Ice Claw (4 page)

Initially she seemed to have had the Dutch kid beaten hands down, but she’d blown it at the kayak event with a stupid mistake. Bobby had tried to console her, but she was too angry with herself. With a kiss for luck, she left Bobby to concentrate on the competition and went back to the hotel for a hot bath and probably, Max reckoned, a good cry out of everyone’s sight. In a way he was relieved she’d lost her placing. Peaches would have been a lot tougher to beat than the Dutch boy. He wasn’t too much of a threat, because he had even less experience than Max at freestyle snowboarding. So, five contenders remaining; two runs each to battle it out for the championship.

Max needed four stitches to close the cut over his eye. The medic decided that a Steri-Strip would not staunch the bleeding and did the needlework in the field tent as Bobby Morrell stood watching.

“You could ask for a late start for the final, Max,” Bobby said.

“No. I want to get on with it. Did you see a loose kayak on the big bend?”

“Yeah, black with a white scattered design.”

Max nodded. “Anyone in it?”

“No. I thought it must have broken loose earlier in the day. The marshals should have checked the river. A loose
boat like that could’ve caused big problems. There were tough conditions today.”

Max winced as the antiseptic and sutures stung; the medic apologized.

Morrell studied him a moment. “Was that kayak out there a problem for you? Is that how you got cut? Listen, you can ask for a rerun. I won’t object, and I bet the others won’t either.”

The French medic dabbed the wound. “It’s done. Don’t worry—the girls, they like a scar,” he said.

Max pulled on his ski jacket. Bobby was right. He could ask for another go at the river if he wanted. He shook his head.

The mountain was waiting.

The specially constructed snowboard run was a long, sloping drop from the start gate until the end, where the sculpted curve flared upwards for takeoff. The accumulated points from the previous Xtreme events meant Max was in third place. There was no time for regrets about the wildwater—he was still in with a chance. The Dutch boy had done a fairly mediocre jump, leaving a deficit of points that could not be made up on his next attempt. He was out.

Max readied himself. Tingling nerves, deep breaths, good old-fashioned stage fright, which he settled into a concentrated visualization. He was cool. This was it.
Go!

Jump one—pile on the speed, focus on the middle of the ramp, hit air. He needed a big ollie—a high jump—so he hit the ramp hard, kicked the tail of his snowboard down and
lifted the front with his leading boot. He pulled his knees up high, carrying the momentum, and grabbed the toe-edge of the board with his trailing hand. It was silent. No scrape of snow on board. No wind. Nothing. He threw his arm high, needing a backside 360—a big one: a huge, stylish spin of 360 degrees. He felt the swish of air on his face; saw the blurred crowd, then the mountain, then the slope as he spun. He’d done it! His legs dropped and the board hit the slope.

The energy rush was great. When he slid into the finish area, Bobby Morrell gave him a high five. It had been a well-executed jump with something he had had little practice at. In its simplest form it was not considered too difficult a feat, but Max had taken a slow, high twist, and that was all about style.

The German girl was next, and then Bobby.

Max watched as the girl gave a stunning performance. The crowd roared, whooping and cheering. His heart sank at her skill and the points that illuminated the board. Max was now pushed into fourth place, but when Bobby Morrell dazzled everyone his score pushed Max into fifth place. After all that effort, he was one ride away from being out of the competition.

Max needed something so spectacular that it would wow the judges. He had seen a blistering jump made the previous year by a top-class American snowboarder—a high-speed exit from the start gate, hitting the ramp fast, and a double flip. A single inversion was relatively easy using the body’s natural tilt as the board hit the ramp’s wall, but to somersault twice in the air? To succeed, Max needed a lot of height and a perfectly
balanced landing—and a lot of experience. By the time he stood at the jump-off gate again, he had made up his mind.

He was going for the big one.

The crowd’s faces blurred, the curving downhill run seemed narrower and snow began to fall, thick leaflike flakes spiraling downwards. The mountains would have fresh powder—nice, deep, unspoiled conditions. It’d be quiet up there, not like here; no cheering and screaming going on from all those faces, knowing that this was his make-or-break jump.

Max had a knack of being able to replicate what others could do. It was as if he had a camera in his brain that clicked a million frames a second and fed the information to his body. A muscle memory.
Don’t take your body where your mind hasn’t already been
, his dad once told him.
See the problems, see the route, work it—then go. It may take only the blink of an eye, but let the mind go there first
.

Max knew he could do this jump.

His run-in was fast; he soared up the snow wall and, easing the pressure on the toe-edge of his board, he kept his head high and squared his body. He was airborne. Throwing his rear shoulder at an angle, he reached down for the edge of his board, grabbing it between the foot bindings. He had to hold on, against the pull of the somersault. Bringing his legs up into his body, he felt the tug of air on his jacket’s fabric as he completed another backward curl. He gripped his fist even more tightly on the board’s edge, heard a muted, almost hypnotic roar from the crowd as they realized what he was doing. Another rotation! His fingers were slipping from the board’s edge; if he lost his grip now he’d fall badly onto his back and
neck. Clamping his hand tighter, knuckles aching and leg muscles coiled, he felt the final somersault complete. Earth and snow-speckled sky smudged his vision. The big hit was in the landing. He had to take the shock through his legs, but it was his stomach muscles that needed to be tight to keep his body balanced. His snowboard thumped onto the ground, his arms went out for balance, but his center of gravity had shifted and he tumbled backwards.

In that instant he knew it was over. Max grunted in pain as his back hit the ground and his body slid, uncontrolled, towards the crowd.

He had dared to win—and lost.

Bobby Morrell was the first to help him up and release the bindings. His look said everything. It had been an awesome jump, and if the landing had worked out as planned, Max would have gone to the top of the leader board. Bobby put his hand behind Max’s neck and touched Max’s forehead with his own. A small, intimate gesture of friendship and respect.

“Another year of this and no one will touch you, man. I swear,” Bobby said quietly. “Not even me.” He gave Max an encouraging smile and went to take his place for his next run.

As Max sat and eased the stiffness out of his leg, a few people leaned forward and patted his shoulder. Some murmured encouragement, others commiserations. They were a good crowd. And most of them knew that even though Max had thrown away the championship, none of them could have achieved what he had done.

Max had wanted so badly to win. He held on to his disappointment. He couldn’t show it in front of everyone. The other board riders were better than him; more experienced,
older, had better equipment. That was all true, but his mind was starting to make excuses, and he swore at himself to shut up. He’d done his best. Leave it at that, he told himself, and watch the others as they fight for the final three places.

He stayed for the awards ceremony. Bobby Morrell won, the German girl came second and the French boy third. Max told Bobby he was cutting out for a few hours, while there was still light, but that he’d join the party later.

He slipped quietly away, took the ski lift up to the top of a run and carved his way through the deep, freshly fallen snow. The mountains soared thousands of meters above him, and now that the snowstorm had swept through the valleys, Max found himself in a pristine wilderness.

He went fast, making long, sweeping turns—happiness surging back. He stopped and let his gaze take in the quiet, majestic beauty. No matter what happened in any future competition, it was free-riding up here in these massive snowfields that made him feel this good.

With a gentle rush of the board through knee-deep perfect snow, Max curved a line down the valley. He suddenly realized he was close to the avalanche area where he and Sayid had been the day before.

The snowfall had sculpted the landscape into windswept angles so finely shaped it made everything look sleek and fast, like the leading edge on the bodywork of a fast car. As beautiful as it was, Max knew that avalanches were still a danger, especially if anyone else was on the slopes. He had some mountain knowledge and knew more than most other free-riders just what to look for in these high, dangerous conditions. That was what Sayid had failed to realize yesterday. He
saw the off-trail run and wanted to cut up the snow and enjoy the thrill of the deep powder.

Max scanned the rock faces and mountain peaks. In the distance Le Pic du Midi d’Ossau soared like a gargantuan reptile’s head, the slashed summit like a jaw gasping for air at nearly three thousand meters. The malevolent eye of the mountain stared heavenward, ignoring the puny human being on the valley floor.

Max checked the deep gullies above him. There was one couloir, a narrow chute formed by rocks at the top of a cliff, that whispered puffs of snowflakes. Max reasoned that they were due to an updraft of air twisting through the narrow crevices.

Everything seemed fine, but his instincts were prickling, warning him of something being not quite right. He had learned to follow those primal feelings when he was in Africa, where he had grappled with death and survived its swirling darkness. But now … What was it? What was wrong here? Still no sign of movement. The snow embedded the silence. Perhaps he was being overcautious; maybe he was still emotionally uneasy because of losing the competition. No, it was more than that—but he didn’t know what. He glanced down at his father’s watch and realized there was something he could salvage out of the failure.

It was a calculated risk, but he’d try and find Sayid’s beads.

Max took a final glance across the shimmering valley. Satisfied that all appeared to be safe, he eased his board down into the deep snow. Like crushed diamonds, it flurried away as he rode towards the tree line that Sayid had plowed through. Bending down and searching the lower branches,
Max spotted the dark shapes against the white backdrop. Draped like a forgotten Christmas-tree decoration, Sayid’s
misbaha
dangled from a branch. Max picked it up carefully and tucked the ninety-nine strung beads into the pocket of his ski jacket.

It was time to leave; to get Sayid out of the hospital; to pack their bags and go home.

A sudden blur of movement startled him so that he crouched quickly in anticipation of a perceived danger. Three hundred meters away a skier plunged from a high crevice; a black, billowing figure, he dropped ten meters or more, hit the snow with enormous skill and turned his skis in a furious dash across the face of the mountain.

It was one of the weirdest things Max had ever seen.

A bare-headed man, a monk, with a bushy gray beard. His shoulder-length hair streamed behind him, as thick and wild as a horse’s mane. He wore only a cassock, which flapped wildly as the air buffeted him, the hood acting almost like a drogue parachute behind his head. His concentration was so intense he glanced neither left nor right and didn’t see Max.

Moments later, dropping from the same couloir, was another figure. As bizarre as the monk had been, so this skier was menacing—like the Grim Reaper stalking his victim. Sleek, carbon-smooth through the snow, the second man was a phantom, a silent Fury. The only sound he made was that of his skis slashing the surface. Max could barely see him, for as the skier tore through the white shower, he seemed to disappear from view, before suddenly appearing another ten meters down the hill. The ski ghost wore a body-hugging, one-piece ski suit, black helmet and visor; even the skis were black. The
reason Max could not see him clearly was that his outfit was fragmented by a disruptive pattern, white shreds of crinkled lines, like the veins of a leaf. It was perfect snow camouflage.

Max hadn’t moved. The monk and his pursuer were level with his line of sight when the phantom, without losing a moment’s pace, lifted one arm quickly behind his neck, grabbed something and brought it forward. It was a rifle, camouflaged with black-and-white stripes, like those used by soldiers and marines for winter warfare. With a practiced, rapid movement he brought the rifle to his shoulder while still skiing at speed.

“No!” Max screamed, his yell echoing across the valley.

In an instant both skiers turned their faces in his direction, but the gunman was the first to react. He stopped in a shower of snow. The rifle never left his shoulder, and Max heard the frightening crack of the gunshot.

The monk floundered and, like a beginner on skis, seemed suddenly disjointed. He stayed upright, fighting the sudden loss of coordination. Max knew he had been hit. And he needed help. Max took off towards the wounded monk, crouching low on his board, his hand skimming the snow to balance his speed. He zigzagged in anticipation of a shot from the gunman, but it never came. Instead, a more frightening roar, like a massive wave breaking on the shore, swept over him.

The blast of ice-cold air hit his face. It seemed that the whole mountainside roared. The gunman executed a fast, sharp turn away from Max, the monk and the wall of snow thundering down towards him.

The wounded man looked right at Max. And pointed with a ski pole—the trees! They had to get below the trees if
they were to have any chance of survival. Max could see the escape route and the monk was already pushing downhill as hard as he could to outrun the mountain god’s wrath.

Max’s dad had always told him it was natural to be scared, that fear had a purpose and could be overcome. But what he hadn’t told him was that anything could be this terrifying.