Chapter 6
Bram frowned but followed Zach into the short hallway that led to the hut’s back door.
“What?”
“Shane,” Zach whispered, “before you got here, he said his dad was going to invest. Mr. Oliver wants to look over documents first? But that’s why he’s not here. Because he’d already made up his mind.”
“Arlo’s going to invest? Shane said that?”
“Yes.”
Bram’s expression changed as he rubbed a hand over his face, as if all his anger and worry had condensed there and he was pulling off the shroud of it. He smiled broadly, genuinely. “Of course that’s it! Great news. Great news, kid. Did he say how much Arlo’s putting in?”
Zach wilted. Even being the bearer of this coveted information hadn’t led to Bram saying his name. He was still only ‘kid,’ just ‘my son.’ Months had passed since Bram’s hands had gripped Zach’s shoulders tight, face so close the boy had felt its furious heat.
“Stop. Crying. Now. Zach.”
And Zach had obeyed.
“I don’t think Shane knows,” Zach told his father. “I don’t think he meant to say anything at all. He asked me not to tell you.”
“Of course you told me. Thinks a kid’ll keep something from his dad. But we’re better than that, aren’t we?” Zach nodded, breathing easier, mood lifting in the rarefied air of his father’s approval, the two of them a team, better than other people, whether Bram used his name or not.
His father stared past him. “Arlo believes in me. He’s always liked me. He knows a good investment. Recognizes business instinct.”
In the glassy blue of Bram’s eyes, Zach read the vision of how his father wanted Arlo Oliver to see him. Special. Deserving. A great man acknowledging a great man.
A noise outside interrupted his father’s reverie.
Bram moved toward the door, gave an enthused “Look who’s here!
” and embraced the man who entered. He was older than Bram; tanned a dark brown that was unnatural to the place and season but somehow suited him, contrasted as it was with a head of thick silver hair.
Behind him stood a teenage boy, red-cheeked, pimpled, slouching, and wearing thick glasses.
Zach saw Bram’s attention dart to the teenager, expression going flat for a flicker of a second that let Zach read the Underself’s sneer.
Nerd. Fat. Why doesn’t he wash his face?
“This must be Russ!” Bram said, all smiles as he gave the teenager a rough pat on the back that knocked Russ’s glasses to the tip of his nose. Russ scowled as he pushed them back to their proper place with an index finger.
“Great to meet you, Russ, I’m Bram. Your dad has told me all about you. Come in, come in, welcome. How was your trip up, Dave?”
Dave closed his eyes for a beat, giving him a reverent, moony look. “Gorgeous, gorgeous. What a fantastic hike. What a spot! God’s country.”
“Absolutely,” Bram nodded. “Real wilderness out here. You know Shane, of course, but let me introduce you—Jon, this is Dave Dowling, and this is his son, Russ. Jon here is a professional skier. In movies and everything!”
Dave’s face transitioned to awe. “Wait—you were in, whatsitcalled—Mountain High? Weren’t you?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, man, nice to meet you.”
“Big fan, big fan!” Dave strode over to pump Jon’s hand, beaming at this brush with fame, Russ’s nose crinkling in embarrassment even as he snuck interested looks at Jon.
“Russ, Dave, this is my son,” Bram said, prompting Zach to dutifully shake Dave’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, Mister Dowling. I’m Zach. My dad said it was your idea to have the kids—the sons—come. Thank you, I’m so happy to be here.”
“Well, aren’t you welcome Zach!” Dave gripped Zach’s hand hard as he shook it, then said to Bram, “Look at these manners, huh? Have to teach me your secret, Bram, I can’t even get Russ to make eye contact with an adult, let alone give a firm handshake.”
Bram lit up at this even as Zach felt his insides flutter over the way Dave had been taken in by the scripted lines. When Zach offered a hand to Russ, the teenager didn’t take it, only looked at him with pity, as if Zach was a performing monkey.
“See what I mean?” Dave chuckled.
Russ snorted. “Whatever,” he said to his father. He jutted his chin at Zach. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Zach echoed, marveling at Russ’s clear disdain for everyone in the room and sensing that a vast, indescribable country sprawled between twelve and sixteen.
Bram peered around as if only just noticing something. “Didn’t the guide bring you up?”
“He’s outside,” Dave said. “Stowing food in the outdoor pantry.”
“Did Pike come up with you?”
“Nah. The guide texted him. He said he was running late.” Dave looked around the room. “Your old man around here somewhere, Shane?”
“Couldn’t make it.”
Dave snorted. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Right? You know how he is,” Shane said.
“Is he still coming to Sun Valley in July?”
“Yeah, I mean, how long have the two of you been going to that?”
“You’re making me admit my age here, Shane, but probably since…when did Buffett start going? Just before that. So the early nineties? You had to be in diapers first time I met your dad there. Even though”—Dave shot Shane a heavy look—“it’s as bad as Davos now. They let anyone come.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “You sound just like my dad. I think he pretty much keeps going for sentimental reasons. Though he’d rather die than admit that.”
A ripple of insecurity at being outside this inner circle manifested in the way Bram’s jaw clenched, the way his eyes darted between Shane and Dave as they laughed over this.
“You guys see the weather rolling in?” Bram said.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky, huh?” He smiled, then, contented at the way the men refocused on this trip, discussing the likelihood of snowfall and comparing their gear.
Bram excused himself to check on the guide.
As the others chatted, ate cheese, Zach edged to the window.
Outside, Bram stared the guide down stony-faced as he itemized things on his fingers, one and two and three, inaudible through the glass.
The guide was younger than Bram, and more rugged—lighter skin around his eyes where his goggles had protected him from years of sun exposure, long, unkempt brown hair, a knit cap.
Zach was guiltily grateful that the guide was the one now forced to meet Bram’s expectations for fixing whatever unfathomable, unending things were still less than perfect.
A bag over his shoulder, the guide trailed Bram inside.
Held up a hand in greeting to the group, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open when he was introduced to Jon, but staying professional as he said, “I’m Steve, guys, nice to meet you.
” He passed around what looked like silicone watch bands with no watch attached, each emblazoned with the name of the guiding company.
“Ski straps,” he explained. “Super useful in the backcountry,” he side-eyed Jon, “as some of you I’m sure already know. Can hold together a broken boot or binding in an emergency, or you can use it to attach gear to your pack or whatever. Just a little gift from us to you.”
After the group ate a lunch of premade chili and cornbread Steve warmed for them, the men lounged on the couches while Russ stayed at the dining table playing a game on his phone as Steve cleaned up.
Electing to stay on Russ’s side of the room, Zach retreated to the window seat in the corner, close to the bookcase where the earring was hidden.
He rested his head against the window frame, trying to keep his eyes open.
These days, it was easier for him to fall asleep when it was daylight. His bladder plagued him at night, keeping him from sleep, or waking him and forcing him up.
“Tell you what,” Shane said, leaning back on the couch and rubbing his forehead, “drinking sure hits harder and faster at high altitude.”
“This elevation—doesn’t matter how many times I do it, I get over eleven thousand feet and everything goes haywire,” Dave agreed.
“The sleep’s what gets me,” Jon said. “I’ve got pills I take or else I just cannot fall asleep after a big altitude change.”
“So do I,” Dave said. “Though of course up here’s nothing like when I did Kilimanjaro or Denali, but still.”
“You trying for the seven summits?” Jon asked.
“Nah. Maybe we’ll do Everest once Russ is a little older.” Dave looked over his shoulder toward his son. “Right, bud?”
Russ gave a halfhearted shrug, eyes fixed on his phone.
“Though maybe not,” Dave said. “It’s so busy nowadays. Have you seen those pictures? Bunch of guys sucking down oxygen, waiting in line.”
“The problem is, it’s too cheap,” Shane said. “Those countries should contract with someone to take it private. Or let people own a piece. No more crowds, better-paid jobs, plenty of taxes, happy investors.”
“It’s working in Montana. You can finally hunt in peace.” Dave eyed Jon with interest. “Your line of work, Jon, I bet you never deal with crowds. Heli ski everywhere, huh? This trip is probably just another day at the office for you.”
“Nah, man. I mean—Mariah was great this morning, but the stuff I do is generally more extreme. Steeper, hairier. But it’s a lot of pressure, you know?
To deliver the shot. So this is vacation, for sure.
Quiet. Off-grid place on the mountain, get here under your own steam.
None of the bull. You get to, like, chill. Enjoy the wildness and all.”
“It’s something special, being up here, isn’t it?” Dave’s face took on the unfixed, quixotic expression he’d had on arrival. “The peace, the distance, the—sweat. You have to earn it. Like the pioneers coming West. All alone in untouched country.”
Russ scoffed, still not looking away from his game. “I mean it wasn’t untouched. There were already people here.”
The group ignored him.
“Frontiersmen,” Bram wagged an instructive finger at Dave. “There’s a lesson in that—they didn’t ask who would let them. They asked who would stop them.”
“Donner Party sure stopped,” Russ snarked.
Dave and Bram each shot the teenager an irritated over-the-shoulder glance.
“Those guys must’ve been fearless,” Jon said after a draw on his vape, oblivious to Russ. “Now that’s freedom right there. No rules at all.”
“Totally,” Shane chimed in. “Man against nature, carving out a place in the world.”
The men nodded, each saying “yes, yes,” all going dreamy-eyed, imagining themselves as those long-gone pioneers, as miners, craggy and tough, coring through rock, striking it rich.
But Zach only thought of the old wooden sign driven into the ground about a thirty-minute ski above the hut, just below the miner’s cabin he and his mother had discovered a year ago.
The message carved into the sign’s grayed, grooved pine was a stark check on the nostalgic sentimentality of the men’s ideas.
Here Lies
The Swede
Fallen Past Rescue
“For the Love of Money Is the Root of All Evil”
Aug 1881
“Don’t get too close, Zakky,” his mother had cautioned, pointing to a three-foot-wide hole not quite in the middle of the large clearing the sign faced.
“That’s a mine shaft. Abandoned mines—the air can turn to poison.
The ground weakens around them. It can collapse.
It’s probably why this marker is all the way over here instead of near the opening. ”
“Do you think,” Zach asked, taking in the void of the mine’s mouth, “that’s where he fell? That he’s still down there?”
What he really wanted to ask was what his mother thought “Fallen past rescue” meant.
Had this Swede, presumably the prospector who had dug this mine, been alive but unreachable when found?
Did she think the Swede’s friends, the ones who had carved the sign, had left him down there to die?
Legs broken, arms straining up at the unreachable light?
Did she think they’d come back with ropes, ladders, only to find him dead, or worse, still alive and too deep—past rescue?
“The sign says ‘Here lies,’ so yes, he’s probably still down there.” His mother’s voice was a reverent whisper. “Poor man.”
“How could he make the mine, but then not be able to get out?”
“It could have caved in. Or he might have fallen into a buried crevasse.” A long pause. “When you’re older you’ll see there’s plenty of ways to dig yourself into a hole before you realize you can’t escape.”