WINTER

I swagger into the locker room, still wrapped in my coat, hat, and scarf, clutching a somewhat bedraggled book in my right hand. Upon reaching my locker, I throw it down with a manly smirk.

He is still there, sitting, with an expressionless face, exactly the way he always has. Exactly the way I remember him.

So, what do you have there? he asks kindly, but his voice sounds a little edgy, and I can honestly say I do not want to speak to him, so I toss him the book and pray a page doesn’t fall out.

Winter Camping, by Bob Cary, he reads. He looks up at me and I look down.

I do not want to look him in the eye.

He continues reading silently to himself, but his lips articulate the words so precisely I think I can almost hear them.

So, planning on doing a little winter camping yourself, boy?

The captain is talking to him.

He tosses the book back at me and I catch it awkwardly, still trying to take off my accoutrements. I do a bit of a nod and self-gesturing when he and the captain both look at me, then I turn inwards to my locker and put the book on the shelf, face up. The cross-country skier depicted on the cover shuffles on through the snow in his infinite calm.

I did bring the book in just to show him up.

But now I feel that I do have to go.

Another break in our season comes about a week later, four days without games. I plead to the coach that I need some time off, and he grudgingly grants it. I read Winter Camping from cover to cover, digest the information, and buy the requisite equipment.

I do get a permit before I go this time. Any more encounters with the ranger folk and I’d go completely insane.

I drive north and feel grateful that it is not snowing. The sky is not blue, but clouded over, and the ever-present worry of snow blindness dissipates for a moment. I touch my sunglasses perched on top of my head.

I reach the parking lot, the same place I’ve seen in spring and summer and autumn, cleared of snow now. I show the permit to the on-duty ranger and shove it in my wallet, then return to the car. I don the snowshoes and strap the cross-country sled to my waist. I take a few steps and know the ranger is watching me.

Then I shuffle off onto the trail.

The little bit of practice I’ve done in snowshoes is not enough, and it takes me almost five hours to cover what I’ve previously done in two and a half. The rolling gait causes me to trip over myself a few times and plunge face-first into the snow, the sled behind me making sure that I don’t get just a mild tumble. I have to stop and rest often, my thighs ache already.

Once I’ve reached the campsite, I sit gratefully and think about pitching the tent. Recalling my studying, I stamp around the site and find a suitable place to set up the tent, pull together the site, and rest for a minute.

Wind whips through the site, undaunted and unstopped by any sort of foliage. I realize that I’m not very cold, but still I pull my balaclava a little tighter and survey the site once more.

It’s getting close to dark, and dark means it will get still colder. Once I realize this, I snap back and realize that I need to think about dinner, which means building a fire. I clear a spot, get some tinder, and slowly build up the flames.

My mind again goes back to high school English. I can still remember my teacher’s droning voice and the smell of the Jack London paperback on my desk. The teacher loudly and slowly orates on the symbols of “To Build A Fire”, and I half-listen while daydreaming about camping.

Here I am. To build a fire.

Slowly it catches and I start to feed larger pieces of wood into it. The temperature rises as I set up the metal cooking tripod over it, and I like the feeling of warmth. I dig through my sled’s packing and come up with boil-in-bag food and a few other things that will suit for my dinner. I cook and eat.

It’s nothing extraordinary, but in the winter woods the dark is darker and somehow more ominous. I recall stories I’ve heard, stories I’ve read, about vengeful wood spirits, screaming winter winds, the unearthly, and link them all together. At once I am terrified, and the fear and adrenaline courses through my body.

I want as I have never wanted before, a warm body beside me and a human voice that speaks. I open my mouth to shout for help, and then realize with a sickening shudder that I am alone, more so than I have ever been or felt.

Quickly, urgently, I douse the fire and bury it in snow, wait a moment in the sudden darkness to make sure no smoke escapes, and dive for the tent. I thank myself for placing essentials in there when I set it up. My clothes are dried from the fire and transferred to where they’ll keep, and I’m set for sleep.

But sleep eludes me, my recalcitrant body refuses to calm down. I clutch myself and turn over in the mummy bag, cursing myself for going alone.

People die this way, I think. Alone, frozen to death, after a stupid idea that leads them down the road to hypothermia. They die for want of warmth, of a companion.

Want of a companion. Die of heartache in the soul and hypothermia in the body, all in one shot.

I turn over again.

Want of love?

I shift.

Can’t be, things don’t happen that way any more. People don’t pine away and die any more, especially for people they don’t love.

Uncomfortably, I see his eyes, his face, and long for the warmth of his body.

No, I don’t. I correct myself. I want the warmth of any body, it stands for comfort in a long cold night where the wind is screaming above your head and—damn, I realize that I’m still a little bit in love with him.

No. I’m not. I recall the way he treated me and how I acted around him, how there was no kind of attraction.

I spend the rest of the night convincing myself, convincing and convincing until I fall asleep.

In spite of a night spent worried and nearly sleepless, I manage to rise early and get myself together. I check the thermometer I’ve slung outside the tent, and it reads ten below. Not bad, I think. I pray the wind won’t rise.

I know what I’m going to do today. I’ve been planning it for almost months. I eat, pack together the essentials, and put on my snowshoes. I begin the long hike as I’ve begun it before, ignoring the aches in my legs from the day before.

I walk and walk and walk, mostly uphill, with a few flat spaces that save me from certain death. Once or twice I stop and rest, close my eyes and thank the makers of my sunglasses. Even with them, it’s horribly bright and hard to see, but I’ve walked the trail so many times in memory that I feel I know it well.

I reach the ridge on drifts, and take a deep breath before opening my eyes. The scene, the rolling mountains and valleys, are now heavily coated with snow, sparkling pure and white as far as the eye can see. The sky is painfully, harshly blue, and contrasts with the white snow so that it may as well be black.

Risking my eyes, I take off the sunglasses, and the view immediately triples in clarity. I can see individual trees here and there that haven’t quite been inundated, mostly pines and spruces, and their comforting green soothes my eyes. I rotate, as I always do, looking down at the sharp drop made sharper from the ice; to the woods, looking soft and dark and somehow warm, though I know the temperature is far below freezing; and that observation tower that clears the treetops. It’s drifted over now with snow, and I have the sense to stay away from it or plunge to a painful death, but still I wander close and touch it.

The crunch of snow beneath my snowshoes still makes me happy, when all else has failed. It’s either that or the view from this ridge. I know that it is closed; I know that it is hazardous. I can’t stop myself, have to feed the addiction that comes from the unknown end to the trail.

The observation tower is hardly visible, except for a few spots where the rusting metal juts out menacingly. I grab it with a gloved hand, know it creaks, but can’t hear the sound muffled by the ice. I turn again and look at the tracks my snowshoes have made, the webs crossing over and over each other in a delicate snow-lacy pattern.

I surprise myself with my sudden turn and hike back into the woods, double-time, as I always hike when returning to the site. It’s harder—much harder—on snowshoes.

Frantically, I break camp and pack it all together onto the sled—the tent, the cooking tripod, everything that I’ve set up. Cram it together onto the sled and a few things on my back, and set off on the main trail. I realize with a start that I’ve never gone any further on the main trail, all I know of it is that it connects the campsites. I’ve seen its length on the map in the ranger’s office; it’s quite long.

Almost deserted in winter, too. I occasionally stop and look at my watch to gauge how far I’ve gone, and how fast. Almost three miles in two hours, and I realize I need to stop for something to eat. I do so and continue to do a half-run on my shoes, ignoring the pain in my thighs.

At last I see some form of human habitation—a screaming-yellow and blaze-orange tent in a campsite shrouded with snow.

Hello there! I call cheerfully. I want to talk to someone after last night. I need to talk to someone after last night.

A tall, gangly, blond figure crawls out of the shockingly-colored tent and stares at me. I feel like I know him, but do not recognize him. Blond, tall, and thin, dark eyes that glare out of a craggy face.

What do you want? he growls.

How long have you been camping here? I maintain a somewhat cheerful face.

Two weeks.

Two weeks? I repeat, astonished. That’s quite a bit of time.

Ayuh.

How much longer are you staying? I continue.

Long as I can hold out.

There’s a long pause in the conversation while he stares at me sharply. I look around his campsite, note the cross-country skis stuck into the snow, the poles next to them, a shining hatchet lying on a pile of freshly-cut firewood, his cooking tripod and smoke from the fire trailing upwards.

So, then, good luck to you, sir! I call, and begin to continue on my way. He stops me.

Hey, you.

I turn back.

Yes?

You’re one of them hockey players, aren’tcha? he smirks. I am suddenly ashamed of my occupation.

Uh, yes, I am.

Seen your picture in them New York papers, boy.

Yes?

Just saying that I seen you before.

Alarmed, I shuffle off into the white void faster than ever. My imagination fills in the mocking sound of his laughter behind me. I hope that it’s my imagination.

It takes me hours, but I reach a site at last that meets all my requirements—close to unfrozen water, far from the only other camper I’ve seen. I set up camp, eat, and crawl into my tent before I have time to frighten myself again.

But still the thoughts return. Why did he tell me that? How does he know me? Why? Why is he even here? Why do I feel threatened? Why am I so scared? I shouldn’t be…

I shouldn’t be.

I wake up even before sunrise the next morning, hurry to dress, eat, pull on the webs, and start walking. The bindings creak a little as they warm up, and then all I can hear is the way the snow squeaks a little and my own breathing, frosting over my facemask.

I feel that if I don’t hike as hard and as fast as I can, everything will overtake me and I will die. I would die.

So I walk, hike, sometimes run, sometimes stop. The wind picks up,

Several more follow it, crazily dropping from the sky, and even through my muddled head I realize that I need to either go back to my site or build a snow cave. Stupidly, I continue walking, even through the snow, which is continually escalating.

I struggle to keep on the trail, where the wind has become like a living creature, impossible to fight against. Placing each snowshoe forward is like running a marathon; the wind takes the breath from my lungs.

Like a miracle, I make it to the top of the current hill and shout. The wind spirals my words and carries them away, I catch my breath and shout again, but nothing leaves me lips.

The wind abates for a half a second, a whole second, a second and a half, two seconds. It passes like centuries, and I feel myself moan. I whisper a prayer not to die.

My prayers are answered, because I see a brightly colored flash down in the woods. Bright red. A tent. My legs move entirely of their own accord as I crunch down the slope, hollering. Momentary fleeting fantasias of my being killed and possibly eaten by an insane axe murderer fly away at the thought of being safe.

At least if you’re dead, you can’t die. I reach the site and nearly trip into a cooking-fire hole dug in the snow. I stand in front of the tent and yell.

Oh, God, someone help me.

The flap unzips and someone looks out.

Who the hell are you? he yells, then shakes his head. Come in.

I gratefully crawl inside and begin to peel off my outerwear, and my benefactor drapes it around the stove, where a kettle of water is boiling.

You want a cup of coffee? Something to eat? He gives me a blanket and I curl inside it, accepting the piping hot coffee.

I—oh, Jesus. His voice sounds shocked to the core, and I self-consciously look at myself. None of me has turned black and fallen off yet, so I assume I look a little quizzical.

What? What is it?

He stares blankly at me.

Are you all right?

You’re famous.

I think for a minute and stare into my coffee. I’m not really all that famous, hardly famous at all. But two people have noticed me. In the space of two days, in the deserted woods. Where I go to be by myself.

Would I trade my fame, success, for freedom? For escape from my brain that is an endless hell? I know that my decision lies in only staying in the warmth or venturing back outside, even unto death over that ridge. Soar and then a fall into that feather-white abyss.

In the depths of winter, I learned there was in me an invincible summer. Albert Camus.