Snow Fall

By Jim Spencer

Jasmine never saw the new snow. Death has a way of doing that, especially of things you want to see. If I wriggled forward a foot or so I could see her or what was left of her. I only wriggled forward once. The fall had broken her across a sharp ridged boulder. I wish she was not face up. Maybe when I die, which I will, from cold or on those rocks, my balance on this shelf will be up to the wind and snow. For now, a bit of an overhang keeps most of the snow off and I am balancing with my right foot in a shallow crevice. If I wasn’t a coward, I would join her on the rocks, but I am a coward, at least so far.

We, Jasmine and I, were on a short winter hike. An out overnight and back adventure, a chance to enjoy a bit of loving in the cold. As with many things our adventure turned into a horror show and her dead.

Our camp was in a wind-cleared patch of grass beneath a stand of snow draped pines. Sitting on a fallen trunk, our dinner from chemically heated food pouches passed quietly. With the wind dropping the world seemed to have stopped and in the quiet we could hear soft thuds of snow falling from branches. You would have thought that in that muffled quiet we would have heard boots breaking through the lightly crusted snow, we didn’t, too wrapped up in the sensations passing between our lips and lighting fires elsewhere.

A man saying “Hey.”, broke our embrace.

Jasmine pulled away and I saw a heavily bearded man dressed old mountaineering clothing. His boots seemed modern but everything else was wool, cotton, and fur.

We stood facing him. “Hey”, I said.

You folks shouldn’t be out here”, he said. “This is the time of year for the mountain to sleep, to recover from all the summer interlopers.”

His face crinkled into a thousand creases as he smiled. The smile never reached his eyes, and the creases appeared to be where is face had been assembled, not friendly but something almost sinister.

“Got some coffee”, he asked?

“Pot on the fire”, I answered.

“Thanks. Coffee kind of scarce out here. Warms me up.”

I fetched cups from the tent. “Where you live”, I asked?

He sipped and spoke. “Got a place nearby. Move around a lot in the warm time but hole up, like an old grizzly, when it is cold.”

He stood. “I’m afraid you folks are disturbing the mountains”, he said and drew a long knife from beneath his fur coat.

I held up my hands protectively. “What the hell”, I said.

Jasmine leaped to her feet. “You crazy?”

The man’s mouth stretched into a tooth bearing grin. “Yes. I am. Nobody disrespects my mountain. I protect my mountain. It needs to sleep and your blood will help it renew itself to withstand the torture of the summer hordes.”

He took a step towards me and thrust at my middle. A backhand knocked his blade aside. I closed with him and gripped his arm. He grunted, surprised, but managed a knee to my belly. I folded over his knee and rocked his head back with an uppercut to his chin. Knuckles to chin bone shot pain through my right hand. While the old man was off balance, I shoved him down into the snow. He lay still a moment then began struggling to his feet.

“Jasmine”, I shouted, grabbing her hand, “run.”

We ran. High stepping in the snow, we ran deeper into the cedars. A quick look over my shoulder revealed the Old Man plowing through the snow, not as fast as we but coming on steady. We were younger than our assailant but less knowledgeable about the terrain.

“Jasmine, we got to climb. That madman knows the land and can herd us into a trap. We climb. If we can wear him out, we can get away.”

“Ok. Up”, she said.

We turned up a small wash where water had worn a path that lets us climb. With snow thinner on the mountainside than in the valley, we climbed quickly. I turned to see if the Old Man followed. I stopped. He was nowhere in sight. I was sure he would appear as a dark splotch against the snow and I saw no splotches.

“I think we lost him”, I said. “But let’s keep going higher.”

Jasmine said, “We go higher and the footing is going to be sloppier.”

“Watch your step then”, I said.

We climbed another thirty or forty minutes. Jasmine topped out first. Just as her head cleared the summit rocks, I saw him. He stood above her, no expression on his face.

“Jasimine”, I screamed.

She looked up just as his club crashed into the side of her head. She snapped sideways and tumbled into thin air. I reached for her but she was too far. The Old Man stepped down and twirled his club into position to crush my skull. A shift to my left let him break my collarbone instead of my skull. I screamed when the bone ends grated. A warm flood under my Gore-Tex told me I had a compound fracture, I was bleeding. The Old Man knew he had me and stepped closer. A desperate lung unsettled him long enough for me to scramble left onto a narrow ledge. The Old Man sat down and laughed. “That ledge gets narrower as you go. I believe I’ll just sit here until you freeze or fall off the ledge. Either way you and your missus will feed the mountain.”

The bleeding was bad. I had to stop it. I needed a compress. The narrow ledge made getting my jacket off one handed nearly impossible. I could reach into the jacket and with a great deal of pain, which nearly made me pass out, feel the bone ends. The only thing I could think of as a compress was a sock. If I could untie a boot and drag off the sock I would have a compress. Bending my left leg up close enough to reach the boot proved nearly impossible.

“Thank God”, I thought for modern clothing that let me move more freely than my childhood two pair of long johns and jeans. The bootlaces came free after scraping some ice and snow away. I eased my foot free and tugged on the sock. Cold, cold air smacked my bare foot. I folded and slid the sock into my jacked. The sock absorbed some blood. I tightened my jacket to put pressure on the wound. The sock was better than nothing but it was only a stopgap solution. Left-handed, I aligned my bare foot with the boot. Almost frozen toes refused to slid into the boot. I pulled a little harder and pressed down with my foot. The boot slipped, hesitated, then spun into the void. I tucked my naked left foot under my right leg. I knew frostbite and toe loss were inevitable. Better no toes than dead. The sky began to leak more snow, gently dusting the mountain, building up on my ledge. Every movement or shiver caused pain to force sobs from my throat.

It was then that I wriggled around and saw Jasmine’s broken body. I knew that the Old Man was right. I would freeze or fall. A simple push would stop the pain and send me to join her. Did I have the courage to do that? Did I want to do that?

End