One Mile Under. Andrew Gross
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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 …”
“Just be glad that it was Trey you were with and not me,” John Booth said, grinning; “otherwise you’d still be down there.”
“Funny.” Rudy sneered at his friend, taking a swig of beer.
“I actually saw him at Starbucks, just after that,” Alexi, the ski rep, said in his French accent, but with a completely straight face. “He said he left you back there and asked should he go back and dig you out? I said, ‘Aw, what the hell.’ He asked if he should bring you a latte and I told him, ‘Look, don’t go all crazy now …’”
“That was Trey,” Artie, his ski tuner in the shop, said.
They all clinked mugs again.
“It just makes no sense.” John Booth shook his head. “Where this happened. The Falls, maybe. Or even Catapult. Trey could do the Cradle with Petey on his lap.”
“Or why he was out there without a helmet?” Dani said.
“Trey didn’t wear a helmet,” John Booth said. “Off-terrain maybe, or if he was doing tricks.”
“You’re wrong,” Dani said. “I saw him lots of mornings out there. Since Petey was born he damn well did wear one.”
“Anyone find one?” John Booth looked at her. “The rescue team was all over the place out there.”
Dani shrugged. She had waited around to see after she gave her deposition to the police. “No.”
“So there you go. Probably trying a one-eighty or a rollover, or something, and all that water got to him. Maybe his reactions were a little dulled from the night before, who knows? Anyway, here’s to my man.” John raised his mug. “To Charles Alan Watkins the Third.”
“To Trey!” Everyone at the table joined in.
Through the crowd, Dani saw Geoff Davies come in.
Geoff was the owner of Whitewater Adventure, where Dani worked. He was thirty-four, from Australia, had a master’s degree in psychology, and had moved out here from L.A. after a divorce and bought the business. He built it up, with a clothing line and videos and state-of-the-art equipment. He and Dani had been seeing a bit each other for the last few months. Not a big thing, and probably not the smartest. either. Taking up with the boss. But it was only now and then, and Geoff was an upbeat, good-hearted guy, and smart. And anyway it wasn’t like this was some Fortune 500 company and there was a whole corporate hierarchy where it could get around. Whitewater Adventures had eight full-time employees.
“I heard this was where you could lift one up to Trey Watkins?” Geoff came over to the table.
“That it is,” John Booth said. “One more round,” he said, motioning to Skip behind the bar. A few of them had already had four or five, and that was becoming clear. “Sit right down.”
“Thanks.” Geoff grabbed the empty chair next to Dani. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She shrugged back. Though everybody probably already knew, they always kept things cool and gave each other just a friendly kiss on the cheek.
“So how’re you doing?” He gave her an affectionate stroke to her hair, which Dani had tied back in a thick ponytail. He had wiry brown hair and soft, gray eyes.
“Hanging in there. Everyone get back okay after Rich picked them up?”
“Not exactly how we normally like to end our deluxe Roaring Fork River Thrill Experience … But yes. I gave them all a full refund, of course. Not that anyone really wanted it. Up until then they all had a terrific time and they all said you were great. And how you handled it. They even left some tips for you. It just seemed the right thing to do. Especially with the kids in there.”
“I think it was the right thing.” Dani squeezed his thigh under the table. “That was nice.” The new round of beers arrived and they all toasted Trey one more time, Geoff as well. Dani downed a long swig, maybe a quarter of the mug.
“I heard his father’s coming down tomorrow,” Geoff said. “He’s a farmer from up north somewhere.”
Rudy nodded. “Trey always said he came from a small farm. He mentioned once that lately it had fallen on hard times.”
“There’s been a pretty long drought up that way,” John Booth added.
“Two