Chapter 13 #2
“This year I have a goal,” she said. “Under forty hours. I really need this to happen.” The words came out more weighted than she intended, and she kept moving, eyes on the road ahead. “It’s probably my last try.” She stopped talking.
She hadn’t meant to say that. It was an idea she’d been turning over for months, a date she’d marked on her calendar. But it wasn’t common knowledge, and it had no business coming out here in the dark, to Jack Swisher of all people.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
The hill saved her.
It came up fast where the road curved, steep and immediate. She felt it in her quads the moment her foot found the grade. She shifted her weight forward, slowed to a power walk, and focused on the road directly in front of her headlamp.
Her breathing climbed with the hill. Beside her, she could hear Jack making the same adjustments, working hard, not complaining.
The wind was stronger on this exposed section, coming at them cold and brutal, and the snow was less predictable here—wind-packed in some spots, unconsolidated in others.
Her foot sank unexpectedly on the left side, and she caught herself and moved right. Moved closer to Jack.
“Watch the edge,” she said between breaths.
He moved closer to her without hesitation.
They climbed. Her lungs and legs worked, and the sled pulled at her harness on the grade, and she didn’t think about anything except the next ten feet of road. That was what this hill required. Not the whole hill. Just the next ten feet.
Halfway up, she hit an icy section. Her right foot went out and she lurched forward, one hand going down, palm hitting the snow, and she was already recovering before the thought of falling fully formed.
But a hand closed on her arm, firm and fast, steadying her without jerking, and she found her feet.
His hand lingered a few moments longer than necessary before releasing her.
Neither of them said anything about it as they kept moving.
They reached the top, and she stood breathing hard, hands on her knees for a moment, letting her heart rate come down. Beside her, Jack was breathing hard too. That had been a serious climb.
She straightened and looked at him. His cheeks were red from the cold and the exertion, and he was looking at the road ahead with the focused expression of someone still processing the effort.
He wasn’t struggling. He was working. There was a difference, and she recognized it because she knew what struggling looked like.
This wasn’t it. He was a winter athlete who’d spent years in conditions that demanded sustained effort in the cold.
He understood how to move through difficulty without being destroyed by it.
Steph had known that about him in the abstract, but knowing it while standing at the top of a hard hill, in the wind and dark, was different.
She reached under her jacket, found the mangoes again, and held them out.
He took them. “Thanks.” He ate a few pieces and handed the bag back. “You said last try.” He said it simply. Not pushing. Just returning to the thread she’d dropped.
She took a piece of mango and looked out at the road ahead, the headlamps catching the snowfall, everything beyond their small circle of light invisible.
She didn’t know how to answer him without saying things she wasn’t ready to say. Things about timelines and biological clocks and the particular kind of tiredness that came from wanting a life that kept not materializing. Steph had already said more tonight than she’d planned.
“Ready?” she asked instead and positioned her sled to ride down the hill. The uphill had been steep, but going down was more gradual. “This is a good place to ride, get our heart rates back down.”
When Steph reached the bottom, she remained sitting on her sled as she turned to watch Jack take the hill. His descent was his smoothest yet, and he did an excellent job steering with his feet.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” she said as she stood and repositioned her tow poles.
“I think I need to balance my load better. The sled wants to pull to the left, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of how it’s packed.”
“You’ll do better next time. Not having the backpack as an afterthought will make a difference.”
“True. I watched several videos showing the start of The Frozen Divide and other winter races, but never really put together that the runners weren’t wearing packs.”
“Some do,” Steph clarified. “And maybe you’ll discover wearing a pack is best for you. They have packs you can hook your tow to.” She gestured toward her sled.
“No, I think you’re right. It’s better not to have it digging in.” He rehooked his sled to his waistbelt. “I was used to carrying a rifle on my back. I guess I didn’t think much about the difference between that and the pack.”
He fell into step beside her as they did an easy jog, chatting occasionally about his biathlon experiences.
The wind eased as they dropped off the exposed section and moved back into the trees.
The headlamps settled back into their familiar rhythm, two circles of light moving together through the dark.
Her breathing evened out. Her legs found the pace again.
Steph was aware of Jack beside her. She had been since the parking lot, since the first climb, since he’d caught her arm on the ice without making a moment of it.
She didn’t want to be aware of him, especially not in that way, the way that had nothing to do with the running club, the Jingle Run, or the registration list for The Frozen Divide.
For weeks, she had built a careful wall out of those things, stacking them between herself and that inconvenient awareness. Now, several hours into the wilderness with him, the wall was doing considerably less work than she needed it to do.
The trees opened briefly and the wind came back, lighter this time, and she turned her face into it and let the cold settle the things that needed settling.
He was not her rival out here. She could see that clearly enough to admit it, at least to herself, at least in the dark where nobody was keeping score. Out here, he was someone who understood this life. Understood it more than she thought he would.
He understood the cold and the dark and the particular satisfaction of moving through conditions that pushed back, the way you had to be present for all of it or the wilderness would make you regret the lapse.
Not everybody understood that. Most people didn’t want to.
She looked at the road ahead and kept moving, telling herself it was just the hours and the dark and the cold that made everything feel different than it did in daylight. That was probably true.
It wasn’t the whole truth, and she knew it.
“There’s a trail about a quarter mile up,” she said. “It’ll take us through the trees and into a meadow. I always go that way and take a little break. I like to use that area to test my stove.”
“That’s smart. Not something I would’ve even thought about.”
She shrugged. “Everything needs to work as it should when you’re out there on your own.
I’ll do another training closer to race day at a higher elevation.
The race is along the Continental Divide and never drops below seven thousand feet.
At one point, we’re almost to ten thousand.
Altitude can mess with the stove, and you won’t want that on race day. ”
“I’m ready for a break,” he admitted.
“The place I want to stop is about half a mile off the road. Can you manage that?”
“No problem.”
“We’ll take a decent break. Have a hot meal before looping back to the road and returning to Silver Mane’s.”
Jack glanced at his watch. “We’ve been out here about four hours now. You think it’ll take us the same time to get back?”
“Pretty close.” She glanced at him. “You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
She nodded and kept moving, a strange warmth settling in her.