• • •
I walk away from our shelter. He is alone with his brother’s words, the memory of my kiss, and the fear that this is the end of his time on earth. I will find help.
I walk along the ridge, and it’s like walking through clouds. The mountain fog rolls around me, and it is impossible to know where I’m headed. Paul directed me to walk straight on the ridge, and from the daylight before the last storm, it appeared to descend and flatten out near here. If I can get to ground level, in an open space, and if the snow and cloud banks clear, I’m certain I’ll be found by a plane or somebody searching for us.
It’s a lot of ifs.
The ridge quickly flattens out and then descends into a steep, long slope that isn’t nearly as rocky as the valley. The tree line comes into view, and I am grateful for its protection from the wind. I often look up in the sky, hoping to see a plane. At one point I hear a faraway something, and I allow myself to imagine an airplane that will find me and then swoop in to save Paul. I push out all thoughts of him lying there alone and simply replay our night together, over and over.
By early afternoon, my legs shake and wobble. Each step requires strength my body no longer has. I fight to focus on moving and just keep Paul’s name as my mantra. If searchers were to find me now, they’d think I was a homeless person mumbling some psychotic chant about a long-lost relative. But it is the chanting, the repetition of just his name, that keeps me going.
By late afternoon I’ve reached the bottom, and I look out across a long stretch of flat terrain. It is open, and my mind tells me it is where I’ll be found. My gut checks me, though. Shelter. I can hear Paul’s voice saying that after water, shelter is everything. The trees and rocks offer me shelter and my best chance of survival if the weather turns, but the open grassland offers the greatest chance of being found and Paul being saved.
My first step into the open grass is deep and I realize the snow here accumulates in a way that isn’t true of the mountain slope protected by trees. Nor is it cold enough to create hardened snow, like on the top of the mountain. It isn’t a warning, I tell myself as I take another step and then another. It is the hardest walking I’ve done since this journey began. My legs are so tired it requires every ounce of energy to pull my feet free from the snow. The farther out I get, the deeper the drifts become, and I find myself becoming frustrated by my progress as night falls quickly around me.
The wind picks up and is vicious like never before. With each gust, I feel the temperature dropping. Here I am again. One way or another, I keep reliving that moment on the plane with the pills in my hand. I’m never going to make it across, and the cold is so severe I simply won’t survive the night.
I stop and turn my back to the wind and look back toward Paul. I’m sorry, I think. A tear freezes right on my cheek and I imagine his face before me. Words come and connect us. The snow is your friend, I hear him say. I don’t recall that he ever said that to me before, but the word snow reverberates throughout my head and heart. I start to dig and dig until I hit the earth. It is perhaps three feet deep. I work my way back toward Paul, digging out a grave the length of my body. I unfold my sleeping bag and stand in it. I zip the bag up to my armpits and sit in my snow grave.
I quickly shovel snow onto my feet and my legs and eventually cover my chest. I zip up my bag all the way and use my right hand to pull as much snow over me as possible. I pull my hand in and listen and feel for my fate. The wind is gone, or at least its chill does not touch me in the same way here. The bag is keeping my heat inside, and the cold from the snow is not enough to penetrate, at least not yet.
I smile as I hear Paul say, Solis, well done. I close my eyes and, just before I fall off, I have one thought: He spoke to me. It wasn’t memory.
Chapter 32
A nother night without dreams. Dead. Soundless. I wake before dawn and hear nothing. No howling. No wind. I am warm, but the chill of the snow is there, and I immediately claw my way out and stand up.
“I’m alive,” I shout. “Paul, wherever you are, I’m alive.”
I roll up my bag and drink the small amount of water that melted in my overnight bottle. My legs have not recovered, and I can feel the pain and ache in them from the very first step.
I push across the open grass and the farther I go, the more endless it seems. I fear my mind is slipping as I keep looking around, feeling that somebody is following me. For a minute I imagine it is Paul, who recovered and decided to come find and save me. But he never comes. You can dream all you want, Jane, I tell myself, but this is just about you. Focus, Solis, focus.
I near the wooded forest on the horizon. I’ve trudged for most of the day in knee- and thigh-deep snow. My legs are dead and frozen in a way they’ve never been. I look back and there’s a sight so horrific, I gag.
It isn’t Paul that’s been following me, but a wolf. A lone black wolf, moving sideways and forward. I watch it zigzag along, and at first I think it might be hunting for rabbits or prairie dogs. But now I feel its eyes on me; it’s walking slowly, stalking me, waiting for me to falter. Then it will pounce on me and rip the meat from my bones.
With each step, I see the wolf coming closer. The closer the wooded area is, the nearer the wolf comes to me. Does he know that safety might lie just beyond the flat snow grasses for me? I experience a burst of adrenaline and move through the final twenty yards of snow and grass faster than I would have thought possible.
I glance behind me often. As my pace increases, so does the wolf’s. He trots and seems to be following a straighter path than before. He pauses when I look directly at him. I sense there is some fear in him as well. The thought of that emboldens me. The big bad wolf is afraid of me! Well, maybe not afraid, but he’s being cautious before he launches an attack.
I reach the wooded area and turn quickly, sizing up the wolf. He is bone thin. He stops in his tracks, and for the first time, he doesn’t turn his head. I want to run, but something in my gut tells me to stand still, if even for a second. His eyes are yellow and his fur is mostly black with grayish patches. He leans awkwardly on his left paw, lifting his right. Is he injured? I can’t tell. I’ve yet to see any other wolves. Has he left his pack or been left behind?
With his probable injury, I suspect his speed is limited and his limited ability to climb is further diminished. I reach a large pine tree about fifty feet into the woods and begin climbing it. I stop for a moment to look back, but I don’t see anything. If he had wanted to attack me straight on, it would have happened already, right? Just climb, Jane, climb.
The tree is thick with branches and each snow-encrusted branch takes a minute to navigate, but I make steady progress up the trunk. I think I hear a soft growl below me, but I do not look down. Then there’s some scratching on the trunk, but I convince myself that his injury will prevent him from climbing. And even if he can climb, I’d rather fight him from above in a tree then in an open field, where he would surely overpower me.
I slip and slide my way a good twenty feet up, find a good perch, and stop. I pull out my two climbing sticks and sit and wait to do battle. I’ll probably die up here, but at least I’ll die fighting. Is that a little bloodlust moving through my veins? I almost relish a fight at this point. I sense an uninhibited craziness brewing inside me, but it’s so different from what I felt at the hospital. It has purpose, and I’m in control of it.
I wait and listen but hear nothing except the normal night sounds of the forest. The wind whistles softly, a branch breaks and falls in the distance, and I listen to the rustling of trees against one another. A little fear snakes up my back as I imagine the wolf making its way up the branches, slinking slowly and methodically.