Crazy for the Storm

CHAPTER 29

THE GIANT SHALE moated by snow proved more grueling than I had anticipated. This terrain wasn’t nearly as steep and there was no ice or cliffs, but the gummy snow clutched my sneakers and I had to stand instead of slide, taxing my last reserves of strength. I was forced to bend and twist over the sharp uneven shapes, constantly losing my footing, entrenched again and again—an unpleasant reminder of my utter weariness and hunger. My stomach seemed to chew on itself.

Soon I had nothing left. I had no energy for a reaction, not even despair. I literally stumbled onto a tuft of snow that cropped up like a miracle. The giant shale seemed to melt away into this alluvial fan of snow like a turbulent stream feeding into glassy, slow water. I looked up, maybe for the first time in half an hour.

Two hundred yards downslope glimmered a pure white plate of snow—the meadow. It was partially eclipsed by intermittent hedges of buckthorn bush poking from the snow. I imagined charging for the meadow but sensed that the fan of snow ahead was unstable—beneath it the buckthorn bush, crushed like mattress springs, was a trap. Sprouting out here and there, the bush looked like a decaying maze. I rehearsed weaving through it and onto the meadow. My eyes tracked the surface, sniffing out potential danger points. Right in front of me was a deceivingly firm snowdrift—a coil of buckthorn that would break underfoot. I identified a few more areas to avoid, then stood numb and fatigued, shivering from my bones outward. It was as if my cartilage and my ligaments had dried out and I wondered if I was going to break apart like brittle wood.

I leaned toward the meadow, drawn to it, a dehydrated animal spotting a water hole. My first step was Frankenstein-like. I heaved one leg out of the snow and lurched forward. My head was light as if there were no brain inside my skull. I wavered, unable to balance in the variable crust that changed to heavy cement and back to crust from one step to the next. I had to stop. Breathe. Find my balance.

Again I lurched forward. This time I let my momentum carry me downhill. When the snow turned soft underfoot I used my stomach to suck up my weight like skiing breakable crust or Sierra Cement with my dad.

As I hobbled down the fan of snow, my mind flickered with muddled images that burned under a Mexican sun. No emotion, just faint smeared orange and yellow colors—Me, Grandpa, Dad, swimming in an ocean as warm as a bathtub.

My eyes were closed when the crust broke wide open. I danced my weight to my other foot and it caved too. I jiggered laterally and my magic ran out. I plummeted, knifing deep into the buckthorn. When I settled I was nearly entombed, only my head and one hand branching out of the snow.

I spit to clear snow from my mouth. I reached up with my free arm and the surface collapsed into my hole. My sneakers checked against the tangle of vines and I dropped a few inches deeper.

It’s like a tree well, I thought. I pictured my dad wedging his feet and arms against the sides and working his way up and out. I can do the same.

The vines gave way the instant I loaded against them. I willed my body upward and the limbs bent, worthless.

Some serrated leaves were still attached to the vine and when I moved again my ski pants and sweater pulled against the whole gnarl, quaking the snow around me.

Nothing was working, and nothing seemed like it would work. I was at the end of my tether. There was a flare of anger and frustration, abruptly smothered out, as if all the circuits in my brain were fizzling, and I shut down.