Crazy Blood

Chapter Thirty-Six

Snow stood twelve feet deep on Mammoth Mountain for the Gargantua Mammoth Cup men’s ski-cross finals on Saturday, January 16. The temperature was thirty-one degrees, with a light breeze, and the sky was a hard pewter gray.

Wylie juiced his skis in the waxing area set up near the X Course starting house. His Sabers lay on the sawhorses and he waited for his secret concoction of waxes to reach the right temperature. He wore a respirator against the noxious fluorinated vapors. Some of the wax technicians stood by, drinking coffee in colorful steel mugs, waiting their turn. The techs were there for the Mammoth freeski team members only, but even when Wylie was part of team, he’d always done his own waxing — part science and part meditation. His wax recipe was on the grippy side, because his racing style was for speed. He ironed it on in long, even strokes, the hot fumes wafting witchingly into the cold air. He was inwardly focused and borderline oblivious to things around him.

Later behind his starting gate, Wylie stretched, yawned as always before a race, felt that temporary standoff between fear and adrenaline. He glanced at the several TV cameras that would broadcast the start of the race to the big screens down at the finish. Thoughts careened through his mind as if on casters, suddenly changing directions, some linked and others rogue and random. Claude’s CR Fives the best. Invincible on them. Breathe deep. Patrol in Kandahar and racing down a mountain. Lose a leg, break a neck. Will and luck. The fall line is your bro. Boxes locked and shelved and you fuckers will not open until I tell you to. Good poachers for breakfast, pepper and butter on top. Start me up. Watch me go. Robert, Robert. April down there at the finish. April Holly. Ten thousand prize money. Ten thousand! Remember let mind go. Let mind wander. Worst loss was ‘cause I thought too much, concentrated too hard, and made the body wait. Body knows best. Big picture only, eyes ahead, don’t fight yourself, man. Miss the MPP, get another someday. Lucky on the burns and April’s aloe vera. Love to kick Sky’s ass. Going to kick Sky’s ass, you just watch. Hope that wax was right, been a while...

Yesterday, Wylie’s qualification and semifinal races had been good enough but imprecise, leaving him the fourth gate pick for this final race. For the cup, Mike Cook had outfitted the X Course with drop-in start gates to space the racers safely, and these gates were positioned fairly and evenly. Wylie was secretly pleased to get the least-wanted gate, number 1, on the far left. It would leave him the longest line into the first X Course feature — a right bank — but he would be making that turn on the strength of his dominant left foot, on which his best speed and balance had always been built.

Sky Carson looked at him from behind gate 4. Sky had smoked the qualies and semis to earn the first gate pick, and gate 4 would give him the shortest line into the first bank. Sky had already taken and held that line in both his qualification races and his semifinal run the day before. He was yet to lose a race, or even his lead. Wylie had watched, impressed. He did think Sky was taking some unreasonable risks, as if he were racing on the Imagery Beast instead of on a real course, but he was putting down the runs like he owned them. Bridger Burr and Josh Coates, teammates out of Crested Butte, Colorado, took gates 2 and 3, respectively. Wylie knew they could be expected to help each other if necessary. In ski cross, a racer might sacrifice his own run — and take out an opponent or even two — so that his teammate could win. Few spectators here on Mammoth Mountain today expected such teamwork from Wylie or Sky.

Wylie looked over at him. There had been no words between them since the MPP incident. Sky waved. His beard and mustache were blue, his helmet white, and his goggles red, with black lenses. Wylie smiled to himself. Then Sky held out both hands toward him, palms up, as if in question, ski poles dangling by their straps. He grabbed the poles and sidled around the start gate, backing up the slope toward Wylie. Wylie back stepped and they met behind the house.

Sky lifted his red goggles and fixed Wylie with the Cynthia stare — lake ice over unquestioned determination. “Good luck, Wylie. But I won’t have any kind of mercy on you.”

“None expected, Sky. If you make that first hole shot again, prepare for some genuine pressure.”

“Keep your skis off mine, pal.”

“Ditto your poles and my legs.”

“The officials have been ordered to call a tight one.”

“When you hear my skis in your draft, remember that I have twenty pounds on you and I’m going to pass.”

“You remember that I’ll punish you severely for unsportsmanlike conduct. Such as running me off the course.”

“Good luck to you, too, then, Sky.”

“My words mean nothing to you.”

“Approximately.”

“I can do no more for you. This is for Robert.”

“For Robert.”

They banged gloved fists and glided away from each other, Sky loosening up at the waist, Wylie yawning again.

The starter called them into their gates. Wylie slid forward until his ski tips touched the blue dye. He lifted his goggles again, then firmed them against his face, snugged the helmet and pushed the strap under itself and against his throat. Again he checked all his zippers and buttons, loops and hooks, cuffs and pocket flaps, and every small thing that could retard his speed. His bib was tight and he liked the big odd number: 77.

He looked down and saw the line for a hole shot of his own into that first right bank. First in, first out. Tempting. His route would intersect Sky’s, without doubt. So Wylie considered a more cautious start, which would take him lower, ceding the lead to someone else, likely Sky. Then he’d play catch-up as he usually did, the Wylie playbook.

His heart boomed away and he heard the familiar roar of blood in his ears and his mind felt lighter now and damn if he didn’t like the idea of a surprise start. Sky might well be caught off guard, and Wylie had his good left foot to count on through that first right bank. Sky would be flabbergasted, and Claude Favier, too, and, really, the whole mountain would.

He took three deep breaths, exhaling fully, then yawned again. He felt the vanishing CO2 replaced by a cold surge of oxygen. Vision clear and ears sharp. Now I see. Make the shot. Take the lead. Yes. It’s yours. For Robert. For April and the girls. For me.

The gates swung open and Wylie dug powerfully with his poles. He launched and dropped like a cannonball, hitting the steep half-pipe flank with a deep bend of skis, crossing the bowl barely ahead of Bridger Burr and Josh Coates, but already behind Sky Carson.

Through the first short run, they formed a tight knot, skis rattling, poles digging. Wylie’s legs felt heavy, and whoever was behind him was close indeed. He held his line to the first bank, but Sky got there well ahead of everyone. Wylie ceded the turn, then tucked in behind Sky on the short straightaway leading to Launching Pad. The course was fast and he was airborne before he knew it, soaring off the jump just behind Sky. Then Wylie was floating, weight forward and ski tips jammed downward to dig into the air as the vast Sierra peripheries slowly unfolded around him. Then the course rushed up. He landed well, closing fast on Sky, hearing the hiss of Sky’s skis and the louder hiss of his own, and the steady grind of those behind him. He carved close behind Sky and into the welcome pull of his draft. Pressure, he thought. Pressure him off this mountain. One of Sky’s poles flicked oddly and Wylie felt a sudden stab of pain in his left shin.

The four drafted tightly toward the first gate, a sweeping right. Sky took it high, above the track, where the snow was less trammeled by racers. Wylie followed, snow blasting his goggles and the rasp of skis close behind him, urgent and high-pitched. He tried to focus ahead, but all he could see beyond Sky was the course jumping crazily ahead of him. Then a maddening moment as Wylie carved too hard into the gate on the race-battered ice and had to check his speed. He shouldered past the panel as tight as he could, but coming out he heard sudden dread quiet behind him as Bridger Burr swept past.

Tucked into Burr’s draft, Wylie held third position down the straight toward jump two, Goofball. The straight was wide but offered insufficient velocity to pass. He broke left of Burr for the jump, launched high and deep into the sky. Another long moment of motion frozen in time, then Wylie hit hard and tore into a gentle left bank leading to the next gate. He held third place through the panels and came out fast.

On Dire Straights, he freed his speed, hugged his fall line to come up tight on Burr, his thighs parallel to the snow, calves together, knees working like pistons. The heaviness in his legs was gone. He was thoughtless and automatic, arms and poles acting far ahead of his dumb authority. He felt no more in control than a sneaker in a washing machine. This straight was his bread and butter, the most profitable feature of the course for a large racer. Wylie felt huge. He tucked around Burr, made an easy inside pass, and found himself breathing down the neck of Sky Carson.

Tucking in behind Sky again, he ooorahed to rattle Sky’s cage. They sped toward Conundrum, where Robert had had his tragic fall. Wylie moved deep into Sky’s draft, but Sky was staunch, claiming his line for the commanding center of the Conundrum ramp. Wylie dropped back inches as Sky pressed ahead, loosening a blast of snow and ice into Wylie’s face. Sky had the good lane and launched off Conundrum. Wylie shot into the air on Sky’s right. Leaning into the sudden silence, Wylie pressed hard, driving his ski tips down so the wind wouldn’t flip him. He heard the slash of Burr, then of Coates, both launching behind him. His altitude was good. He could see Sky fully extended, straining for inches. Sky landed past where Robert had hit the ice. Wylie landed right on it, but lightly — for him — and well balanced, and he felt the CR Fives arcing radically, their sharp edges carving around a wide right bank that suddenly dropped him onto the next straightaway.

Wylie closed on Sky again, tight to his draft. But again Sky was staunch and relentless, body and nerves stout, giving Wylie not one inch, nor the slightest hint that he was even aware of the threat behind him. Down the mountain they flew, rippling with speed, bound by a tenuous bond of velocity and blood.

Sky held the lead, taking the best and shortest line into Shooters. Wylie stayed hard upon him, inches off his fall line, heard the rattling hiss of pursuit just feet behind him. Wylie felt enemy skis crunching over the backs of his own, then the terrible shimmy of deceleration.

“Coming through, Wylie!”

He flew into Shooters two yards behind Sky, the world abruptly closing around him — tree trunks and branches flashing by in the diminished light, the snow frozen to ice here in this cloistered forest.

“Coming through!”

He felt the rough grating of skis riding over his own again, kept his poles forward and free, dug mightily after Sky, who by now had claimed an impassable line out of the first chute and into the next. Wylie came up hard behind him, heard the skis still rasping behind him. The chute was long and narrow, and Wylie shot through flashing spokes of shadow and sunlight. The chute resolved in a hard right bank and he sensed that Sky was going too fast to take such a high line into it. Risking much, Wylie checked his speed, inviting Sky to take a safer, lower angle into the bank.

More shear and grind behind him. “Coming through, Welborn!” Skis clattered over the backs of his own again; then he felt a nanosecond of wobble. Wylie jabbed behind him smartly, felt his pole point hit snow. Sky chose the lower line into the bank, tucked tightly and made his move. It took less than a second for Sky to sense his mistake. Wylie saw him glance back, then bunch still tighter, setting his left pole, driving his uphill shoulder into the turn. Wylie had the higher line. He saw that they would converge exactly on the apex of the curve — Sky on the downhill side and Wylie narrowly above him. Whoever took the turn would have the lead into the long final straightaway and finish.

Sky streaked in from the left. He glanced at Wylie again and Wylie saw the blue beard and the wild white of eyes behind the goggles. The gate rushed them. Wylie freed all the speed he had in him, drew his shoulders up and out, and bumped past Sky. Sky quivered upon contact, then drove over the backs of Wylie’s skis for a higher line that would send him out of the turn first. At desperate speed, Sky came even with Wylie, then tipped up on one ski to speed alongside Wylie, poles out for balance but all physics against him. He went down like someone thrown from a train, then spun off into the trees and out of Wylie’s sight.

Once through Shooters, Wylie hogged the fast middle course with fierce abandon. For you, Robert. He heard no one behind him. The seconds seemed eternal. He crossed the finish line alone and threw up a huge rooster tail of snow in the out-run before looking back uphill. Bridger Burr and Josh Coates followed a hundred feet back. Ten long seconds later, Sky came essing down in the slow sway of concession, waving one acutely bent pole to the cheering crowd, his right arm tucked weirdly up against his side.

On the middle podium, Wylie raised to the filled grandstands his first-place trophy and an oversized replica of his ten-thousand-dollar check. The trophy was cast in the form of a gorilla holding up a chalice that had Gargantua Mammoth Cup I engraved around its lip. The check’s background depicted a gorilla’s face coming up behind Mammoth Mountain like a sunrise.

Wylie heard the applause and the loudly amplified announcers’ voices, saw the cameras flashing. He felt very strange. He’d never been so stuffed with gratitude and with belief in tomorrow and with strong love for what he saw around him. Could all of this really come from winning a simple ski race? It seemed unlikely. But what was wrong with winning a ski race? And what was wrong with setting your sights on the biggest ski-cross race of all, and winning that, too? Was being the best ski crosser in the world any less an accomplishment than being the best actor or baker or poet or doctor or the best anything else?

And speaking of life, did that have to be only about holding parts together, locking things in, keeping the memory boxes properly stowed? Couldn’t it be about playing up? Dreaming bigger? Nailing it? He reminded himself that this moment was a beginning and he knew that the road ahead would be long and rugged. For an example, he glanced down at the blood-smeared hole in his snow pants, just above the left boot, Sky’s doing at the bottom of Launch Pad. That hurt.

He looked out at April and Kathleen and Steen. Then at Beatrice and Belle with their beanies pulled snug for warmth over their shorn heads. At Jesse and Jolene. All his people sitting close together in the stands. He could see their smiles and puffs of breath as they pounded their gloved hands together and yelled to him. Falling snow muffled the sound. To the left side of the grandstand, behind the roped-off media area, on an asphalt walkway leading up from the lodge, stood Sky and Cynthia and Hailee, and a woman Wylie had not seen before. Robert sat among them in his wheelchair, bundled against the cold.