where are you? Where are you?”
Colin falls to his knees, starts digging with his hands. Grahame does the same.
She feels a swelling in her throat, pressing from the inside out. Ellie knows she should not be here, that she is standing on the shadow of something, someone, that no longer exists. But she falls to the snow and digs with them. It is better than listening to the silent scream in her head.
After a couple minutes of this, Grahame stands. He looks at them, stunned. His eyes wide in disbelief.
Colin says, “Why are you stopping?”
“Because he isn’t here.”
“I thought you said he was dead.”
“I know. But…but he isn’t here.”
Colin returns to digging, moving forward an inch at a time. His hand flies up, a clump of colored snow lands to his right. He stops, picks it up. There is something odd about its shape and hue. Dark, but not quite black. Maybe dark red. Dense, like ice. He studies it, turning it slowly in his hand. Then he looks down at where he is in the snow. Digs some more and comes up with another lump of stained ice. Then another. Her stomach tightens. Colin struggles to his feet. “This is blood,” he says, throwing his discovery at Grahame. “Right here. Right where I’m standing. You said he died. Why isn’t there a body?”
Grahame shakes his head, muttering words to himself. Colin walks toward him, stops six feet away. About the same distance, she thinks, that Ceo was from Grahame’s swing. She’s still kneeling a few feet behind Colin.
Colin says, “I’ll tell you why there isn’t a body. Because Ceo was alive.”
“But he didn’t have a pulse.”
“Your fingers were too numb to feel a pulse.”
“He had a convulsion. He stopped breathing.”
“You couldn’t hear breaths. Not in that wind.”
“He was dead, Q. Deal with it.”
She hears a wavering note in his voice that wasn’t there before.
Is he as confused as we are?
“Ceo was alive when you left him,” Colin says. “That’s the only way this works. You hit him with your follow-through. It was a mistake. You saw
what you did and panicked. I get that. But now he’s lost and he’s hurt. We have to find him.”
Grahame stares at Colin, his body tense, vibrating.
Ellie stands, moves next to Colin.
And it starts to rain. Drops at first, making small holes in the snow. Then hard.
She chokes back a cough. Says to Grahame, “You know it wasn’t a mistake.”
His eyes shift to her. “You weren’t there. You don’t know.”
“You’ve been looking for a way to get back at Ceo ever since he beat you in that race.”
Back to Colin, he says, “She’s your girl. Tell her to shut up.”
She’s your girl? This fuels the rage billowing inside her.
She says, “No. You’re going to own up to this. You told him to stand behind you. Just like you told me to stand behind you. Then swung your ax and hit him.”
“I slipped,” he says. “I missed the branches and—”
“The only thing you missed is his neck.”
Grahame takes a step toward her. She catches a movement—his fingers twitching on the handle of the ax.
“Ellie,” Colin says, moving forward slowly, as if to stand in front of her. “Don’t do this. It was a mistake.”
Grahame says, “She stepped on da court, mon. Eets time to play. So what happened next, goalie girl? If I killed him, then where’s the fucking body?”
“Don’t answer him,” Colin says.
She knows he’s right. She should stop here, not say another word. Let them settle it without her. But there’s something about the defiant look on Grahame’s face that keeps her pressing. Even if he has an ax in his hand. She says through the pounding rain, “You dragged him off somewhere! You hoped the snow would bury him—”
Grahame’s eyes go wide. She sees them filling with fear.
“That’s it,” he says to her. “That’s what happened.” He turns to Colin, his voice shaking. “It was the bear!”
“The what?”
“The bear. It smelled his blood. He came here in the night and dragged Ceo away. His body’s in a cave somewhere. We’ll never find what’s left of it.” Grahame’s eyes flick from Colin to Ellie and back again.
Colin says, “Grahame. This is crazy. You can’t possibly believe—”
“No! Listen to me. I’m not crazy. That bear has been stalking us the whole time. You know it has. It was six inches from your head. First it ate our food. Now it’s tasted human flesh. Once that happens…oh shit. We have to get out of here!”
Ellie says, “God, you’re so full of it.” But she knows the fear in his eyes is not for show. It’s as real as the bloody snow at their feet.
Grahame moves to go past them. Colin reaches out to stop him. “We have to keep looking. You can’t just leave him.”
He rams Colin in the chest with the head of the ax. Knocks him backward. Colin falls into the snow, clutching his chest, gasping for air. Ellie is frozen by the sudden violence, the power. Grahame lunges at her, grabs her coat, and tosses her aside. She goes down. Ellie tries to scuttle backward. The snow is too deep, too wet. It’s like falling into fresh concrete. He straddles her, his face twisted with rage and stone-cold fear. “It was the bear,” he says. “If you can’t figure that out, then you deserve to be his next meal.”
He starts to raise the ax. She tries to twist sideways, to avoid the inevitable blow.
Colin with a roar slams into him. Knocks Grahame sideways. He staggers but doesn’t go down. Colin slides between them, taking short, ragged breaths. Grabbing Grahame’s chest with one arm. Ellie struggles to her feet. Grahame faces Colin, the ax up and ready. It looks like a stick in his powerful arms.
Colin says, “Go. Get out of here. I don’t want to see your lying face ever again.”
Grahame slowly lowers the ax. He turns and puts on his pack. Then wipes at the blood streaming from his nose with the back of his glove. “Ceo is right about one ting, mon,” he says, eyes on Ellie. “You two deserve each other.”
And runs past them, down the slope.
The pounding rain.
It falls around us from a solid roof of gray. I know this kind of sky. It doesn’t belong to a storm that comes and goes, that tears things apart, buries it all, and leaves in a hurry. This is the kind that settles in. Gets comfortable. It stays and stays until the world below is beaten down and weary. I also know that it’s rain now, but how long will that last? We’re probably in the upper thirties. That could turn to snow in a heartbeat. Wet is one thing. Cold and wet is another. The good news, at this moment anyway, is we can see far enough to get a sense of where we are. A confirmation of that sense would help. I reach for the map in my back pocket. It’s not there. I think for a moment, then I remember why.
Ellie says, “What’s wrong? Besides the obvious, I mean.”
I say nothing.
“Colin?”
“Ceo has the map.”
“Oh.”
I scan the trees. A mist is rising as the warmer rain hits the snow.
“We won’t last long in this,” I say.
“What are our options?”
I take it all in, the tree with the branches, the clearing where Ceo was supposed to be but is not. The endless contours of white that could be hiding him. I picture him sitting down, slumped over, back to a tree. I think of Ellie, wet and shivering, coughing longer and harder. I do a mental inventory of what we have left. Grahame took his pack. He has the tent, rain fly, the biggest water bottle, the matches, the ax. He has any hope we have of making a shelter and being dry. We have two sleeping bags, one of them wet, Ceo’s Gore-Tex shell, and two foam pads. That’s not enough to survive in what Mother Nature is doing to us now. And it could get worse.
“We’re going to leave,” I say.
“What about Ceo?”
“We have to get down today.”
“Could we stay in the lean-to?”
I think about that. “We can’t risk this rain turning into snow. Plus with this rain, we probably can’t start a fire. It’s time to do something about our situation.” I choke on the words I’m about to say. “Ceo’s on his own.”
Ellie moves in close to me. I wrap my arms around her. There isn’t time for this, but it’s something we both need.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
“He’s still alive,” I tell her. “I know it.”
We consolidate the two packs into one. Leave our wet clothes behind. Only carry the essentials. I shoulder the pack—and am instantly stabbed by a sharp, burning pain in my chest where Grahame hit me. He probably broke some ribs. Ellie sees this, offers to carry the pack. I tell her I’m good for now, that all we have to do is make it to the switchbacks, then we can drop the pack. She’s okay with this plan. The hard reality is we both know she’s sick and will need all the energy she has for the descent.
We stand for a moment, considering the best direction to go. Our goal is the same as when Ceo led us down off the mountain—find Snow Creek, follow it to the footbridge, and cross, then work our way to the rim. Finding the trail from there should be easy. Walking down those switchbacks in my wet sneakers will be another challenge, but I put off that worry for later.
Ellie says, “Should we follow Grahame’s tracks?”
“He’s headed in the right direction.”
She takes a few steps. I ask her to stop.
I cup my hands to my mouth and yell, “CEEEEEEEEE-OHHHHHHHHHHH!”
We wait ten empty seconds.
“Let’s go,” I say.
The rain just won’t let up. It sinks into the snow and turns the bottom two inches into a layer of slush that sticks to everything. Each step is heavier than the one before it. I suppose I should be thankful there isn’t any wind. I keep reminding Ellie that it took us about an hour to hike from the valley rim to our campsite on the first night. So this ordeal can’t go on much longer. That logic seemed believable at first. Now I don’t know. We continue to follow Grahame’s trail, which is helpful. Sometimes we a
spot a spray of blood where he stopped to clear his nose. Other than that, there’s been no sign of him.
Ellie slows to a stop and says, “I need to rest.”
I point to a snow-covered boulder about ten feet away. “We can sit there.”
We walk together to the rock. I brush off the snow and we sit hunched over, side by side. She’s shivering in convulsive waves. I decide to risk the pain and take off my pack. I dig out Ceo’s Gore-Tex bivy sack, unzip it, drape it over our heads and shoulders. At least that slows the rain a little.
She says, “Thanks.”
“We’re almost in the end zone,” I say.
Ellie smacks my arm with her elbow.
“What’s that for?”
“We’re almost in the end zone? That was a serious violation of the no-sports-metaphor clause.”
“But I’m hypothermic. I can’t feel my feet.”
“Are you appealing the ruling?”
“I am. It is unjust.”
“Let me check with the judges.” After a moment, “They say there is no excusing a metaphor that bad. The ruling stands.”
I smile. So Ellie’s brain is working okay. That’s good.
Then she coughs. Spits out a gob of green spotted with red.
“Sorry to be so gross,” she says. “I’ve decided I’m not a good snow camper.”
“From now on, I say we stick to sand camping. Leave this cold white stuff for the penguins.”
We listen to the rain tapping over our heads. Watch the mist rise up as if trying to escape the gathering moisture below. The world up here has turned into a giant sponge. And it’s full.
Ellie says, “Ceo told me something in the tent. I want to know how much of it is true.”
Here it comes. Ceo’s revelation. I thought we had left this cloud behind. I say, “Considering the source, probably not much.”
“It’s a long list.”
“Go ahead. I’m listening.” I brace myself, wondering if it’s possible to get colder than I already am.
“He said he did something to you that he wishes he could undo. That you’re his best friend and that he loves you like a brother. He said he would ask you to be his best man in all six of his future weddings. That you’re a better friend than he deserves, and if I let you go, I’ll be cursed for a thousand lives.”
Bad Call Page 18
