by David Gilman
Max readied himself. Tingling nerves, deep breaths, good old-fashioned stage fright, which he settled into a concentrated visualization. He was cool. This was it. Go!
Jump one-pile on the speed, focus on the middle of the ramp, hit air. He needed a big ollie-a high jump-so he hit the ramp hard, kicked the tail of his snowboard down and lifted the front with his leading boot. He pulled his knees up high, carrying the momentum, and grabbed the toe-edge of the board with his trailing hand. It was silent. No scrape of snow on board. No wind. Nothing. He threw his arm high, needing a backside 360-a big one: a huge, stylish spin of 360 degrees. He felt the swish of air on his face; saw the blurred crowd, then the mountain, then the slope as he spun. He’d done it! His legs dropped and the board hit the slope.
The energy rush was great. When he slid into the finish area, Bobby Morrell gave him a high five. It had been a well-executed jump with something he had had little practice at. In its simplest form it was not considered too difficult a feat, but Max had taken a slow, high twist, and that was all about style.
The German girl was next, and then Bobby.
Max watched as the girl gave a stunning performance. The crowd roared, whooping and cheering. His heart sank at her skill and the points that illuminated the board. Max was now pushed into fourth place, but when Bobby Morrell dazzled everyone his score pushed Max into fifth place. After all that effort, he was one ride away from being out of the competition.
Max needed something so spectacular that it would wow the judges. He had seen a blistering jump made the previous year by a top-class American snowboarder-a high-speed exit from the start gate, hitting the ramp fast, and a double flip. A single inversion was relatively easy using the body’s natural tilt as the board hit the ramp’s wall, but to somersault twice in the air? To succeed, Max needed a lot of height and a perfectly balanced landing-and a lot of experience. By the time he stood at the jump-off gate again, he had made up his mind.
He was going for the big one.
The crowd’s faces blurred, the curving downhill run seemed narrower and snow began to fall, thick leaflike flakes spiraling downwards. The mountains would have fresh powder-nice, deep, unspoiled conditions. It’d be quiet up there, not like here; no cheering and screaming going on from all those faces, knowing that this was his make-or-break jump.
Max had a knack of being able to replicate what others could do. It was as if he had a camera in his brain that clicked a million frames a second and fed the information to his body. A muscle memory. Don’t take your body where your mind hasn’t already been, his dad once told him. See the problems, see the route, work it-then go. It may take only the blink of an eye, but let the mind go there first.
Max knew he could do this jump.
His run-in was fast; he soared up the snow wall and, easing the pressure on the toe-edge of his board, he kept his head high and squared his body. He was airborne. Throwing his rear shoulder at an angle, he reached down for the edge of his board, grabbing it between the foot bindings. He had to hold on, against the pull of the somersault. Bringing his legs up into his body, he felt the tug of air on his jacket’s fabric as he completed another backward curl. He gripped his fist even more tightly on the board’s edge, heard a muted, almost hypnotic roar from the crowd as they realized what he was doing. Another rotation! His fingers were slipping from the board’s edge; if he lost his grip now he’d fall badly onto his back and neck. Clamping his hand tighter, knuckles aching and leg muscles coiled, he felt the final somersault complete. Earth and snow-speckled sky smudged his vision. The big hit was in the landing. He had to take the shock through his legs, but it was his stomach muscles that needed to be tight to keep his body balanced. His snowboard thumped onto the ground, his arms went out for balance, but his center of gravity had shifted and he tumbled backwards.
In that instant he knew it was over. Max grunted in pain as his back hit the ground and his body slid, uncontrolled, towards the crowd.
He had dared to win-and lost.
Bobby Morrell was the first to help him up and release the bindings. His look said everything. It had been an awesome jump, and if the landing had worked out as planned, Max would have gone to the top of the leader board. Bobby put his hand behind Max’s neck and touched Max’s forehead with his own. A small, intimate gesture of friendship and respect.
“Another year of this and no one will touch you, man. I swear,” Bobby said quietly. “Not even me.” He gave Max an encouraging smile and went to take his place for his next run.
As Max sat and eased the stiffness out of his leg, a few people leaned forward and patted his shoulder. Some murmured encouragement, others commiserations. They were a good crowd. And most of them knew that even though Max had thrown away the championship, none of them could have achieved what he had done.
Max had wanted so badly to win. He held on to his disappointment. He couldn’t show it in front of everyone. The other board riders were better than him; more experienced, older, had better equipment. That was all true, but his mind was starting to make excuses, and he swore at himself to shut up. He’d done his best. Leave it at that, he told himself, and watch the others as they fight for the final three places.
He stayed for the awards ceremony. Bobby Morrell won, the German girl came second and the French boy third. Max told Bobby he was cutting out for a few hours, while there was still light, but that he’d join the party later.
He slipped quietly away, took the ski lift up to the top of a run and carved his way through the deep, freshly fallen snow. The mountains soared thousands of meters above him, and now that the snowstorm had swept through the valleys, Max found himself in a pristine wilderness.
He went fast, making long, sweeping turns-happiness surging back. He stopped and let his gaze take in the quiet, majestic beauty. No matter what happened in any future competition, it was free-riding up here in these massive snowfields that made him feel this good.
With a gentle rush of the board through knee-deep perfect snow, Max curved a line down the valley. He suddenly realized he was close to the avalanche area where he and Sayid had been the day before.
The snowfall had sculpted the landscape into windswept angles so finely shaped it made everything look sleek and fast, like the leading edge on the bodywork of a fast car. As beautiful as it was, Max knew that avalanches were still a danger, especially if anyone else was on the slopes. He had some mountain knowledge and knew more than most other free-riders just what to look for in these high, dangerous conditions. That was what Sayid had failed to realize yesterday. He saw the off-trail run and wanted to cut up the snow and enjoy the thrill of the deep powder.
Max scanned the rock faces and mountain peaks. In the distance Le Pic du Midi d’Ossau soared like a gargantuan reptile’s head, the slashed summit like a jaw gasping for air at nearly three thousand meters. The malevolent eye of the mountain stared heavenward, ignoring the puny human being on the valley floor.
Max checked the deep gullies above him. There was one couloir, a narrow chute formed by rocks at the top of a cliff, that whispered puffs of snowflakes. Max reasoned that they were due to an updraft of air twisting through the narrow crevices.
Everything seemed fine, but his instincts were prickling, warning him of something being not quite right. He had learned to follow those primal feelings when he was in Africa, where he had grappled with death and survived its swirling darkness. But now … What was it? What was wrong here? Still no sign of movement. The snow embedded the silence. Perhaps he was being overcautious; maybe he was still emotionally uneasy because of losing the competition. No, it was more than that-but he didn’t know what. He glanced down at his father’s watch and realized there was something he could salvage out of the failure.
It was a calculated risk, but he’d try and find Sayid’s beads.
Max took a final glance across the shimmering valley. Satisfied that all appeared to be safe, he eased his board down into the deep snow. Like crushed diamonds, it flurried aw
ay as he rode towards the tree line that Sayid had plowed through. Bending down and searching the lower branches, Max spotted the dark shapes against the white backdrop. Draped like a forgotten Christmas-tree decoration, Sayid’s misbaha dangled from a branch. Max picked it up carefully and tucked the ninety-nine strung beads into the pocket of his ski jacket.
It was time to leave; to get Sayid out of the hospital; to pack their bags and go home.
A sudden blur of movement startled him so that he crouched quickly in anticipation of a perceived danger. Three hundred meters away a skier plunged from a high crevice; a black, billowing figure, he dropped ten meters or more, hit the snow with enormous skill and turned his skis in a furious dash across the face of the mountain.
It was one of the weirdest things Max had ever seen.
A bare-headed man, a monk, with a bushy gray beard. His shoulder-length hair streamed behind him, as thick and wild as a horse’s mane. He wore only a cassock, which flapped wildly as the air buffeted him, the hood acting almost like a drogue parachute behind his head. His concentration was so intense he glanced neither left nor right and didn’t see Max.
Moments later, dropping from the same couloir, was another figure. As bizarre as the monk had been, so this skier was menacing-like the Grim Reaper stalking his victim. Sleek, carbon-smooth through the snow, the second man was a phantom, a silent Fury. The only sound he made was that of his skis slashing the surface. Max could barely see him, for as the skier tore through the white shower, he seemed to disappear from view, before suddenly appearing another ten meters down the hill. The ski ghost wore a body-hugging, one-piece ski suit, black helmet and visor; even the skis were black. The reason Max could not see him clearly was that his outfit was fragmented by a disruptive pattern, white shreds of crinkled lines, like the veins of a leaf. It was perfect snow camouflage.
Max hadn’t moved. The monk and his pursuer were level with his line of sight when the phantom, without losing a moment’s pace, lifted one arm quickly behind his neck, grabbed something and brought it forward. It was a rifle, camouflaged with black-and-white stripes, like those used by soldiers and marines for winter warfare. With a practiced, rapid movement he brought the rifle to his shoulder while still skiing at speed.
“No!” Max screamed, his yell echoing across the valley.
In an instant both skiers turned their faces in his direction, but the gunman was the first to react. He stopped in a shower of snow. The rifle never left his shoulder, and Max heard the frightening crack of the gunshot.
The monk floundered and, like a beginner on skis, seemed suddenly disjointed. He stayed upright, fighting the sudden loss of coordination. Max knew he had been hit. And he needed help. Max took off towards the wounded monk, crouching low on his board, his hand skimming the snow to balance his speed. He zigzagged in anticipation of a shot from the gunman, but it never came. Instead, a more frightening roar, like a massive wave breaking on the shore, swept over him.
The blast of ice-cold air hit his face. It seemed that the whole mountainside roared. The gunman executed a fast, sharp turn away from Max, the monk and the wall of snow thundering down towards him.
The wounded man looked right at Max. And pointed with a ski pole-the trees! They had to get below the trees if they were to have any chance of survival. Max could see the escape route and the monk was already pushing downhill as hard as he could to outrun the mountain god’s wrath.
Max’s dad had always told him it was natural to be scared, that fear had a purpose and could be overcome. But what he hadn’t told him was that anything could be this terrifying.
His gasping, rapid breath was drowned by the increasing roar behind him. His muscles ached with the effort of speed and maneuver, but he stayed focused on the spot he had to reach. The mighty fist of wind behind him was pushing him off balance. Max wasn’t laughing now. The avalanche wasn’t any distance away this time. It was raging all around him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the trees being flattened, snapping and cracking like kindling wood-the snow wave was overtaking him.
And then the monster hit him.
Swept into a maelstrom of confusion, he felt his snowboard’s bindings being ripped from his boots. Ice-cold fingers snatched at his face, tearing away his ski mask and, like grains of wet sand, snow was forced into his ears and mouth.
Memory kicked in. Some long-forgotten lesson from his father. Snatches of words. Survival. All about survival. Remember! Don’t ever go skiing alone in the mountains. Rule one-broken. Never go skiing where there have been avalanches. Rule two-broken. Avalanches happen where there’s new snow clinging to the mountain on the side facing away from the wind. He knew that! He knew it! And he had ignored it all in his stupid reaction to losing the competition.
As fast as the snow hurled him along, this secret voice in his mind taunted him. Survive! How?
Swim! Stay on top of the snow as if you were doing a front crawl.
Max churned his arms, trying to keep his face upwards towards the fleeting glimpses of sky visible through the snowstorm. He spat snow from his mouth, shook his head. Keep looking at the sky! The avalanche’s energy vibrated through him. Like a dog with a rat, it savaged him, shook him and then spat him free. For a moment the silence engulfed him. It wasn’t that the avalanche had stopped but that the wet snow had compacted in his ears.
A glimmer of hope. Blue sky. A deep breath. His arm lunged for the golden line of light. A sunbeam. A narrow band between the blue sky and the whiteout. Breathe! Suck in the air! Reach for it! Break free from this crushing monster and live! Darkness engulfed him.
Savage teeth bit into him again as he went head over heels, tumbled left to right. He was totally disoriented.
Finally the mayhem ended. Max was trapped, spread-eagled. A huge weight crushed his chest. Blue-tinged snow told him he must be lying on his back, facing the sky. How deep was he buried? If only he could scoop away the snow from his face and create space to breathe, but his arms were trapped. He must be a meter or more below the surface. He began to panic. He knew that if he fought the weight of the snow the energy would be sucked out of him. He had to take control of his mind. He had to calm down. Max tried to move his head, but managed only a few centimeters. Avalanche snow wasn’t fine and powdery; it was wet, heavy and compacted. How much longer would the small area above his face allow him to breathe? The weight of the snow was crushing his chest, settling heavier by the second.
There was, he realized, no way of escape. What would kill him first? The cold or having the life squeezed out of him? He would lie frozen in this tomb, and when the snow melted his body would be washed down into the river where, only hours earlier, he had fought Sharkface. Like flash photography, his mind showed him pictures of the kayak attack. The same white, scattered design on the kayak that the killer had on his ski outfit. The gunman-slightly built-fast and light on the snow, quick to maneuver. Young? Couldn’t tell. Sharkface? No. Sharkface was more thickset-had broader shoulders-didn’t have that fast, fluid movement of the skier.
Max’s mind was wandering. The exhaustion and lack of oxygen dragged his consciousness down an underground passageway. Colors swirled: purple, brown, blue-a kaleidoscope blurring his senses.
When Max was in Africa, a lethal poison had taken him through death’s door. A shaman had saved him. The medicine man was a BaKoko, a shapeshifter, and had given Max a power that both confused and frightened him. When his concentration was centered, and his breathing slow and deep, he was sometimes able to project himself as an animal.
Max’s dad had taught him never to reject primitive beliefs, and Max vividly recalled flying as a falcon and running as a jackal. But he did not know how to trigger the transformation at will. And what animal could escape from where he was now? Buried alive.
A gentle warmth washed over him. He was falling asleep. His core body heat, essential if he was to live, was seeping away. Sleep was bad. Sleep was death. Now there were memory snatches of Sophie. Warm cafe. Smeared window. Hard
, tough men gazing at him. Angels of death maybe. Was that what they were? Angels of death come to find him? The bear, Sophie had said. She was looking for a bear, stolen and shipped and probably destined to be shot.
A bear would hibernate. Sleep deep in a snow hole. It would roll and claw its way out into the spring sunshine and sniff the sweet, clean air. Max’s hand felt as though it clutched an ice pick. Impossible. He didn’t have one. The swirling colors merged, sucking him into a vortex. Max fought the sensation but his thoughts were being broken up into tiny pieces. And then he felt a surge of strength.
He struck out, felt, rather than heard, something rasp against the packed snow. His senses sharpened. A musty tang of sweat, like a wet dog smell, fur and stale air, filled his nostrils and caught at the back of his throat. An instinct made him grunt with effort as snow fell from the space he’d scooped out in front of his face. Through the indefinite light the ice pick looked like a claw-a bear’s paw that raked the snow-his paw!
The sky seeped its blue more deeply into the crystal particles. It seemed he was going to burst through, but his chest and legs were still crushed by the pressure of the compacted snow, an invisible hand squeezing the life out of him. He was losing consciousness.
Someone smashed through the packed crust. A face. Wild. Spittle and snot clinging to a snow-caked beard. A madman dressed in black. His arm reached in, like a poacher snatching a rabbit from a snare, and he slapped Max’s face. Max gasped, spat out snow and focused. The man’s mouth, with its old broken teeth, made shapes but no noise came from it. Max’s ears were still packed with snow. It was the monk, now digging furiously with his bare hands.
The monk grabbed Max by the front of his jacket and heaved. Max kicked and wriggled in an attempt to reach the daylight. Cold air stung his face. The monk’s calloused hand wiped away the snow caked around Max’s eyes. Max clambered out of the hole. The landscape had changed, but he knew he must have tumbled hundreds of meters down the mountainside, swept perilously close to the sheer drop that existed about halfway up the mountain. The monk’s cassock, matted with snow, looked cumbersome. The old man sat back, exhausted. A pink stain snaked across the snowfield behind him for twenty or thirty meters, showing where he had crawled, which told Max that the man was bleeding badly. Thankfully the monk had seen where Max went under the avalanche.
