Part 4: The Fury of the Ridge
The roar lasted for what felt like an eternity, a deafening, terrifying sound that filled the cabin until the glass vibrated and the tin cups rattled off the shelves. Toby and Tess screamed, throwing themselves into Maeve’s arms as the world seemed to tilt beneath their feet. Maeve held them tight, her eyes locked on the window, watching the massive cloud of white powder billow up into the sky like the smoke of a great explosion.
When the sound finally died away, the silence that followed was absolute. The mountain felt dead.
Maeve didn't hesitate. She knew where Gideon’s traps were located—he had shown her on a rough piece of leather map he kept by the mantle, just in case he ever failed to return. The path took him straight through the narrow gulley at the base of the eastern peak. The very gulley that was now buried under twenty feet of suffocating white death.
“Listen to me,” Maeve said, her voice dropping into a fierce, commanding tone that surprised even herself. She looked at Toby, grabbing his small shoulders. “You are the man of this house right now, Toby. You keep your sister by the fire. You keep this hearth burning. Do you understand me? If the fire goes out, you both die. I am going to find your father.”
Toby’s face was white, but he nodded fiercely. “I’ll keep it burning, Maeve. I swear.”
Maeve grabbed Gideon’s heavy iron snow shovel from the lean-to, wrapped her blanket around herself, and ran into the blinding white wilderness.
The air was so cold it felt like inhaling broken glass. The trail was completely obliterated, replaced by a chaotic landscape of shattered pines and massive, jagged blocks of hardened snow. Maeve stumbled, fell, crawled, and stood up again, her lungs screaming for air as she forced her way toward the gulley.
She called his name until her voice was gone, nothing but a raspy whisper against the wind. “Gideon! Gideon!”
There was no answer.
She reached the edge of the avalanche zone. The beautiful, quiet forest had been replaced by a scene of utter devastation. Trees had been snapped like toothpicks, their raw splintered wood weeping frozen sap.
Then, she saw it.
A tiny scrap of canvas coat, protruding from beneath a massive slab of packed snow near the base of a fallen pine.
Maeve let out a strangled cry and threw herself onto her knees, digging furiously with the iron shovel. The snow was hard as ice, resisting her blows, but she struck it with a primal, desperate strength. Her hands, already raw, blistered and bled against the rough wooden handle of the shovel.
“Gideon!” she sobbed, throwing chunks of white powder behind her. “You can't die! You paid seventy dollars for me! You can't leave us!”
She dug for thirty minutes, her muscles burning, her vision blurring with exhaustion. Finally, the shovel struck something solid and soft. She dropped the tool and used her bare hands, clawing away the remaining crust until she uncovered Gideon’s face.
He was blue. His eyes were closed, his dark beard crusted with ice. A massive, fallen branch had pinned his legs, trapping him beneath the snow before the air could run out.
Maeve pressed her ear to his chest.
A faint, slow thud. He was alive, but his heartbeat was fading like a dying ember.
Using the shovel as a lever, Maeve strained against the heavy log that pinned his legs. She screamed with the effort, her spine popping, her teeth grinding until her mouth tasted of copper. With a final, agonizing heave, the log shifted just enough. She grabbed Gideon under his arms—his massive, heavy frame nearly pulling her down into the snow—and dragged him out of the grave.
He was too heavy to carry. She knew she could never carry him up the steep slope back to the cabin.
But Maeve wasn't the same girl who had left Red Creek in a thin cotton dress. The mountain had hardened her, shaped her, given her a fierce, unyielding iron in her bones.
She unfastened the long, heavy canvas straps of his own pack-sled, which had broken loose near his body. With agonizing effort, she rolled his massive frame onto the sled, securing him with the ropes. Then, she took the leather lead-line, wrapped it twice around her bleeding palms, bent her head against the biting wind, and began to pull.
Every step was a crucifixion. The rope bit deep into her flesh, her boots slipped on the hidden ice, and the weight of the man behind her felt like the weight of the mountain itself. She fell to her knees a dozen times, her forehead touching the frozen crust, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw the faces of Toby and Tess waiting by the window.
May you like
She pulled. One inch. One foot. One agonizing yard at a time.
When she finally reached the cabin door, the sun was sinking below the ridge, painting the snow in shades of blood and violet. She threw her body against the door, collapsing into the warm room, dragging the sled halfway inside before her strength finally failed her completely, and the darkness took her.
