oxygen that isn’t there. But Sheriff Bob Gage gave it his best shot.
For the second time that afternoon, an all-call went out and pagers across Summit County beeped, one of them under the snow of Quandary Peak. Twenty volunteers were called to a scene most of them were already at. The ones who hadn’t made it first time around were paged again and told why, this time, they might want to show up.
Bob could see something blue sticking out of the snow. He turned on his side and rolled on to his knees. He crawled uphill toward it, staggering to his feet when he saw it was a gloved hand. He trampled a path to it, then fell down and started digging.
‘We’re going to get you out,’ he said. ‘Hang in there. Hang in there.’ For a moment, he thought it might be the corpse. He pulled off the glove and felt a lukewarm hand and a weak pulse.
‘Shit, come on,’ he said, replacing the glove, working harder to tunnel an airway to whoever lay beneath the surface.
‘I’m getting there,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’
He could hear desperate, muffled groans. He looked around into the blank white.
‘Help,’ he shouted. ‘Someone help.’
He kept going, scooping back snow, his arms trembling, his heart pumping hard. His body was on fire. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t. In his panic, he couldn’t pin down the passing of time; did he still have a chance, or was it too late? Had he been there for wasted hours or just minutes? Finally, he heard a huge intake of breath.
‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Thank God. Jesus Christ. Who’s down there?’
The voice was faint. ‘Sonny.’
‘OK, Sonny. You wait right there …’ He paused. ‘I mean, I’m going to get help. You’re going to get out of there, OK?’
He heard a muffled reply. He sat back on the snow, his breath heaving. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He grabbed the radio from his belt and radioed down to the trailhead to call in Flight-for-Life, the medevac helicopter run out of Frisco, ten miles north of Breckenridge.
‘I need to go check on Lasco,’ he said to Sonny. ‘I’m sure my buddy, Mountain Mike, is already back at the office.’
Further down the slope, by a small stand of trees, Denis Lasco lay on his back on top of the snow. Bob dropped to his knees and checked him for a pulse. He found one. But he couldn’t rouse Lasco.
The gentle snowfall quickly turned heavy.
‘Lasco, you wake the fuck up by the time I’m back,’ he said, hurrying up the slope to Sonny, slumping to the snow beside him. He pulled off one of his snow-shoes and used it to start digging. In ten minutes, Sonny’s head and shoulders were exposed. But the rest of his body was compressed so tightly, Bob had to hide his fear.
‘We need to keep you hydrated,’ he said. He took a bottle of water from his jacket and held it to Sonny’s mouth. Sonny’s eyes started to close.
‘No you don’t,’ said Bob. ‘Wakey, wakey, OK? Jesus, I’m the one who’s just done the physical exertion. If anyone gets to sleep here, it’s me.’ He wiped his sleeve across his forehead.
Sonny smiled a drunken smile, but opened his eyes wide. He sipped more water.
‘Good,’ said Bob. ‘Keep looking at me. It’s not easy, I know …’
Sonny blinked instead of smiling. Bob scanned the area for Mike, but found nothing. ‘I’ve never been in an avalanche in my life,’ said Bob. ‘It’s the scariest fucking shit …’ He laughed through the panic rising in his chest. Sonny’s skin was almost gray, his eyes shadowed and sunken, his lips pale and dry. Sonny was failing.
Bob’s radio struck up. A calm voice said, ‘Flights’re on their way.’
‘That’s great,’ said Bob. He looked up and down the slope. They were near the bottom, but there was no ground nearby at the right angle for a helicopter to land. And by the time the SAR team made it up to them from the trailhead, another half-hour would have gone by.
Sonny Bryant had got a perfect score in his EMT exams, so he knew exactly how he was going to die. He knew that the kind, smiling sheriff beside him knew how he was going to die. His limbs were crushed. As soon as the weight of the snow was taken away, toxins would rush to his bloodstream. His kidneys wouldn’t take it. There were no IV fluids. There was only a half-liter of water that was almost gone. That was it. It wasn’t enough. Bob Gage was holding his hand. Should he look him in the eye when they pulled him free? He didn’t really want to leave Bob with an image that could haunt him for life. But he didn’t want to stare into the blank white snow. Just in case wherever he was going was blank too.
The Summit County Medical Center stood on Highway 9 in Frisco. The Flight-for-Life helicopter hadn’t moved from its hangar outside. Two hours after the avalanche hit, an ambulance had carried Denis Lasco and Mike Delaney from the trailhead. Lasco’s deputy had arrived to take Sonny Bryant to the morgue in the van he used to call the Deathmobile.
Bob Gage stood by the window in Mike Delaney’s hospital room. Mike was sitting on the edge of his bed, dressed in a navy sweatshirt and baggy track pants, pushing his feet into sneakers.
‘We were pretty fucking lucky up there,’ said Mike.
‘No shit,’ said Bob. ‘No shit.’ He shook his head. ‘Christ Almighty, though, Sonny Bryant …’
‘Poor kid.’
‘Harve’s a mess. He wanted to know every detail. He was clinging to me, thanking me – for what, I don’t know – then asking me to go through what happened over and over again. I was half-thinking of saying that Sonny said to tell them all he loved them. Then I thought that would be a shitty thing to do. Then I thought yeah, it would mean Sonny would have known he was going to die, which would mean that that would have been absolutely frightening –’
‘Bob, Bob …’ said Mike. ‘Take a breath, OK? Take it easy. You did everything you could for Sonny, and I’m sure you’ll do everything you can for Harve, if he needs you.’
Bob didn’t say anything for a little while. When he finally spoke, his voice was showing cracks. ‘I just … don’t want to be elevated to some special status because I was the last person to see his son alive. Or he thinks I’m this great hero who tried to save him. I mean, there you were, Mike, with all your mountain experience; there’s Lasco, a guy who knows all about the human body. So when you think about it, I am literally the last person who could have saved Sonny Bryant.’
‘Bob, that’s bullshit. None of us could have saved Sonny. Look, it makes no sense, but someone up there thought it was his time to go.’
‘At nineteen,’ said Bob.
‘At nineteen.’ Mike stood up. ‘Life fucking sucks.’
Bob followed him to the door. They took the elevator to the floor below. In a room at the end of the hallway, Denis Lasco lay sleeping.
‘Damn
