In an Instant(21)
“Give me a boost,” Uncle Bob says, and Oz makes his gloveless hands into a stirrup so he can lift Uncle Bob onto the trailer.
Uncle Bob doesn’t look back or wish Oz good luck. Opening the door, he lowers himself inside, leaving Oz and Bingo outside with the impossible mission of hiking into the wilderness to find my mom.
16
The wind is getting stronger. I can tell by the way it pulls the skin of my mom’s face and by the way she leans into it as she forces herself on. Her strength is fading, and so is her confidence for their success. It’s early afternoon, and they’ve been hiking all day with no way of knowing whether they travel closer to or farther from civilization, making it difficult not to give up hope. My mom has been careful to keep the sun behind her, but they’ve been detoured so many times she’s not even certain whether the town is still to the north or whether they’ve passed it entirely.
When they stumble upon a gully of deep snow that winds like a white snake up the jagged mountain, I scream for them to follow it. The road is above. Every ounce of energy I possess I send to my mom, willing her to turn.
My suggestion isn’t needed. “Kyle,” she croaks, her voice parched with dehydration and exhaustion. She points to the serpent. The sun is too far to the right. In order to stay on course, they need to turn.
Without protest or question, Kyle changes direction, forging a path into the deep, winding drift.
They make an oddly great team. Kyle has a good sense for climbing and for choosing forgiving paths, and my mom keeps them on course. They’ve spoken less than a dozen words since they started, yet a natural synergy has propelled them farther than either would have gotten alone.
With each step up the powder-filled crevice, my mom’s feet sink, and the loose UGGs fill with snow. She no longer winces at the ice burning her skin, and I think the flesh must now be frozen and numb.
Kyle moves steadily in front, stopping every few yards to wait for my mom as she claws and crawls her way forward, slipping occasionally, then having to reclaim the ground she lost.
At one point the incline becomes too steep, and my mom loses her footing altogether and slides down nearly twenty feet. For a second she lies in the snow, her body heaving, and then, with superhuman strength and no other choice, she pushes back to her feet and staggers on.
Kyle climbs down to meet her halfway. “Give me your scarf,” he says.
My mom unwraps the strip of wool from her throat and hands it to him. Kyle cinches one end to my mom’s right wrist, then holds out his right hand so she can do the same with the opposite end. Barely enough space remains between them for my mom to take a step, but a hundred feet later, when she slips again, Kyle digs in and holds tight to the scarf, and my mom only falls to the ground.
They inch their way forward, hope returning with each step that leads them farther in the direction they want to go and that doesn’t send them back to the start.
It happens suddenly. They are more than halfway to the top, my heart celebrating each inch of progress, when Kyle steps around a boulder and the ground gives way, the patch he thought was solid nothing but a chunk of ice and snow.
I watch as he tumbles, his right foot plunging into air and pulling him sideways off his feet. The scarf catches him, stopping his fall and swinging him like a pendulum back into the face of the mountain and yanking my mom off her feet. Wildly she flails as Kyle’s weight pulls her toward the ridge, her right hand clutching the scarf as her left swims, searching for something to grab hold of.
Her shoulder is over the edge when she catches hold of a small sapling that sprouts from beneath the boulder. The tree is less than two feet tall, but already its roots are strong, and I watch as she jerks to a stop and then as her limbs tremble as she struggles to hang on. Her head rolls from the gloved hand that holds the sapling to the one that holds Kyle, and I watch as her mind spins, the calculation made impossibly fast, his weight versus her strength.
Kyle sees it as well, his mouth opening and my own scream unheard as the fingers on my mom’s right hand unfurl.
Kyle falls. But only an inch. The knot on her wrist cinches instead of loosening, and before my mom can shake it loose, Kyle is climbing up the wool, and quick as the decision was made, it is reversed, my mom reaching down to close her hand again, gripping the scarf with all her strength as Kyle’s weight literally pulls her limb from limb.
A second later, he hoists himself over the edge and collapses beside her, his breath frosting in front of him and his eyes widening from the shock of how close he came to dying.
My mom rolls onto her back, and I watch as she lifts her hand in front of her, the fingers opening and closing as if she hasn’t a clue how the mechanism works, her chin trembling.
“Ready?” Kyle says, pushing to his feet, his eyes avoiding hers.
Her mouth opens to say something, but there are no words. How do you apologize for choosing to let someone die so you could save yourself?
The scarf still tethers them as they continue on, but Kyle now picks his way up the trail more carefully, checking each step before he takes it and slowing their progress to a crawl.
17
Oz did not hike in the right direction. He looked at the camper and walked away from the taillights, either forgetting that we did not drive to the spot where we landed or mistakenly believing taillights are like a compass and always point back home.