Chapter 2
lovelillibet There are so many areas in life where we can either accept the average or seek our own extraordinary. Take ice, for example. Are you settling for the same square edges as everyone else, or do you challenge yourself to explore the full spectrum of frozen expression? Crushed, shaved, craft, etched, infused: there’s an entire world of cold waiting if you’re willing to push beyond the basic.
Love, Lillibet
Image: An ice sculpture depicting a swan embracing a naked woman.
#neversettle #chillvibes #amateurmixologist #bemoreseemore
The scene was a Christmas card come to life: vanilla-frosted slopes and inky fir trees as far as the eye could see. Stick it in a frame and every gallery-crawling tourist would get a whiff of pine boughs and crisp mountain air. No need to tell them it had been taken in May.
A splash of auburn trotted into the picture. Jefferson’s four-hundred-millimeter lens picked up every glint of copper and rust threaded through the vixen’s fur.
“What’s a high-class dame like you doing in a joint like this?” The words emerged as frosty puffs, a reminder that he was talking to himself.
Like an antisocial loner, said the memory of Genevieve’s voice. As if there were another type of loner who loved crowds.
And yes, sometimes Jefferson spoke to animals, but it didn’t mean he preferred them to people (another of Gen’s accusations) or had forgotten how to be civilized (because he never posted pictures of her on Instagram). He happened to like the quiet of open spaces, and the what-you-see-is-what-you-get behavior of wild animals. It was a lot harder to lie when your actions did the talking.
Speaking of which: A male fox was creeping into view. It looked like he was psyching himself up to shoot his shot, which meant Jefferson needed to be ready to do the same. He adjusted the exposure to compensate for the bleached brightness of the snow as Mr. Fox circled the vixen, hopping and kicking like a rodeo bronco.
The female settled onto her belly, head resting on her paws in an attitude of deep boredom.
“Could be worse,” Jefferson murmured into the fleece balaclava he’d pulled over the lower half of his face. “At least he doesn’t wear purple leggings.” And strut around behind a plate-glass window all day waving his oversized knives while his Edgelord 101 playlist shook the walls. To choose an example at random.
“Is that supposed to be a martial art?” Jefferson had asked Genevieve the first time she insisted on stopping to watch Crispin the Artisan do his thing. If that was even his real name. It sounded as made-up as his job title. What the hell was an experiential butcher?
“He’s doing capoeira,” she’d hissed, as if Jefferson was eating his soup with the butter knife. It didn’t occur to him to ask how she knew, any more than he’d questioned Gen suddenly sprinkling words like bavette into casual conversation.
Lesson learned: Some females preferred a flashy mate. Which was why Jefferson was out here in the cold, trying to capitalize on the soft shadows of an overcast sky instead of hunkering down ahead of the storm. The weather had started off mild enough by Mountain West standards, but the temperature was dropping fast.
A dozen yards away, the foxes were stalking something, a silent glide across the surface of the snow. Not a new romance, then, but an established pair, probably with a den nearby. No sad bachelor pad for Mr. Fox. They must be hunting to feed a litter of kits. Jefferson felt the buzz in his blood that told him he was on to something. Fat white flakes sifted down from the sky. If he could get a shot of one of them mid-leap, it would be worth the chill in his fingers.
Almost.
Wait for it …
A squawk of static pierced the silence. Jefferson lunged for his backpack, but it was too late. With a last look at the paw prints that were all that remained of the foxes, he radioed back.
“Jefferson Jones.”
“It’s Nate, at Jenny Lake station. We have a problem.”
* * *
The snow fell hard and fast, like someone had gotten tired of shaking out a few sprinkles at a time and decided to take the lid off the jar and dump the whole thing. The spring storm didn’t care that it wasn’t supposed to arrive until after midnight, or that the worst of the weather had been forecast to hit a hundred miles to the north. Jefferson was no meteorologist, but he had eyes—even though he could barely see his gloved hand at the end of his arm. The blizzard was here in full force.
He should have been in his truck by now, inching back to town, but an out-of-towner with more vacation time than brains had chosen today to head for one of the backcountry yurts. Which meant they were hiking across miles of snow-packed terrain alone—and not responding to calls on the number they’d left with the rental agency.
It wasn’t unusual for a few yahoos to hear “major storm” and think “fresh powder,” but that type usually traveled in groups. Jefferson wasn’t sure what kind of person shelled out hundreds of bucks to sleep in a glorified tent with a pit toilet in the middle of a whiteout. All the ranger station had been able to pass on was that their missing person was from California (always a bad sign) and had given their name as H. Johnson.
If H. Johnson wasn’t in trouble now, they would be soon, with the windchill well below zero and snow piling up fast. It was the kind of thoughtless stunt that put the lives of search-and-rescue teams at risk every year. Only this time every available park employee was scrambling to divert traffic back to Jackson, and Nate’s team had been about to head out in search of a party of lost snowmobilers, leaving Jefferson closest to the missing party’s probable location.
On minute ten of the final fifteen he’d allotted before turning back, he spotted a patch of neon-yellow on the slope ahead. As he waded uphill, forcing himself not to run, Jefferson was relieved to discover it wasn’t a body. H. Johnson (he presumed) had tucked a sleeping bag under a fallen tree. The trunk was spindly and cracked, probably the result of tumbling down the mountain from wherever it had sprouted from the ground. Nothing was growing here.
The lack of vegetation, the steep angle, the weather pattern over the last twenty-four hours: Jefferson tallied it all up and didn’t like the result. A rapid melt followed by a sudden drop in temperature and major accumulation was the classic recipe for avalanche conditions. Maybe his nerves were shot from worrying he wouldn’t find H. Johnson in time, but the closer Jefferson got, the louder his instincts screamed, Danger.
“Hello,” he called out. “Can you hear me?” The wind swelled, carrying the words away. Jefferson reached for the edge of the sleeping bag.
He felt the sting before he registered the canister aimed at his face. Jefferson was already twisting sideways when the force of a full-body collision sent him flying backward into the snow. They rolled a few times before he managed to throw off his attacker, mostly so the stranger would stop screaming in his face. Slipping off his backpack, he sat up, raising both hands to show he meant no harm.
“Are you H. Johnson?”
“Maybe.” She tested her weight, like she was getting ready to bolt. Good luck with that, Jefferson thought. It would be like running through waist-deep oatmeal. “Who are you?”
He brushed the snow off the top of his head. “Jefferson Jones. Search-and-rescue.”
“Oh.” She relaxed her stance. “Sorry about the bear spray.”
“It wasn’t a direct hit.” Though his eyes were still burning. Jefferson used a handful of snow to try to clean off the residue.
“You scared the bejeezus out of me.”
He held up a hand for silence. The wind had died down, and he wanted to make sure the yelling and crashing around hadn’t destabilized the snowpack.
A beat of silence, and then another. Maybe they were okay. He willed his heart rate to slow, but his body was still keyed up, almost as if …
Whomp.
Faster than thought, he was up and grabbing the woman by the sleeve. “Go,” he yelled, shoving her ahead of him.