Harmon stopped clicking the walkie's button, not knowing for how long he had been drowning out the response to his distress signal with its hypnotic repetition. His hand froze -- not literally, not yet -- and waited for the complete response. He caught just the tail end of it, "ccess... stay... warm." A pause, and then the message started again. "Trapd... in... lodge... seeking... roof... access... stay... warm."
Easy for them to say. Harmon listened to the sequence several times through before he thought to question exactly who it was that was responding to him. Not that he'd never had a walkie exchange with either Dale or Glenda before, but it seemed a little, well, sophisticated for them. This seemed to be a message from someone who was well-acquainted with Morse code. Unless those two had been studying up without him noticing.
But that was ridiculous. He would have known about it if they had. He had a better idea of what was going on at that lodge than anyone else conceivably could. That was most of the reason Jimmy kept him on, to be the Deertail's eyes and ears, so to speak. Or maybe Jimmy Gough knew more about what was going on at his lodge than he let on. Was it mere coincidence that the director had taken this particular weekend to head off for Florida?
Harmon sighed. It would be an interesting question to ponder while he was waiting to be rescued, or while his internal clock wound down to final stillness, whichever was going to happen now. But he should at least acknowledge that he had received the response. He tapped a flurry of arrhythmic clicks until the person on the other end stopped transmitting, and then sent back a simple "OK". The letter pair was parroted back to him, followed by "5 min".
So they were telling Harmon that he didn't need to continuously send out his original message, but that he should send updates every five minutes. Like he had a watch to time these things...
The more he shook off his initial sense of confusion and pain, the more of his situation he was able to understand. He was half-buried in snow, with at least a broken ankle, in the protective shelter of a fallen tree that was buried under more snow. Could be worse, he supposed. But the issue of figuring out where he was remained. A possible solution to this problem had been in the back of his mind ever since he regained consciousness, but he had been reluctant to consider it.
Truthfully, he had been thinking about it ever since his pins had started talking to him that evening. The only time they had ever rung as badly was a few days before Jimmy had called him into the director's office and asked him to take a seat.
Harmon had sat there for a long time -- this had been what, close to ten years ago? -- watching Jimmy shuffling papers around on his desk and in general making him sweat. He had been sure that the next words out of the tidy young man's mouth would be that Harmon had to clear out and leave, that he'd had enough of him bumming a ride from someone up the mountain every morning and hanging around, practically begging for handouts of drinks, food, company, whatever was offered from the paying customers (even the occasional surreptitious bong hit in some snowboarder's room). It was too good of an arrangement to last, of course, and Harmon was already starting to wonder where else he could go. He wasn't going to stay down in Mrs. Handy's boardinghouse all day, that was for sure, waiting for his savings to dry up.
Jimmy Gough finally spoke. "You enjoy it here, don't you, Harmon?"
Harmon nodded, willing to go through the patronizing rigmarole if that was what it took to get this over with amicably. "Sure. Lovely place."
Jimmy tented his fingers and looked over the desk at him. The man was dressed as usual, like an accountant at his waterfront house on the weekend, but acted like a Fortune 500 CEO. "I want to discuss last week's incident with the lift."
Harmon tensed. "Oh, that," he said. "I was heading back from the slope, and I heard this noise coming from the mechanism housing. I told Terry he should look at it, that's all."
Jimmy leaned forward a little. "That's the thing, though. Did Terry tell you what he found when he looked at the motor?"
Harmon shook his head. "No, sir." Didn't know why he felt the need to be so deferential to this guy who was at least thirty years younger than he, but that was something to be considered later.
"One of the belts had been mostly chewed through by some kind of animal," Jimmy said, never taking his eyes off Harmon's. "It was only a matter of hours away from snapping altogether. We could have lost partial tension in the cables; people could have been hurt. Or at least stranded up on the wires for hours until we got the belt fixed."
Harmon allowed himself a little smile, thinking for the first time that this meeting might not end with his being thrown out on his ass after all. "Oh, well, since it was making an awful sound as that, I'm sure Terry would have heard it soon anyway."
"That's the thing, though," Jimmy said. "He told me it was one of the free belts. They don't rub up against anything, and thus make no sound."
"Well, I could hear it clear as day," Harmon said. "It hurt my spine, actually."
"And that's my point, Harmon," Jimmy continued. He leaned back in his chair, adjusting his meant-to-be-casual tie so that it lay straight down over the buttons of his shirt. "You hear things like that at other times, don't you?"
Harmon nodded. "Sometimes. Mostly it's not a hearing sort of thing, just a feeling. I've wondered if it's something like a dog whistle, except more like a Harmon whistle." He chuckled a little, unsure of what kind of tone he should be taking.
"This is really interesting, Harmon," Jimmy said, and for the first time his face conveyed genuine warmth toward the old man. "Because I've been keeping track of you. How you react toward different people. And at first it was only because you're the one person here at the lodge who casually interacts with all the customers. The staff, some of them do, but strictly on a professional level. You actually *talk* to just about everyone here at some time or another. And I've learned that I can tell who the problem children are going to be on a given day... by watching you."
Harmon was puzzled. "Me? What do I do?"
"You react to people, Harmon. I don't even know if you're aware that you do it. But when you get near certain people, you instinctively flinch or move away. Sometimes it even happens when they're behind you, where you can't see them. And I know that if you do, I should keep my eye on them. You remember our friend The Maestro?"
What could have been the biggest scandal in the lodge's history had been narrowly averted a few months earlier. A well-known high-school orchestra conductor had invited select female members of his ensemble for a weekend ski trip, with what Jimmy would later describe as "unwholesome intentions". Interception by the resident security force (not Dale, but the man who had come before him) revealed certain items in The Maestro's luggage that revealed these intentions beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Jimmy continued, "Do you know how I knew that he was bad news, and what made me so confident that I rang the police even before we made that search?" To Harmon's silence, he said, "It was you. You shied away from that man the way a horse will shy from someone who's been beating him for years. And I don't think you even noticed it... or if you had, you quickly forgot it."
He was right. Harmon didn't remember any of that. All he recalled was that he was glad not to be caught up in the furor that went on when the police did arrive, ready to slap the cuffs on The Maestro and escort the bewildered young ladies home.
"So I've learned from experience," Jimmy was saying, "that it's valuable to have you along, sir." He was extending a neatly-manicured hand across the desk toward Harmon. Not knowing what else to do, the old athlete shook it. But Jimmy wasn't ready to let go. Still holding Harmon's hand in his sure grip, he said, "And that's why this incident with the ski lift has prompted me to do what I've been considering since back then. I'd like to bring you on board full time, Harmon."
Snow-white eyebrows rose incredulously. "What's that now?"
"Not as part of the staff, in any legitimate sense. But I'd like you to stay here as a kind of permanent guest. I can fix up a space for you -- not one of the paid rooms, you understand, but a place of your own -- to keep your stuff. A small per diem."
"That sounds... great," Harmon said, speaking slowly to give himself time to turn this over in his mind, if there was a down side. "And I would have to..." Harmon began, and Jimmy chortled at the way the grizzled skier was leading him along.
"Just what you always do," the director said. "Talk with the people. I'm not going to tell you to turn down drinks or anything like that. Just make yourself available to feel whatever you feel. I bet there are more disasters to avert. And who knows? Together we might figure out a way to hone this particular skill of yours."
The rest was history. Harmon moved in under the stairs, stocked it with horror novels and warm blankets, and spent his evenings talking to folks in the bar and waiting for his pins to tingle. It was what he wanted to do anyway, and he suddenly found himself being paid for it. An old skier who was barely able to ski could do a lot worse for himself.
And he did sometimes have things to report to Jimmy. Sometimes they panned out, and sometimes they didn't. But Jimmy seemed fine to follow any lead, and never spoke harshly to Harmon when he was wrong. As the seasons passed, with Harmon inhabiting the summer months down in town and the rest of the year up at the lodge, he did start to learn how to tune into this "particular skill".
And, although he hadn't revealed it to Jimmy or anyone else yet, he had even learned how to go beyond just sensing trouble. No, that wasn't quite right... the skill was being *replaced* with something else. He hadn't considered it until that moment, but it might have been the reason he hadn't seen the avalanche coming sooner. The pins still tingled when trouble was afoot, of course, but now there was something else too. Harmon had started to understand the nature of this new power, but it frightened him. He also knew that in his current situation it might be the thing that saved his life.
Harmon closed his eyes, concentrated his focus, and felt himself tapping into this power. It had been hard at first, but it was coming easier. Tonight, it was like a needle slipping into a vein.
-4.6-
Carlos was on his sixth towel, and he wasn't sure if the bleeding was slowing or not. Benny's face looked almost serene, now that it had been cleaned off, but this only unnerved Carlos more. The skin color was good, but other than that there was no clear reason why Benny couldn't be declared dead on the spot. He held the towel tightly on the head wound for as long as he could stand the texture of it, then tossed the blood-soaked fabric away and reached for another.
Things seemed quieter now. There was a little cool air sighing in around the ragged edges of the recently-enlarged window and the snowslide that choked it, and there was still the hiss of the gas burner that was still running, but other than that the lodge kitchen was tomb-silent. The stillness of the atmosphere made Carlos think that he could just keep do what he was doing forever. Grab towel, press towel, toss towel, reach for towel.
He blinked his eyes hard to shock himself out of complacency. He hadn't been worried about Benny's lack of blood before, but if the increasing heap of scarlet rags strewn across the snowbank were any indication, the situation wasn't improving. He had to try something else, fast.
His eyes kept being drawn to the gas stove, its blue ring as faithfully consistent as it always was, and realized that it was his solution. It would be harder than anything he had done so far, but it might be Benny's only hope. He looked at his friend's barely closed eyes, finding ways to reassure himself that his assistant really was out. Unconscious, if not already in shock or a coma. Carlos pulled the latest towel away, and hissed through his teeth when the flow of blood didn't look any slower than it had five minutes before. He couldn't even tell himself that the rhythmic pulsing he had seen before, denoting Benny's heartbeat, wasn't part of his imagination now.
Strength flooded his tired limbs as he realized there was no choice. He took a moment to assess the situation, figuring out how best to do what needed to be done. Then he spun around and sat down in the bloody slush, along Benny's left side. He slid an arm under his friend's shoulders, and slowly brought the unconscious man up into a similar sitting position. Holding Benny like that, Carlos got his legs under him until he was in a crouching position. This was going to be the tough part; getting all of Benny's dead weight (a phrase Carlos hated to use, even inside his own mind, but couldn't think of a better one) off the floor and into motion.
Carlos threw Benny's left arm across his own shoulders, and tucked his right arm into the man's right armpit. He hoped to push hard enough with his legs to get the both of them upright. Done right, they would end up looking like a pair of drunken friends propping each other up on the stagger home. He took a few deep breaths, held it, and tried to straighten his legs. The pair rose up three inches, then settled back down to the floor. Benny's drenched pants hit the wet tile with a flat, sickening plop.
Carlos grimaced, hoping his back would be able to handle this. He spread his feet a little farther apart, took an even deeper breath, and tried again. This time he got a little higher, and then reached some kind of tipping point and the job got easier. Soon he was standing mostly upright, but Benny had swung around mostly in front of him, so it was hard for Carlos to keep him from slipping away. Carlos kept telling himself it was okay; all he needed was to keep his friend from hitting floor for about fifteen feet of space and thirty seconds of time. It could be done.
Carlos slid one of his feet forward, afraid to take an actual step, which would force him to try balancing all their combined weight on one leg. Once that was done, he dragged his other leg (and Benny) forward, thus establishing a process.
It wasn't until they were halfway to the stove that Carlos started to realize that there wasn't as much weight pushing him down anymore. Benny's bleeding head lolled against him in a way that didn't seem entirely dictated by gravity, and he realized that one of Benny's feet was actually planted flat on the floor.
"'Los?" Benny's voice came, sludgy and faint. "Wha?"
Carlos squinted his eyes. As much as he was glad that Benny was able to assist in carrying himself across the kitchen, he desperately didn't want him to be awake for this. But he had to keep going. At this point, stopping would be more dangerous than continuing.
"It's okay, man," Carlos said, no louder than necessary for Benny to hear. "Gonna get you..." He didn't know how to finish the sentence. He kept moving.
The bright blue ring of flame grew closer. It was strangely advantageous that Benny was still slumped halfway around to Carlos's front. It would make aiming him much easier. Benny was actually clutching Carlos's shoulders now, bearing a few more pounds on his own legs.
If Carlos had any doubts about what needed doing, they were gone when he looked down at Benny's scalp, just a few inches below and to the side of his own face. The wide, bleeding scrape looked like a canyon from here, and couldn't possibly have gone any deeper without exposing bone. Carlos took the final step to the front of the stove and dipped his friend in what might have looked from elsewhere like a graceful dance move. Benny's torn scalp lowered down into the blue flame, and a sizzling sound started immediately.
Carlos forced himself to keep watching, to make sure that Benny was aimed correctly. Not only that, but he had to tip them both forward, to make sure that the cauterizing fire spread back far enough to cover the whole wound. The smell of Benny's flesh burning was not as bad as he had expected it to be, but the sound... the crackling as flesh crisped and fine gray hairs lit up like a thousand tiny fuses...
It took a good two seconds before Benny began screaming. Carlos managed to hold his friend in the flames for one more -- the longest of his entire life -- and then threw them both backward into the melting snow.
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