Page 5 of Double Exposure

Chapter Two

Jade Choi

When I started out this morning, I was damn sure I wasn't going to freeze to death. I packed everything I could think of for frigid temperatures: two pairs of gloves, long underwear, an extra bodysuit, a torch, flint, mylar wraps. A tin of stew.

And a first aid kit.

When I spoke with my mother on the phone, she seemed pretty cavalier. “I'm sure your father's fine,” she’d said. “You know how he is. He gets intrigued by little things. Plus, this isn’t the first time.”

When I hung up the phone, I was not reassured. She doesn’t even know him anymore. My mother is an opera singer on tour. Right now, she’s performing in Germany in the title role of Arabella. I don't know why she and my father stay married. She doesn't seem to respect what he does, and he’s never been to a performance.

I don't understand them.

I’m close to both of them, but at twenty-five, am tired of feeling like I’m still the kid stuck in the middle. I’m the thread that binds them together. Without me, I’m sure they would have divorced long ago.

Dad invited me on this trip and then dumped me. As a world-renowned nature photographer, he’s used to being in dangerous situations. This trip was supposed to be about capturing wolves on film and pack dynamics. He’s been collaborating with a biologist, a Dr. Wagoner, but after yesterday, I have my suspicions.

Wagoner hasn’t heard from him either.

I don’t think this trip was ever about wolves.

Dad left yesterday morning while I was still asleep and never came home. Not able to sleep, I spent a frantic night going over two maps he’d left behind. Then I gathered the gear I might need. Still awake at three in the morning, I headed out thirty minutes later in the rental Subaru to where I thought he may have gone. After a ninety-minute trip over icy dirt roads, I parked my car at what was supposed to be a trail head and started out.

The trouble with my father is because he's famous, if I tell anyone he’s missing, it will make national news and he hates that kind of attention. He wants the focus on his work, not him, and a search would be all about him. Besides, Mom is right: he’s done this before. In Istanbul, Antarctica, Alberta, the salt mines in Turkey, Mauritius, Peru. And dare I say it in our own backyard: La Mesa, California. Twice.

Every time he shows up befuddled why we were worried, and chagrined he was so preoccupied he forgot the people who love him might like him to touch base.

I’ve been out here on skis now for well over six hours and though I’ve marked my own trail, I’m not certain I can stay out much longer. Clouds are growing thick, in line with the terrible weather report that blared over the radio early this morning.

I know why Dad turned off his cell phone GPS. He knew I’d follow him out.

That’s why I think he must be hurt. Mom can’t reach him. I can’t reach him. At this point, unless he brought a remote charging station, his cell phone is dead.

Then, when I’ve just decided to turn back, I see it: a black perfect circle of plastic in the snow.

A lens cap.

My heart beats in the back of my throat. It has to be his. No one else is out here. There were signs all over town and at the kiosk for the turnoff to the dirt road, warning people not to hike or ski back here.

I pick up the lens cap and shake away the snow. I’m at the base of a towering mountain and still in the trees. He probably headed out of the woods to the wider surface of snow so he could ski. It’s faster.

Glancing around I’m starting to realize what he is after—maybe—and it’s not wolves.

The reason I chose this ravine was because of Sweet Milk Creek. I just happened to overhear him talking to a park ranger a few days ago. Between that and the maps with my dad’s shadowy penciled-in notes, I took a chance on following the creek.

Now here’s a lens cap. Just as I clear the trees there’s a quick series of explosion above. Instinctively, I flinch.

It’s not gunfire though.

Along the top ledge of the mountain are two figures in neon jackets. I hold my breath for a moment, not knowing what the sound was and then I see it. Like a glacier breaking apart, the snowcap begins to fall apart. I raise my eyes, squinting against the wind. A wall of ice and snow starts to accumulate, rumble, ripple, and combine as the mountain sheds its cloak of snow. The fury as it races down the side of the mountain is beautiful and terrifying. I quickly start pushing with my ski poles. I've got to get out of its path.

I can’t go back into the forest—sure to get my neck broken if I got caught in woods when it hits.

Slightly above me though, fifty feet away, is the dark outline of a wedge of granite—if I can make it there, I can use it for shelter.

I'm an adequate skier, not professional, not trained for this, and my climb is slow. Every step seems to take forever. In one movement, I lean down and take off my skis, shove them under my arm, and struggle up a thirty-degree incline in knee deep snow.

I keep my focus on the rocky ledge. I don't dare look anywhere else, even for a fraction of a second.