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Chapter 17: Pursuit

Maggy looked back, and forward again, mashing her thumb on the throttle. The engine screamed, the sled fishtailed a bit, and we settled into a lope on the gentle downslope.

"This is as fast as we can go in this stuff," she shouted. "How are we doing back there?"

I watched the two snowmobiles and couldn't gauge their speed. So I checked my watch against landmarks. Against one rock outcrop we had a two minute lead. A few minutes later it was 1:45.

"We're losing, Maggy! Are we too heavy?"

"They're in our trackm" she said. Of course. We were breaking trail for our pursuers. They probably had ten miles an hour on us. Over the next fifteen minutes they swept steadily closer, until I could see it was Tug Moran on the lead sled. Then he was lost to view on the straights, hidden behind our snow plume.

"I wish we'd seen them before we crossed the cornice," I said. "We could have nailed them with the avalanche."

"They're not going to be able to pull out even with us without leaving the track," Maggy said.

"Even so, they can overtake us if they're carrying less weight," I said. "They'll ride higher in the snow."

"You'd better do something to slow them down."

I opened my parka and used my knife to cut a long narrow strip of cloth from my turtleneck, and a big square from my wool shirt. Then I spun around on the seat and, bracing my knees against the grab bar, went to work on the jerry can. I stuffed the long strip of knit cotton into the mouth of the can, passed the free end through the narrow end of the oil can funnel and coiled it there. I corked everything in place with pieces of wadded wool. Then, while the gasoline wicked its way up the cloth fuse, I threaded my 9mm rope through a couple of holes in the funnel and tied a bowline around the jerry can handle. It felt like a solid connection, so I belayed the other end of the rope to the grab rail.

I used a fuse igniter from the avvy pack to light off the gas-damp wick. It flared up satisfyingly, and I cast loose the bungee cord and jettisoned the can. By paying out the rope steadily I hoped to drag the molotov cocktail under Tug's sled. I hoped he would reach the bomb at just about the time it lit off, and I hoped the snow wouldn't knock off the funnel, with the fuse protected inside it.

It didn't work out quite that way. The can exploded someplace back behind us, hidden in our snow plume. It made a huge thunderclap and a geyser of snow billowed out in all directions, sparkling in the morning sun like a million flying prisms. We left the slowly dispersing snowcloud behind; I reeled in my shredded rope. Nothing emerged from the cloud.

"Well?" asked Maggy. She glanced back.

"Shit, watch the trail. I slowed them. I may not have stopped them, but I definitely slowed them down."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I didn't see arms and legs and pieces of snowmobile flying through the air, but I'll bet Tug drove full speed into a great big crater."

"Way to go, bomber."

"Yeah. But just in case they keep coming, let's stop when it gets steeper and I'll ski down. That'll give them two tracks to follow and lighten you up so you can make better speed."

As the terrain grew steeper, the trail started its switchback dance down into the forest. I checked behind us for signs of pursuit. Nothing yet. Maggy came off the gas and we coasted to a stop. I pulled the skis off the rack and got into the bindings.

"If you follow the trail it will bring you out to the roadhead in about five miles," I said. "The road will be snowpacked, and you'll have no trouble cruising on down toward town. I'll ski straight down to the road and you'll see me along the way someplace."

"Be careful. There may be cliffs down there."

"There are cliffs down there. I can go over them. If we're lucky the boys will follow me."

"Why would they follow you, and not me?"

"They want us, but they want the skis more. The skis are the only proof of what Bester's been up to. The insides are dusted with cocaine residue."

"Oh."

"I love you. Be careful."

"I love you," she said. "Don't do anything stupid."

"But I'm good at stupid." We kissed and I pointed down the trail. "Go. Here they come."

And here they came, both big men on one snowmobile whining tinnily in the wilderness. I couldn't see who was driving but the other guy leaned on his shoulder, trying to steady a rifle in our direction.

"Holy shit," said Maggy, and dug a ig divot in the snow as she roared off down the trail. I began high-stepping through the new snow, trying to get up some glide speed before I reached the woods.

By the time they found the parting of our tracks, I was the closer target, and they veered to follow me. As I gained speed I began to cut irregular turns between the aspens. The accelerating whine of the sled grew closer, punctuated by sharp cracks from the rifle.

The forest thickened. Ignoring the leg pain, I now skied the fall line as straight as they allowed, bouncing to clear deadfall and picking the narrowest clearances between trees. I could slip through where the snowmobile couldn't. Bursting between two small firs, I found myself airborne, and landed thirty feet downslope in the deep snow sheltered in the vee of a steep gulley.

It was perfect. I pipelined down the draw, banking turns up the sides and plunging deep in the fluff. If the cocaine twins dared follow between the firs, they'd never make the drop upright. They'd be floundering out of here on foot for the next two hours. Thirty turns down the draw I stopped under a big spruce and looked back.

Only my own tracks came down the gulley. From high above, the sound of a snowmobile engine laboring in heavy snow filtered through the trees. And receded.

They were traversing. They would follow Maggy's track after all.

Now that she was lighter, Maggy had the faster rig. But she was still breaking trail and if they followed her track they had a chance to overtake her. And they had firepower.

I skied the fall line. I cleared small cliffs and big outcrops, surfed long gulleys filled with down. It was wonderful skiing, magnificent skiing, steep, deep, thrilling skiing. If I hadn't been scared to death for Maggy, it might have been the best run of my life.

Powder snow imposes a speed limit. You can point your skis straight downhill and plane close to the surface, but you won't go more than 25 miles per hour. Twenty-five is plenty fast in the woods, with solid lumber passing your shoulders every second or so, and pine boughs whipping your face. Marco hadn't gone into his tree well powered by gravity alone, but I might. I pushed to the speed limit and stayed there, just following where the terrain took me.

Eventually it took me out of the trees and I could see the road below. Unplowed yet this morning, it was visible because the early sunlight threw the old berms into relief. No power lines or telephone poles came this far northeast from Crested Butte - the lines ended at a small cluster of buildings a mile off to the right, toward town.

I headed straight down the knoll and dropped into a tuck, hoping for enough speed to carry me a little way across the meadow and closer to the road - I needed to be there so Maggy could spot me as she came high-tailing off the mountain.

The powder lay too deep. As soon as the terrain leveled out I ran out of steam and settled to a stop. That left me high-stepping again, breaking trail at a walking pace but burning the energy of a dead run. I didn't have the reserves. I needed to stop and breathe, to eat, drink and sleep. But I poured onward, muscles burning as I forced the snow under my skis. If only I could harness the cocaine power these skis once contained!

It didn't matter. When the snowmobiles whined into sight along the road, they moved sedately, and together. Side by side.