Clear to Lift

by Anne A. Wilson

  “No, that’s fine. You’re right. It’s nice to be back up to speed.”

  “Well, we’ll have more time to talk when I visit, right? Only three more weeks. Actually, less than three weeks.”

  “Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. I just…”

  I look at the mug in my hand, staring at the cat.

  He hangs there, wide-eyed, little paws straining to hold on to the bar, at the limit, about to fall …

  “What’s up?” Rich asks.

  “Well, just lots of things,” I say, looking at my watch. Not enough time … crap. Just say it, Ali. Get it out there. Something … “I can’t sleep, the rules are crazy up here, actually, not crazy, there are no rules, and the stuff we’re doing is risky as hell, and I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, and it’s like I can’t come down, and I’m in danger of falling the whole time, but it’s terrible and wonderful at the same time, and I just—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on, Ali. Hold on.”

  I breathe in deeply, then release the air in one giant whoosh.

  “So wait. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I just … I don’t know.”

  “Okay, so let’s just think about this. We know Commander Bigelow’s working on getting you transferred early. And then you can—wait, what did you just say? Wonderful?”

  “What?”

  “Wonderful. Just now. You said it was terrible and wonderful at the same time.”

  “I did?” I pick up my spoon and begin rolling it through my fingers, under and over, under and over, watching it travel down to the pinky, and then rolling it back toward my thumb—a nervous habit picked up in flight school. “See, I can’t even think straight.”

  “Well, when’s the last time you talked with Commander Bigelow? Maybe he’s got an update for you. If he can make it happen, you can get back to San Diego. To some stability … which I think you need.”

  “I do need some stability. I really do. He left a voice mail a few days ago. Said he was making progress. Sounded optimistic.”

  “Well, you should be optimistic, too, then.”

  I start stirring again, not able to muster up anything even remotely close to optimism. A weird silence stretches the seconds.

  “You seem so anxious,” he says finally. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it this bad before.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, putting my spoon down, now fidgeting with my flight suit zipper. “It’s not as bad as I’m making it out. I’m not even sure what I’m saying.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Really.” I look up at the clock. 0630. “Rich, I’m sorry, I have to go.” I rise from the table, pouring my uneaten oatmeal down the drain. “I’ll try to call tonight.”

  “Well, in the meantime, just try to relax. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  I hang up, wishing I could believe it.

  7

  “Lieutenant Malone? Lieutenant Malone?” Will says, waving his hand.

  I tune in as the aircrewmen chuckle.

  “Are we drifting, Vanilla?” Boomer says.

  “No, no. I’m sorry. What was that?”

  Will stands on a mountain slope, which is covered in three feet of snow, on the grounds of the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, located high in the Sierra. He’s training fifteen members of our SAR team, along with a platoon of thirty marines, on the basics of avalanche rescue. I never knew this about Will, since he was gone during my first months here, but he is the go-to guy for anything mountaineering-related at this base.

  “I asked, what are the three modes of use on your avalanche transceiver?”

  “Uh…,” I say, clearing my throat.

  My brain has not been present today. I forgot to call Celia back, for one. My phone call with Rich this morning was … okay, but not okay. And then, I didn’t call my mom, either. I make it a point to call her every Sunday, at a minimum. But we spent all morning in Bishop yesterday, and flew with the EOD team all afternoon, and I collapsed when I got home, not waking up until two a.m.—I tell you, like clockwork—and then it was too late to call her.

  “Off, transmit, and receive,” I say.

  I pull the answer out of who knows where, and Will knows it. If eyes could laugh, I’d swear that’s what his are doing. He starts toward me. “I’d like you to switch your transceiver to the transmit mode.”

  Oh, boy. Please let this device be intuitive.

  I look down. Thank god. Easy-to-read labels.

  I turn the dial to transmit, but when I look up, Will has moved to stand just in front of me, so close his breath wafts across my forehead. He switches the dial on his transceiver to receive, then extends his arm so his transceiver almost touches mine—to ensure it’s my signal he’s recognizing.

  Beep … beep … beep … beep. His unit picks up the audio signal my transceiver is producing.

  He raises his eyes to meet mine, and his mouth curls upward ever so slightly. “Yours checks good.”

  He moves away to test the rest of the group’s transceivers, continuing his instructions to the class as he goes. “Your transceivers are now emitting a pulsed radio signal, just like the skier’s would.…”

  But my thoughts linger in the moment just before. I look down toward my buried mountaineering boots, my ski pants disappearing into snow that comes up to my knees. That energy. That crazy, intense energy. It was here. And now it’s gone.

  Beep … beep … beep … beep.

  “What if the avalanche is happening, and you’re watching it?” Will asks.

  Well-spoken, intelligent, humorous. Will is all of these things. As he moves from person to person, testing each transceiver, instructing, joking, laughing, I find myself furrowing my brow, trying to nail down his most obvious trait, something difficult to define. So I listen—mostly—as he transitions from the steps for transceiver usage to quizzing the group on what we covered this morning.

  “If you’re in a safe place, watch the victim, and note their last known position,” Beanie says.

  “Outstanding! Now, Lieutenant Melley, what goes along with watching the victim?”

  Clark Melley is the only other aircraft commander in our group. The blond-haired, blue-eyed, should-be-on-a-recruiting-poster-somewhere Texas A&M grad is an H-60 transfer, like me. And also like me, he’s none too thrilled about being stationed in Fallon, far happier flying off an aircraft carrier. So we’ve clicked, routinely commiserating about the unfairness of it all.

  “Look for visual clues sticking out of the snow, like a glove or something,” Clark says.

  “Very good!” Will says. “Remember—and I’ve seen this several times—the gear you see on the snow could still be connected to the victim, like a hand in a glove. It’s easy to jump right to the avalanche transceiver and the search patterns we’ll cover today and miss the obvious signs of the location of a buried victim.”

  My brain ticks and spins, mulling over that elusive quality of Will’s. That je ne sais quoi. Innate leadership? Definitely. But something else … Charisma? Yes … Yes, I think that’s it. A magnet that draws people to follow. I’m sure this comes in handy in his position as a mountain guide, and it’s probably another reason our aircrewmen think so highly of him. I suspect it’s also the source of that energy I felt earlier. I steal a glance side to side at my squadron mates, as they look on, riveted.

  “… with the exception of Lieutenant Malone,” Will says. My head snaps up; I heard my name, but not the instructions before it.

  He looks at me with a hint of mischief in his eyes.

  Not only did I not hear what he just asked me to do, but I sort of checked out on this entire last bit.

  “Please switch your transceiver to receive mode,” he says.

  Uh-oh. Will just called on the kid in class who wasn’t listening. So embarrassing. And so not me.

  Clark, who’s standing next to me, discreetly points to the dial, showing me wh
ere to turn it.

  “Thanks,” I say out of the corner of my mouth.

  The transceiver lights up and begins beeping.

  “Okay, find the buried transceiver,” Will says.

  I look at him, confused, because he still holds his transceiver in his hand … and it’s turned off.

  “But you—”

  “I buried one earlier,” he says.

  Oh, shit.

  A light blinks on the left side of my transceiver display. I hesitate, glancing up at Will, who is clearly enjoying the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing.

  Following my gut, I pivot to the left. The light shifts into the center position, indicated by an arrow. Okay, arrows usually mean follow. I step forward and the distance number on the display begins to drop—8 meters, 7 meters, 6, 5 … Will falls in beside me, the beeps pinging faster and louder, 4, 3, 2, 1. The lighted arrow starts to flash, and the beeps are the loudest they’ve been.

  “Very good,” Will says, like praising a six-year-old for picking up her laundry and throwing it in the hamper.

  “As you approach the victim,” Will calls back to the group, “the beeps will grow louder and more frequent and the lights will flash. At this point, we begin the pinpoint phase of the search.”

  Will holds up what looks like a tent pole—a collapsible aluminum set of rods connected by an elastic string—and quickly snaps them together, one into the other, in a series, until he holds a long, slender pole, half an inch in diameter and ten feet in length.

  He hands me the pole, reciting the directions at the same time. I punch the pole through the snow in intervals, until I feel a soft thud. The pole indicates something two feet below.

  “I think I found it,” I say. I wonder now if Will placed the transceiver in a backpack or wrapped it in something, due to the softness I feel.

  “When you strike something,” Will says, “leave the pole in place.”

  To me, he says, “Nice job.” And then to the group, “We’ll go over shoveling procedures for extricating the victim later. For now, let’s break off in groups of two. One of you will hide your transceiver, and the other will find it. Spread out well to give yourselves room.”

  When everyone pairs off, I’m the odd man out.

  “I, um…,” I say, pointing.

  “That’s okay,” Will says. “You can stick with me.”

  Something shifts—weirdly, warmly, wonderfully—in my stomach. What the heck?

  Our group scatters, and it’s not long before the slope and surrounding forest are inundated with beeps on this unseasonably mild autumn day—temperatures even warmer than yesterday.

  Will walks among our group to observe, and I follow.

  “You called me out,” I say.

  “Just trying to gain your attention, that’s all.”

  “I was paying attention … mostly.”

  Beep … beep … beep … beep. The sounds grow louder as transceivers are switched to receive, one after another.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say.

  “Shoot.”

  “Is vanilla really your favorite flavor?”

  The question brings him to a stop. “Is that what you were thinking about?”

  “No … I mean, it wasn’t then, but it was earlier.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No. I was just curious.”

  “How about a definite maybe.”

  “I knew you didn’t like vanilla.”

  “I never said that.”

  Beep … beep … BEEP … BEEP … The volume increases as the searchers home in on their targets.

  “Did you get a chance to try any of the food you bought from Schat’s?” he asks, starting to walk again.

  “I did. The sheepherder bread with the artichoke spread.”

  “And…?”

  “It was pretty good.”

  “Pretty good?”

  I look up, meeting his eyes—alight, happy, bursting with … energy.

  “Okay, it was the best bread I’ve ever tasted. Like ever. Like out-of-this-world ever.”

  BEEP … BEEP … BEEP … “Found it!” BEEP … BEEP … “Got it!” BEEP … BEEP … “Got this one!”

  “Guys!” Will shouts. “Go ahead and switch places when you find it, so you both have a turn at searching!”

  He looks to me. “I know, right?”

  What a simple thing. A piece of bread. We’re gushing about a piece of bread. Rich sounded like this, well, sort of, when he told me about the interest rate he secured for the annuity. “Can you believe that, Ali? A fixed interest rate like that is unheard of!” But he should be excited, shouldn’t he? It’s what he does. What he’s good at. I have flat zero financial sense, so I leave all of it to him. Maybe that’s why I didn’t react in quite the same way.

  Beep … beep … BEEP … BEEP … The second man in each pairing is narrowing the distance to his find.

  “Since I live forty-five minutes from Bishop, I buy several loaves—well, you saw—and freeze them.” Will turns and heads to our group’s clustered pile of backpacks and equipment. “It tastes just as good when you thaw it and warm it later.”

  “I’ll have to remember that,” I say, my steps heavier now and taking far more effort, due to the mushy snow—snow that feels like we’re walking through mashed potatoes, courtesy of the warm afternoon sun. “Forty-five minutes from Bishop? Where do you live?”

  “June Lake. It’s just north of here.”

  I stop in my—literal—tracks. “You live in June Lake?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We … we flew over it two days ago! On the way back from Mount Morrison. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen! I mean, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”

  “It is pretty special. Out of the way. Quiet.”

  “And jaw-droppingly gorgeous. You are so lucky.”

  BEEP … BEEP … BEEP … “Score!” BEEP … BEEP … “Got it!”

  “All right, guys, come on back!” Will shouts. He raises his arms, waving everyone to him, as we finish walking—slogging—the remaining distance to our gear.

  Our group straggles back—while the marines run—and transceivers are turned off as everyone clusters around Will.

  “Okay, you’ve found your victim, you’ve placed your avalanche pole at the site, and now you have to dig the victim out,” Will says, leaning over and pulling his shovel out of the snow. “This is by far the most time-consuming aspect of any avalanche rescue. Shoveling just a cubic meter of snow is going to take you at least ten minutes, probably more, and it’s exhausting work. If you’re working in teams, you’ll want to rotate out to help reduce fatigue.”

  As Will talks, he demonstrates, purposely using incorrect shoveling techniques, followed by correct ones. He moves like an athlete would, coordinated, sure, strong. I tell myself not to look, and yet, I keep looking. I try not to notice, but keep noticing. Not the shoveling techniques, but him. The way his muscles move in his forearms, striated and lean. The way his wicked technical T-shirt clings to his back. Everything connected and tight. Of course, he should look this way. Any mountain guide would.

  “So we’re going to do some digging practice here first,” Will says. “Just spread out and pick a spot.”

  Everyone moves out while Will looks at his watch. “Okay, begin!”

  I put my shovel to the snow, but Will stops me. “Would you mind helping me out?” He motions to the spot I found earlier, still marked with the avalanche pole. “I need to get my backpack and since you’re digging anyway…”

  His grin is a wide one.

  “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

  I move to the spot and start digging. Five minutes into it, a runnel of sweat trickles down my hairline. Maybe it’s the sun’s intensity at high altitude, maybe it’s dehydration, or maybe it’s just that shoveling snow like this is just plain hard work, but I’m huffing.

  Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side. Shovel in. Scoop u
p. Snow to the side.

  The minutes tick.… Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side.

  My arms are getting heavy. Crap. Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side. I’m even in relatively good shape. I run. I do yoga. But this?

  Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side.

  I glance at my watch, now ten minutes in, and admit that this little “getting-a-feel-for-it” exercise is kicking my ass. I peek around, wondering if anyone else might be tiring like I am. I’m relieved to see several others wiping their brows, some bending at the knees to rest.

  I resume digging, catching Will in my peripheral vision. There’s so much movement around us, but he stands stock-still, only moving his head as he looks over his charges. His scan includes me, and it almost pulls me up short because—and I’m probably just imagining it—it seems that he’s staring. Although, I am looking for his backpack, which probably explains it. But still …

  Self-consciously, I look myself over. My jog bra is visible through my supposedly moisture-wicking, yet sweat-soaked shirt, but that’s nothing. My upper arms glisten with perspiration, and my hair has come a bit loose from its tie, but no big deal. Hmm. Everything seems okay. I chance a quick peek once more as I drive my shovel into the snow. He stands tall, arms crossed, but I catch it when he looks away.

  When I start digging again—and this is strange—the task no longer seems as difficult. The shovel strokes come with less effort, and I don’t seem to be breathing as hard. I imagine Will, full to overflowing with his energy supply, transferring just a bit to me, enough to get the job done.

  Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side. Over and over. A rhythm. A tempo. A happy, blissful groove.

  The pit widens. Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side.

  My breathing is steady now, hard, but steady, and my muscles ache, but in good way. Good … This feels good. Snow flicking in bits across my torso. The smell of pine. The sun resting in an azure, cloudless sky. Deeper and deeper, I begin to disappear into the snow, as I shovel it in piles around me.

  Shovel in. Scoop up. Snow to the side.

  I smile when my shovel stroke finally reveals a snow-encrusted black strap. Dropping to my knees, I use my hands like a dog digging up a bone to pull the snow away. Finally, bright blue material surfaces. I grasp the backpack, give a good yank, and pull it clear. Got it!