After about fifty yards of this torture, I glance over my shoulder. “What about the snow blowers? They had some fuel didn’t they?”
Gregory shakes his head. “They don’t really work in four-foot drifts. Besides, how do we get them onto the elevated helipad?”
“Damn.” I turn forward again, legs screaming. “So we’re doing this the hard way.”
“We’re doing this the only way.”
Fair enough
“How would you normally clean it in winter?” I ask.
“Thomas has a team he calls in,” Gregory tells me matter-of-factly. “But they don’t come out when the roads are shut down.”
He has an excuse for everything.
We reach the pad. It’s huge. Of course it’s huge. Gregory Falk doesn’t do anything small.
And it’s buried under four feet of pristine snow that needs to be cleared entirely or the helicopter can’t land safely.
Fun times.
He takes his shovel and starts without a word.
I join him with mine.
We work in silence.
Awful, terrible, heart-crushing silence.
We occasionally glance at the surrounding trees but never spot the cougar. It’s either gone or way better at hide-and-seek than I thought.
Well, at least that’s one win for the day.
Gregory’s doing most of the heavy lifting, of course. His shoulders bunch and flex under his sweater as he heaves shovel after shovel of snow to the side. I focus on the edges, clearing smaller sections, feeling mostly useless but too stubborn to stop.
We’re like a mycorrhizal network after a mining disruption,I think bitterly.All the connections severed, both organisms suffering from the break but too damaged to reconnect.
God, even my metaphors are depressing now.
An hour passes.
Two.
Still no sign of the cougar.
My arms ache.
My back screams.
Gregory’s face is red from exertion (and maybe the cold), his breath coming in visible puffs, but he doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t take a break. Just keeps shoveling like he’s trying to bury something.
Maybe he is.
Us.
At one point, Gregory straightens, wiping sweat from his forehead despite the subzero temperature. For a second, I think he’s going to say something. His mouth opens. His eyes find mine.
Then he looks away and goes back to shoveling.
