Buried Alive! (7 page)

Nicky stiffened. “So? I say if he dies, it's justice.”

“I know, but…but can we really do that?”

“Watch me,” he spat. “I can do it easy.”

Ashley bit the edge of her lip. “Was Chaz a bad spy?”

“Yeah. Remember, I told you they were after me. You believed me, but Jack didn't. Right, Jack?” He cocked his head. “You thought I was full of it. What do you think now?”

Jack dropped his gaze. Of course it was true. He'd thought terrible things of Nicky, who had been telling the truth all along. It was hard to remember all those bad feelings, especially when Nicky was the one who'd pulled him from the snow. “I'm sorry I didn't trust you, Nicky,” he told him.

With a curt nod, Nicky said, “Apology accepted,” and held out his hand for Jack to shake. That effectively removed the arm from Ashley's shoulders, so with a smile, Jack shook hands.

The dogs' howls kept splitting the sky like sirens. “We gotta start digging,” Jack said, but when he tried to take a step his legs nearly buckled beneath him. He grabbed Ashley's arm to steady himself.

“Yeah, digging to save the dogs,” Nicky said.

“But how can we save the dogs and not the man?”

“That Chaz is a waste of skin!” Nicky fumed. Pointing toward trees that were still standing, he cried, “What if he's out there, watching, waiting for us?”

“And what if he's dying while we're arguing?” Jack shuddered as he remembered his own tomb of snow. “Can you live with that?”

“I can!” Nicky blazed. “Don't be stupid, Jack.” Turning toward Ashley, he asked, “You think I'm right, don't you? Don't you?”

“Ashley, Chaz is still a human being,” Jack said weakly. “We can tie him up with the dog harness—whatever you think is right. I just can't let a person suffocate in the snow.” But it was no use. From the look in Ashley's eyes he could tell she would do whatever Nicky suggested. The alliance had shifted. Jack would have to go it alone.

Turning on his heel, he headed toward the dogs' crescendo of yaps and cries. He knew that in some ways what he was about to do didn't make sense, and there was no doubt Nicky had every right to be vengeful. But at the end of the day, Jack would have to live with himself, so he had to try to save a life, even if it was an evil life. He paused as he tried to calculate the quickest path across the snowfield. Some of the snow was littered with debris, while other parts looked like white carpet.

Suddenly he felt his sister's hand on his elbow and saw that she was walking in tandem with him once again, her boots thumping lightly in the snow. “You can stay if you want, Nicky,” she called over her shoulder. “I'm going with Jack.”

“H
old up, I'm coming!” Nicky cried. “I don't like it, but I'm coming.”

“Good,” Ashley said. Ashley's smile irritated Jack. Hadn't his sister just sided with him? He'd been hoping Nicky would stay away but now, once again, they were three. Well, Jack had bigger problems to worry about than Nicky Milano. The howling of dogs rang through the air; in the distance Jack saw a dark shape that looked like an arm reaching up from a sinking ship. For a split second he thought it belonged to Chaz until he realized it was one of the dogs. Jack began to breathe again.

Sasha howled as if he'd been shot. “Don't worry, we're almost there!” Ashley cried.

“I still say we free the dogs and leave Chaz buried. Guys like him have nine lives,” Nicky said grimly. “Like in a horror movie, he'll come back. He's just too mean.”

The path of the avalanche, as wide as the length of a football field, ran from the very top of the mountain all the way to the creek bed and beyond. Although smooth slabs of snow had sheared off the mountain wall, the avalanche path was marbled with chunks that ranged in size from pebbles to grapefruit to bowling balls. Here and there Jack saw the scattered remains of trees, their broken limbs resting at crazy angles. An enormous force had been contained in that roaring mass of snow. It was as if a bomb had gone off—nature's bomb that had instantly swept everything in its path.

And yet, now that its fury was gone, the mountain seemed to have settled back to sleep. A mist churned by the avalanche hung in the air, muting colors of trees and sky as if they were covered with tissue paper. Every few seconds a stream of snow would break free from spruce needles, cascading in tiny chutes until the branches once again sprang toward the hidden sun. It would have been beautiful if it hadn't been so deadly. They pushed on, struggling through snow that seemed to grow thicker with each step.

“What time is it?” Jack asked.

Nicky jerked up his coat sleeve to check his watch. “Two thirty-six. I figure we were hit about 18 minutes ago. Which means—”

“We'd better go faster,” Ashley finished up. She didn't add what he knew they were all thinking, that if Chaz was under the snow, his time was quickly running out. “So come on!” she cried.

From the sound of the dogs, Jack could tell Chaz had made it to the farthest side of the path of the avalanche. If not for the huskies' cacophony, they would never have known how to find the sled. The yelps served as a beacon, drawing them to the site like a lighthouse drew ships.

“Do you think the dogs' noise'll cause another slide?” Ashley asked nervously.

“No. We're right in the path of the one that already fell. We'll be OK.” Jack looked into the remaining trees, and for a moment his heart jumped into his throat. There, perched in the thick foliage of a spruce tree, sat a boreal owl. From the mottled shadows, its large yellow eyes seemed to watch his every step. He must be getting jumpy, maybe because Nicky had mentioned horror movies and the owl looked eerie. Get a grip, he told himself. Odds were that Chaz lay buried with the sled. And yet, Jack and Ashley and Nicky had defied the same odds by escaping the snow's grasp. Maybe Chaz had, too.

The barking became deafening. The two lead dogs, Kenai and Sasha, had clawed a crater in the snow around them—a hole three feet deep and four feet wide. Still attached to the gang line, they frantically strained against their harnesses, but they were caught like flies in the web of neck line and tug line. A few harnesses lay empty on the ground, which meant, to Jack's relief, that some of the dogs must have escaped. When the dogs spotted them coming they became even more frenzied.

“You're safe, we're here now,” Ashley cooed to them. She immediately began trying to work them free from the tangles, soothing them with a steady stream of “hush now” and “you'll be free soon.” First she went to help Sasha, but another team dog was so panicked that it knocked Ashley flat. Rocking back up, she called out, “Whoa,” so loudly that they quieted for a moment before they surged around her again. Clearly, the dogs were terrified.

Nicky dropped to his stomach to peer into the hole the dogs had made, scooping out snow with his gloved hands. “Yo, don't look in here,” he called out to Ashley. “Some of the dogs didn't make it. There's at least two of them, maybe three bodies.”

“Are you sure they're dead?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Nicky replied. “I'm lookin' at 'em. I know what dead looks like.”

“Any sign of Chaz?”

“Nope.”

“Can you unhook the dead dogs from the line?”

“I think so. Give me a minute.”

Grunting as he worked, Nicky released some lines that Jack couldn't see. Then, fingering a carabiner clip that attached the main line to the front of the sled, he said, “Move back, guys. I'm going to free the line.”

“No—wait—” Jack cried, grabbing the blue lead, but Nicky had already squeezed the clip. Instantly, the line jerked through Jack's fingers, ripping a hole in the palm of his right glove. Ashley made a lunge for it, but the line wrenched through her hands. There was no way she could hold on. The other survivors broke free from the snow, barking furiously. They seemed to be trying to run in different directions until Kenai forged ahead, pulling the rest of them back into a ragged formation—like the V shape geese make when they fly through the sky. With Kenai in the forefront the dogs turned to race along the creek bed and disappeared behind a bend.

“You shouldn't have unclipped the whole line!” Jack told Nicky harshly. “We could have used the dogs to get back to Kantishna. Or at least we could have used them to stay warm. Now they're gone.”

“Never mind,” Ashley broke in. “Yelling doesn't help anything, not now. If we're going to look for Chaz, then you better dig.”

But first they had to pull out the bodies of the three dead dogs, a disheartening job. Only minutes earlier, those beautiful animals had been racing along the tundra, bursting with energy. Now they lay limp on the surface of the snow, with the life that had surged through their agile bodies extinguished forever. The eyes that had glowed with the joy of running now saw nothing; those muscles that had strained to leap ahead had become immobile. Cold. Dead. Finished. How fragile life could become, Jack thought, and how easily it could end. As he turned away from the mournful sight of the dead dogs, he realized what a miracle it had been that he and Ashley and Nicky had survived. It could have turned out differently…but there was no time to think about that. He had to dig.

The brush bow at the end of the sled protruded, just barely, from the pit, like the arc of a boomerang. Bend and dig, thrust away, dig again in snow that seemed to be congealing like concrete. “What time is it now?” Jack asked.

Nicky read the face of his watch. “Two forty-six.”

“That means Chaz has been under at least…28 minutes. He can't survive more than an hour down there.”

“A storm's coming in. I say we take care of us.”

“Yeah, well, we already know what you say, but Ashley and I think different, remember?” Jack's fingers were stiff from digging, and yet they'd barely made a dent in the snow around the basket. What if they uncovered Chaz's dead body? He shuddered at the thought. It had been harsh enough to deal with the three dead dogs. A deceased human would be infinitely worse. Jack had never seen a dead person, not ever, and he didn't much want to start now.

“If we're going to keep digging, we all need to help,” Nicky told him. He immediately dropped to his knees and started clawing at the tip of the sled. “Ashley, can you dig with one hand?”

“I could try, but my fingers are freezing!” She shook her bare hand like a rag. The skin on her right hand—the one that had no glove—was so red it looked scalded. Every few seconds she shoved it under her armpit.

“No, forget it—don't dig—just time us. Here, take my watch.”

Nicky pulled off his glove and slid his watch from his arm. “Catch,” he said, tossing it to Ashley. If things had been different, Jack would have given his sister one of his gloves to wear, but he had to dig. With no shovel or pick, hands were their only tools.

The snow that had felt like regular snow moments before was settling into the texture of cement. In his mind's eye, Jack saw Chaz, gasping for air against a wall of snow and ice. He clawed faster. More of the sled emerged, but no Chaz.

“Time!” Jack barked.

“Two fifty-eight,” Ashley cried. She tucked her hand beneath her armpit again, squeezing it to get the blood circulating.

“We've been at this at least ten minutes now, and we haven't even uncovered half the sled,” Jack said, scooping a great armful away from the basket. “This isn't working.”

Nicky looked smug. “Just like I thought. You wanna give up?”

“No. In Scouts I learned that after half an hour, the chances of getting out alive are fifty-fifty. After that—” He didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he began digging even harder until his own hands felt like blocks of ice. One of the laminated runners had emerged, like an archer's bow, then another. As more and more of the basket became exposed, Jack noticed a bag lashed down with straps. The bag might have survival stuff in it, and that was good. Still, no Chaz.

Nicky straightened and rolled his shoulders all the way back, planting his hands on his hips. “Do you think he's even close to the sled? So far we've come up with nada. No hat, no glove, no sign of him. Couldn't he be, like, somewhere else around here?”

“I—I don't know.” The thought, although obvious, suddenly hit Jack squarely in the face. Of course Chaz didn't have to be on the sled, or even near it. He hadn't been belted to it. The wall of snow that had come crashing down certainly might have separated Chaz from the sled. The truth was, Chaz could be almost anywhere, dead or alive. Jack looked around at the empty field of snow that seemed to stretch for miles. Finding him would be like searching for a minnow in the ocean.

With the clock ticking and no clue as to where Chaz might be, Jack knew he should give up. But that was exactly what Nicky was hoping for, and that fact alone kept him going. Hoisting himself to his knees, then his feet, Jack picked up one of the broken branches from the ground and snapped off the remaining twigs. While Nicky watched incredulously, Jack pushed the branch into the snow the way he'd seen rescuers shove poles when they searched for avalanche victims on TV. Prodding all around the sled, thrusting hard to get the branch into the thickening snow, he felt nothing. Poke, poke, poke. The stick left behind a pattern of holes.

“Oh come on, that's not going to work,” Nicky chided. “It'd take you all day just to hit a tenth of the avalanche field. Another waste of time.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Nicky frowned, but didn't answer.

“Ashley, what time is it now?” Jack asked.

“Three o seven,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide, so wide Jack could see the whites all around them. “He's been buried in the snow 49 minutes. What should we do?”

Shielding his eyes with one hand, Nicky made a full turn, searching the snowfield as Jack had done. “OK, I'm going to call it. If he's buried, he's gone. If he isn't buried, he could be anywhere out there, and poking the snow with a stick is worthless. We did it your way, Jack, but now we have our own problems. Look at the sky.”

Jack's eyes snapped up. He hadn't really noticed the dark clouds descending like a sheet, but they were rolling in ominously.

“Face it,” Nicky went on, “this whole idea was boneheaded from the start, which I tried to tell you! But you can't admit it when you're wrong, can you, Boy Scout? Listen to me, Ashley. I say we should start walking back along the creek bed. We can follow the sled tracks right back to Kantishna.”

“That's suicide! We'll never make it there before dark,” Jack fired back. “Walking off unprepared is the worst thing we can do. The three of us should pull that duffel bag out of the sled, then make a shelter and stay put. That storm's moving in fast.”

“So you admit we wasted good time looking for Chaz. We could have been on our way.”

“I'm not wrong about this! And my sister isn't going anywhere with you!”

“Stop it!” Ashley's voice rang across the snow, clear and loud. The fear had melted from her face, and her eyes looked hot. Lifting her chin, she said, “You guys have been at it since we got to Denali, and I'm so tired of it. Stop! Do you hear me? Just stop!” She stood tall, and Jack suddenly realized she wasn't a little kid anymore—she looked like a real person to be reckoned with. “We can't do this. Not now. You have to quit being so stupid! OK, Jack?”

“OK, Jack?” Once again, he felt the equation between himself and his sister shifting, like snow crumbling off the mountainside. So Ashley was siding with Nicky—again! A feeling Jack couldn't name surged through him—it wasn't jealousy, exactly. No, it was like water slipping though your fingers when you wanted to hold on, to keep life exactly where it had always been. Jack still wasn't ready to share his sister, especially not with Nicky Milano.

Ashley turned. “OK, Nicky?”

Nicky looked startled. Jack felt a surge of satisfaction.

“What is wrong with you two?” she went on. “You're at each other when a human being that was alive an hour ago is trapped under a wall of snow. That's the kind of stuff that's important. Life. Death. The rest is stupid. You're both stupid.” Turning away from them, she muttered, “Guys can be so dumb.”

For a moment neither one of them said a word. Nicky bowed his head, frowning a little, his hands clasped in front of him while Jack shifted uneasily. She was right, and both of them knew it. It was embarrassing to be brought up short by his little sister. Nicky seemed to feel the same way.