by Terry Mahoney

Created on: January 29, 2011

He stood on the porch overlooking the chairlift. The hill was crowded, each chair depositing four skiers down the ramp.  He made no move to step into his bindings and make a run. Instead, he just watched the skiers sliding off the chair and down the slopes.

He noted a couple of teenagers jostling each other as they slid off the lift, and then shook his head as one hip-checked the other into a snow bank. The first laughed and sped off, and the other skier scrambled upright and kicked after him, his purple hat with a monster’s tail flopping around.

“Take it easy,” the patrolman shouted. He heard a mocking echo as the victim chased the culprit down the slope.

He decided to catch them on their next trip up the lift.

“I saw a man miss the turn for the Chute. I think he went into the trees.”  Minutes had passed; he had got lost in the rhythmic turning of the chairs on the cable, not noticing the woman before she approached.

He ducked his head into the shack to let the patrolman at the radio know and was soon sliding down Highland Swing, taking a few wide turns to stretch his legs.

He slid to a stop at the side trail to Kurly Kue, at the top of Newman’s Chute. He scanned the far side of the Chute, looking for a break in the orange safety fencing. A few skiers whipped past him and he frowned as he contemplated a controlled descent of the double diamond along the tree line.

Deciding not to procrastinate, he bounced neatly off two moguls and scraped up against the fence. He looked into the trees for any sign. It was two stops further down before he spotted the skier’s ridiculous purple hat.

The man was on his back, head down the hill. One leg had wrapped around the trunk of a tree, causing the ski that had somehow stayed attached to be planted upright between the arm and the body, as if a giant had bent the leg back in a U shape.

“Mountaintop, I’m thirty yards down the Chute, and I need the toboggan.” His voice was resigned as he called in the request, and he sighed as he started towards the motionless body.

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