Wylie sat in the Mammoth men’s ski team locker room, gearing up with the other skiers and boarders, some of whom he knew and some of whom he had never met. Ruled by the cold air of the locker room, their movements were efficient and their conversations brief. Most were younger, but some were his age and even older. As he bent down to clamp on his boots, Wylie could feel their eyes on him, sizing him up, gauging him against the young champion who had suddenly left here without warning. Boots on, he sat for a long moment in this room he knew so well, also gauging himself against the boy he had been those very long five years ago.
A boarder introduced himself as Daniel and said he was twelve and that he wanted Wylie’s autograph.
“I was twelve when I joined this team,” said Wylie.
“I don’t have a paper, but can you can sign my cast?” Daniel gave Wylie a pen from his pack, then pulled up the left sleeve of his jacket. The battered and much-autographed plaster cast began just beyond his first row of knuckles and extended halfway to his elbow. Wylie scribbled his name amid the others and gave back the pen.
“How’d you manage this?” asked Wylie.
“X Course. Went off Goofball wrong and couldn’t land. Hit a tree.”
“That’ll do it.”
“Dislocated two fingers on my other hand but didn’t say nothing. So I can keep skiing.”
“Let’s see.” Wylie took the boy’s hand and asked him to straighten the pinkie and ring fingers, then try to make a fist. The middle knuckles were swollen and scraped. Range of motion looked maybe half of what it should be. “At least tape them together. Keep them from getting worse.”
“They don’t bother me.”
“You can be brave and smart at the same time.”
“My uncle in Colorado Springs fought in the war, too. Aunt Maya says he stays in his room all day.”
“Write him a letter or text or something.”
“I do. Sorry what happened to Robert. He was a great guy.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to race again?”
“With all my heart.”
“You might want to lose twenty pounds first,” said Sky Carson, throwing open his locker door with a bang. “Or you’ll sink on those old skis.” Uneasy laughter dwindled to a hush, and the racers’ movements accelerated. One of the older skiers held open the door and half a dozen of the thirteen athletes tromped out with quick looks at Wylie or Sky, or both. “You’ll sink like a pig in mud,” Sky continued.
“Looks like you already have.”
“I was at Helixon’s ‘til four.”
The last athletes hustled out, and in the quiet the women’s lockers banged dully through the wall.
“Beatrice was still there when I left. Looking mighty fine.”
“She’s seventeen.”
“With her mother’s genes.”
“Shut up now, Sky.”
“Okay. Silence while you walk on water.”
Wylie carried his skis to the patio, where the men’s freeski coach had gathered the team. Coach Brandon Shavers was in his late thirties and married to Andrea Carson, sister of Robert and Sky, a granddaughter of Adam. Coach Brandon studied Wylie from behind his sunglasses while condensation wavered up from his nostrils to the lenses. “Wylie Welborn. I heard you were back. But you can’t just show up and get free practice time, man. You have to be on the team. You’ll have to go back and buy a lift ticket. Just like the other tourists.”
“I’d like to try out for the team.”
“Everyone wants to try out for this team. So they get an appointment. That’s basic respect for my time.”
“You don’t look overly busy right now.”
“Seriously, Wylie, you want to use the mountain, you have to be on the team. There’s an online application, and paper ones in my office. Take your pick. It’s a hundred to apply, and five grand a year if we pick you. We’re worth every penny. And who makes the team isn’t up to just me anymore. There’s a committee. It’s a process. Not like before.”
“Just let him ski today,” said Daniel, the boy with the arm cast. “I want to see how he does it.”
“Sorry,” said Coach Brandon. “Okay, men — up we go. I want the u-twelves and u-sixteens up first, then the eighteens, then the old farts.”
“Go Mammoth!” yelled Sky, brushing past Wylie and fitting his racing goggles up on his beanie.
Instead of skiing, Wylie once again helped his family through the 7:00 to 8:00 A.M. rush at Let It Bean. This was crunch time at the coffee pub, with scores of skiers and boarders impatient for their caffeine and pastries before the mountain opened at eight. His mother took the orders and Steen kept the pastries and breakfast burritos coming from the small kitchen; Beatrice and Belle jostled and made the coffee drinks while the steamers hissed and the shots of espresso gurgled into the paper cups, and the tourists watched with glazed anticipation. Beatrice looked pale and tired. Wylie wondered if it was the late night at Mountain High.
He went back to the kitchen and dropped the empty pastry racks into the big sink and drew the hot water. When his sisters left for school just after eight, he took over making the coffee drinks and tried to be chipper for the customers, but his heart wasn’t in it. He felt that he had grown into a decent man, then returned to this place of his great launch, only to be enslaved again by the hospitality industry, needy tourists, and a pay grade just barely north of minimum wage.
He recognized some of the regulars, who’d been coming here for as long as the place had been open. It seemed less busy than in the older days. During a very quiet time, he sat with the regulars by the window, caught up a little. One of them handed him a sheaf of white paper stapled in the upper left corner.
“Still bats but still at it,” said a regular.
“You seen that hunter’s camo she’s wearing now?” asked another. “Can barely see her coming! Then all of the sudden, she’s all over you, asking you questions.”
The sitting area went quiet for a beat. “Awful about Robert, though. God, he was just... here. What a great guy. How’s he doing, Wylie? Is Robert going to get better?”
“The doctors say no.”
“You were a medic. What do you say?”
“Semimedic. But Robert is out of my league.”
“I heard the break was at the vertebra where the hangman’s knot goes.”
Wylie winced inwardly, glancing at The Woolly. “I saw some guys make it I didn’t think would. So, you know...” He suddenly wished he was far from here. He set the paper on one of the tables and went back behind the counter to clean out an espresso maker.
When the crowd failed to reconvene, he drove home and split the firewood by hand, something he was good at. The sledgehammer rang against the wedge, the logs cracked open and the air filled with the wonderful smell of fresh pine. Wylie imagined the ski-cross course on which Robert had met his end, and how he, Wylie, might handle the landing that had defeated Robert. Strange, thought Wylie, but Robert had made that landing what, over a thousand times? It was not a hard one. Not for Robert.
Hours later, he had stacked enough wood on the deck to last for two weeks, then covered it with a blue tarp. In the small family room, he turned on the old desktop and went online and found the Mammoth ski team’s Web site and printed out the application. He filled it out and dug five twenties from his stash and clipped them to the sheet.
Ten minutes later, he set it on Brandon Shavers’s desk. The coach at the men’s freeski team regarded him with the same expression of wariness that most Carsons reserved for Welborns.