Snowbound

“Two.”

“Three,” he finished, and they fell, still holding hands.

It was like sinking into a giant container of feathers

that slowed but didn’t stop them. He lost his grip on her

hand, and couldn’t see her or anything else. Some

primitive instinct kicked in and he immediately started

fighting the snow that closed over his face. Within

seconds, he’d reared to his feet and surfaced.

Laughing, she did the same, although only her head

appeared over the top. “That was fun!”

The kids were hollering, “She did it! Yay, Ms. Mac!”

“I give her a ten,” Dieter called.

“I don’t know,” one of the blond girls argued. “Didn’t

you see the break in her form?”

Ms. Mac stuck out her tongue at her students. “Brats!”

She looked comical covered with snow, her ponytail

and eyebrows white. Snow slid from his nose, reminding John that he looked the same. He reached up, pulled off his ski hat, shook it out and put it back on, icy flakes

slithering down his neck.

“This is so amazing!” As if she were standing in

water up to her neck, Fiona peered around. “I can see

how skiers fall and smother.”

“Yeah, not a good way to go.”

She shuddered.

He picked up a handful of snow and tossed it into the

air. “Lighter than usual for around here, though,” he

commented. “It’s damn cold.” Western Oregon wasn’t

known for powder snow; whatever fell was usually wet

and therefore heavy. Operators at Timberline and

Mount Hood Meadows must be rejoicing today.

“Yes, it is.” Fiona flailed her arms in front of her.

“Um…how do I walk?”

“You just shove forward. Or follow me.” He stepped

into the well her body had created, then bulldozed his way

forward toward the kids and the still-hidden porch steps.

By feel he located the steps and climbed to the porch,

where he collected the two snow shovels.

“Who wants first turn?” he called.

“Bummer,” somebody complained.

“You’re going to get cold and want to go in.”

“I’ll go first,” Erin offered. “My feet are already

getting cold.”

She was one of the girls without boots, he remembered.

“Me, too,” said Tabitha. Or was it Kelli?

They groped their way up the steps, too, and he

showed them how to wield the broad, flat-bladed shovels.

They cleared a few steps while the others romped. He

kept an eye on the two wielding the shovels, and when

they started struggling, he had them hand off to two of

the other girls. Meantime, he called the boys over.

“Deep as this is, we just need to trample paths. Let’s

get a good one to the woodpile around the corner first.”

They started, half working, half roughhousing. Fiona

stood beside John near the foot of the porch steps. She

was the only one close to him when two things happened almost at once.

The roughhousing reached a peak, with one of the

boys falling to one side and another of them swinging

around and taking a step as if he was going to run back

toward John and Fiona. At the same time, there was a

loud crack.

Not the whine of an incoming artillery shell. Damn,

somehow a sniper had gotten a range on them. They

were on base and he didn’t even have his weapon. John

saw blood spurting as the running man took another step

and then in seeming slow motion toppled. “Get down!”

John bellowed at the one standing soldier, then turned,

grabbed Fiona and threw her into the soft snow, going

after her to shield her with his body.

She struggled under him. He held her down, listening for the next crack of the sniper’s rifle. Where was he? In the stand of trees?

A thud sounded like far-off bombing.

“What are you doing?” she spat.

“Ms. Mac got tackled!” someone called gleefully.

He’d never seen snow in Iraq. Why were they in a

snowdrift, waiting for the deadly fire of a Russian AK47 to find them? Body rigid, he tried to think.

One second, they were under fire from insurgents.

The next, he lay atop a furious, frightened woman in the

snow outside the lodge.

Crap. Oh, crap. He’d heard a tree limb snap. That’s all.