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For the most part, Kelly lay hunched against a pile of snow. Now
and then she summoned the strength to crawl forward on her knees and scoop
away snow, but her efforts were feeble and only put her in range of Daniel's
axe strokes. 'Move away,'
Daniel ordered her and she obeyed.
Daniel freed Abe's head first. That let Abe look around at the
devastation. The avalanche had scythed across the slope and chunks of slab
snow and raw limestone lay everywhere. It was a miracle any of them had
managed to claw their way from the jumbled debris. Their tent had ruptured
like a balloon and been churned under by the slide. Orange tatters flashed in
the air.
Overhead, the band of yellow limestone was fat with snow. Even the portions
that had emptied onto them were rapidly accumulating a new white
covering. A long, heavy bosom of snow hung immediately above, menacing them.
Daniel was right to work with such desperation. They had to leave this area or
stay forever.
Daniel widened the pit, unearthing more of Abe's body. Abe's ice axe
turned up,
then Daniel found the radio, but it was broken. Grimly he placed these relics
to one side and went on digging. Abe understood that they were in grave
danger, but he could not understand Daniel's severity and gloom. The man
didn't speak. He didn't smile. In Daniel's place, Abe would have been
rejoicing to discover a friend alive. Abe felt strangely unwelcome.
Then the screaming started. It was a keening almost too high to hear. Abe
decided it couldn't be screaming. The wind must have found a sharp stone to
whistle on. But it came again. This time he caught the animal note in it and
there was only one kind of animal up here. It was human. It was a woman.
'Gus,' Abe whispered. No one answered.
Again the banshee squealing laced the wind.
Eyes squeezed shut against the gray light, Kelly bared her teeth. She clenched
her jaw and aimed her head away from the sound. Daniel was equally callous. He
didn't say anything, just kept chopping and slashing at the snow.
The axe hit chunks of limestone. Sparks flew among the the falling
snowflakes.
Daniel freed Abe's right arm all the way to the shoulder. 'Lift it,' he told
Abe. 'Bend it. Move it.' Then he worked lower to excavate a leg.
'What's wrong with Gus?' Abe demanded.
'You better be whole,' Daniel stated. 'We can't afford more broken bones.'
Now Abe saw the blood on their cherry red parkas. It smeared pink on the white
avalanche debris.
Abe grew alarmed. 'What happened?'
But Daniel wouldn't say any more. Kelly seemed close to hysteria.
It wasn't hard to answer his own question. The avalanche had mauled Gus badly.
Judging by the blood and Daniel's remark, she had sustained at least one
compound fracture. They had found her and then packaged her for the
descent. And just as
Daniel was preparing to go, Kelly had discovered Abe. Daniel had been forced
to leave
Gus screaming in the snow and dig Abe out.
Don't thank me.
Abe waited for one of Daniel's downstrokes and caught at the axe shaft with
his free hand. Daniel tried to pull away, but Abe hung on. 'Start down,' Abe
whispered up at him from the bottom of the pit. 'I can do this alone.'
'I wasn't leaving you,' Daniel exploded at him. But he had been leaving,
that was plain to see. Until this moment Abe hadn't known how utterly wrecked
the man was.
Gus had been right. Daniel could not afford his own memories.
'Daniel,' Abe whispered. He pulled the axe closer. Daniel resisted. Abe didn't
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know what to say until he said it. 'I am saved,' he hissed.
Daniel froze.
Abe wasn't sure Daniel had understood him. And so he added, 'I don't
need you anymore.'
Still Daniel didn't move. He could have been listening to a ghost.
'I'll bring Kelly down with me,' Abe clarified. 'Go as far as you can go.'
Daniel exhaled with a groan and released the axe. He straightened from the pit
and stared down at Abe, then climbed to his feet.
'She wouldn't give up.' Daniel pointed at Kelly. He was visibly shaken by her
faith and intuition. For the first time it struck Abe that a blind woman had
found him. 'Take care of her,' Daniel shouted.
'I will,' Abe promised.
Daniel picked up the walkie-talkie and stuffed it into his parka. Then he
staggered off into the storm, half bent from his cracked ribs and bad back and
other old injuries.
A minute later, Abe heard terrible screaming and knew that Gus was being
lifted and moved. It was going to be an ugly, brutal evacuation. There was no
help for that.
The four of them had been lucky to survive the avalanche. Abe
didn't pretend to himself that their luck could hold.
Kelly had fallen asleep in the snow. Even as Abe chopped at the shroud
covering him, a thin layer of powder started to bury her. With his one free
arm, Abe shoved and cut at the snow. It was slow going. Another hour passed
before he managed to sit.
Like a B-movie corpse wrestling up from the soil, he bulled his
chest through the snow.
Abe was exhausted. He wanted to rest, just for a minute or two, just to
breathe, to close his eyes and take a catnap, no more. It was the wrong thing
to do, but he would have done it anyway, if not for Kelly.
She was gone. The powder had drifted over her like a dune. 'Kelly,' Abe
rasped. He sat there, piled with debris, and called her name again. Fear won
out over his fatigue.
Now that they were in full rout, the mountain was reclaiming its territory
with a vengeance. There were no prisoners up here. Those who lagged, died.
If he hadn't seen Kelly lie down, Abe would never have believed she was
there. To the naked eye, she had never existed.
Abe bucked at the snow and yanked at his legs. At last he was able to worm
loose from the pit. Panting, he rolled onto the surface and lay there.
Snowflakes lit down with astonishing weight. Abe knew he was under attack,
yet the snow warmed and coddled him. The snowflakes crashed into his face and
melted and ran past his ears. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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