Death by Exposure (2 page)

Ben and Julia stood at the big front window of their house and waved as their mother honked the horn of their red four-wheel-drive and drove off. They watched the vehicle hurry along the unpaved road, dip down, then reappear, only to cross the bridge over the river and vanish. There wasn't another living soul in sight. No people, no houses, no cars, no stores or malls or apartment buildings, just the green of the trees, the brilliant blue sky, and the mountains.

Ben remembered when they first moved here how he'd open the curtains each day and think,
Wow,
as he looked out the window at the mountains. This was certainly different than Calgary. But now it was no different than the day before or the day before that. Now they were just mountains. The only difference this year was that the mountains were brown and bare except for a rim of snowy white at the very top. He'd never seen them this brown in the three years his family had lived here.

Sometimes he still missed Calgary and all the friends he'd left behind. True, he liked the country, but he still wished for some of the things the city had to offer-movies, malls, video arcades, a place to roller-blade, and friends who lived just down the street. And when the friends he did have here weren't able to come out and play-like today because they were away for the weekend-that didn't leave him much to do or anybody to hang around with. That was the only reason he'd offered to baby-sit his little sister. Maybe there wasn't much to do, but at least he'd get paid for not doing anything. Besides, he did have an idea what they could do. He just had to set his plan in motion.

“You know,” he said to Julia, “I was going to let you come with me on my toboggan the very first time I went down a hill. That is...if you wouldn't get scared.”

“I wouldn't be scared,” she insisted, and he knew she wasn't lying. Julia
wasn't afraid of much. His mother said that growing up with a big brother made little sisters tough.

“Are you sure you wouldn't be afraid?” Ben asked as he went over and touched his toboggan. “This won't be so much a trip on a sled as it will be a ride on a rocket.”

“I won't be afraid.”

“So you'd be willing to ride on it?” he asked.

“Any time, any day!”

“How about anywhere?”

She gave him a quizzical glance.

“We could go tobogganing...today.”

“Today? There's no snow.”

“There's no snow
here,
but there is snow not far from here.”

Instantly Julia knew what her brother was talking about, and a shiver went up her spine, one that had nothing to do with thinking about being cold.

“We could go to the glacier,” Ben suggested.

“We're not supposed to go there. It's dangerous. Everybody knows that.”

“How can a pile of snow and ice be dangerous?”

“Mom said people have died there.”

Ben frowned. “Two people, ten years ago, and that was because they were trying to climb the steep side with picks and ropes. I'm just talking about walking a little way up the slope and sliding down. How can that hurt anybody?”

“Mom and Dad will kill you if they find out you went up there.”

“And just how will they find out? I'm not going to tell them, so unless you do, nobody's ever going to know.” Ben paused. “But if you're too much of a baby to go, I'll understand.”

“I'm not a baby!” Julia protested, then smiled. She knew what her brother was doing, but she didn't care. She wanted to go, too.

The glacier was only a thirty-minute walk from their house. Today it seemed longer. Partly it was because of the toboggan. Since there was no snow, Ben had to carry it. As well, they were bundled up in their gloves, hats, boots, and snow pants, which made them very hot.

“There it is,” Ben said, gesturing ahead.

Through the trees they could see the white of the glacier. That first glimpse gave Ben a surge of renewed energy. It had been a long walk, but it was going to pay off. They continued along the little path, plunging through more forest until they came out where the trees ended and the glacier loomed ahead. In front of them stood a field strewn with rocks, boulders, gravel, and mud.

“Wow, it's big,” Julia said under her breath.

“It's a glacier. What did you expect?”

“I wasn't talking about the glacier,” Julia said. “I meant the field-all the rocks and things.”

“That was always there. Don't you remember it from when Dad brought us here two winters ago?”

“I remember Dad bringing us and we stood right about here at the edge of the forest,” Julia said. “I just didn't think the glacier was that far from the forest.”

Ben gazed out across the muddy, gravel-filled field that stretched before them. It did seem bigger. “I think you're right, but that would only make sense. Between last summer being such a scorcher and there being so little snow this year, I bet that a lot of the glacier melted away. Come on, let's get going.” Ben started walking but turned around when he realized Julia hadn't moved. “Are you coming? Or are you waiting for it to come to you?”

Julia scowled, huffed, and then followed, catching up to Ben in a few seconds.

The field was made up of material that had been carried or crushed by the glacier, and then had been deposited by the retreating ice or the melting water. Dotting the landscape was a sprinkling of boulders, some as large as cars, a few as big as houses. As Ben and Julia approached the
glacier, specific features became more visible. Here and there it resembled a high, steep wall. Elsewhere it seemed to slope gently. Across the whole front of the glacier there were spots where little fingers of ice-frozen runoff water-extended into the gravel field. These fingers in turn reached out from deep fractures, crevasses into the glacier.

“I think we should go down there,” Ben said, pointing off to the side. “There's a slope and then there's ice that comes out across the gravel. Do you see anywhere better?”

Julia had been scanning the glacier and had noted the same place. “What time is it?” she asked.

“We have plenty of time.”

“That's not what I asked.”

Ben peered at his watch. “It's only ten-thirty. We'd be back in time even if we tobogganed for hours.”

“But we're not doing it for hours. Just a few runs...right?”

“Just a few.”

They kept on walking until the gravel under their feet changed to snow and then ice. Ben put down the toboggan and started to drag it behind him. The air had suddenly gotten colder. Julia tugged up the zipper on her parka and extracted her toque from one of the pockets. Placing the hat on her head, she pulled it down so that it covered her ears. Then she stamped her feet, grateful for her mukluks, even though she'd felt stupid wearing them earlier.

The slope began to rise more rapidly, and both of them felt the strain in their legs, the effort in their lungs. A couple of times Julia's feet slipped out from under her and she almost tumbled over. “How about we go from here?” she finally asked.

“Here? This low? We didn't come all this way to go down the bunny hill.”

Ben continued to pull the toboggan up the slope. Reluctantly Julia trailed behind, keeping one eye on her brother and the other on the crevasse that dissected the slope into two long slices.

“How about here?” she asked again.

Ben sighed. “We'll go down the slope from here...the first time.”

“And the next time?” Julia asked.

“We'll go a little bit higher next time, and a little bit higher after that. Unless you'd like to start from a lot higher now?”

She shook her head. “This is a good place to start.”

Ben turned the toboggan around and sat on it, his legs off to the sides, digging into the snow to keep the toboggan from sliding. “Get on,” he said to his sister.

Julia got on the back, pulled her legs up, and wrapped them around her brother.

“Here we go!” Ben announced. He raised his legs and pushed off with his hands. The toboggan began to move slowly at first, then picked up a little speed, and then more and more until it was flying. The wind rushed by, and the white of the snow was just a blur. The slope soon flattened out, and they continued to skitter along until finally coming to a stop.

“That was a ride!” Ben whooped as he jumped off the toboggan. “What did you think, Julia?”

She wanted to tell him how great it was, but shrugged instead. “It was okay.”

“Okay?” Ben protested. “How can you say it was just okay?”

“From where I sat all I could see was your back. Maybe I should ride up front.”

“You want to be in front and have me ride behind you?” Ben asked in amazement.

“At least
you
could see over my head. That's only fair.”

Ben started to argue, but then asked, “How about a deal?”

“What sort of deal?”

“You can ride in front the next two times if you go on the back the five times after that.”

“But we were only going down a few times, not eight!” she almost wailed.

Ben smiled. “Eight is a few. Besides, if you want to be in front, you should agree.”

Julia smiled back. “Sure.” What Ben didn't know was that she was smiling because she was going to ride down two times in front and then he was on his own.

They headed back up the slope, following the track left by the toboggan on the trip down. Finally they reached the place where they'd started the first run.

“This is good,” Ben said.

“Here?” Julia questioned. She wanted this ride, with her in the front, to be a good, long one. “I think we should go higher...unless you're feeling scared.”

Ben scoffed loudly. “You want higher, you'll get higher.”

They continued upward for a while, then Ben stopped and turned the toboggan around, holding it in place while Julia got on. Instead of sitting, he put his hands on the toboggan and began to run, pushing it as hard as he could. He ran and ran and then jumped onto the back with a jolt.

The toboggan raced forward alarmingly, and Ben and Julia screeched in delight. They moved faster and faster as they descended, then Julia realized they weren't just going down the hill, but across its face toward the crevasse! She stuck out her feet and tried to dig them in to slow the toboggan down, but the snow and ice were too hard and there was no effect. Then, as they got closer and closer to the crevasse, Ben grabbed his sister and rolled off the toboggan with her. The two skidded and tumbled, head over heels, snow shooting into their faces and down their jackets until they skidded to a stop.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked, shaken.

Julia stood and shook one of her legs, which was sore. “I'm okay.”

“Good. Let's get the toboggan and go home.”

That was the first thing he'd said today-in a long time actually-that she agreed with. She looked around but couldn't see the toboggan anywhere. “Where
is
the toboggan?”

Ben pointed. “Down there.”

“Down where?”

“In the crevasse. We have to go down and get it.”

Julia snorted. “This is the stupidest thing you've ever done.”

“If it's so stupid, why are you here?” Ben asked as they worked their way along the frozen stream that led into the crevasse.

“Probably because I'm stupid, too. I must be if I'm following you.”

“Well, you wouldn't have to follow me if you knew how to steer a toboggan!” Ben snapped.

“I know how to steer! It went crazy because somebody jumped onto the back and swerved it in a different direction!”

“If you knew how to steer, that wouldn't have been a problem and-”

“Just shut up and walk,” she said.

The farther they inched into the crevasse, the narrower it became and the higher the walls of ice rose on both sides. Julia didn't like being enclosed. She felt as if the walls were crowding her, as if the air were getting thinner, making her short of breath.