Snowstorm of Our Past novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: The Debris Field

He picked me up at seven on Saturday with the dog in the back seat and two thermoses in the cup holders.

He drove north out of town on Highway 24.

I knew where we were going before we passed the sign for Tennessee Pass.

"Gabe."

"I know."

"You don't have to do this."

"I know that too." He kept his eyes on the road. "I fly over it every week, Mal. I want to see it once with my feet on the ground."

The valley at Camp Hale opened up below the highway, wide and white and empty.

Old stone foundations stuck out of the snow where the barracks used to be.

He parked at a pullout where the plow had left a bank higher than the truck.

I checked the forecast on my phone out of habit, even though I'd written it.

Low danger. Cold, clear and settled.

"It's safe," I said.

"I know. I read it this morning." He almost smiled. "The forecaster's good."

We put on snowshoes and walked up through the trees.

The dog ranged ahead of us with his tail going, nose down in every drift.

It took an hour.

We came out of the trees at the bottom of a long, open slope, and Gabe stopped.

I stopped beside him.

It didn't look like anything.

Just a smooth white face under a blue sky, with the sun on it and a few old pines at the edges.

But I knew it.

My body knew it before my head did.

The probe line had stood right here, at the toe, shoulder to shoulder in the dark.

"He was right there," Gabe said, pointing. "Clint. About forty feet up. That's where you were digging."

I looked at the spot.

I could almost see the headlamps.

"And I was there." He pointed higher, to the left. "Buried to my chest. I watched your light the whole time I was digging. It was the only thing that didn't move."

He swung his arm down and to the right, toward the trees three hundred yards below.

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