Ex-President Nicholas Swillhouse Dickson, I’d like to mention, is not the man I would have picked to snuggle up to. However, I had no choice. And, in fairness, it should also be mentioned that Dickson had qualms of his own.
“I must speak very bluntly,” he told me. “Our position may be good short-range survival tactics, but it could be disastrous long-term politics if it ever came out.”
“My lips are sealed,” I assured him.
“[Expletive removed]!” He was huffy. “I seem to have heard that before!”
There was a long silence, and then Dickson spoke again. “When you talk about this, and you will,” he said, “be kind.”
He wrapped his legs around my naked loins for warmth and we drifted off to sleep.
Morning brought the warmth of the sun. The air was still crisp, but it was no longer quite so cold. The ice wall on the ledge was visibly melting, and Dickson and I helped it along by hammering at it with our hands.
One of the boulders that had rolled down during the avalanche the previous night had gouged out a rough furrow down the side of the mountain, creating a sort of path for us, Climbing toward the top was much easier than it had been before. We reached the peak of the mountain by early afternoon. If I had thought that descending the other side would be easier than the upward climbing had been, I was mistaken. The slope awaiting us now was decidedly more steep and perilous than the one we’d ascended. Dickson was even more dubious about attempting it than I was. Only the prospect of giving up the million dollars in gold made him shelve his fears.
Remember, we had no mountain-climbing gear, no snowshoes, no pitons, no ropes. The closest thing we had to any equipment like that was the harness from the parachute; I’d held onto it after we’d landed and I’d cut the parachute itself loose. I used the straps to secure myself to Dickson-—and vice versa-—mostly vice versa, in fact.
Dickson after all, was a much older man than I was. He was in really good physical shape from constant golf playing and fishing expeditions. Still, he felt the strain more keenly than I did and he also required rests more often.
It was during one of these rests, in the late afternoon, with the sky already greying over as nightfall approached, that I unbuckled the straps holding us together, and left Dickson alone to rest while I continued down the mountainside to scout the terrain ahead of us. I was hoping to find some sort of cave that might shelter us from the elements for the night. What I found instead was an ice-coated rock slippery as a banana peel.
The heel of my left foot hit it first. The ground slid out from under me and the rest of me followed my foot with all the aplomb of a fall guy in a slapstick flic from the Silent Era. I quickly picked up momentum and found myself rolling pellmell down the mountain. I came to rest feet first, lodged up to my thighs in a snowbank.
The snow must have concealed a rock formation. As I hit it I felt something give in my left ankle. It hurt like hell. I couldn’t tell whether it was broken, or just badly sprained. Either way I could feel it swelling up like a balloon despite the natural icepack surrounding it.
“President Dickson!” I yelled for help.
No answer. I repeated my cries for help several times but still there was no reply. Either Dickson couldn’t hear me, or he couldn’t reach me, or he wasn’t willing to try to come to my aid.
I managed to wriggle out of the snowbank. In a sitting position I bent my leg at the knee and tried to examine my ankle. It was hopeless. The thing had swelled up so much that the only way to get my shoe off would be to cut it off with a knife. Also, it hurt like hell.
I tried to crawl back up the way I’d come. Not possible. Even that wriggling activity was agonizing. The stabs of pain shot up my body from the ankle and left me lightheaded.
Also, in my roll down the mountainside, I’d managed to pick up a coating of snow on my naked backside. It wasn’t easy to get it off. It took quite a while and left my fingertips numb.
Even without it, I realized that with my injury forcing me to remain still, I would be in danger of frost-bite once night fell. I’d have to stay awake to fight it. I’d have to force myself to move, no matter how painful, if I felt numbness setting in.
Easier said than done. It didn’t seem too long before I found myself losing the battle to keep my eyelids from falling closed. Each time it happened I’d catch myself, jerk my head violently, and pry the lids open with my fingertips. Then, a few more moments would pass, I’d catch myself nodding again, and the whole process would begin all over again.
It was when I’d jerked myself back to consciousness for perhaps the umpteenth time that I saw the dog. He was, fittingly enough under the circumstances, a Saint Bernard. Not one of your long-haired Saint Bernards descended from those crossed with Newfoundlands during the mid-1800s, but rather a short-haired Saint, purest bred of the breed.
(The reason the Saints had been crossed with the Newfs was that it was thought that if a long-haired Saint was developed it would be better able to stand the cold and therefore more competent for its function of rescuing snowbound people. But in actuality the long hair picked up moisture and iced over, making the long-haired Saints less able to survive the freezing temperatures. The long-hairs were useless as rescue dogs and only the pure-bred short-hairs have been used for that purpose right up to the present day.)
I blinked at the Saint Bernard and refocused my eyes. A male, he was big even for the breed, and must have weighed over two hundred and twenty pounds and stood over thirty inches at the shoulder. Around his neck, I was happy to see, he wore the traditional keg of brandy. I could see him—and the keg—quite clearly against the white snow in the moonlight.
“Here, doggy!” I called to him.
He looked at me. He sniffed. Saint Bernards have one of the most acute senses of smell in the animal kingdom. It is said that in clear weather they can pick up the scent of a snowbound person from as far as thirty miles away! Now this Saint Bernard sniffed again. He was perhaps ten feet away from me. He gave an almost visible shrug and lay down in the snow for all the world as if I wasn’t there.
Maybe he had a cold? Hay fever? Sinusitis? I wondered. Whatever it was, his sniffer seemed out of commission.
“Here, doggy!”
Likewise his hearing, which is also reputed to be supersharp. Nary an ear quivered in response to my call. Nor was his eyesight too keen. He was staring right at me—and through me for all the acknowledgment he made of my presence.
He lay down facing me. He put his head between his paws. Then he somehow managed to slip his paws under the harness holding the keg of brandy. His head ducked out of the harness and now the keg stood upright between his paws. He pulled the cork out with his teeth as adeptly as a skid-row wino with a jug of white lightning. I watched as he threw back his head with the keg held by the mouth between his jaws and gulped a solid belt of Swiss brandy.
I could feel it right down to my freezing bare butt. My iced-over testicles cried out for some of that brandy warmth. My swollen ankle throbbed with the need for its pain-killing qualities.
Resting between gulps, the dog stretched out in front of me with the uncorked keg between his paws. It was too much for me. I turned over on my belly and started crawling toward him. “Nice doggy,” I crooned, remembering that Saint Bernards are renowned for the evenness of their dispositions and intrinsic liking for human beings.
He ignored me until I was almost on top of him. Then, when I reached for the keg of brandy between his paws, he raised his head, bared his teeth savagely, and snarled. I pulled back quickly.
The Saint picked up the keg in his mouth once again and belted the brandy. At this rate there wouldn’t be any left for me. Desperate, I made a wild grab for the keg.