Chapter Six #4
The wind whipped up tiny particles of snow and as Janet stared into the clear blue sky they looked like small bits of floating
blue crystal.
It had been pure lunacy to attempt this run, Janet realized, but it was too late. Far too late. Her heart was hammering wildly
and her palms were sweating. For a second she paused to murmur a desperate prayer.
Heaving a giant breath, Janet’s gloved hands dug her poles into the snow as she lunged forward. She knew it would be important
to keep up her speed. Mentally she reviewed everything she had learned over the past years, refusing to dwell on the seriousness
of her predicament.
Thirty feet from the top and she took her first tumble. Stunned, she lay twisted in the snow, uncertain what had happened. She sat helplessly for a few minutes, shaking with fright as skilled skiers whipped past, throwing pitying glances over their shoulders.
“You can do it,” she told herself, audibly mumbling the words. “Don’t look down . . . don’t look down.”
Her knees were shaking once she was upright again. She forced herself to start, using her ski poles to push off. If she hadn’t
been so frightened the course would have been exhilarating, her senses vibrantly alive. But the only thing Janet sensed now
was the danger she had gotten herself into.
The second fall came only minutes later. She wrenched her ankle and bit into the fleshy part of her bottom lip to keep from
crying. Experience told her she wasn’t badly hurt. Slowly she righted herself and gently tested her ankle. The course ahead
was full of heavy moguls and complicated twists and curves that were far beyond her experience or capabilities.
The thought came that she could die right here and no one would know or care. Several others whizzed past with no inkling
of her situation.
“Show a little mettle,” she chastised herself out loud. “You are going to ski off this mountain and arrive in one piece and
prove to the whole world how wonderful you really are.” The thought was so ludicrous she almost laughed. There wasn’t a thing
she wanted to prove to anyone. If anyone needed proof, it was herself and the test was now!
Every move was deliberate and exaggerated as Janet skied as far to the right as possible in order to stay away from the other skiers.
She didn’t want to distract or trip them with her bumbling movements.
She had long since lost her precious cowboy hat.
It lay in the snow twenty feet above her, but it might as well have been twenty miles.
Her mouth felt dry. The dehydrated feeling extended all the way clown her throat, so that every swallow became painful, as
if something was grating against her larynx.
A hundred feet from the top and she took her third tumble. Her left ski shot out from under her and she fell sideways, her
shoulder receiving the brunt of the fall. The right ski was at an awkward angle behind her and she spent several tedious minutes
straightening her leg and ski.
The feeling of panic was so strong that she began to shake with it. Barely a hundred feet from the top and she had already
fallen three times; the run was almost two thousand feet long. How would she ever reach the bottom in one piece? Tears burned
in her eyes, only adding to her frustration.
“Oh, Jesus, please,” she prayed, “just get me out of this alive.” Leaning heavily on her poles she managed to stand up. “You
can do it,” she told herself, but the words sounded weak and unconvincing. “You can do it,” she repeated as if desperately
hoping to persuade herself.
She only managed to go a few feet, slowly gathering speed, when she felt her balance give way and she fell backward. Flat
on her back in the powdery snow, Janet recalled lying like this as a little girl and moving her arms back and forth to form
“angel’s wings.” She needed an angel right now, a guardian angel. It would be safer for her to take off the skis and crawl
off the mountain.
What did people do if they realized they couldn’t make it down? Wasn’t the ski patrol supposed to be around to help someone
like her before she became a mountain casualty? Only yesterday she’d seen them hauling a woman down from the mountain in a
wire litter.
What did she have to do to get help? Pulling herself into a sitting position, she looked around her frantically. A few uncaring souls slid past her, but there wasn’t anyone with the familiar ski patrol patch that she could see.
Every muscle hurt; she was cold and miserable. “I’m not going to make it,” she cried, her voice so weak it was barely audible.
“I’m trapped like an animal.” She hiccupped on a huge sob and dug one ski pole in the snow to help raise herself. “Keep going,
keep going,” she mumbled urgently. Gathering her resolve, Janet stood, frustration hunching her shoulders while her poles
were poised at her side. She felt a spray of snow splash against her as another skier came to an abrupt halt directly behind
her.
“You crazy idiot, what are you doing here?” The contempt in the familiar voice caused Janet to gasp. Her eyes grew round with
pain and confusion.
“Reese, oh, Reese,” she whispered and burst into tears.