Ookpik: Chapter 4

February 1, 2005

Chapter 4
(Mammoth Monthly March 2005)

Hans Errmann, chieftain of the Ski Patrol, blasted through the final snowdrift blocking his path. He maneuvered the snowmobile to a protected spot, under a roof and on the lee side of Old Main, the ski area’s most distinctive building. He checked behind him to make sure the blowing snow would cover his tracks.

On this night, Hans Errmann wore his red Ski Patrol jacket, black mountaineering gloves and red ski boots. On the back of his snowmobile he carried skis.

He dismounted the snowmobile, swinging his ski boot over the seat. He wiped snow off the yellow lenses of his goggles and stood against the wind. He strode—sliced—his way to the back of the snowmobile and lifted his skis off the rig, and leaned his shoulder against the wind again. In two long steps he was next to the building. He pulled open the door to the Ski Patrol headquarters.

For over 25 years he had made this snowmobile trip from the town how many times? A thousand? Only once before, however, had he made a trip quite like this one. He remembered that singular trip—an ugly, fateful, murderous trip—with fondness.

“I am Hans Errmann,” he shouted into the wind before turning toward the doorway.

The wind howled as the first big storm of the season churned over the mountain and through the Ski Town below, and Hans Errmann, looking backward to make sure the snowmobile was safe, sneered.

Through the snow, he looked up. Always, on the first snow, some of the town’s skiers and snowboarders tried to get a head start, hiking up the hill and skiing down, against the rules. These skiers and snowboarders infuriated Hans Errmann.

“If there is anybody up there,” he yelled into the snow, “you get what you deserve!”

He laughed a low guttural laugh. An awful laugh.

He watched the snow blow sideways over the building and swirl in the lee of Old Main. It obscured nearly everything, including the huge bronze statue of Errmann himself—the statue that stood prominently in front of the most prominent building, greeting every skier, every snowboarder, every visitor, every day.

Errmann’s eyes were cobalt and quick. He stepped inside the room, removed his goggles and did a quick scan. He saw plenty of evidence that his Ski Patrol team was on the mountain.

In the blizzard’s gray light, Hans Errmann saw that some of his team’s lockers were ajar. On the locker hooks were civilian clothes. On the floor in front of the lockers, civilian boots lay scattered. There was a full-length mirror. On a bench in front of the lockers the front page of a Reno newspaper shouted, over six columns, “Shocker Storm Misses Tahoe, Blasts South.”

He saw that there was no one in the room, even in midday. It was just as he had planned. Blowing snow hissed against the windows. Hans Errmann felt his gut tighten in anticipation.

He clenched his jaw and licked his lower lip. They all were on the mountain, looking for none other than Hans Errmann.
The room smelled of damp polypro and wool.

“Perfect,” he said out loud, then twisted the corners of his mouth upward.

“Ookpik,” he said, “today you will fly into Juanita’s bed no more. You will fly no more at all.”

He kicked snow off his ski boots, removed his gloves and put them on the community table in the middle of the room.

“Deion Von Rondt,” he whispered, “today is the last trip in your bus, Isis, and the last time Juanita will wrap her legs around you.”

Even in the storm Hans Errmann wore no hat. When he removed his goggles, his blond hair fell to his shoulders in waves, as it did—in bronze—on the statue outside. His shoulders—his entire body—seemed to be chiseled from marble.

He rubbed the palms of his hands together. Errmann had an urge to laugh, but he stifled it as he surveyed the room and examined the gear that the members of the Patrol had left in their lockers.

“Simple people,” he scoffed under his breath.

He reached for a cigar in his inside breast pocket. He tore the wrapper off the cigar—a Macanudo Presidente—and put the wrapper in his pocket. He bit the end off the cigar and spit it into a wastebasket, then reached for a box of wooden stick matches, also in his inside breast pocket. He prepared to light the cigar.

Across the room, an image of Hans Errmann stood in the full-length mirror, leaning against the inside frame of the mirror, arms folded across its chest, studying Errmann’s actions.

The image wore a new red Ski Patrol jacket, exactly like Errmann’s. He wore Errmann’s red ski boots. His profulent hair touched his shoulders. The image lifted its chin to speak. A pause.

“And so we meet again,” the image half shouted. Another pause as Errmann froze. “Surely you remember me, Hansie?”

Errmann stuffed the matchbox back into his breast pocket and whirled around. He saw no one.

The image in the mirror spoke again.

“I’ve missed you, Hansie. Nice to see you again!”

To Errmann, the voice sounded familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, as if it were he himself who had shouted. He clenched the unlit Macanudo between his teeth.

In the room, Hans Errmann could see no movement at all. His cobalts scanned the room slowly. He held his breath. He saw nothing unusual. He did not know where the voice came from.

Rather, he saw three twin beds, placed there for injured skiers and snowboarders who used them to wait for the ambulance that would take them to the hospital in the Ski Town, four miles and 1,000 feet below. Against a wall, two folding chairs. Against another wall, a two-way radio setup, with a microphone on a stand. The radio was on, but silent, save for the faint sound of static. Against another wall, a hospital gurney and a first aid cabinet. In the farthest corner, a door to the board tunnel that led to the brick building where the deadly dynamite bombs and artillery shells were stored.

In one corner of the room was Errmann’s office. He scanned the locker room once more, then walked past the full-length mirror and into his office—a room that was big enough for a desk, desk chair and locker.

The image in the mirror ducked out of the frame and out of sight as Errmann passed into the office.

A quiver of skis occupied a space in one corner of the small room. On the wall, hooks held his archery gear, useful mere days ago, but now out of place in a snow universe. Next to that, a weather map, carefully marked in dry-erase ink, showing Errmann’s personal forecast.

He saw that no one had disturbed his carefully crafted scene from the night before.

The old sheepskin boots were near his locker, apparently kicked off haphazardly, as was usual for him. His new red ski patrol jacket was gone from its hook and in its place hung the old one—the one with the white cross taken off, the one he wore around town. Also gone from his locker were his customary tools: his Ski Patrol daypack, an avalanche shovel, a fuse crimper to use with the avalanche bombs, and his radio. Also gone were his ski boots and skis. He had left the locker door slightly open.

Even to Hans Errmann, it looked as if he had been here, then gone out into the first big winter storm of the season with all his gear. Surely the others would think he was gone.

“They’ll figure it out eventually, Hansie.” It was the weirdly familiar voice from outside his office, in the main room. The figure in the mirror smirked. “And I say, ‘Hell with them all!’”

Errmann dashed out of his office into the main room.

“Who is here?” he demanded. “Who is that?”

Silence at first, then a goading hiss: “Pssssst—heeeeeeere we are!”

Errmann spun around on his heels, angry, and saw himself in the mirror. The image of himself taunted him even as Errmann, unbelieving, bent his mouth into a jeering leer. He saw that this was not really a reflection at all. Errmann lifted his right arm outward. The figure in the mirror instead folded its arms and laughed, acid dripping from the tone in its voice.

“It’s been a while, my friend,” the figure goaded. “You certainly don’t look the worse for wear. Not much, anyway. Still fooling everybody?” The reflection studied Errmann, top to bottom, bottom to top.

Errmann stood in front of the image of himself, furious and silent.

Teasing now, in a heavy French-Canadian accent—Québécois— the figure said, “Going out, are we? Monsieur, is there something that is the matter?” The reflection laughed loudly.

Errmann recognized the accent as the kind that belonged to Yankton Rondeau, the stranger who in one moment the day before had spirited away the heart of Juanita Clarita. The reflection in the mirror mocked Hans Errmann mercilessly, using the very voice that Errmann vowed to extinguish.

Errmann’s eyes narrowed in anger as he looked into the mirror. The figure in the mirror scoffed, hung his thumbs on the corners of his ski pants pockets, then shrugged his shoulders with defiance.

Finally, Errmann spoke.

“You mock me too much,” Errmann warned the image of himself.

“Yes, I do. Indeed I do,” the reflection gibed. And the image laughed—a high-pitched, sardonic laugh. A poison laugh.

Practically no one could remember a time when Hans Errmann was not the chief of the Ski Patrol. On the walls of his Spartan office were certificates attesting to his abilities. His specialty, as reflected in the certificates, was in ski area artillery. His honors were in his rescues.

The people in the Ski Town adored Errmann and considered him a god. After a series of particularly daring rescues, the Ski Area commissioned a statue of him from the famous Douglas Van Howd, who made the statue of Errmann to look like a Greek god.

No one, particularly not Juanita Clarita, knew of Errmann’s darker secrets.

In the event that precipitated the statue’s creation, Errmann was on a search and rescue mission on the ski hill, in a snowstorm. He split away from his team, seemingly lost, only to post-hole uphill from the deep valley behind the ski mountain, through the snow, carrying the body of a man whose frozen throat was pierced by a basketless, aluminum ski pole.

When Errmann walked out of the valley that day, the ski pole was still in the man’s throat, hanging hideously to one side. Frozen, coagulated blood stained the body from the throat all the way around its shoulders.

The photograph of Errmann carrying the body was in all the papers.

Hans Errmann drove his Ski Patrol team hard in assisting the sheriff with the investigation, but the crime was never solved.

Hans Errmann pitied people who were not Ski Patrol.

Errmann looked at the temperature log and saw that the air temperature was dropping fast. He studied the temperature log for some time.

He breathed a low laugh and looked hard at the image in the mirror. The reflection stood with its weight on one leg, leaning against the inside frame, its arms folded: relaxed. The image lifted its eyebrows as if to say, “Eh?”

Errmann rubbed his hands together. He waited. He screwed his mouth into a semi-smile.

“Revenge,” Errmann said, and emitted a low laugh. He pointed to the thermometer. “It is a dish best served cold.”

“Now we’re talking,” said the reflection, and the reflection laughed poison, just as Errmann would laugh.

On the radio, the gentle, silent static was broken up by a patrolman.

“We’re up on Ridge 3,” said the voice. “Our sno-mo is bogged down. Anyone out there give us a ride? 10-4.”

“Copy that and gotcha, Ridge 3,” said another voice—a woman’s. “Coming on up now. Hold tight, baby. 10-4.”

Errmann and Errmann caught each other’s eyes at the same time.

“That will take them some time,” the reflection of Errmann said. “And they’ll have to dig out the sno-mo. It might be a good time for you to do it now.”

“And how do you know what I am going to do?” Errmann demanded.

The reflection in the mirror turned the corners of its mouth downward into a sarcastic expression. It put its hands on its hips.

“Got your extra ski pole … Hansie?” The reflection laughed—a derisive, high-pitched giggle.

Errmann appeared to drift into a kind of trance.

“I am much, much better prepared this time,” Errmann said, and he pointed toward the door that led to the explosives cache. “This time, I have firepower. This time… ” Errmann’s voice drifted away.

The reflection in the mirror nodded.

“It will take them at least half an hour to even get there,” Errmann whispered, thinking out loud. Errmann knew the ski mountain like no one else. He calculated the timing. “That would put two teams on the other side of the hill from where I will be,” he said. “I will be alone.”

The reflection in the mirror leaned out of the glass and put its mouth next to Errmann’s ear.

“Get the bombs now,” the reflection of Hans Errmann said to Hans Errmann. “Get the fuses and the caps. Be sure to wrap the caps in an Ace bandage so they don’t rub together and spark. Don’t forget the igniter. You could use your Buck knife to split the fuse, and a match head, as in the old days, but why bother?”

“I could use my goddam cigar!” Errmann exclaimed.

There was an urgency in the reflection’s voice now.

“Hurry!” the reflection said. “Watch for Yankton Rondeau and Deion Von Rondt. They will be coming up from the eastern side of the hill. Put yourself at the top of the avalanche chute, and when they come across the chute, as they must, you will come down like the night and send a river of snow on top of them. Timing is everything.”

Errmann looked hard at the reflection.

“And we are sure that it is just this Rondeau, and Von Rondt?” Errmann demanded of his new master.

The reflection lifted its hand and brushed back its flowing hair. “Nothing is for sure,” it said.

Outside, the snowstorm intensified.

“Perfect,” sneered Hans Errmann.

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