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Mary kept side-stepping toward the lift. “Can you call off the dogs, please?”
The guy lifted his radio toward his mouth and then dropped his arm again. “How about we just keep them en route until I see you’re up at the lodge.” He touched the binoculars dangling from the cord around his neck.
Mary huffed out the oxygen and thought, yeah, she’d make that same call if it were her. But that didn’t mean she liked it. She joined the line behind a class of six-year-olds rattling off their French. Sure, they spoke it as their first language here, but after struggling with it in high school, these kids sounded like geniuses to Mary.
And here was her turn.
She moved over to the T bar and balanced her skis. Turning, she gave Red Coat a thumbs up, then grasped the bar as a man came to the other side for balance. When the lift moved forward, Mary gratefully sat down. And it was with a split second’s awareness that this wasn’t like a bench lift. This was on an elastic, probably meant to adjust under the bum and push the skier up the hill.
All of that came fully formed into her head as she let out a scream, and she went down in a tumble of limbs and skis along with the man from the other side.
Down, down, down they fell.
Mary lay there wondering how she could get up the second slope with her skis still attached. When she examined them, she saw she had knocked the ice off the latches.
Tiny win.
She’d take it.
Off came the skis.
And up, up, she climbed. The only way she could get the skis up with her was to pile both of them and her ski poles into a mound and push them in front of her as she crawled up on her knees inch by crappy inch.
The man who fell with her was furiously yelling in a language that Mary, thankfully, didn’t understand. Not yelling at the situation. Yelling at her. Spittle in the wind, yelling.
This wasn’t fun.
Arriving at the top, the angry guy was already on his way up the lift. Mary figured he was probably one of the teachers, or he wouldn’t have been on the baby hill. Surely, that was going to make things awkward for him in front of his class. But he’d only fallen half as far as Mary had and had crawled up super-fast, so he was probably within smelling distance of food by now.
Mary was trembling and knew that she was becoming hypothermic. She was wet and exhausted, with no breakfast calories to sustain her. Little in the way of oxygen up this high in the sky, and no sleep, yeah none of this was—Mary looked up.
“Are you injured?” Here came the ski savior with the radio and binoculars.
He came to a perfect swirling stop beside her. Now, Mary was just irritated. What a showoff.
“I have hand warmers and a mylar blanket. Let’s get you stopped and wrapped up.” He pointed at the sky. “You can hear them. The dogs are nearly here. Not a long wait at all.”
She could indeed hear what sounded like a large team of very enthusiastic dogs off in the distance. And if Mary thought that a troop of scouts shoveling her out with their tin bowls was awful, this was the stuff of nightmares. Mary redoubled her efforts.
“Madame, I don’t think you’re aware of your situation. You’re dressed for yoga. You’ve been wet for a long time, and you are —”
“Hypothermic, yeah, yeah. I know what’s going on. I know I’m almost up to the shed and the lift.”
“Madame, you need someone to go up on the other side of you on the lift, and I can’t imagine anyone would be willing to partner with you.”
That was fair. “Okay, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Red Coat scowled and shook his head. “There are no bridges anywhere near here.”
“It’s a phrase. It’s something people in America say. It means … never mind. Just Whew! Look, I made it.” She stood up, sinking the poles into the snow and shoving her boots back in the ski clips.
The helmet video cameras were still aimed her way, and Mary pulled the scratched-to-hell goggles over her face to obscure her identity. Mary called out, “Hey, which one of you wants to ride up the mountain on this T bar with me?”
There was general jostling and some elbow pokes.
By the sound of their barks, the dogs would be here in a few more strides.
She was going to kill Deidre. First, she’d wait to see where the star-reading woman was sending her. It was possible that Mary could just leave the task to the Borneo headhunters. Then Mary wouldn’t need to deal with a body.
