Andrew Gross - One Mile Under

Then there was Kyle. His boy from Wade’s first marriage. Came back from Afghanistan missing a leg and an arm, and his brain rattling around in his head like loose change. What did they expect him to do in life? And who was going to take care of him? His mom was down in Florida somewhere. Working on a cruise ship, last he heard. Kyle was still rehabbing in a VA hospital in Denver, where he’d been for two years. Learning to eat peas with that new bionic hand they’ve given him. Basically the same age as this kid, Trey.

Kyle had maybe five, six more months and then he was out. Who was going to watch out for him? What with the government cutting back benefits every day, and all the mess with the VA hospitals. Wade went down once a week to see him. Someone was going to have to help him in life. Pay for the kind of van to get him around, or retrofit his house to make it easy to live there. And all those bloody therapists …

“Wade.”

Dave Warrick came up from behind and put a hand on Wade’s shoulder. “Just letting you know, I closed down the river to traffic for the next few days. Until we get this fully figured out. I called into Denver.” The Roaring Fork was in a state park. “Parks Service’ll be sending someone around just to make sure.”

Dave ran the Pitkin County sheriff’s force in Aspen now. Wade’s old position. They had jurisdiction here. He was nice enough. Wasn’t his fault his old boss had been mixing bourbon and OxyContin he’d stolen from his own evidence locker. That had taken every friend Wade had left to get behind him. Not to mention every dollar too.

Wade agreed. “Seems like the right move, Dave.”

“I think you know the family, don’t you?”

“His wife’s.” Wade nodded. “He was from up north somewhere, I think. Maybe from around Greeley.”

“I took a statement from Dani. She said the kid was quite the rider.”

Wade shrugged. “Who knows what he was trying to do. Flips, three-sixties. These kids all watch Shaun White and think they’re him, minus the red hair. Doesn’t matter what they’re riding.”

“I hear you. So you want me to go with you? To see his wife. These things are never easy. Never hurts to have someone along.”

“Thanks.” Dave never used his new position to make Wade feel smaller than he was. “But after twelve years in AA, telling people how their life is about to come tumbling down on them, I think that’s one job I’m equipped to do these days.”

“Well, let me know if I can help.” They stood on the rock, looking. “Just seems like a big fat waste of a life to me.” The Aspen police chief shook his head. “Funny, isn’t it?”

“What?”

Warrick shrugged. “How it was Dani that found him …?”

“Chief, can you come over here …” One of the troopers interrupted them. Dave and Wade both turned, but it was Warrick they were calling. They were getting set to load the body into the van.

“As I said, let me know if I can help, okay …” Dave patted Wade on the shoulder. “I’ll be in touch when we have something back from medical.”

“Thanks.”

Funny … What was funny was that for twenty years, Wade felt like his life was running down his own set of rapids. Lying to everybody. Hiding what he’d done. Losing his wife. Then his town. Knowing one will capsize you in the end, just like Trey here.

Charles Alan Watkins III. Sounds like some judge somewhere. Wade watched them load the body. You can only make it through so long, right? Riding through life that way. Without a helmet. That’s the truth.

Wade scratched his head and headed back to his car.

He knew sure as anything, one time he wouldn’t make it out of those rapids, either.

There was a kind of memorial gathering that night at the Black Nugget, the bar in Carbondale where a lot of the river riders and top skiers hung out. A few of them had already gone over to the house and paid their respects to Allie. No one could believe what happened: the bottom of the Cradle getting the best of someone like Trey. Everyone agreed that it had to have happened farther upstream, like at the Falls or Slingshot, and the current carried him down. That was the only way anyone could see it.

Allie told a few people that her husband had gone out the previous night. A friend of his from the shop was getting married and a bunch of the guys took him to Justice Snow’s, a bar in Aspen, for shooters and kamikazes. Apparently he made it back home around midnight. Allie said maybe he was a little tipsy when he came to bed, but in the morning he was up at half past six pumped to catch a run or two before work. All that new water out there, two thousand cubic feet per second. “Be back before nine, hon,” he said and gave her a kiss.

Same ol’ Trey.

At the bar, a bunch of them were still sitting around after nine P.M., going through their favorite Trey stories. His good friend Rudy was there, whom he’d ski off-terrain with for years. And John Booth, a paragliding instructor and sometime river guide, and his girlfriend, Simone. Alexi, a ski rep, and couple of others sat around, everyone trading stories and pitching in for beers. Dani was on her third Fat Tire. Rudy was telling one how he and Trey were once skiing out of bounds behind Highlands, trying to map out some new terrain for a Warren Miller film.

“The snow was pretty loose back there. The mountain had issued an avalanche alert, but Trey said the powder seemed pretty firm. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘Roots, you and I can outski whatever comes down that mountain. Look at it,’ he said, talking about all the fresh powder. ‘It’s once-a-season quality, Roots. One hundred percent pure.’”

“That was Trey,” said Alexi, lifting his drink.

“That was Trey, pre -Allie,” John Booth clarified.

“Totally pre-Allie,” Dani said. “Post-Allie, Trey wouldn’t even cut to the front of a lift line.”

“You got that right,” John’s girlfriend, Simone, said.

“So we’re zooming down this fall line,” Rudy went on, “and Trey’s ripping down the slope at full speed, eight feet of air at a time. I’m just doing my best to keep up, maybe twenty yards behind. And suddenly the ground shakes and I hear this rumble … I look behind and it’s this wall of white coming at me from the summit. I didn’t even have a second to react. Only to think to myself, Okay, Roots, this is the day that you die! It just slammed into me and took me away. I figured I’m gonna hit some tree at a hundred miles per hour or be buried under ten feet of snow, and Trey and I are goners. Finally it stops. I’m completely covered up. Not a sound. No one around. I don’t even know which way is up. I’m yelling, trying to make an air pocket around me and I got my GPS, but who knows if Trey’s got his. Or if he’s in the same boat. I’m pretty scared, but I’m also so f-ing mad at him for dragging me down there. I still had one of my poles and I’m jamming it in the direction I think up is, screaming holy hell, trying to show anyone around I was there.

“Suddenly, I hear someone calling my name. ‘Roots. Roots? Are you there?’ Guess who? I’m going, ‘ I’m here! I’m right fucking here, you sonovabitch. You’re alive!’ I’m jerking my pole around like this.” Rudy thrust his two arms in all directions.

“So he’s standing right above me. Trey, bless his soul. I’m going, ‘Get me out of here! Get me out!’” The sonovabitch has got to hear me. Then I hear, ‘Listen, dude, I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I gotta meet someone at Starbucks. I’m gonna head back up to the lodge for a bit. Hey, you want a latte, man? I’ll bring one back for you. You like yours with or without froth …?’ I’m screaming, ‘Get me out!’ I start jerking the pole around. I wanted to kill him. Suddenly I break through. Turns out I was only about two feet under. He said he could see my boots the whole time. Who the hell knew …”