Page 10 of The Mountain Man's Virgin
“I’ll take the snowmobile and see what I can do,” I said, already collecting my survival gear.
“When the SAR snowmobile search team is mobilized, we will send them out to join you – they’re about two hours out at an avalanche site.”
“Ten-Four,” I replied and set down the radio.
I looked at my open book and the warm afghan that my mom had knit for me. Of course, it was terrible news that someone was missing, but my night just got a lot more exciting.
I pulled on an insulated one-piece Gore-Tex snowmobile suit, grabbed my survival pack from its post by the door – where it was always packed and ready to go, pulled my balaclava on, and topped everything off with my helmet and goggles.
Chopper had started pacing, he always sensed when something important was going down. I usually operated at a leisurely and steady pace, but tonight I was dressed and ready to go in less than two minutes.
I debated whether or not to bring Chops with me, he would have a tough time in the deep snow, but as a retired resort avalanche dog, his sniffer could come in handy. I whistled through the face of my helmet and Chopper was up like a shot and out the door. He took his place on the front of my snowmobile and I attached the toboggan. My snowmobile started on the second pull, and the smell of premium gas filled the air. I knew that electric snowmobiles were on their way, and I would definitely get one, but I would miss the obnoxious brapp sound and fuel smell from my high-powered sled.
I knew exactly where the car had gone off the road. Search and Rescue pulled cars out of that ravine on an almost weekly basis during the winter. I checked the time on my watch, I had about an hour before dark to find this guy.
I made my way down the ten-mile trail to the highway. When I reached the road, it was clear that the plows hadn’t been by and it was covered in about a foot of snow. Instead of veering off to another trail, I blazed right up the middle of the highway at eighty miles per hour. With his thick coat, doggy goggles, and safety saddlebags, Chopper was in his element.
Just before I got to dead man’s corner, the informal name for the hairpin bend in the road, I steered my snowmobile down the bank, maintaining my speed, surfing through the powdery snow. I could see where Search and Rescue had traveled and followed their tracks. It wasn’t long before I saw the crumpled roof of a red jeep. With the condition of the car, I was surprised that everyone had survived. I looked around for tracks with little luck. I could see SAR’s tracks, but the tracks of the missing man had filled in with blowing snow.
I looked up at the ravine. If I had just crashed over this bank, where would I go? First of all, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere, but if I was an idiot, which way would I go? I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who was panicking. They would want to get back to the road as quickly as they could. They probably would’ve tried to climb the rocky cliff band, but unless they were an advanced climber with gear, they would’ve realized that wasn’t gonna happen. No, a panicked person would follow the cliff until they could climb up to the road. If they weren’t familiar with the lay of the land, they wouldn’t know that the road veered away at the corner, that they would only be getting further and further away from anything.
I gunned the throttle and followed the ridgeline.
There.
That’s where someone would try to climb up – it was a narrow gap in the rocks wide enough for a climber, but not wide enough for me to get up in my sled. I mean, if I was twenty I probably would’ve tried, but today I knew better. I accelerated past the gap and half a mile further, turned and climbed up the embankment. My mountain sled has a long paddle track and climbed the slope like a billy-goat.
When I got to the top, I stopped again. The guy would’ve gotten to the top and realized that the road wasn’t there. Would he have turned around? Would he have kept going? My gut told me that if he was stupid enough to try to walk to the road in the first please, he would’ve kept going. I looked at the topography. We were in an open clearing with a cliff behind us, and thick trees circled us in every other direction. I was stumped and then Chopper started barking.
“You got something buddy?” I asked him.
As if answering, he started barking more excitedly, “Go, go find him,” I said, pointing.
Chopper enthusiastically leaped off the snowmobile and sank up to his neck in snow, but nothing was going to stop him. He made his way through the clearing with a combination of jumping and swimming through the deep snow, barking and baying the whole time.
When his barks turned to whines and yips, I knew that he was onto something. I pulled my snowshoes off the side of my snowmobile and followed him to the middle of the clearing.
I didn’t see it right away, but there was a face and an arm just about to be buried by the blizzard. The face was the gray-blue of someone who was not long for this world, that is if they were even still here. When I got close to the victim, I noticed that he was wearing a leather driving glove. Idiot. This guy was not prepared for the weather, I shook my head.
I pulled off my glove and felt for a pulse. It was faint, but there. As Chopper excavated more snow, I was shocked to see the red coat. The victim was a woman and she was barely alive.
Chapter 9 – Lucy
I looked up to the sky, a bird, a huge bird was soaring and diving. Was it an eagle? Some kind of hawk? No, it was longer – and pink – a flamingo! I dug my feet into the warm sand and watched the graceful lanky bird soar past me. Sailboats were sitting in the cay, their sails luffing in the ever so slight breeze.
I contemplated slipping into the warmth of the ocean but found too much comfort and contentment on the beach with these muscular arms wrapped around me. I leaned my head back into his chest and could feel his breath tickling my ear. I grasped his strong tanned forearms and closed my eyes, listening to the lapping of the water against the shore.
When I felt the hair on my arms stand up with goosebumps, I lazily opened my eyes and saw dark clouds on the horizon, the wind picking up and frothing the sea. The arms were still wrapped around me and tightened protectively.
I looked down at my embracer’s hands and realized that they weren’t slender and manicured. The hands around me didn’t belong to Lawrence.
I tried to turn my head to see who had me in their grasp, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t turn my head. Then my hands and feet started to burn. It was like they had been shoved into a fire and I couldn’t pull them out. I was paralyzed.
The calm I felt quickly dissipated and was replaced by sheer terror.
I started thrashing, trying to get away from the fiery sensation and to find out who was holding me captive. The arms tightened like a vice in response to my thrashing.
“Shhh. Shhhh. Shhh,” the man whispered into my ear.
