“That last chute was the difference,” said Robert.
“What a run,” said Hailee. “What great snow that day, too.”
Wylie watched himself on-screen, smiling rather goofily from the podium. What he’d thought at that moment was that his life was just beginning, that the world was his to see and he was ready to get this thing done. Now he missed his former clarity and wished for something like it again.
“Hey, Wylie. Hailee and I are getting married.”
Wylie looked from his brother’s pleased face to Hailee, who looked happy and desirable by any standards he knew. “I’m down for both of you. Truly.”
“No more chasing dreams and Olympics. Grandpa’s going to work me into the business full-time.”
“Look at this!” Hailee flashed a diamond and gave Robert a warm smile. Robert hugged her and looked over her shoulder at Wylie with pride and either contentment or resignation.
Chapter Four
Wylie sat in the start-gate stands with his mother and sisters for the Mammoth Cup ski-cross finals. The January afternoon was cold and clear and he could see through his binoculars that the upper X Course was still in good shape after two days of ski-cross racing. Ski cross was a young sport that pitted four skiers against one another on the same high-velocity downhill course at the same time. They raced one another, not the clock. Ski cross was one of the newest Olympic events, aimed at the new generation and considered by many to be equal to the fearsome downhill in peril and prestige. It was certainly rougher. For Wylie, winning this Mammoth Cup ski-cross event five years ago had been a defining moment in his life.
He explained to Beatrice the United States Ski Association point system, and how only the winner of that day’s final would automatically go to the Aspen X Games the following week. The four finalists were that close in total points. The three others could advance only as alternates, at the discretion of the USSA selection committee.
“But either way, Robert’s retiring after this season,” said Belle. “To get married and work a job. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? With all his talent? With the Olympics only two years away?”
“He’s going on to the next thing,” said Wylie. “That’s what people do.”
“That’s what you did,” said Beatrice. “And at least Hailee is, like, moderately cool.”
Belle just shook her head.
Glancing across the stands, Wylie saw Hailee sitting with Cynthia Carson — mother of Robert and Sky. Cynthia, his father’s executioner. Hailee waved. Cynthia acknowledged no one, all her attention forward on the coming race, looking to Wylie, as always, commanding, indestructible, and frightening.
The stands were full. Wylie knew many of the people gathered here, but many he did not. The faces had changed in five years. It was an odd feeling to be remembered in your hometown but also to know that its memory of you was already fading. At twenty-five, with a Mammoth Cup win to his credit and youthful indiscretions still trailing him, Wylie was a notable here, but old guard. The new hotshots were teenagers. Chloe Kim was good enough to have made the last U.S. Olympic boarding team but, at sixteen, was too young by IOC rules. There was much talk in town of half-pipe boarder Johnny Maines — not quite twenty years old yet and maybe the next Shaun White.
The women ski crossers went first. Wylie was struck by how much faster they had gotten in his five years away. They were stronger and braver. Sitting on either side of him, Beatrice and Belle fidgeted with anticipation. Beatrice was a slopestyle snowboarder and could make the Mammoth snowboarding team for next year. That was a matter of time and money. Five grand, roughly, Wylie thought. Belle was an up-and-coming ski-cross racer like him. She was fearless, even as the ten-year-old whom Wylie had last seen. They watched an eighteen-year-old out of Tahoe win the women’s ski-cross finals, a full ten feet ahead of the pack. She skidded to a stop in the out run, throwing a wall of snow and a smile at the photographers.
Wylie felt the sun on his face and smelled the sweetly noxious fumes wafting up from the waxing station. Nothing on earth better than a sunny morning with good snow on a mountain. He thought of the late bright mornings at the Great St. Bernard monastery in Switzerland, the sunlight on the mountains so precise and brief that long winter. There was never quite enough light at Great St. Bernard. Or the Benedictine monastery at Tegernsee, or the Monkey Temple in Kathmandu, or even in Lillehammer. Was there enough light in winter anywhere? Sometimes at dusk, he’d watch the last of that light dim down to no light at all and he’d have this squirrelly fear inside that it would never come again. But those were good years, alone and free.
Wylie’s two years of wandering after Afghanistan were his way of shedding what he had been: boy, son, brother, baker, barista, ski-cross racer, marine. He had ditched himself as thoroughly as he could, believing that later he could re-collect the useful parts. He’d tried to simplify without oversimplifying: mountains, snow, and speed. He’d stayed at the monasteries because they were remote and beautiful and affordable if you labored. And because they were built on the promise of a God, whom by then Wylie had come to doubt. And because half of his fellow travelers were young women.
Now he took a hand of each sister and considered the X Course without the distraction of skiers on it. It was a good course, tucked into a crevasse between chairlifts twenty and twenty-one, both closed for this event. It had been designed by Mike Cook, Mammoth Mountain’s longtime course setter. Cook was known for steep, fast runs, high ramps for big-air jumps, narrow banks, tight gates, and straightaways wide enough for passing. The X Course was smaller than that at the Sochi arena, but the jumps were higher.
With four racers on such a course, ski cross is a crowded, high-speed contest similar to downhill and slalom, but also related to motocross, speed skating, and roller derby. There is an element of NASCAR, too — high-velocity drafting only inches behind the skier ahead is an important technique. No contact between the racers is allowed, but “incidental contact” is expected, and ski-cross judges are known to be loose constructionists. Foes are occasionally cut off, shoulders thrown, bodies launched in desperation or team sacrifice, skis lapped over other skis, causing sudden explosive ruin, poles deployed. High-velocity wipeouts, known as “yard sales” because of the gear and clothing torn away and left spread all over a course, are common. Whoever leads controls the race; whoever would lead must pass. Race speeds reach seventy miles per hour.
Wylie had always loved the chariot race in Ben-Hur. His personal take on ski cross had essentially been a power game, big on mass and speed: E=mc2. He was burly for a ski crosser, bearlike at times, though not graceless. He wasn’t quite quick enough to consistently make that first hole shot — right out of the start gate — to take an early lead. So passing was the heart of his game. Coming from behind, Wylie presented relentless threat; once in front, he was amply fast and stubbornly immovable. He worked his fall line — the shortest distance down a slope, the route your body would take in a fall — with a kind of adhesive velocity. His dark to-the-shoulder hair, full beard, and mustache reinforced his ursine air when racing.
Wylie watched as Robert, Sky, and the other two finalists loosened up. Robert was a classic skier with sound judgment and made few mistakes; Sky, a talented risk taker, high-strung, programmed for both winning and crashing. They were two of America’s best. In the years Wylie was away, Robert and Sky had both been racing the Federation Internationale de Ski World Cup circuit against the Europeans, who dominated the sport. The Carsons finished middle of the pack at best on the FIS-approved World Cup courses.