THE GAMBLE
By Thomas Jacobs
Mark did his best to keep his head up without stumbling over the uneven ground beneath his weary feet. Thick roots, rocky outcrops, and snow-covered holes grabbed at his snowshoes with every step, but taking a wrong turn and wandering off the trail ahead was something they could not afford right now. One hour, two at the most. Light faded quickly this time of year, and they were running out of it.
Glimpsed through the gaps between the treetops, sky as grey as the sweater he wore beneath his new coat gave no hint of where the sun might be. At nearly 4 P.M. on a late-December afternoon, however, it wasn’t too hard to guess. Almost down. The pale light coming from above already only served to emphasize the gloom settling over the forest floor. A gloom that seemed to be settling over his two companions as well. Their grumbles and complaints were growing ever more subdued with every slip and half-fall.
Grabbing onto a narrow but sturdy branch hanging from the tree to his left, Mark hauled himself up over the knee-high ledge, and turned to eye his friends trudging up the slope a few steps below. It was hard work, the snow heavy and wet despite the chill to the air, and both were panting as their steps dragged and they looked for any handhold to help pull them forward. Kyle came first, the only thing showing beneath the deep hood of his puffy, red jacket was his bright ginger beard, matted and frozen from the mist of his breath and the snot running from his nose. Behind him, David’s blue eyes darted around anxiously, even as they made sure of where every step was landing. Mark knew they blamed him for this, he had been the one to suggest a hike in Algonquin after all, but he wasn’t the only one who had wasted valuable time taking pictures of the views from the tops of the high ridges scattered along the first half of the ten-kilometre loop. Besides, what was there to blame? They were almost back to the entry point. They must be by now.
With a grunt, he pulled Kyle up alongside him and held out his hand for David as well, though the shortest of the three shook his head and dragged himself up without any help.
“I’m not doing good, man,” Kyle was groaning, hands on knees in an effort to catch his breath as Mark turned back around, “my boots are soaked, I can’t feel my feet; we should have turned around at Number Seven.” Checkpoint Number Seven, the halfway point of the trail; when turning back would have meant they only had to go as far as they had come. Mark had urged them on, sure that the second leg would be shorter than the first.
“It wasn’t that far between Seven and Eight,” not for the first time, Mark wished they had thought to take a picture of the damn map on the way in. “I’m telling you guys, we must have passed a few of the markers without noticing.” The short, metal poles would not have been difficult to overlook, he told himself, especially with the pace he had been setting. In his mind, they had two, maybe three, ravines like this to get through and they would be back at the truck.
David screwed the lid back on his plain, black water bottle and looked about ready to throw it to the ground instead of putting it back down the side of his pack. Judging by the angle at which he had been holding the thing above his head, he had been trying to shake out the last drops. His reaction said he hadn’t found what he was looking for.
“Why did we listen to you?” the words burst from his chapped lips, and Mark didn’t need the intense glare that came with them to know who David meant. “The sign when we came in said it would take at least six hours to complete the full loop, but oh no, not for us, you said! We can do it in three, you said!” Just then a fit of coughing interrupted his angry outburst. When he was able to continue again, resignation had returned to his voice. “Well it’s been at least three hours now and where are we?” he finished, the last words trailing off in a near-whisper.
Crack! All three hikers spun to face the direction the sound had come from, but the forest was empty and still once more. Just a branch breaking under the weight of the snow, Mark told himself. Nothing to worry about.
“We’re almost there,” Mark responded once the others had turned back to him, “trust me. A few more ups and downs and we’ll be able to hear the road, if not see it.” Those signs were just an estimate anyways, more like guidelines for people from the city who had never hiked before. He said as much to the others.
“But – “
“Enough, Dave,” Kyle broke in before he could get started again. “Arguing and pointing fingers aren’t going to help us get out of here any quicker, we need to move. Just lead the way Mark.”
Hearing a grunt of agreement from David, Mark turned to continue the march up the gradual slope. The woods around already seemed to have grown darker in the minute the group had been stopped. Looking ahead, he couldn’t help but notice how difficult it was to pick out the stripes of blue paint on the trees marking the path.
Climbing along the narrow trail, really just the footprints in the snow of someone who had hiked the loop earlier that day, he kept his eyes locked on each blue marker, only moving past one once he had caught sight of the next. He avoided the urge to look where his feet were going. That was a quick way to lapse into following the footsteps ahead, never noticing when they too may have strayed from the path. Far better to keep his head up and take the slips and the trips as they came. If the three of them were to lose the trail now, there was no telling if they would ever find it again.
Up and down he led them, the next shallow gully looking much the same as the last, and all the while the gaps between the trees seeming to shrink with the thickening gloom. As if to say they didn’t belong there, an oily black crow perched atop a gnarled tree began cawing at the hikers as they passed. Mark shivered and then gave a start at the sudden cold he felt pressed against his heel. The leg of his snow-pants must have ridden up above the top of his boots, letting in the lumps of snow thrown forward with every step. Not wanting to take the time to stop and adjust, it wasn’t long before both feet were submerged in a bath of icy cold water. At first it felt good against his aching toes and tired soles. The relief was short-lived however, quickly becoming an unbearable pain.
On the verge of giving in to the pain, and stopping to dump out his boots, he saw it. Planted in a clearing by the side of a small pond ringed with tall yellow grass was a metal pole, short and brown as all the others had been. All thought of frozen feet vanished in a heartbeat as he launched himself towards the checkpoint marker. From the sounds of crashing and stumbling at his back, the other two were just as eager to reach it as he was.
Sliding to a stop in front of the waist-high marker, his eyes went straight to the top of the pole where he could just make out the curving of a number three beneath the light covering of snow.
“Thirteen,” he yelled to the others as they came charging into the clearing. “We’ve made it all the way to Thirteen!” Visible relief flooded through his friends, who began roughing each other up, each picking on the other for being scared while insisting on their own innocence.
They were going to make it, Mark gave a relieved sigh of his own and slapped the checkpoint marker in excitement. The force of the hit knocked the remaining snow from the top of the pole, and for a moment Mark stared down uncomprehending. Then his heart sank. The pole read “8”.
He didn’t realize his legs had given out until he felt the impact of hitting the ground and the cold seeping through his pants. How could it be? He had been so sure that they could do it, so sure that they were almost there. Mark’s chest began to tighten as the realization set in, the panic rising to smother every breath. His eyes stung as tears welled up to blur his vision. They weren’t going to make it. And it was all his fault.
The others noticed him then, their joy cut short as they caught sight of a face distorted with pain. David sank down to a crouch, hand pressed firmly over his mouth in worry, he already knew even as Kyle took two steps and asked;
“What? What is it?” dread was already entering his voice as well.
Mark cursed. He didn’t need to answer, it was clear both already knew what was wrong, but the words tumbled out anyway. “The snow. It… it covered the number, I’m sorry. I thought …” sobs racked him as he trailed off.
With a glance at the pole, Kyle sank to the ground with a thud. “It’s Eight. We’re not going to make it,” was all he said. His eyes had taken on a glazed-over appearance, as if they refused to believe he was really there.
“No signal, none!” David was shaking his head as he looked down at the phone between his hands. “We have no food! We have no water! We’re hours from the car. What are we going to do?” His eyes locked onto Mark, “Get us out of here,” he snapped, “this is your fault!”
Mark didn’t respond. He had just noticed something lying by the foot of the checkpoint marker and crawled over to it. Brushing the snow from its surface, it took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. The laminated map plaque must have fallen from the post and been forgotten. It certainly looked like it had been lying there for quite some time, but Mark could still make out the ten-kilometre loop and its surrounding area even in the dim light of the slate grey, late-afternoon sky. Tracing his finger along the trail from Number Eight, he realized David was right, it would take them at least two hours around the rest of the loop and be far too dark to make out the path long before then. At best, forty-five minutes of manageable light was all they had left.
When his finger came to rest at Fourteen, the point where the trail rejoined the road, it came to him. He leaped back to his feet.
“Look!” he held the map out for the others to see. “If we go on following the trail, we’ll never make it, but look where we are and where Fourteen is,” his finger drew a straight line down between two lakes from one to the other. He pointed, “this lake here is the one we’re standing beside. All we need to do is keep it to our left and then carry on straight when it curves away there,” his finger stabbed down again. Both shook their heads, but Mark plowed on. “I got us into this mess, you’re right. And it’s a gamble, I know, but this is the only chance we have.”
They knew it was true; stay and freeze to death, continue on the trail and eventually become lost once night fell, cut across the loop and just maybe they could make it to the road with enough light to see. Debating would only cost more valuable time, so, with one last look towards the blue-marked trail, Mark led them off the beaten path. He would get his friends out.
Keeping the lake on their left, he forged ahead and prayed the map he held was to scale. If it was, it couldn’t be much more than a kilometre they needed to cover before reaching the last checkpoint and the road, and that would almost certainly take the entirety of the light they had remaining. With the help of the shoreline to guide him, he set a quick pace, ignoring the snow being packed into his boots and the branches grabbing at his coat. The others followed. No one spoke, the only sounds their crunching steps, laboured breath and the wind that whispered amongst the tops of the trees.
At last, they came to the point where the lake hooked away sharply, mirroring the map in his hands, and Mark knew the most important part of their journey had come. Panting hard from the exertion of blazing a trail, he only took a moment to look up and lock on to a point as straight and as far ahead as he could before setting off towards it.
The next half an hour was the most grueling Mark had ever known. Breath, coming in ragged gasps as anxiety tried to suffocate him, made every stride feel like ten. Limbs feeling clumsy and numb from the cold did their best to trip him, and every fall felt like one he wouldn’t get up from. But, lungs burning, and body drained, he kept on and Kyle and David dragged themselves with him. By the time they reached the foot of a steep ridge, the white snow below already seemed to provide more light than the sky above, night had nearly fallen. Sheer willpower was all that pulled one foot in front of the other, and even that was fading.
And then he heard it. First one whoosh and then another, he almost couldn’t hear them over the pounding of the blood in his ears. Whoosh … whoosh – whoosh, coming from the other side of the ridge.
“The road,” he whispered, and then louder, “it’s the road!”
Tired legs churned as he dashed up the steep slope of the rise, free hand scrabbling for any purchase it could find. Kyle was right on his heels, and David only a few steps behind him, adrenaline overcoming any exhaustion. Heart pumping and ears pounding, lungs burning and body shutting down, Mark stumbled over the bare-rock crest at the top of the climb. And stopped. The map slipped from fingers numbed by the cold, clattering to the stone below. His shoulders sagged, and the sigh that escaped was torn from his lips by the winds that howled over Algonquin Park.