Now what was I supposed to do? If I went crashing into the cabin, I'd be in the same boat as Bryce and Hope. But if I sat out here, who knew what would happen to them. I looked at my watch. It was almost nine o'clock. The sun was down, and the air was crystal clear and thin. I watched my breath form a cloud before me in the flickering light that leaked from the cabin.
Okay, I thought, they can't possibly be going anywhere until morning. What I need to do is sleep. My job here is to be well rested. Have an active mind. Be able to focus. And in the morning, something will come to me.
I looked at the woodchip-covered ground. Something scurried in the corner. I decided it was worth the risk to get my sleeping bag out. I unrolled it on the floor and was about to climb inside when I had a second thought. Wouldn't it suck if someone came in here and I was asleep on the floor in plain view? I pushed my pack behind the wood pile and slid my sleeping bag in after it. Then I climbed inside and closed my eyes. This was going to be one of the worst nights of my life.
I hardly slept that night, though I guess I must have drifted off eventually. I was awakened by a log falling on my legs. I almost yelled. Then I remembered where I was.
Through the woodpile, I could see a tall man in a North Face jacket bundling logs into his bent arm. A cigarette jutted out from one side of his mouth, and he was squinting against the smoke. He dropped the logs, swore and bent over to pick them up. If he had looked forward rather than down, he likely would have seen me. I didn't move. I tried not to breathe. I held my head still and stared at the man, willing him to simply walk out the door and into the storm. He got three logs up into his arms, then dropped one of them. He cursed and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. I couldn't tell how heavy he was, because his jacket and snow pants were large and puffy, but he seemed huge. He puffed on his cigarette a couple of times, looking around the small space as though there might be something of interest there. Then he flicked the spent cigarette out into the snow, bundled the logs up into his arms again and kicked the door open. A terrible wind was blowing. Snow was whipping up into the air and then curling and rolling away. The man leaned into the wind as he kicked the door closed.
I sighed and stretched out in my sleeping bag. I hoped that would be the last time someone came out for wood before I was out of there.
“Not human out there,” someone said inside the cabin. I heard the logs drop to the ground in a clatter followed by the bang of the woodstove door opening. “Call him and let him know that we might have to delay.”
“We can't delay,” someone else said. The voices were so muffled, I could barely tell one voice from another. “We might not have an option. If the weather doesn't change, we'll have to stay.”
“We
can't
stay,” a third voice said. “Call him, see what's happening on his side of the mountain.”
“You think it's going to be any different over there?”
“Just call and see.” I waited a long time to hear something else. But nothing came. I was extremely hungry. If my stomach made any more noise, the kidnappers would hear it. I quietly opened my backpack and dug through it until I found an energy bar.
“It's clear,” someone said. “He says it's clear over there.”
“Then we go. Call your guy and set the coordinates for a pickup spot.”
“We still have to get out of here,” someone else said. “And what about the girl?” I hadn't heard anything from Hope. But if they were talking about her, she must be all right.
“We can just leave her.”
“No, we can't. She'll follow us.”
“Then we can tie her up in here.”
“No. What if no one comes this way and finds her? You can't control that kind of thing.”
“I don't know! When this is all over, we can call someone and let them know.”
“It's not that easy.” I still couldn't really tell if there were two or three people talking. Before, I'd been certain I'd heard three distinct voices. Now I wasn't so sure. “We shoot her,” a different voice said. Definitely three people, then. There was no response. Why was there no response? There were only two rooms: the main space and the bathroom. So Bryce and Hope must be locked up in the bathroom.
I slipped out of my sleeping bag, rolled it up and stuffed it in my backpack. I kept my ear to the wall, waiting for an answer. No one was going to shoot Hope, I told myself. That wasn't going to happen.
The door to the woodshed suddenly shot open. I froze behind the pile and waited, but no one came in. The door slammed shut.
“What was that?” one of the men asked.
“The door to the shed. I must have forgotten to latch it,” another man replied.
I sat back down and ate my energy bar.
“â¦the storm is coming in⦔ I heard through the wall. “â¦says we have to go now or never.” The woodstove banged and there was a long hiss. I could smell smoke, and soon its wispy fingers were floating into the shed.
“Leave everything here. Just get the boards ready.”
“What about the girl?”
“She comes with us,” came the response. Two other voices said, “No.”
The door opened again. The wind howled in the shed, and I couldn't hear anything from inside the cabin.
I pulled my snowboard out from behind the woodpile and strapped my backpack over my shoulders, all the while waving smoke away from my face. If I stood at the door of the woodshed, I could see downhill. Whoever was inside would have to go out the door and then straight down. Especially if they were on boards. So unless they looked back, which no one ever really does on a snowboard, I would be fine to follow them.
I strapped my board on and waited. About five minutes later, the first person popped into view and started down the hill. Close behind him was Hope. Then Bryce. Then another man.
But where was the third kidnapper? I was pretty sure I had heard three male voices. I waited and waited. I couldn't see the group anymore, and the storm was closing in. I had to go, or soon I wouldn't be able to follow their tracks. I jumped forward. Then I grabbed the side of the house and shoved as hard as I could. I kept the board flat, which is never a good idea, but I keep my board well waxed, and this was the best way to pick up some speed in the deep powder.
I crouched down, tucked as much as possible and waited for a bullet to go through my head.
It took less than a minute to get into the woods. I glanced back and couldn't see any movement in the cabin. Whatever the third kidnapper was doing, he wasn't looking out the door or window. Or maybe he had been. Maybe he had seen me and was using a satellite phone to call ahead to the others. There was no way of knowing.
The trail went through the trees in a kind of sideways shuffle. I followed, moving as quickly as possible but keeping my eyes peeled for the last man in the group. I suspected that they would be going fairly slowly. The weather conditions were bad and getting worse.
The trail cut out of the woods and onto a steep, open slope. I came to the top of this section and stopped. The wind was blowing straight across the slope, making it almost impossible to see anything.
Or anyone.
I looked down at the trail in the snow. It appeared that the boarders had cut across the hill, back toward the other side of the mountain. But this didn't make sense. The drop went from high to low. We were on the low side. It wasn't possible to make it back up, was it? Or maybe the drop didn't go all the way down the mountain. We had never asked Sam about this.
I dropped into the downhill. I was trying to look as far forward as possible, but it was getting more difficult to see anything at all. The trail moved steadily sideways, every so often dipping into steep downhill rolls.
Ahead of me there was nothing but white. Everywhere, everything was a solid white. The trail had disappeared beneath me. I couldn't tell which way the others had gone.
I stopped and listened for voices, but all I could hear was the howling wind. I cut back down again, figuring that they would keep going down and over until they came to the drop.
I did this for about two minutes until the slope flattened out. Then I went more directly down, picking up speed. I did a couple of quick turns, all the while trying to see through the storm. It felt like I was picking up too much speed, so I cut hard on my toe edge and shot back up the hill to stop and look. As I was turning, readying myself to drop in on my heel edge, I heard a scream.
A girl's scream.
I didn't even think about it this time. I just dropped back in and tucked as hard as I could toward the sound. I hadn't gone more than twenty feet when I spotted someone. It looked like one of the kidnappers. The one who had been at the back of the group. I decided I would try and run right into him. If I could take him by surprise, then I'd have the upper hand. I tucked hard and aimed straight for him. But just as I was gaining on him, he did a quick jump and steered himself down the hill. I got close, but the element of surprise was gone.
I finally discovered what this area of the mountain was like. There was a split in the mountain, much like the drop, and we were on the low side of this. However, there was a massive wall of snow shooting up into the air at an extreme angle. It was like a launch pad that, if you hit it just right, would launch you up and over to the other side of the mountain. The kidnapper tucked at it, rode up the side and shot into the air. He just managed to clear the lip of the other side. I had no choice but to follow him. I shot into the air, pulling my legs up tight beneath me, and just managed to creep over the lip on the other side. I was so close behind the kidnapper that I almost landed on him.
“What theâ¦?” he yelled. I peeled off and cut up the mountain.
“Where is Hope?” I shouted. “And Bryce?”
“Another one!” he replied. “Your little girlfriend is hanging on over there,” he said, pointing back where we'd just come.
“What?”
He laughed and disappeared into the storm. I headed for it. I could just make out something pink on the edge. I headed for it. As I got closer, I could see Hope hanging on to a rock, her bottom half dangling over the edge. There was no launch pad here. Just an open, immeasurable nothingness beneath her.
I skidded to a stop, lying down as I did so, and dug my board into the snow. I grabbed Hope's arms.
“Stay still,” I said. I started to pull, and my board shifted forward. I dug it more deeply into the snow and pulled again. Hope didn't weigh much, but with the board on her feet, it was like dragging an elephant up the side of a skyscraper. I pulled as hard as I could, and she moved another inch or two.
“Is there anything you can get your board on?”
“No, there's nothing here.” Her voice was higher than normal.
“Swing a little. Just try.” She shifted around, and it was really hard to keep hold of her. Her jacket was slippery, and so were my gloves. “Hold on to the rock again,” I said.
“No. Don't let me go.”
“I have to get a better hold on you, Hope. Just hold the rock for a second.”
“No, no. Please don't let me go.”
“Okay. Try this.” I was panting as I spoke. The strength was being sapped from my arms. “Grab the rock with one hand. I'll still have a hold of you.”
“No, no, no.”
“Hope. You have to do this. I can't hold on much longer.” She looked up at me. Her face was red. There were cuts on her cheeks and nose. Her eyes looked desperate and lost.
“Trust me, Hope. It will be okay. Just trust me.” Tentatively, slowly, she let go of my arm and grabbed the rock with her right hand. I quickly shot forward and got my arm under her left arm. Now her face was beside mine, my elbows dug hard into the packed snow.
I looked down and couldn't see the bottom. Just a foggy haze of snow and rock.
“How far is it?” Hope asked.
“Don't worry. Don't look.”
“How far?” Her breath was on my cheek.
“Hope, you're going to have to drop your board. It's the only way I'll be able to pull you up.”
“But how will I get down the mountain?”
“It's the only way. Do it now.” She slipped a little, and I steadied her. She gasped in my ear. “Please, Hope, do it now.” She let go of my arm with one hand, reached down and undid the front binding. With a little wiggling, she was able to get the back binding undone. Somehow she managed to pull the board up and toss it over the edge of the lip. It dropped into some deeper powder, then slid down the hill.
“How did you do that?”
“Just get me up,” she yelled back.
“Okay,” I said. “On three. One, two,
three
.” I pulled hard, and Hope came up over the edge. I pushed her forward, and she scurried into the deep snow. There were tears streaming down her face. She had more thin cuts on her face from where she had slammed into the edge of the cliff. There was blood coming from the cuts and dripping on the ground.