Changes
©2013 Allen Wyler
All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-0-9859942-6-6

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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AN ARMCHAIR ADVENTURER BOOK
STAIRWAY PRESS, SEATTLE

www.stairwaypress.com
1500A East College Way #554
Mount Vernon, WA 98273

Cover design by Guy Corp, www.grafixCORP.com

DEDICATION

To all the doggies we have known and loved...

1

CASCADE MOUNTAINS, 12:31 PM

Fucking shoulder.

Chris Holden stopped climbing and planted his right boot firmly uphill. He leaned forward to take a long deep breath. Damned shoulder started in on him maybe ten minutes ago, a boring ache deep within the muscle. Shifting the rucksack strap didn’t help it either.

He pulled a sweat-dampened bandana from his back pocket to mop his forehead again and glanced at Reed Allison, ten or so feet down trail.

Reed nodded. “No problem.”

Reed was panting and sweating too, which made Chris feel better. Slightly. Because if Reed was having problems too, maybe it wasn’t just being fifty-five and out of same shape that was the issue.

I should work out more regularly.

But he never seemed to find time.

Chris massaged his shoulder. “Ever wonder what it’d be like to be able to go back to, say, age twenty, knowing what you know now?”

Reed shook his head. “For the love of God, stop it.”

“No, seriously. Tell me. What would you do differently?”

Chris stuffed the bandana back in his pocket and sucked another deep breath.

Reed raised a just-a-minute hand, slipped off his backpack and dropped it uphill so he wouldn’t have to bend so far to pick it up when it came time to shoulder it back on. He fished a plastic water bottle from the side pocket and for a moment rested his elbow on his uphill knee, zeroing his oxygen debt before finally uncapping the bottle. He took a long drink before offering it to Chris. “Here, want some?”

Chris shook his head while struggling for another deep breath. “Better drink my own. Christ, anything to lessen the weight of this damned pack.” He shrugged off the rucksack, let it thump solidly onto the rocky trail. It was sun-faded, an olive-drab Kelty, one of his son’s prized possessions purchased from REI, when, fifteen years ago? He gently touched a worn spot of black netting stained white with dried sweat. Joel’s sweat. Crusted into the fabric as crystals. The only physical remnant of his son’s body. And even those small molecules were vanishing as crystals flaked from the pack. He had no ashes, no locket of hair, nothing but Joel’s things stored in a corner of his basement: touchstones to the memory of his only child.

For Chris, Joel’s spirit lived on this mountain. No one knew exactly where Joel had vanished, but Chris could feel—with the certainty of a parent—his presence on this trail.

Chris pulled a clear plastic water bottle from his pack, chugged two mouthfuls of tepid water.

Jesus it’s hot. Feels like ninety degrees, although he knew it couldn’t be more than sixty. If that. Even the water seemed too warm. Wetting his mouth helped. He worked his left shoulder back and forth, trying to comfort the pain, his gaze wandering over the pine forest stretching off to jagged white peaks and an azure, cloudless sky. Below them, nestled between several boulders, lay a rippling blue crescent of breathtaking beauty.

His pragmatism didn’t allow him to personally buy into “the God concept,” yet such awe-inspiring nature evoked a primitive gratefulness—to someone or something—for the ability to experience such beauty.

He said to Reed, “You didn’t answer my question.”

Reed removed his glasses, tipped back his head and poured water on his face. “Why should I? You get the same damned answer every time you ask it.” He slipped his glasses back on, capped the bottle to re-stow in his pack.

Chris began to be concerned. His breaths continued to labor as his hunger for air increased. Not only that, the pressure in his left breast was relentlessly building. He sat down facing the lake and leaned back on his elbows and tried to suck in a deeper breath. Man, he’d let himself get out of shape. When was the last time he exercised for fun?

Reed muttered, “Good idea,” and sat down too.

A quarter mile to the right, a broad swath of snow—one of the few surviving patches this late in August—funneled from a peak to the north end of the lake.

“You suppose that’s where he is?” Chris asked with a nod toward the snow.

Reed picked a rock off the trail and tossed it downhill.

“Could be,” he said.

Always the same questions. Always the same answers. Never any resolution.

Chris studied the snow, wondering, Is Joel there? If we hike over, would we find him this time? It’d been a warm, early summer, melting more snow than usual...

“I know this gets tiresome, Reed. Thanks for putting up with me.” Every year he subjected Reed to this. A true friend was someone who puts up with your...your what? Emotional foibles?

Reed lobbed another stone. “I don’t do it out of friendship. I do it because I like it.” He glanced up at Chris, did a double take. “Hey, you okay?”

“Out of shape is all.”

Reed was studying him now, clearly worried. “You sure? You’re pale as hell.”

Chris swallowed and sucked another deep breath. Damned altitude. “I know we’ve discussed this before, but I can’t help thinking of all the mistakes I made. I keep wondering how different life might be if I just had another chance to do things over. You know, go to sleep and wake up a twenty-year-old knowing everything I do now. There’d be so many things I’d do so differently.” How he raised Joel would be one.

Reed shook his head and tossed another pebble downhill. “For chrissakes, we’ve been over this again and again. You’re not responsible for what happened to Joel. Joel is. And as far as anything else in your life, given the same circumstances and situations, you’d probably make the same decisions. And okay, so let’s say for some unexplained act against nature you were magically transported to age twenty with all your present wisdom. Things might not work out the way you think.”

Well, that’s a different answer.

“No? Why not?”

“Because the way we live our lives isn’t based on wisdom alone. You have this tendency to trivialize the influence personality plays in the choices we make. Okay, let’s say you wake up tomorrow, age twenty. In spite of what you might know, your personality wouldn’t change. You’d be held hostage to it. You’re the only one I know who believes we make our own destiny.”

Interesting point. One he hadn’t considered. “So you’re saying we’d repeat the same mistakes? That nothing would change? We don’t learn from our lives? That’s depressing.”

“It’s realistic. At least for the major issues, like whether we go to college or join the Army or get married. Okay, so let’s talk about you in particular. There are things in your life—major things—I don’t see changing. Certainly not the way you approach life. The way you procrastinated about Jan, for example. You waited too long. Why? Because you kept second-guessing yourself. Why? Because you’re you. You aren’t decisive when it comes to major life decisions. How would that be any different?”

A flash—a reflection off something maybe—caught his attention. Cupping both eyes with his hands, he squinted at the snow patch with the sun glaring off the lake. He pointed. “Hey, what’s that?” he said.

Reed followed Chris’s finger. A few seconds later, he said, “Looks like hikers.”

In spite of the sun, a chill burrowed between Chris’s shoulders as if he was seeing a ghost. He looked harder. And now, changing the angle slightly, he could make out two hikers part-way onto the snow patch, the contrast of their parkas making them easier to discriminate.

A foreboding began eroding Chris’s chest. Air! He needed air. He gasped, but his lungs seemed to work even less well than a moment ago.

Then it dawned on him. “Aw shit!” He, of all people, a cardiologist for chrissake should recognize the signs. He knew too well the entire spectrum of heart attack symptoms: from nothing at all to the classic crushing chest pain. His aching left shoulder wasn’t the byproduct of age and being out of shape. This was The Big One.

He glanced around. Rocks, dirt, trees. Nothing but damned wilderness. Miles from the nearest interstate. No defibrillator, no oxygen, no EKG. No one but Reed, a lawyer, who would be worthless for dealing with it.

Shit! I’m toast.

A jolt of fear hit, surging adrenaline into his arteries, which in turn jacked-up his blood pressure and made his heart pump harder. Feeling this, and knowing it wasn’t good triggered another surge of adrenaline, making things worse.

Shit, I’m killing myself. Calm down.

Bullshit, I can’t, not knowing this. I’m going to die.

PORTLAND, OREGON, 12:33 PM

Something felt wrong. Really wrong. His gut knew it even if his brain didn’t.

What?

Joel glanced up from the chopping board. The kitchen seemed exactly the same as thirty seconds ago: smelled of garlic, greasy steam, baking bread. He heard clattering utensils, rap from the box, a humming dishwasher. Everything exactly the same, except for...

The feeling vanished like a wisp of smoke, leaving only a vague impression of unnerving familiarity. Not exactly déjà vu. He knew how that felt. This just wasn’t the same. Not quite a premonition either. He knew about those too, having experienced them often enough these last five years. No, this puppy had a real definite edge...like realizing something awful was about to happen, yet not having a clue what that might be. A chill slithered down his spine, tightening his anus.

Jesus!

“Yo, Holden, y’okay?”

He glanced over at the other line cook. “Yeah, fine. Why?”

The cook continued kneading a wad of dough, never breaking rhythm. “Cause all a sudden you got this funky weird, spacey look, man. You went pale as a ghost.”

Low blood sugar, that it? He reached for the nearby Diet Coke and considered the stash of blow in his locker. Hadn’t snorted any today, so that wasn’t it either.

“Naw, I’m fine. Thanks.”

Just glad it’s over.

Potato-leek soup was what he was working on. This evening’s featured soup. One of his favorites. Apparently the chef liked it too because he’d given Joel the thumbs up to use his own recipe. And that, everybody knew, was a real coup.

He never documented his prized recipes. Didn’t have to. They simply made such blatant sense that writing them down seemed unnecessary. Didn’t measure quantities either, as some cooks did. How do you measure what looks right and what tastes perfect? You don’t. You simply mix ingredients knowing full well that no two batches ever turn out exactly the same. That’s why he laughed when some fool said, “Oh, it’s not as good as usual.” Of course not. Nothing ever is. Usual—taken literally—meant average. Only a dork would want to produce average-tasting food.

Twelve years ago he made the potato-leek soup recipe for the first time. Twelve years old and already amped with dreams of someday becoming a master chef. Don’t ask why or how he knew this would be his life’s work. That dream had been budding in the soul of his brain for as long as he could remember. Just as it had for that crazy little rat in Ratatouille.

“You ready?” he calls from the kitchen.

“Whenever you are.”

He ladles full two china soup bowls, sets them carefully on matching plates, wipes a thick drip from the edge of one, garnishes each with finely chopped green onions, then inspects the bowls with a nod of satisfaction. A great presentation will always make a delicious entree taste better.

“Delicious,” Chris says.

“Maybe a bit dull,” says Janice, the Step-Mom From Hell.

Joel is so nervous he can’t eat. Instead, just sits and waits for the reviews.

“But,” Dad continues, pointing at him with the spoon, “you really need to start thinking about doing something more serious with your life. This chef business just isn’t...reasonable.”

Janice nods agreement before primly dabbing the corner of her pouty collagen-injected lips with the linen napkin.

“Like?”

Dad carefully sets his spoon on the plate, presses his palms together, plants both elbows on the table, drilling him with his trademark serious expression. “Son, by the time I was your age I knew I wanted to be a doctor. Okay, I admit I was young, but the point is, if you’re going to amount to anything and develop any kind of financial security, you need to start planning and working now, even if it seems premature. You can’t just say ‘I’m going to be a great chef.’ That’s crazy bananas. I know you know what the statistics are, what the failure rate is for a new restaurant. Especially in a city as competitive as this. Being a cook isn’t something you can count on to support you through retirement. You need to plan on a career that provides something that people really need. Medicine, for example. Set your sights and work hard.”

He’s heard this spiel before—like a bad commercial—over and over. “But I want to cook. I want to be a chef. Why can’t you understand that?”

Dad sighs. “Son, you can always cook. Every damned day if you want to. We all do. That’s not something that...”

“Contributes,” Janice finishes the sentence for him. As if she’s Ms. Worldly Knowledge, having completed all of one quarter of junior college as an “art major.” How contributory is that?

Joel hates her.

Joel snapped back from the memory, glanced around the kitchen once again before refocusing on the potato-leek soup. Jesus, what made me think of that episode? Ah yes, the soup. That was the first time he’d made it. He paused, thinking, one of these days I’ll call Dad.

But not for a while yet. Not until I’ve really made a name for myself. Then I’ll call and really rub his nose in my success.

He was only a sous chef. But hey, being an assistant chef at Chez Pierre wasn’t too shabby, not by any measure. Especially for only a twenty-four-year-old kid. But his Dad wouldn’t get it...he probably wouldn’t even know what a sous chef was. And what would he say when he finally did call him? “Hi, it’s me, Joel. Your son. I’m not really dead.” How would that play?

He laughed at the thought and resumed chopping. That day would come.

CASCADE MOUNTAINS, 12:43 PM

Aw, Christ, hurts like a sonofabitch.

The deep gnawing ache made it difficult to move, to even breathe. Chris repeatedly tried to reassure himself, to talk himself into relaxing, to breathe in and out slowly. He knew that getting upset and panicky would only worsen the coronary insufficiency. As it was, each spasm of pain was flirting with death. Any one of them might cause his heart to stop, and then...

He knew too damned much. That was the problem. The fact that the pain wasn’t subsiding—and in fact worsening—scared the hell out of him. How could you possibly relax when you knew your heart might not beat again? All it took was for one of his coronary arteries spasming tight enough to squeeze off the blood to a major portion of heart muscle and bingo, Dead Duck.

Reed Allison’s hand was on his shoulder now, gently pushing him back against the hill. He really didn’t have the strength to resist so instead focused on a sky bluer than anything he’d seen before. And it was the sight of this incredible beauty that finally allowed him to relax and accept the pain for what it really represented: his death.

If he thought about it, there couldn’t be a more beautiful spot to die than here with his son.

He glanced at Reed, who was now thumbing in numbers on his cell.

A cell phone? Here? Are you kidding?

He let his eyes drift back to the sky and sighed with heavy resignation. You had to die someday. That was an unavoidable part of life. But at age fifty-five? Didn’t seem right—like he was being cheated.

Why here in the Cascade Mountains?

Suddenly, he saw the karmic symmetry, a comic irony of dying near the spot where his son had been killed. For some strange reason he found the thought comical and began to snigger. Which, in turn, increased the pain. He thought, it only hurts when I laugh. And this weird thought struck him as uproariously hilarious, morphing the snigger into an all-out laugh.

Then he was floating above himself, looking down at his body. How sad. He started to cry. It’s too sad. Yet he also felt satisfaction at the life he’d lived. Sure, he’d made a few mistakes along the way, but the sum had been positive. He could leave this world having helped others, and this thought gave him a bit of comfort.

Then he heard Reed saying, “...in the Rachel Lake region.”

No kidding? He actually got through? Amazing.

Come to think of it, we’re not that far from Snoqualmie Pass’s three ski areas. And a string of cell towers all along I-90.

He glanced back at the snow patch which might still contain some of the same ice crystals that smothered his son. He thought of one of their good days together before Joel started getting into trouble...

Joel sits at the table waiting for the verdict. Actually, the soup is damned good, Chris thinks. Better than anything he could slap together. Potato-leek soup. Not something everyone tries to cook from scratch. No question, his son has talent. For a moment he’s very proud of him. Now, if he would just stop the drugs...

“Delicious,” Chris says.

“Maybe a bit dull,” Janice adds.

Chris looks at her and wonders, does she even remotely suspect the private investigator who followed her and Richard Keen to the 6^th Avenue Best Western? Doubtful. Otherwise she would’ve been more careful.

Even though he despises her for the infidelity, he won’t deal with it at the moment. Too much is going on in his cardiology practice to afford the distraction of a messy divorce. Besides, Reed advised him to continue building their case before filing the papers. The tighter the case, the more likely they were to prevent a contentious fight once the hatchet finally drops. Making the sordid outcome a tad like blackmail. Although Reed’s strategy makes him feel a bit sleazy, Jan did bring this on herself.

He looks at Joel. Why cooking? The kid isn’t gay, so that can’t be it. What is it then? Try as hard as he might, he can’t understand it.

“Come on, Chris. Stick with me!” Reed shouts, jarring Chris back to the present drama.

Fight! Hang on. You don’t want to die here. Not now. This isn’t your time.

But every movement, every word seemed slower—a bit more hazy—as he waffled on the edge of consciousness.

“Come on, Chris, I need your help here.”

“Huh?” he mumbled.

Reed pointed downhill, his other hand tugging the front of Chris’s shirt, pulling him up. “See that open area there? Coast Guard’s sending a chopper to fly you out. But right now I need your help. We have to get you down to flatter land. Can you do it?”

Clammy with sweat in spite of the chilly air, the only thing Chris wanted to do was strip off his shirt and let the breeze blow against his skin. But Reed, still tugging at him, made sense. And he trusted Reed more than anyone in his life.

Screw the pain. Work though it. You may die in the process, but at least you tried to do something for yourself. Fight!

Chris struggled to his feet, stumbled, regained balance, and took three steps downhill before toppling over.

Reed pulled him up onto his feet again and draped Chris’s arm over his shoulder.

“Take a step. Now another.”

Aw shit, the pain is worse than ever...unbearable. “No. I can’t.”

PORTLAND, OREGON

Oh, man, there it was again: that weird, spacey feeling. But this time there was something else, too: a tightness in the left side of his chest, right underneath the pec. He started to massage it.

Man, this is too weird.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the pain vanished, replaced by a sure-as-shit realization.

Dad’s in trouble.

CASCADE MOUNTAINS, WASHINGTON

Chris became vaguely aware of whomp whomp whomp a moment before the sound registered: a helicopter.

Chris tried to open his eyes but could only manage a tight squint in bright sunlight.

Oh, God, must’ve nodded off. Amazing, I’m still alive.

Eyes barely open, he glanced around. The lake remained to his right but where were the two hikers? Then he saw them, over by the snow patch, standing straight, watching the chopper circle in.

“Good, you’re still with me,” Reed said, kneeling close to his head. “Hear the chopper? That’s for you. We’re going to fly you to a hospital and fix you up. Everything will be fine. Just hang on.”

God, what beauty. Spectacular.

Chris stared at the cobalt lake, the vibrant green of the pines, the brilliant azure sky. In fifty-five years he’d never seen anything so beautiful and mystical. It brought contentment. If this was where he’d die, so be it. He couldn’t think of a better place than here, next to his son.

2

CHEZ PIERRE, PORTLAND, OREGON

“Joel!”

Amorphous light flickered at the periphery of consciousness...

“Joel!”

Another voice yelled, “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

“Joel! Can you hear me?” The first voice seemed closer now.

He blinked and cracked his eyes, only to be partially blinded by harsh fluorescent light. He inhaled warm humid air laced with garlic, warm bread, greasy suds, and heard the hum of a dishwasher. All the smells and sounds seemed so familiar yet totally foreign. Consciousness slowly resolved into focus, bringing a weird orientation. He was sitting on a greasy concrete floor, he realized, with his back propped against a stainless steel counter leg, his right hand clutching his chest. But the pain of a moment ago was gone. Gone also was the crisp pine-scented air and rhythmic sound of the helicopter rotors.

Confused, he glanced around, saw that instead of lying on a rocky trail sloping into Rachel Lake, he was on the floor of a commercial kitchen.

“Joel?”

His eyes were wide open now, looking straight into the face of a black guy who squatted on his haunches staring at him with obvious concern. Yeah, okay, Luther Rabb, the maitre d’.

Wait a minute! How the hell do I know him? I’ve never seen him before.

But then again, he did know Luther...just wasn’t sure how. Which made this...this...whatever the hell it was, confusing.

Hold on, wait a minute. We work here.

Daniel too, the chef on Luther’s left. What’s more, he knew all Daniel’s little idiosyncrasies, like stashing clean dishrags above his station so he’d have a fresh supply late into the evening. How most nights they all sat around and drank the bar’s Knob Creek for an hour or so after shutting down. And that Daniel bought blow from him.

The better question was: what the hell’s going on? The last he remembered, the helicopter was approaching.

Why am I so...confused? Why am I sitting on a greasy kitchen floor?

“Joel! You all right?”

Joel? Whoa, that’s my son’s name. He’s dead.

He looked at Luther. “I’m...” I’m Chris. He knew that as well as he...

Really? You sure about that?

Luther put his hand on his shoulder. “Stay put, dude. The paramedics will be here any second now. I called ‘em.”

“No, I...” He struggled up onto his feet. But the dizziness grew worse, forcing him to reflexively grab the counter. He muttered, “Whoa, maybe I need to sit back down. Just not on the damned floor.”

Luther and Daniel helped him to a chair, and he plunked down heavily, leaning forward, face in hands, elbows on thighs, trying to get his shit together in all this confusion...

Next thing he knew, Taylor was squatting next to him, looking very concerned.

Huh? Do I know you? Have we met before?

Are you nuts? We live together.

But how could that be? She didn’t look familiar.

Sure she does.

Jesus, talk about confusing. There was no explanation...

Next thing he knew, two paramedics were taking his blood pressure and slapping EKG pads on his chest. Physically, he felt fine, though didn’t say so, his mind still having huge problems sorting things out. A minute ago he was hiking with Reed Allison, then boom, he was in Portland surrounded by people he’d never seen before yet knew intimately.

One paramedic asked, “Can you tell me your name?”

Took a second before he could come up with the answer. And that was scary too, not knowing right away. What the hell, did he stroke out a minute ago? Was that it?

“Chris Holden,” he answered.

“What day is it?”

Okay, that’s easy. “Tuesday.”

“Where are you?”

Ah, establishing a baseline level of orientation. A routine set of questions he’d ask when evaluating patients.

Amazingly, he knew the answer to that too: “In Portland. At Chez Pierre. I work here. I’m an assistant chef. I—”

What? Bullshit, I’m a doctor, a cardiologist. I live in Seattle.

Don’t say another word. Not until you figure out what’s happening.

The first paramedic told the second one, “Vitals are fine, EKG normal.”

“No, he’s not okay,” Taylor said. She seemed very concerned. He wanted to tell her not to be, that he was fine, just a little temporary uncertainty. But until he figured things out, he decided it’d be best to not say another word. People ended up in locked wards by admitting too much...

The other medic looked at her. “What’s wrong?”

Taylor shook her head. “He’s confused. His name’s Joel. His father—who lives in Seattle—is Chris.”

No, that’s wrong, I’m Chris.

He stopped to think about that. Whoa...I’m...? And wasn’t so sure anymore.

No...I’m Joel.

How can that be? That’s impossible.

“Here, lie down on this,” the first medic said, pointing to a stretcher.

Yeah, might not be a bad idea.

He turned from the gurney and caught his reflection in the mirror by the door. And froze. Did a double take.

Couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

His son Joel, buried five years ago in an avalanche, was staring back at him.

Then it started coming back to him.

3

CASCADE MOUNTAINS, FIVE YEARS EARLIER

Twenty feet ahead, Matt stops, turns to him, says, “Dude, this is work.”

“You got that right.” Sweating like a stoker on the Titanic, Joel sucks a deep lungful of crisp air. Ice crystals sparkle to his right, where snow-laden pines cast high contrast shadows on a brilliant white blanket. To his left is a precipitous drop with a view out across a frozen alpine lake and stunning blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. The scene contains splendor far greater than anything ever captured in a nature photograph. Moments like this are the only reason for busting ass on a pair of snowshoes. Snowshoeing! The ultimate stupid sport. And the ultimate break from having to make a decision. One that can cost his life.

“How about we stop for lunch just over that rise?” Matt yells back.

“What?”

The rumble spans two long seconds of disbelief as the brain isn’t able to comprehend the ominous vibrations against the soles of his feet or the deep rumble in his ears. Two seconds of confusion punctuated by terror.

This is the second day of record-breaking heat after weeks of heavy snows, producing conditions they both knew to avoid but at the same time found too glorious to resist. But Joel especially needs a break from the stress of reaching a decision.

Joel glances uphill and sees a wall of snow hurling toward them. He screams, “Avalanche!”

Matt freezes in horror, eyes locked on the billowing white mass cascading down on him.

“MATT!”

Matt can’t seem to move. And then, when he does, his legs seem mired in quicksand.

“MATT! RUN!”

In the next millisecond the survival odds register on Joel’s subconscious: zero for Matt, fifty-fifty for him. He yanks the personal GPS from his parka and throws it hard at Matt, hoping only to mark the general location. He turns and tries to run—not fast enough either—from the thundering two hundred tons of snow hurtling down on them. A massive blur roars straight through the path they were hiking—swallowing Matt and drowning out any other sound. He catches a glimpse of red swept off the ledge toward the lake, swallowed in a mass of snow. More snow roars past like a long freight train.

Suddenly, the blur stops and dissolves into a quickly dying funnel of shifting snow. The avalanche missed him by only a foot.

Dead eerie silence.

Seconds pass and then a secondary brief rumble of more snow settling into the shifted terrain.

Panting, he bends over, grasps his knees. His heart pounds with incredible joy and gratitude for his being safe instead of suffocating in a dark freezing tomb. One fucking foot!

It registers: Matt is gone, swallowed by the avalanche. He, on the other hand, is alive.

He peers into the valley, sees no sign of Matt, not even a hint of red from the bright parka. Joel takes a tentative step in that direction, but snow shifts against his legs, rolling into the slide zone, warning him to stay away. He tries again. More snow crashes down. He backs up, terrified at being swept into the snow bank and buried too. And if he isn’t buried, the fight to climb back up will sap his strength and make it impossible to go for help. Leaving him no choice but to leave and go for help.

He turns to start the trek back, hoping the GPS unit may, with luck, help them find Matt’s body. But even that’s unlikely.

Joel stands at the trail head staring at the rusted grill of his Volvo, weighing the situation. No question, Matt’s dead. The moment a person is buried in an avalanche, they have maybe thirty seconds to claw their way out before suffocating unless they’re wearing a survival pack and can use it, and someone is ready to dig him out. Then you might last a bit longer. Matt couldn’t afford one of those packs. So, he’s toast. And even if you knew where to look, any retrieval attempt would risk triggering another avalanche. And even if he did lead a search party to the slide site, what were the chances they’d ever find Matt under all that snow? Pretty damned slim. The GPS unit might not even be remotely close to the body. In hindsight, it was foolish to throw it. But he had to do something.

He sits on his haunches to think.

One thing’s for sure: Matt is dead, with little chance of ever being found.

Joel starts shaking—both arms, both legs, his trunk—as the full impact of what just happened sinks in. Death took Matt, not him. Why? What did he do to deserve being saved?

Several minutes pass before the shaking begins to subside and stop. He wipes tears from his cheeks and blinks. Why in hell did he want to come here today? They knew, damned well knew the conditions and area. Snowshoeing here is stupidity at its worst. Jesus, if I could just turn back time several hours, this never would’ve happened. But he’d desperately needed to get away to clear his head and figure a way out of the terrible squeeze Delgado has him in.

Why was Matt buried? Why not me? Dad always says we make our own destiny, that each individual’s life is 90% determined by our decisions, the remaining 10% by luck, fate, or divine intervention (depending on your beliefs). I’d had Matt lead during that stretch, so, was I responsible for his death?

On the other hand, if I were now dead, all my troubles would be solved.

Instead, Matt’s dead and I’m still due to testify in front of a grand jury Monday.

Unless...

Is that really possible?

4

FRIDAY, 3:11 PM, BURIEN, WASHINGTON, TWO DAYS EARLIER

Fuck! A flashing blue light in the rearview mirror. Not good. Joel checks his speed. Right on the money. A burnt-out tail light, outdated license tag? Naw, can’t be. I always check those things. So why the pull-over?

He looks at the image in mirror. Hmmm...an unmarked car.

Joel pulls into a deserted parking lot fronting a strip mall, rolls down his window. There’s not much activity in the mall, just a bankrupt tanning salon, a Sprint store, a Papa Murphy’s pizza place, a place that used to rent videos.

Two Hispanic dudes step out of the cop car, the fat one wearing a Hawaiian shirt and the not-so-fat one in an oversized LA Lakers tank top. Both wearing cut-offs. They split up, approaching the car from both sides.

The fat one on the driver side flashes an ID, says, “DEA Special Agent Delgado. Step out of the car, please.”

“Yes, sir.” Joel starts to step out, his mind racing. Any product on board? Not that he remembers. But the attaché case on the passenger seat is right there in the open for God and the universe to see. No way will they not look at that. He hears the passenger door open.

“Hands against the vehicle.”

Joel faces the open driver-side window, hands on the roof, watches as the LA Lakers dude rifles the glove box.

“Anything I need to know about in your pockets? Needles? Blades?”

“No, sir.”

Delgado sweeps both hands over him. Cars speed past on the street, no one paying much attention. He’s sweating.

Something hard slams his testicles from below, followed by the slow relentless ascent of visceral pain burrowing straight through his gut, chest, and into the base of his brain.

“Oh, sorry, hand slipped,” mutters Delgado.

Sweating, teeth clenched, fighting the urge to vomit, Joel tries to not show pain.

“Yo, Armando, look.” Delgado’s partner holds up the open black attaché full of rubber-banded packs of $100 bills.

Delgado asks Joel, “Pay day, Holden? Didn’t know you’re a working man these days. Legitimately that is. You got a pay stub to go along with this? But shit, this looks like pretty good wages. Must be union. Doing lots of overtime? How much you think’s there, Pepe?”

“Least ten grand.”

Delgado asks Joel, “Where’d you get it?”

Joel knows better than to say a word, but his skin prickles from fear. The money is Ortega’s, due later today. He’s only the courier.

Pepe carries the attaché around the car for Delgado to inspect.

“Let me guess,” Delgado says, picking up a wad of bills. “This doesn’t belong to you.”

Joel doesn’t answer. What can he say? Besides, right now he’s scrambling for a way to replace the money. Because if he doesn’t...fuck! No loans from Dad. That’s for sure as a twenty-four-hour day. Reed Allison? Maybe.

“Hey, Pepe. Our homey’s sweating.” He turns to Joel. “You sweating, bro?”

Can’t think of anyone with that kind of cash lying around.

“Make you a deal, bro,” Delgado says, holding up the attaché case. “You show up Monday, give a sworn testimony to the grand jury, you walk away with this money.”

Joel asks, “Today?”

Delgado lets out a sarcastic laugh. “You not listening, bro? Monday.”

Joel shakes his head. “No, listen, I take it today?”

Delgado looks at Pepe and says, “Gee whiz, whaddya think, Pepe?” sounding like some lame white kid from a 50’s sitcom. “That fair and square? He gets the money and walks?”

Rhetorical question, Joel knows.

Delgado says to Joel, “The fuck you think, bro? When you give us all you know we give you all the cash. Tell it to a grand fucking jury, under oath.”

Joel shakes his head. “I don’t deliver that money by 5:00 pm, I won’t be alive to say shit on Monday.” Which is the God’s honest truth.

Silence.

Pepe gives a little sideways nod with a half shrug. “Kid might have a point, Armando.”

Delgado says, “Holden, we been on you for six months now. We don’t get Ortega, you’ll do the time. Think about it. We’ll be keeping an eye on you. You don’t show up Monday, you’ll...well, you really don’t want to go that route, know what I’m saying? But guess what? It’s your lucky day. You get the money. We have a deal?”

CASCADE MOUNTAINS, TRAIL HEAD

Delgado’s men had been watching him like fucking predators since then. All the more reason to come up here to get away for a least a few hours. Maybe he’d just been handed a perfect solution, a perfect out to a very bad situation. Why not just walk away?

Yeah?

Yeah. Simple. Just walk away. Start new.

Hmmm...could work.

Joel bushwhacks a hundred feet from the car into dense foliage and hides the snowshoes under a heavy growth of salal. Stands back to inspect his work.

No one will find them for fifty years. Maybe not even then.

He scouts the trail head, sees the government car with Delgado’s men in it, and cuts a wide detour onto the old logging road, figuring the two miles to the highway is an easy hike.

Yeah, this might just work.

By this evening, when he and Matt haven’t returned to their car, those cops will begin to wonder. By then it’ll be too late to start searching. They’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Then a sheriff’s deputy or forest service agent will come looking for them and follow their tracks. A helicopter might see the avalanche and maybe pick up the GPS signal...

Everyone will assume he and Matt are dead.

Problem solved.

He continues walking, weighing the possibilities.

Simply disappear. Just walk away.

It would be tough starting over with only the clothes on his back and fifty bucks in his wallet, but it’s a damned sight better than any other of his other options. Besides, he doesn’t own anything worth much. Everything material is replaceable.

Can he really start a new life right now? Where would he start, and how? He doesn’t have a clue, but can’t see any other choice. He’s smart. He can figure it out.

Damned well better figure it out because I really don’t have any other options.

What about Dad?

What about him?

He’ll think his only child is dead.

Yeah, unavoidable.

Ironically, this points out a major point of friction between them: Dad always preaching, “Do the right thing, no matter what.” But what about self-preservation, doesn’t that trump righteousness? Damned right it does. Besides, Dad got over Mom’s death. He’ll get over mine. No problem.

A fresh start. I can turn my life around and profit from what I’ve learned. Yeah, this is the start of a new life.

By late afternoon Joel stands, thumb out, thinking: Portland, Oregon. The Western Culinary Institute is there. One of the best cooking schools on the West Coast. Yeah, this could be his opportunity to do the one thing he’s dreamed of.

A car pulls to the shoulder of the road and he jogs to it, opens the door.

“Where you headed?” the driver asks as Joel slides into the front seat.

He starts to say, Portland, but thinks better of it. Odds are no one will ever ask this guy, but news of their tragic deaths might appear in the paper—along with pictures.

Would this guy recognize me? Better not take a chance.

“Los Angeles.”

With those two words, he realizes just how radically his life is about to change. It feels good.

Testifying against a dude bad enough to kill me or really fuck me up no longer hangs over my head. I’m free.

He’s giddy with relief.

“I can take you as far as Mercer Island. Will that help?”

“Hey, thanks a lot. That’s a real help.” He turns to look out the window. The less the guy sees his face, the better.

5

OREGON HEALTH SCIENCES EMERGENCY ROOM

He sat on the emergency room gurney studying the back of his hands again. Young smooth skin. Not the same turkey skin he’d grown so used to seeing while scrubbing outside the cardiac cath lab. He held up his left palm. The scar that had been there for the last forty-five years—the one from his first attempt at cleaning a fish—was gone. Jabbed the knife straight in. Luckily he didn’t severe a tendon or nerve. A painful indelible lesson on the dangers of sharp blades. The things you learn growing up. He wiggled his fingers. They moved and felt like his. Just didn’t look like them, was all. Very very strange.

He pushed off the gurney onto the floor in front of the mirror above the sink. And that was another thing; his body felt so different. Stronger, more rested, more energetic. No nagging ache in the right hip.

What the hell happened? One minute he was hiking, the next he was on the kitchen floor in Chez Pierre.

With Joel’s mind and body.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. Best he could tell, this was Joel’s body but Chris’s mind. Yet that wasn’t exactly right either because he had Joel’s memories too. Which he found incredibly interesting, this sudden ability to see both sides of shared experiences, good and bad. The potato-leek soup dinner, for example. Felt sort of like looking out from the inside of a mirror or like living in a dream. Leaving him disoriented and confused, yet at the same time fascinated.

Except, this wasn’t any dream. This was very real. And very creepy.

What the hell happened? Was he totally psychotic? Was what he was experiencing—or thought he was experiencing—a major psychotic delusion? He pinched himself once again, and yes, felt pain. Huh!

One time, years ago in college, he dropped acid. Man, what a trip. But this was nothing like that. Then, the colors, sounds, and images were, well, psychedelic. You knew you were seeing a distortion. Now nothing seemed distorted or unreal. This felt absolutely normal. And this wasn’t like any of the coke Joel had done, either. Not even close.

When he first regained consciousness—when everyone was standing around gawking at him—things were too confusing to even try to sort out. So he just answered the paramedic’s questions and let Taylor tell them he was confused, that he was Joel and not Chris. So they loaded him into an aid car and brought him here to the emergency room where he overheard someone mention this was a teaching hospital for the med school.

When the ER doctor finally got to him, she started in with questions. Who are you? Where are you? What’s the date? The basic Mental Status Exam he’d administered countless times in his own practice. He answered the easy ones such as who’s the President of the United States, but when it came to his name and the city he was in, he messed up. So the ER doc ordered a neurology consult, MRI scan, the whole enchilada. All of which turned out normal. Now he was waiting to be discharged. The neurologist told him to go ahead and get back into his clothes but to wait for the ER doctor’s instruction before leaving. So here he was, dressed and waiting to go home.

Strangely enough, he knew where home was: a one bedroom apartment he shared with Taylor. They were a couple, not roommates.

He sorted through his wallet again. Jesus, what a mind blower. Everything—Oregon State driver’s license, credit cards, Social Security card—were Joel’s. What made it even weirder was being able to remember applying for them. It turned out to be much simpler than he’d expected. The day he arrived in Portland—the day after walking off the mountain—he ordered a copy of his birth certificate from the King County Department of Records and then filed a request for a replacement Social Security card. No problem. Nothing could have been easier.

Curious to see to how the authorities handled his disappearance, he followed the Seattle Times on line. Three days after the avalanche a two-paragraph story mentioned “a missing hiker.” The story named Matt but made no mention of Joel Holden, which he found disturbing. Why wasn’t he named? Did it have something to do with Delgado? Delgado was the only reason he could think of.

He checked the mirror again. Yeah, Joel was staring back at him. He ducked side to side, trying to fake out the image, but it didn’t falter. He pinched his cheek. Nope, it really was him in the mirror.

Jesus, how could this be?

His life as Chris had been dictated by rational linear thinking. A left-brain existence. After all, practicing medicine required it. He believed in only those things that could be measured objectively and proven scientifically. If you couldn’t measure a phenomenon, it didn’t exist. Simple as that. A philosophy that explained his agnostic approach to religion. He didn’t believe in occult or paranormal activity either, chalking up such anecdotal experiences as innocent flaws of perception or, in some cases, simply craziness.

How could he explain this...whatever...that was happening to him?

He couldn’t. But it was real, so there had to be an explanation.

Well, there was always the possibility he’d gone batshit crazy and this weird transformation he was experiencing was nothing more than a delusion. But that didn’t seem right either in spite of being more plausible than any other explanation he could think of.

Maybe it happened like this: during the heart attack on the mountain he had a stroke that damaged his brain and, as a result, his “mind” was in this “state.” But he couldn’t seriously accept this either. This was too...real?

Taylor opened the treatment room door and cautiously peered in.

“The doctor’s gone, so you can come on in,” he said.

She slipped in and shut the door, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged. Without letting go, she said, “I was so scared. I thought you’d, like, had a stroke or something. But the doctor thinks maybe it was just a fainting spell.”

Yeah, right. No, this was way more than a faint.

He gently removed her arms from him. “Could you give me a minute by myself, sweetie?”

Sweetie? Yeah, that’s what Joel calls her.

She started to put her arms around him again but stopped, her eyes running back and forth over his face. “You okay? Want me to call the nurse back?”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I’m sorry. Look, this may sound weird, but I need to be alone for a few moments...get my head straight. This has been so upsetting.”

His words appeared to sting, so he squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I’m sorry. I know it sounds harsh. I just need a few more minutes by myself. Please.”

How weird, he thought. He knew he loved her in spite of never having laid eyes on her until tonight. Well, Joel had. And he felt Joel’s love for her, a love like he’d never felt for Janice.

She forced an understanding smile. Which was something she did when stressed. He knew this also.

“Sure. I understand. I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling...”

You have no idea.

“Just a couple minutes,” he assured her.

She nodded and left the room, unable to mask her disappointment.

He inspected his body more closely. Joel’s face had put on a few years since he saw him last...the night they argued, the night before the avalanche.

Jesus! How could Joel have gotten into such a goddamned mess?

“No, son. You agreed to testify; if that’s the deal you cut, you need to stand by your word. You have a tendency to always take the easy way out. You need to learn how to face adversity,” he says, trying to suppress the anger from his voice.

Joel wonders: how can Dad be such a hard-ass when it’s my neck on the chopping block. “But you don’t understand. I testify, they’ll fuck me over. Bad.”

“Who? The drug dealer you’re protecting? A drug dealer, for chrissake!”

“He’s a friend.”

“Friends don’t fuck over friends,” Chris says.

“It does if it means doing hard time. You would too if you had half a clue.”

“What I don’t understand is how you ever let this happen in the first place, dealing drugs.”

He understood it now. Completely. Still didn’t mean he condoned Joel’s actions. It only meant that he now understood what happened and that Joel had been selling to kids in school as far back as junior high. Jesus, he must’ve been the world’s lousiest parent to not know about it. Aw, man...how could he have raised his son to be a drug dealer?

“Who gave you permission to get up?”

Startled, he spun around. The Pakistani ER doc stood in the doorway, a knee-length white coat over blue scrubs, a Littman stethoscope clamped around her elegant neck, looking pissed. He knew the self-important attitude. Had seen it in colleagues. May have even been guilty of it himself on occasion.

“The nurse said to get dressed. I assumed that included being able to stand to put on my pants.” He couldn’t resist the touch of sarcasm.