The first snow hit suddenly the day after Thanksgiving. My dad had a fire going in the fireplace, and Mom had just started heating leftover turkey and trimmings for dinner. I felt close to my parents. They had accepted that I was growing up, that I had been through Hell and come back. They had accepted Issa, and they knew I wouldn’t be living at home too much longer. I think we were all savoring our last years together. I was really glad we had made the change to caring about each other as adults while I was still at home. I didn’t know anyone else who had been able to do that, and I felt really lucky.
The phone rang and Mom answered. “Ariel, it’s Penny. A rescue.”
“Thanks, Mom. Hi, Penny.”
“Girl Scouts lost on Rock Candy Mountain,” her voice came through the telephone. “Blizzard conditions. Dress warm. I hear John now, so you have about one minute!”
“Gotcha.”
I stood staring at the phone for a good 10 seconds. My mind just wasn’t responding like it once did. I felt confused.
“What is it, Honey?” Dad said.
I looked up. “I don’t know . . .”
“Are you going?”
I was dreading the thought of being in the snow. Looking for frozen Girl Scouts on Rock Candy Mountain sounded so hopeless. “I . . .” All of a sudden my vision became very dark and I grabbed the edge of the table to steady
myself, wondering if I was fainting. A moment later I saw something in my mind. A black-haired girl. Helping to dig a snow cave. Some other girls nearby, crying. It looked like . . . “Rachel!”
“Who?” my dad asked.
Within seconds, I was in my room, had my boots on and was grabbing sweaters and coats. I was just about to shoulder my Search and Rescue pack when I spotted something in one of my open drawers — the bag of traveling magic things I had put together years ago. I grabbed it, and at the same time heard a horn outside.
My mom shoved a package of cookies into my arms as I dashed out through the snowflakes and jumped into the big covered pick-up.
“Penny, it’s Rachel up there!”
We roared down the street toward town.
“I didn’t know Rachel was in Girl Scouts,” Penny said.
“She’s a little embarrassed about it, so doesn’t talk about it much. She’s an assistant leader now. They’re in a snow cave, on the east side.”
John had a funny look on his face, but eventually sighed. “We have to try something,” he said, pulling onto the highway. “It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack otherwise. Are you telepathic or something, Ariel?”
“No. Rachel is.” I told them everything I could see in the vision. John radioed Central Dispatch, and the leaders planned a gathering location based on what I had seen. I don’t think they would have trusted my vision, except that they didn’t know what else to do.
Snow was blowing on the highway, and very few cars were braving it. As we got closer to the hills, the wind got stronger. Penny and I got our coats on and laced up our boots. John headed up a little valley toward the end of the road. He knew the area, or we would have never made it. Visibility was near zero.
As soon as we got to the end of the road, Jack pulled me into his truck.
“What do you know, Ariel?”
I told him what I had seen.
“Why should I trust your vision?”
“I can’t ask you to, Jack. All I know is that Rachel is my student, I have seen before how powerful a mind she has, and I didn’t make up what I saw.”
Jack looked me right in the eyes. “But they were planning to hike the trails. There are no trails on the east side of Rock Candy.”
John had been listening from just outside the truck. “No, but there’s an old road. It was closed ages ago because it was too steep and kept washing out. I’ve been on it myself. Looks just like a trail now.”
“Are they on that road, Ariel?”
“I . . . honestly, I don’t know.”
Jack left to talk to other people. I was torn. Part of me wanted to go alone if the team didn’t believe me. At the same time, I knew I couldn’t do much to help all those girls without the team. I felt cold tears on my face.
The driver’s door jerked open and Jack hopped back in. “We’re going up the east side.”
I threw my arms around him. “Thank you. They’re up there. I know it!”
“Get ready. Walt is passing out snowshoes.”
Ten of us prepared to hike, with three on Delta team staying behind. I think Penny and me would have been told to stay behind with Delta except for my vision. The strongest five people carried tents and sleeping bags. Even just my Search and Rescue pack felt heavy, but I knew I was going to carry it, no matter what.
It didn’t take long to find the old road, and we were soon trudging uphill through the snow, bending over to keep as much of the wind and snow out of our faces as we could. The snow wasn’t very deep yet, with the trees catching a lot, but I knew it would get deeper. You can’t make a snow cave in a foot of snow.
We walked for a long time. It was impossible to see more than 20 feet in any direction. The snow built to about two feet deep, and I said a little prayer of thanks for the snowshoes. I heard Jack on his radio talking to D team. The old road switched back and headed up even more steeply. We stopped for a rest and dug into our emergency food.
Up, up, always up. Drifts over three feet now, easily. Jack stopped us. “If they’re in a snow cave . . .”
“Not yet, Jack. It’s deeper where they are,” I said.
“Okay. Let’s go a little higher,” Jack said.
We plodded up the old road. Snow swirled all around us. There was no
sound of any kind but the wind itself. We had to yell into each other’s ears when we wanted to say something. Up and up, and the snow got slowly deeper.
We must have walked for another half hour. The powder was four or five feet deep now. Jack looked at me. It looked deep enough. I nodded.
“Okay. Pairs. Five minutes out, five back. Call out. Don’t get lost.” Jack pointed a direction for each pair. Penny and I went ahead a hundred yards and then carefully downhill from the road.
“Rachel!” Penny called.
I looked for signs of a snow cave. We walked down and along the hillside, calling and looking. Five minutes passed and we had hardly gotten anywhere.
We turned back. “Rachel!”
No one had found anything. We went a few hundred yards farther up the road and Jack told us to head out again.
Penny started down the hill.
“Wait, Penny!” She stopped and let me catch up. “This isn’t working!” I said.
“Got any ideas?”
“We were led this far by magic. We need to accept that and put our trust in the Spirits.” I looked around and spotted a protected place under a tree.
“Come help me.”
When we were under the tree, I took off my pack and dug out my little magic bag.
“I remember when you made that!” she said.
I took off my mittens and dug around in the little bag with freezing fingers, found a purple candle, matches, and some whole cloves. The snow held the little candle well enough. My hands were too cold to strike a match, so Penny did it. Not having a thurible and charcoal, I popped a clove in my mouth and gave one to Penny. It tasted hot and tangy.
“Help me, Penny. Hold my hands.”
I closed my eyes and thought of Rachel. No, Ariel. That’s not the way. I let my mind clear and relax. A blank void. Please, God and Spirits, show me what you want me to know. I can do nothing else by myself.
Slowly, very slowly, I began to see gray light. I felt overwhelming
weakness. Deep cold. Faint whimpering. Somewhere in the middle of the gray light, a small circle of bright light. Something was moving in the bright light. I strained to see, but it was hard. I felt so weak. I seemed to be moving closer to the light, trying to look out. A figure. A man. John.
“Where’s John?” I yelled, jumping up and heading for the road. “John just walked by the snow cave!”
The other rescuers were already gathering. “Where’s John?” I screamed, gasping for breath.
“Here I am,” he said, coming down from above the road. “No luck either.”
Penny joined us, carrying both our packs.
I tried to relax. “Thanks, Penny.” I shouldered my pack. “John, you just walked right by the snow cave, about a minute ago!”
“I
did?”
“Please, retrace your steps!”
Everyone looked at Jack. “We got nothin’ else. Let’s go!” he said.
John started up the slope, following his own tracks. Steeply uphill, between trees and stumps. Winding around on the hillside. “I searched this area pretty good, I thought,” John said.
“It’s not your fault,” Penny said. “The fresh snow has smoothed everything over.”
“And it’s a little hole, just a few inches across, uphill from your path. And they’re too weak to call out,” I explained.
John continued to follow his tracks and everyone else searched the snow above. Several times I thought I saw something, but it was just a stick or a rock
“There!” someone yelled. We looked. Barely visible, a little hole in the side of a snow drift. We were up the slope in a moment, pawing at the snow.
The opening got bigger. Yes! A snow cave, with several figures inside.
While others pulled the adult and 4 girls out of the snow cave, Jack and John looked up at the falling snow.
“Doesn’t feel like it’s gonna stop for hours, maybe longer . . .” John said.
“And it’ll be dark soon.”
“No possibility of a chopper until . . . mid-day tomorrow,” Jack estimated.
They were both silent for a long moment.
“Last Resort?” John wondered aloud.
After a long pause, Jack said, “Last Resort.”
“Are they alive?” someone asked.
I knew Rachael was. I could feel her mind. One of the other girls made a whimpering sound.
“Okay!” Jack said. “All four ladies and John, tents and sleeping bags set up!”
I ran down to the road and threw off my pack. One of the guys dug with his arms to make a flat place. He had a tent up in no time. I ripped the sleeping bag he handed me from its sack, pulled off my boots and outer clothes, and crawled into the tent. I knew what was happening, but had never done it, never even seen it done. We had talked about it at a Search and Rescue meeting, years ago. It was called the Last Resort for a good reason.
Moments later, Jack brought the almost lifeless form of my black-haired friend into the tent, took off most of her clothes, and slid her into the sleeping bag with me. I wrapped my arms around her. Please, Rachel. You called to me and I came as soon as I could. You feel so cold.
The tent was closed and I heard a camp stove start to hiss. Rachel was soon shivering violently. That’s it, Rachel, shiver all you want. You’re getting warmer. It will hurt at first, but you’ll be okay.
“I think she’ll make it,” I said to whoever was in the tent with me.
Someone put pieces of candy bar into my mouth, and I gladly chewed them.
About an hour later, Rachel began to relax and breathe more easily. After a little while I let myself relax too, and realized how incredibly sleepy I was.
When I awoke, Rachel was sitting up, talking to Jack. She noticed me and gave me a big hug, sleeping bag and all. “Ariel. I owe you my life. And those other girls do too. Thank you!”
“Are you okay, Rachel?” I asked.
“I’m going to lose some toes, but I’m alive.”
“Have some soup, Ariel,” Jack said. “The snow just stopped a little while ago. Do you feel good enough to walk down?”
“Sure, but what about Rachel?”
“She’ll be carried.”
I sat up and drank two cups of chicken soup, then we broke down the tent, the last one still up. While we were doing that, I heard the bad news. The lady, and one of the girls, hadn’t made it. I noticed Penny sitting in the snow with her head bowed and tears on her face. I went over and sat down beside her.
“She couldn’t get warm, Ariel. We tried everything. She just couldn’t get warm.”
We had a special Search and Rescue meeting that evening. Any time someone died on a rescue, the Sheriff had to get statements from everyone.
Also, we had to restock our packs with just about everything.