Twenty-Five
You’ve never been cold until you’ve ridden a snowmobile on a freezing Idaho day wearing nothing but a wet bikini. Clutching
both wigs in my fist, I pressed my front to Layna’s back for warmth as she gunned down the snowy highway. She was heading
the opposite way from which we’d come—a good instinct. If we’d gone straight back down Warren Wagon Road, we surely would’ve
run into law enforcement coming from McCall with instructions to nab two women in bikinis on a neon-yellow sled.
Once we were out of sight of the hot springs, Layna turned off the road toward the ridge, zigzagging to avoid trees and stick
to patches of powder already churned up by other slednecks. Big flakes had started to fall, as if the sky itself conspired
to cover our tracks.
But once we’d crested the ridge and ridden half a mile or so down the other side, the snowmobile sank into a snowdrift and
refused to budge. When Layna revved the accelerator, the sled dug itself deeper. She cut the engine. Quiet descended. Acres
of snow-laden forest surrounded us, the white drifts eager to swallow us whole. The backpack straps cut into my shoulders.
Feeling had already left my bare feet.
“We are so fucked,” Layna said, her teeth clacking like a frightened Scooby-Doo’s.
We sat with that truth for a long terrible moment.
My mind felt foggy. I couldn’t process all that had just happened, the horror of it.
The near miss. Baylee’s severed finger. I was too cold to consider it now.
Our crisis was too immediate. We pulled our phones from the console, but neither of us could get service.
I didn’t think I had the requisite strength to posthole over the ridge and wave for help—which would come in the form of an arrest. But I wasn’t afraid anymore.
Just very sleepy. As a kid, I’d heard about people who’d taken wrong turns on snowy hikes.
Suddenly the lost person desperately needed a little snooze in a snowbank.
Then that old thief, hypothermia, would sneak up and rob them, first of their good sense, then of their life.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“I need five minutes. Lie down. Get my strength up. Figure out our next move,” Layna said.
“Yes,” I concurred. “That sounds so good. Just five minutes.”
Layna was already climbing off the Ski-Doo and searching the snow for the perfect place to nest. Soon I’d ditched the backpack
and was fetal in my own white dent. The snow burned my skin at first, then as I drifted toward sleep, I felt nothing at all.
A half-dream, half-vision arrived. The twins laying blankets over a recumbent Little Sister.
“She’s still cold,” Alice said, piling on another chenille throw.
“Still freezing,” Phoebe concurred, draping a tattered blanket over me. Because I was Little Sister.
Alice started poking one of my closed doggy eyelids. “Wake up,” she said.
“Seriously,” Phoebe added, poking the other eyelid. “Waaaaake up.”
My eyes snapped open. “Wake up!” I shouted, staggering to my bare feet. Layna sat up with a snort. I climbed to stand on the
seat of the snowmobile and gazed in every direction. The white sky dropped white flakes to the white ground. There was nothing
else to see but snow-frosted trees. But then, through a thick stand of ponderosa pines, I spotted something rising between
pointy tree tops. A trail of smoke.
We left the backpack of grenades leaning against the snowmobile.
Taking only our wigs, wallets, and phones, we postholed through snow drifts, the slowest form of earthly transportation.
Though we only traveled fifty yards or so, it took what felt like hours.
My skin had turned bright red, my legs and feet wet and angry, my mind thickening like flour and water stirred endlessly over low heat.
A mountain cabin appeared, its windows radiating light and warmth, its chimney releasing a happy stream of smoke.
Layna argued for knocking on the front door and begging for help.
“I’m so cowald too,” I managed to slur. “But explosives! That’s federal charges, missy. Narthing the douchebag can do to proterct
us from the feds.” I definitely had hypothermia.
“Then let’s cherk the barn,” she said, gesturing at the hulking building behind the cabin. “But sshhhhhhhhh! Out here, they
shoooot firs’ and arsk questions later.”
With a heave we lifted the sliding security bar and opened the barn door. The inside glowed like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. An ancient black snowmobile sat with its nose pointed toward the door. Snowmobile suits and helmets hung on hooks. Best
of all, two pairs of boots leaned into each other below.
While I stepped into a suit, Layna inspected the snowmobile. “Goddammit,” she said. “There’s no key!”
I wandered the barn, phone held high, searching for service. When two bars appeared, I typed furiously. Our golden ticket
appeared in the form of a three-minute video by YouTube personality MonkeyNuts96 called “How to Start a Snowbobile Without
a Key.”
MonkeyNuts96 may not have mastered the art of proofreading, but he sure knew how to fire up a Ski-Doo.