Ookpik: Chapter 5

January 24, 2005

Chapter 5
(Mammoth Monthly April 2005)

Hans Errmann, chief of the Ski Patrol, left the small, brick explosives-supply building at midmountain and went into the storm, just as Juanita Clarita, the shaman Deion Von Rondt, the stranger Yankton Rondeau and the dog Barco moved out onto the lower face of the mountain.

“Hey hey hey hey!” yelled Barco into the howling wind and blowing snow.

It was the first big storm of the season and in the Ski Town, the cadre of Ski Patrol passed the word that Errmann was lost—shockingly, distressingly, woefully lost.

At the ski area there was a huge statue of Hans Errmann. Many people believed that the statue protected them from harm. On certain days, people were seen there, leaving offerings. The man who crafted the statue made Errmann in the image of Apollo.

That morning, the Patrol sought help from the best and most knowledgeable skiers in the Town, then split into teams of three. The teams disappeared into the mountains for the search.

“Keep your eyes trained upwards,” Yankton Rondeau instructed the dog, “and keep your avalanche beacon switched to ‘transmit!’”

Rondeau, a stranger in the Ski Town, spoke in thick, Québécois French. The man trudged on snowshoes that were fashioned with heel risers on them: good for climbing steep slopes in deep snow. He wandered away from his search partners, the beautiful and diminutive woman Juanita, and the imposing man, Deion Von Rondt. With his new companions barely in sight, Yankton Rondeau turned toward the slope of the mountain. He swiveled his ears so that they faced outwards and up. His eyes turned yellow. A third eyelid swiped his yellow eyes on a diagonal. He willed his shoulders upwards and back. He felt talons push through his toes and dig into the bottom of his boots.

“I feel that danger is all around us,” said the Québécer to the dog.

The dog, a husky, porpoised through the snow, close to him.

“Hey hey hey hey!” yelled the dog. The dog looked to the man and saw that the man’s eyes were yellow. Barco panted and waited for the man to speak.

“Look for the red of his jacket,” the man instructed the dog. “The snow is blowing in gusts. You will see things and they will disappear, only to appear again. Concentrate, mon ami.”

The dog looked to make sure Juanita Clarita was out of earshot.

“But Monsieur,” the dog yelled back. “This man is your rival, non?”

“We will look for him because he is lost in the storm,” the man said, “and we will sort out our differences later.”

“That is very good of you, Monsieur,” Barco said. The dog turned its head. “Dogs do not think like this,” Barco said to himself, then added, in Québécois French, “Ben criss.” Oh well.


Deion Von Rondt, the champion skier and knowledgeable shaman, was barely within sight of Yankton Rondeau and the dog. He leaned in close and put his mouth next to Juanita Clarita’s ear. Her black hair and the back of her neck smelled of vanilla and he felt his heart melt. He cupped his mouth with his hand as he spoke, hoping that his words would not be heard by the stranger, Yankton Rondeau, and the dog, Barco.

“I don’t like the feel of this,” he said.

To Juanita Clarita, her old shaman lover looked like a bison. His bushy hair flowed like a mane across his shoulders, his huge chest and strong legs about to charge.

He continued to speak into her ear.

“The sector we are taking on this search will take us across two avalanche paths, so we must be careful, Juanita. I don’t trust Hans. I don’t think he’s really lost.”

The storm roiled all around them. Deion pulled back from her ear and looked up the slope.

“Do you really love him?” Deion yelled back toward Juanita.

The bison-man saw Juanita’s face scrunch in puzzlement—was it frustration?—at his question. She squinted through the snow and looked into the bison’s eyes. Was he drunk? No. Hallucinating? Probably. Still, she trusted Deion Von Rondt absolutely.

“We’ll go across the avy path as fast as we can,” she shouted back. The bison-man nodded.

Juanita Clarita planted her trekking poles firmly into the snow, then lifted one snowshoe up and forward, then the next, and she made her way to Yankton Rondeau and the dog, Barco. Both the man and the dog concentrated, looking up the slope.

“There is a big avalanche path ahead of us,” she said to the stranger Yankton Rondeau.

Rondeau turned his head to look at her, and she could see the Ookpik—the Tundra Ghost of the snowy owl—in his yellow eyes. She felt herself float away. A bolt of warmth ran through her body. Time stopped. She shook herself back into the world.

“Monsieur Rondeau,” she said, “you don’t know this mountain like we do. We will have to cross a terrain trap to make our way up the mountain. There is an avalanche path there. You will see it. We will cross quickly. The mountain snow is wind-loading now, and we won’t be able to see far.”

Rondeau nodded and smiled—a soft smile; a romantic smile—and looked directly into her eyes.

Juanita Clarita felt a flush in her face and she turned away.

“Holy Jesus,” she said out loud. She turned and saw that the man had heard her. She saw that he was smiling. He was adorable.

They began their trek up the slope, the woman, the shaman bison-man, an Ookpik-human and a dog. The wind shrieked and wailed; the snow blasted sideways in great gusts: a tempest.


Hans Errmann leaned into the wind and snow and winced. In the in-and-out whiteout, he was going to have to feel his way to the top of the avalanche chute. His pack—his quiver—was awkward. He carried a shovel, an avalanche probe and a digital avalanche transceiver, switched to “transmit.”

He also carried six dynamite bombs, six two-minute fuses and igniters, wrapped in ACE bandages to prevent sparking. Together it was an explosive combination that was never allowed on the Ski Patrol. Always, one person carried the dynamite and the other carried the igniters. One was the mule and the other was the shooter.

“If there is any static electricity at all,” his inner voice warned him, “it will take them weeks to pick up all your body parts.”

“I am Hans Errmann,” he shouted back to himself and into the wind. “I am the son of Zeus and sleek-haired Leto.” He taunted the wind and the snow. “Today I am both the shooter and the mule.”

The veteran patrolman sneered, then set out across the face of the mountain. Having listened to the radio traffic that morning, he knew that the stranger, the shaman, the dog and Juanita would cross the big avy path very soon.

He quaked with rage.

“I will not give up the girl to the stranger and I will not give her back to the bison,” he grunted. “I will send the snow down upon them like night.”

This would be tricky, he knew. He spoke to himself as he made his way across the mountain. The snow and the wind combined into a furious rampage, but with the wind gusting, he caught glimpses of the landscape that lay ahead of him. He traversed the mountain and drew close to the location he sought.

“Failure is weakness,” he said to himself. “Loss is unacceptable. I am the bringer of justice.”

He found the top of the path and pulled binoculars from the pocket of his ski jacket. Downhill, through the blowing snow, he could barely make out the goddess figure of Juanita Clarita, carefully crossing the avy path. Hans Errmann’s heart leapt. She was almost across.

“She is safe,” he cried out loud.

He saw the shaman Von Rondt opposite her, close to the tree line at the side of the path. Next to him was the Québécer, Rondeau, and the dog called Barco. They were about to cross.

Hans Errmann loosened his pack and put it on the snow in front of him. He saw that the slope of the mountain, steep at 45 degrees, was wind-loaded into slabs of snow—hard-packed and deadly. Errmann dropped to one knee and pulled the first dynamite stick from his pack. The wind shrieked and soared. Errmann pulled the igniter from the pack and waited for the two men to step into the path.

And then something strange happened.

In front of him, his pack began to slide, by itself, downhill on the snow.

“Odd,” he said, reaching for the pack before it could slide further, but he did not reach it. He lurched off balance and fell face-first into the snow, as if someone had picked him up from behind and thrown him down.

Hans Errmann heard an unusual noise.

“C-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-ack!”

The ground began to shake and roll at the same time.

“Earthquake!” he realized, too late, “and a big one.”

His explosive-filled pack disappeared over the lip of the slope. Errmann rose and turned back to look up the slope, and saw the whole side of the mountain unzip itself.

The sound of the avalanche was unfathomably loud, as if an airliner were sputtering and just about to crash on top of him.
An eerie white mist formed around him even as the snow blew sideways. And then the huge slab of snow hit Hans Errmann in his chest turned him upside down, buried him and began to carry him, topsy turvy, down the mountain.

Juanita Clarita was near the far edge of the avy path when she heard the crack of the earthquake. She did not recognize what it was until she felt the ground roll under her snowshoes. She saw the trees shake weirdly against the wind—opposite of the way they ought to shake. Moments later she heard the sound of the mountain snow coming loose. She looked up the mountain and, through the sideways gusts of snow, saw the slab break away from the slope and begin its deadly descent.

She whirled around and, through the gauze-like curtain of snow, she saw that the two men were still across the avy path, in the trees, looking up the slope. She saw the stranger, Yankton Rondeau, struggling with his parka.

“My God!” she yelled, “Avalanche! Move back into the trees!”

She saw that the two men did not hear her.

And then she herself moved forward, trying to get into the protection of the trees that were just thirty feet in front of her. A voice some distance behind her yelled:

“Move, move, move Juanita!” The voice belonged to Barco, the dog. The dog struggled in the snow, porpoising.

“Pressez-vous, Juanita!” the dog Barco yelled. “Hurry up! Dégrouillez-vous!” Juanita could hear the alarm in the dog’s voice. She dared to look around and saw that the dog was just halfway across the path.

Across the avy path and in the trees, the man Yankton Rondeau pulled off his jacket. His right shoulder burst upward, back and through his shirt. It was the white wing of a snowy owl—the wing of the great Ookpik—the Tundra Ghost of Inuit legend. The owl swiveled its head and ears toward Juanita Clarita and Barco, the dog. He heard the dog yelling for Juanita to hurry.

Standing beside the Ookpik was Deion von Rondt. Von Rondt put his bison hoof-hand on the owl’s shoulder and shouted through the roiling wind.

“You cannot fly in this wind, mon ami! She’ll make it! She’ll be safe. Look! She is almost to the trees!”

Yankton Rondeau nevertheless moved his wings forward and prepared to fly.

He saw that Juanita would make it to the trees, but that Barco was still in the middle of the path.

“Barco!” yelled the owl, and the dog turned to face his great friend. The owl rose upward, into the wind. He extended his talons and opened them. Ookpik was very nearly to the dog when an onrushing blast of wind in front of the avalanche filled his wings and threw him back, violently, down the mountain and out of sight. As he was pushed backward by the onrushing air, the owl saw the white face of the trustworthy Barco, and, oddly, a very faint flash of red.

“Hey hey hey hey!” Barco yelled as the onrushing snow overtook, then buried him.

On one side of the avy path, in the forest, Deion Von Rondt watched the snow crash into the red firs and Jeffrey pines above him, and stop. In the main path, the sea of snow plunged past, carrying huge blocks of snow and ice. On the other side of the avy path, in the trees as well, Juanita Clarita also watched as the snow crashed into the forest above her, dissipating in the dense trees and exploding past in the clearing just a few feet away.

Amid the havoc and uproar, both of them heard the agonizing screech—a painful, mournful cry—of a great snowy owl.

The ground stopped shaking. The avalanche stopped. Across the debris field, Juanita Clarita and Deion Von Rondt stared at each other through the blowing snow. Neither could speak. They just stared. Juanita Clarita’s eyes filled with tears. An apple rose in Deion Von Rondt’s throat.

From below, Yankton Rondeau, without shirt, parka or gloves, hurried up the slope toward Deion Von Rondt.

“We have lost Barco,” said the stranger from Québéc. Juanita and Deion saw that frantic tears ran from his yellow eyes.

“I last saw him there.” He pointed a finger toward the middle of the debris field.

Deion Von Rondt, huge and strong, grabbed the frayed remains of the stranger’s shirt, and his coat. The bison shaman clambered onto the debris and made his way over talus-sized chunks of snow. He handed the shirt and parka to Yankton Rondeau.

“I am not hopeful about the dog,” he said.

From across the avalanche debris field, Juanita Clarita moved carefully toward them, reaching for her avy probe even as she negotiated the huge blocks of snow.

At once, all three of them saw a giant chunk of snow move.

“An aftershock?” asked the Canadian. He and the bison-man stopped and felt for the earth to move again.

“No,” said Deion Von Rondt. “That snow is moving from underneath!”

They stopped as their avalanche transceivers simultaneously picked up a signal.

The two men crawled forward. The block of snow seemed to lift itself from the debris field, and it tumbled down the slope. A human hand emerged through the snow, and then a shoulder, struggling against the force of the pressing snow.

Juanita Clarita, Yankton Rondeau and Deion Von Rondt reached the spot at the same time. They looked through the snow and saw the face of Hans Errmann.

“Help me quickly,” Errmann said, breathing heavily and in obvious distress. “I have a dog in my arms and I think it is still alive!”

The three of them dug Hans Errmann and Barco from the snow.

“I’m a mess,” Errmann said. He looked down at his shredded ski pants and his torn jacket. He grinned. He shuffled through the debris to Juanita Clarita, and they embraced.

Barco lay on the snow, panting but apparently all right. Yankton Rondeau lay beside the dog and stroked the top of his head.

“I thought I saw the last of you,” the man said to the dog.

“Hey hey hey hey,” the exhausted dog whispered.

Deion Von Rondt sat on a block of snow, peering at the scene through the sideways snow of the storm. He reached into his pack for a water bottle and drank deeply.

“Do you have more water?” asked Juanita Clarita.

“Umm, you don’t want any of this,” said the bison, and he laughed. “It’s not exactly water. It’s a mixture. Yeah, that’s it. A mixture. Now let’s get back to town.” Deion jumped down from the block of snow.

“What’s the hurry?” asked Hans Errmann, still struggling to recover.

Deion Von Rondt looked directly into Hans Errmann’s cobalt eyes.

“I have a story to write,” he said. “About a man and a dog.”

THE END