The Marble Mask

Chapter 6

I don’t know how long I lay there. It was dark, pitch black, and I was so cold at first I had trouble moving. My head also hurt, although not as badly as I thought it should, for which I figured I had the frigid temperature to thank.

But useful or not for headaches, the cold was about to kill me. I knew that before I’d even confirmed that all my parts were functional and intact. As soon as I opened my eyes, and heard the screaming of the wind, I realized most of my body was almost totally numb.

I didn’t worry about the others. They were either alive or not, either safe or in peril. I also didn’t think about how I’d come to be lying in the snow at night alone, seemingly abandoned by people who more than most were trained to work as a team. My only thoughts were about survival and how to attain it. It was the same kind of focus I’d encountered in combat, when the enormity of the threat comes second to the will to live.

I tried standing at first, more to see if I could than to actually start walking anywhere. I had no flashlight and knew that even if I had, it wouldn’t have done much good. But the point was moot in any case-the wind threw me to my knees before I got halfway up.

I felt around me. Like Jean Deschamps, I’d created a hole where I’d landed, although blessedly less deep, and so decided to finish what I’d unwittingly begun by digging not just down but to the side as well, hoping to end up with a cave of sorts.

It wasn’t easy going. I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel with my hands, and I wasn’t even sure if I was burrowing in the right direction. It occurred to me that if I’d landed on a slope and was tunneling downhill, my reward would be to eventually reemerge back into the storm.

But I got lucky. After what felt like hours, I not only began feeling comfortably entombed, sheltered from both the wind and its incessant, biting howl, but I was warmer as well, my exertions having pushed blood if not to my fingers and toes, at least most of the way there.

It was only then that I thought beyond the immediate and remembered the radio.

I pulled it awkwardly from my pocket, fumbling with hands that felt like useless claws, and finally succeeded in depressing the transmit button, the small red light on top of the radio giving me a curious, instant comfort.

“Gunther to Mountain Rescue. Anyone out there?”

The response was instantaneous. “Jesus, Joe. That you?” Ray Woodman’s voice betrayed a relief he’d obviously all but abandoned.

“One and the same.”

His next question was more hesitant. “How’re you doing?”

It was a professional’s concern. In his place, I might have asked where I was. Knowing the futility of that, he was more interested in how long I might last.

“Okay so far. I hit my head, but I don’t think there’s any damage. I’ve dug a snow cave, so I’m out of the elements. Can’t feel my hands or feet.”

There was a telling pause.

“Where are you guys?” I asked, more to quell my own anxiety than out of any curiosity.

“Taft Lodge. The weather totally shut down the mountain. After you fell, Mike injured his ankle. Gary tried to find you, but I ordered him to take care of Mike. As it was, we had to go back and get them-they were already lost in the storm. Dumb luck they even made it.” There was another long hesitation. “I’m sorry, Joe. I had to save who I could.”

I understood what he was going through, and could only imagine the efforts he’d expended. Good news that it was, my returning from the dead was also like the resurgence of a guilt-evoking ghost. “Don’t worry about it. I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Well, we’re in good shape now,” Woodman came back with forced optimism. “The storm shouldn’t last too much longer. You just stay hunkered down there, and we’ll come get you as soon as we can. I got someone who’d like to talk to you. After that, we better conserve our batteries. And put the radio next to your body if you can,” he added.

I waited for a moment and then heard Sammie’s voice-small, worn, and worried. “Hi, boss. How’re you doin’?”

“Not bad-kind of making like a bear.”

Again, there was a long silence. I knew she’d already been dealing with my death and now was groping with my resurrection. If I’d correctly judged Woodman’s false nonchalance about the storm’s length and ferocity, she was also contemplating losing me all over again. Stowe Mountain Rescue was famous throughout the state for braving weather other people called lethal, especially if the lost person was a colleague. But they were buttoned down now.

Things were really bad out there.

I tried to ease her distress a little. “Sam, thanks for asking, but we’d better follow Ray’s advice for now. Keep warm and I’ll see you in a bit.”

I took my finger off the transmit button and watched the red light die, wondering how long it would take me to do the same.