Tough Cookie by Diane Mott Davidson Page A

a torn chunk of map. Without thinking, I tried to catch it. It was indeed a wadded piece of paper. That's when I realized that, along with the snow, this large confetti was coming down everywhere. It was as if someone had torn up a newspaper and carelessly dumped the crumpled bits of litter from the lift.
    Litter?
    "Mom, hey, Mom!" Arch's voice sailed past me. "Over here!"
    I turned, but did not see my son. All around, gaggles of skiers had halted and were scooping up the tumbling papers. I did not see any snowboarders. "Arch!" I cried into the mêlée. "Where are you?"
    "Here, Mom!" Suddenly my son scraped his snowboard next to my skis. Swathed in his dark red outfit and a stay-warm ski mask that made him look like an escapee from a horror movie, Arch clutched a handful of the paper. His prescription goggles had been pulled up at an angle on the top of his head, and I could just make out his merry brown eyes above the mouth mask. "Money!" he announced. "Hundred-dollar bills! It's falling with the snow! Here," he squawked as he thrust a fistful of bills at me. "Put these in your pocket, would ya?" Before I could protest, he scooted off on the board to retrieve more of the falling cash.
    There was squawking and yelling among the skiers now, as a sudden updraft swirled the precious bills heavenward, where they mixed with a new tornado of flakes. A member of the ski patrol showed up and started hollering ineffectually for order.
    Still uncomprehending, I stood grasping the wad of bills Arch had handed me, then stuffed them into my pocket. I dug in my poles and scooted to the slope's right side. An abrupt shift in the wind spun up a fresh storm of bills. The money smacked my goggles and I was momentarily blinded. I wiped the bills away and strained to see their source. They seemed to be blowing up from somewhere below where I stood.
    To my right, the yellow boundary cord had torn loose from its moorings. The cord lay in a loop, then disappeared under the snow. Past the boundary pole, a row of boulders obscured the drop to the lower slope. I hesitated, then cautiously skied to the torn yellow rope. With great care, I glided down to the edge of the rocks that stood between Jitterbug and the steep drop-off to Hot-Rodder.
    The view of the lower run was obscured by more boulders and a cluster of pines. Several sets of tracks led through the trees, while more circled the rocks. Money continued to fall. Damn. I had a very sinking feeling, despite the gleeful cries from the skiers downslope. Using the perpendicular-to-the-mountain two-step taught to all beginning skiers when they need to get uphill, I maneuvered up and around the rock pile.
    On the far side of a boulder below me, a cowboy hat lay at the base of a small, barren aspen tree. A chill ran through me. Squatting cautiously on my skis, I slid carefully to the edge of the drop off.
    Sprawled next to a mogul, Doug Portman lay motionless in the crisp white snow. His legs seemed to be tangled with one of his skis. Beside the sharp half of a broken pole, his left arm was impossibly contorted. A splotch of blood was spreading on the snow.
    "Ski patrol," I whispered, as I turned and worked my way back up to Jitterbug run. "I – we - need help."
    The crowd of skiers on Jitterbug were still grabbing at the whirling shreds of paper tumbling down with the snowflakes. "Help!" I called. No one paid attention. The bills swirled and landed on the slope, on moguls, on boulders, on branches of pine trees. Greedy hands reached impatiently for them.
    I unsnapped my bindings, hefted up my skis, and crammed them into the snow in the X-position, the emergency signal for ski patrol to stop and give assistance. Then I lunged back through the snow to the edge of the run, below the coiled yellow rope and the row of boulders. Surely Doug would be all right. . . They would send in a chopper and take him to safety. . . .
    "Mom!" I recognized Arch's ski mask bobbing toward me. He was scooting himself