He shifted his weight on the snow. His rented boots pinched at his toes, his rented skis were a touch too long, and his hastily bought ski pants were tight at the crotch. But despite these discomforts, he was fully at ease. He had been at ease on skis since childhood. Skiers cavorted on the slopes below, and he watched them with a mild contempt. He had been born and raised in the Julian Alps of Yugoslavia where children had skied as soon as they could walk. Skiing in that world had been a means of transportation, a necessity, and it amused him to see people ski for sport. Most of them look graceful enough, but he wondered how long they would have lasted in the mountains of his youth.
He lit a cigarette and breathed in deeply, savoring the combination of tobacco and frigid mountain air. From where he stood he could see, far below, the curve of the highway that wound around the base of the mountain. Further down that road, and out of sight, was the Northern Inn where his target and her friends were staying, and further still was the rented house where he had parked his three animals. He had left them with a case of beer and strict instructions to stay put, for his purpose this morning was only to reconnoiter. He needed an adjustment to the new terrain. He had expected to do his job back in Rockhill, he had not anticipated the sudden removal to a ski resort, but Sextant was nothing if not flexible. There or here, the job would be done.
The job, yes. He wondered at the nature of the job he had been given, although his wonder did not extend to questioning his orders. To question an order from David Ogden was unthinkable to him, even an order that came from the grave. Still, he wondered. He had killed for David Ogden in the past. He had lied and stolen, he had inflicted tortures, and all for David Ogden. But rape? How strange that Ogden should ask this of him. Memory intruded on his thoughts, and he shivered. He knew that his forehead and his palms were damp. It was a familiar chill, one that came to him often, and it had nothing to do with the frigid air or the snow on which he stood. The chill was part of the memory. It had always been that way.
Why me, he wondered. Of all the people you could have chosen, David, why did you have to pick me? Did you want to see how icy I can be? Is that what this is, one final test to prove that I'm still the man you made me? Did you think that the memories would get in my way? No, David, I'm ice, all right. I don't have to prove that anymore, and if this is what you want, you'll get it. You always did. I'll do the job, David, don't worry about that, and fuck the memories.
The memories dated from 1943. He was six years old then, his name was Vlado Priol, and his father was part of a partisan band that operated against the occupying Germans in northern Slovenia. There were many such bands in Yugoslavia then, and this one was based two thousand meters high on the side of Mount Krn in the Julian Alps. The country there was wide and desolate, and in the wintertime the partisan camp was virtually impossible to reach for someone who was not a native of the region. Even if you were born in the shadow of Mount Krn, it still was a job of work. To make the trek you started from the bottom of the mountain in the morning, skiing first over miles of trackless terrain, through stands of snow-laden trees, and then along a ridge that was overhung with needles of ice. It snowed every morning in the wintertime, and you moved through it blindly. When the terrain tipped up you climbed for as long as you could on your skis, then took them off, strapped them onto your back, and kept climbing on foot. You climbed through the morning, around noon the snow would stop, and once the air was clear you could look back to see what you had left behind: a white world far below, with the town of Ravne and the railroad etched in. Then you started to climb again, laboring through most of the day until just before sunset when you came to an indentation in the mountainside about a mile across. It was a depression shaped like a punchbowl with steep and icy slopes, and on the far side of the bowl the north face rose up to form the dark peak that gave the mountain its name. At the base of that peak was a ridge that was dotted with caves, and it was in those caves that the partisans made their camp. They felt themselves to be safe there, protected by the mountain from their enemies.
The partisan band was led by a man named Cankar, but that was not his real name. Like many in the partisan movement he had adopted a nom de guerre, in his case the name of an early Slovenian playwright and patriot. This modern-day Cankar was a lean and leathery old man with broad mustaches that curled at the ends, and he commanded a band of three dozen men, and a handful of women. Four of those women had children with them, and one of those children was Vlado Priol.
The Germans in the area were part of the 156th Regiment of the Alpinkorps, and Cankar's band raised all kinds of hell with them by severing lines of communication, blowing up ammo dumps, and derailing trains. They would sweep down from their mountaintop camp on skis, strike quickly, and then scamper up like goats to the safety of the heights. In the warm weather they stole horses and raided into Italy, and up along the Austrian border. They lived on what they stole. They were lightly armed, they had two mountain-wise mules for transport, and they had a radio, which was their only link to the outside world. They also had a young American officer who had parachuted in, and who provided their liaison with the Allied forces in Italy. He belonged to an organization called the OSS, and his name was David Ogden.
Sextant started down the mountain just as the sled bearing Martha made the first of the ess-turns below the moguls, and disappeared from sight. He skied effortlessly, running the fall line and skimming the moguls. He had no style, he just skied.
Speeding down the mountain, he thought, Yes, I remember you David, the way you were then. Just the way I remember being hungry most of the time, and so cold in the winter. I remember my mother warming me, and feeding me, and singing songs in the night. I remember our cave, and searching for wood for the fire, and the flickering shadows on the walls. I remember when the men went raiding, and the women and the children were left alone, and when the men came back I would look to see if my father was there, and then I would look for you. I remember a lot, David, but I often wonder if these memories of mine are made up of things that I actually saw, and heard, and felt, or if they are only a recollection of the stories that you told me later on. Even now, at my age, a childhood memory still can be sharp and clear, but it also can be overgrown with layers of legends, and that is what I suspect has happened. Much of what I remember now I first heard from your lips, and I have the feeling that the stories improved each time that you told them. Still, the memories are there, no matter what the provenance, and they stick in my mind like burrs on a sheep. I remember you the way a child remembers, for to a boy of six the world is peopled by the tall and the wise. You weren't the wisest to me, that was my father, but you were certainly the tallest, and wise enough. Later on I worked it out that you couldn't have been more than twenty that year, maybe nineteen, and compared to people like Old Cankar and my father, you were a baby when it came to mountain fighting. But you learned, oh yes, you learned.
At the bottom of the mountain, he found the first-aid station and waited outside. He did not have to wait long. They brought Martha out on a stretcher, and loaded her into an ambulance. The legend on the ambulance read BENSON CITY HOSPITAL. He went to his car. He had just enough time to pick up his three animals, and get to Benson City, twenty miles away.
The kids followed the ambulance in the van, and once they got to the hospital, four of them went inside with Martha. Chicken did not go in, he stayed in the van. No one told him to stay there. No one needed to. He knew that he was not wanted inside. Only Lila had spoken to him during the drive from the mountain. His peers from the Center, his brother and sisters, had ignored him. They had not even bothered to ask how he felt. Clearly, he had come out of the collision unhurt, and Martha's leg was broken. The words were unspoken in the van as they drove, but the words were there, just the same. Chicken had done it again, and if anyone rated a broken bone it was the master screw-up himself.