tickling my face in the darkness. Then I heard a subtle hissing on the hot rocks around the fire. In my confusion, it reminded me of the hiss from our coffeemaker whenever a few drops fell from the unit’s spout and landed on the burner. At once, the flurries became a little stronger, the breeze that brought them turning colder.
I straightened from the stupor I’d been in, the gray of false dawn hinting at what swirled around me. My first alarmed instinct was to pile more wood on the fire, but as snow sizzled louder on the hot stones, the sun tried to struggle above the eastern peak, providing sufficient light for me to see the white on the grass around me. Dark clouds hung low. Despite the extra wood I’d thrown on the fire, the flames lessened. Smoke rose.
Panicked, I put on my knapsack. As Petey had told Jason when we’d left the highway, early June wasn’t too late for snow in the mountains. On T V, the forecasters sometimes cautioned people that at high altitude, the weather could change for the worse without warning. But that hadn’t been predicted, and I’d figured that with the car and the tent, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Now I cursed myself for not making better plans.
The highway was a half hour away by car. Frowning at the thickening, angrier clouds, I tried to calculate how far I’d have to go on foot. The road into the mountains had been so bad, the terrain so rough, that most of the time I hadn’t been able to drive more than twenty miles an hour. That meant the highway was about ten miles off. But with my ankle hurting, ten miles might take me five or six hours on foot. In clothes too flimsy for the cold. Besides, as the flurries intensified, preventing me from seeing the lake, I realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to find my way to the highway, that I’d risk wandering in circles until I dropped. Of course, if I’d known how to use the compass the camping—equipment clerk had sold me, my chances might have been different. But regret wasn’t a survival emotion. Fear for Jason was. Rage at Petey was.
Thinking of Jason, I was suddenly reminded of the last time I’d seen him. The shelf of rock. “Where’s that cave you mentioned?” he’d asked.
The cave.
If I could find it before the storm got worse …
Fighting for strength, I lurched into the trees. Abruptly, visibility lessened, and I stumbled to the right toward the stream, not to drink from it but to use it as a guide. A white veil enveloped me as I followed the churning water up through the trees. The flakes became thicker. The snow on the ground covered my tennis shoes.
My tennis shoes
. I’d bought a compass, which I didn’t know how to use, and yet I hadn’t taken the camping—equipment clerk’s advice to buy sturdy hiking boots. They weren’t necessary, I’d told him. We weren’t going to be doing anything heavy—duty.
My feet started to lose sensation. Limping, I worked my way along a slope, worrying that a rock beneath the snow would shift and cause me to fall. Could I rely on my memory of where the cave was? For all I knew, it was on the opposite side of the stream, and it was merely a crevice in a cliff, which, as a thirteen—year—old boy, I had thought was huge.
The slope reached a steep ridge that went to the left. While I plodded along it, the aspens became pine trees. Branches jabbed at my arms and scratched my face. As the snow gusted thicker, I feared that I’d stumble past the cave and never see it. In the summer, hikers would find my body, or what was left of it after the forest scavengers had feasted on it.
I’m an architect, not a survival expert, I thought. I could hardly feel my hands. Why the hell hadn’t I put gloves in my knapsack? I was so stupid, I
deserved
to die.
Trying to avoid a pine branch, I lost my footing, fell, and almost banged my head against a boulder on my right. Stupid. Deserve to …
18
Architect.
The vague thought nudged my dimming
I straightened from the stupor I’d been in, the gray of false dawn hinting at what swirled around me. My first alarmed instinct was to pile more wood on the fire, but as snow sizzled louder on the hot stones, the sun tried to struggle above the eastern peak, providing sufficient light for me to see the white on the grass around me. Dark clouds hung low. Despite the extra wood I’d thrown on the fire, the flames lessened. Smoke rose.
Panicked, I put on my knapsack. As Petey had told Jason when we’d left the highway, early June wasn’t too late for snow in the mountains. On T V, the forecasters sometimes cautioned people that at high altitude, the weather could change for the worse without warning. But that hadn’t been predicted, and I’d figured that with the car and the tent, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Now I cursed myself for not making better plans.
The highway was a half hour away by car. Frowning at the thickening, angrier clouds, I tried to calculate how far I’d have to go on foot. The road into the mountains had been so bad, the terrain so rough, that most of the time I hadn’t been able to drive more than twenty miles an hour. That meant the highway was about ten miles off. But with my ankle hurting, ten miles might take me five or six hours on foot. In clothes too flimsy for the cold. Besides, as the flurries intensified, preventing me from seeing the lake, I realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to find my way to the highway, that I’d risk wandering in circles until I dropped. Of course, if I’d known how to use the compass the camping—equipment clerk had sold me, my chances might have been different. But regret wasn’t a survival emotion. Fear for Jason was. Rage at Petey was.
Thinking of Jason, I was suddenly reminded of the last time I’d seen him. The shelf of rock. “Where’s that cave you mentioned?” he’d asked.
The cave.
If I could find it before the storm got worse …
Fighting for strength, I lurched into the trees. Abruptly, visibility lessened, and I stumbled to the right toward the stream, not to drink from it but to use it as a guide. A white veil enveloped me as I followed the churning water up through the trees. The flakes became thicker. The snow on the ground covered my tennis shoes.
My tennis shoes
. I’d bought a compass, which I didn’t know how to use, and yet I hadn’t taken the camping—equipment clerk’s advice to buy sturdy hiking boots. They weren’t necessary, I’d told him. We weren’t going to be doing anything heavy—duty.
My feet started to lose sensation. Limping, I worked my way along a slope, worrying that a rock beneath the snow would shift and cause me to fall. Could I rely on my memory of where the cave was? For all I knew, it was on the opposite side of the stream, and it was merely a crevice in a cliff, which, as a thirteen—year—old boy, I had thought was huge.
The slope reached a steep ridge that went to the left. While I plodded along it, the aspens became pine trees. Branches jabbed at my arms and scratched my face. As the snow gusted thicker, I feared that I’d stumble past the cave and never see it. In the summer, hikers would find my body, or what was left of it after the forest scavengers had feasted on it.
I’m an architect, not a survival expert, I thought. I could hardly feel my hands. Why the hell hadn’t I put gloves in my knapsack? I was so stupid, I
deserved
to die.
Trying to avoid a pine branch, I lost my footing, fell, and almost banged my head against a boulder on my right. Stupid. Deserve to …
18
Architect.
The vague thought nudged my dimming
Similar Books
