Slowly, cautiously, Mary Margaret bent at the knees and reached for the glove. It was difficult to see exactly what happened next because of the fog swirling around us. The whole thing happened very quickly, and it might not have happened if Mary Margaret had been standing erect. In fact, when you consider what an experienced skier she was, the risk she took was stupid, reckless, and dangerous. We were, after all, clinging to a narrow trail on the very edge of the mountain. She should not have crouched over her skis that way, clutching one pole stuck in the snow, and leaning out precariously with her free hand in an effort to reach that glove so close to the edge.
Sandy merely lost her balance. People often lose their balance, you know, and bump into another person, or lean against him, or fall against him, or get their skis tangled, or whatever. It happens all the time, and there are never very serious consequences. But Mary Margaret was all bent over, and leaning out besides — she simply shouldn’t have been trying to get that idiotic glove! And when Sandy lost her balance, her outside ski slipped from under her, and it hit Mary Margaret’s inside ski, and this slight contact, because of Mary Margaret’s position, was enough to set her in motion.
David grabbed Sandy’s parka just in time, pulling her back as she slid toward the edge, slamming her hard against the wall. But Mary Margaret was too close to the edge for us to reach and, hunched back in a sitting position over her skis, could perform no maneuver to stop her sudden forward lurch. “Jesus,” she said, and tried to stop herself by sitting completely, but by that time her behind was halfway over, her naked left hand still extended and clutching to the ski pole sunk into the snow, the strap looped around her wrist. “Jesus,” she said again, softly, and went over, pulling the ski pole with her. She made no sound as she fell. She did not scream, she did not call for help. She simply disappeared into the fog. The mountain was still. We stood pressed against the wall behind us, breathing harshly. David moved cautiously toward the edge, and Sandy whispered, “Careful.”
“Can you see her?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Mary Margaret!” I shouted to the mist below. “Mary Margaret! Mary Margaret!” and my voice echoed from the shrouded rocks, bounced from boulder to boulder as Mary Margaret herself must have done on her downward plunge, the name reverberating in the abyss, “Mary Margaret, Mary Margaret,” overlapping and dissipating, “Mary Margaret,” and then becoming lost completely in the fog.
“We’d better get the Ski Patrol,” David said.
“I’ll take the lead,” Sandy said, and we started down.
We went to see Foderman after dinner that night. He was lying in bed with his right leg in traction, a drug-glazed look on his face. I’m not at all sure he understood everything we told him about the accident. We explained exactly how it had happened. We explained the way Mary Margaret had leaned out dangerously close to the edge, and how Sandy had lost her balance and had almost gone over herself. We explained all of it. We told him, too, that the Ski Patrol had found her crushed and lifeless body sixty feet below the trail on a pile of jagged rock. She had broken her legs, her back, her neck, and the wrists of both beautiful hands.
When Foderman heard this, he nodded and whispered, “Good.”
The ski instructors came down the slope closest to the Lodge at ten minutes to midnight. It had begun mowing again, and we stood huddled together, our arms around each other, watching them as they started down from the top. They were all carrying flares held high over their heads. From where we stood, the skiers were invisible. We saw only the red flares glowing against the blackness, like lights on a Christmas tree, strung across the mountain in a curving line.
“Look at them,” David said.
“Hug me,” Sandy said, “I’m freezing.”
On the mountain, the instructors carved linked turns, the flares blazing in the wind. Snowflakes lazily sifted down from the sky. All was hushed.
“You’d never catch me skiing at night,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Scare me to death.”
“That’s what you’ve got a shrink for, man,” David said. “Get rid of all your fears.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be going back to him,” I said.
“Shrinks are for crazy people,” Sandy said.
“You crazy, dolling?” David asked.
“Who, me?” I said. “It’s Crackers who’s nuts.”
“Then let him go find a shrink,” David said.
“Hug me, hug me,” Sandy said.
The instructors were almost to the bottom now. The bells in the church steeple began tolling the midnight hour, the red flares spurted luminescent blood on the hillside. Our arms around each other, the snow gently falling, we watched the skiers gliding closer and closer, and listened to the bonging bells, and suddenly grinned and hugged each other tightly.
It was Christmas morning, and all was right with the world.