We ended the day with a nice dinner, consisting of a few things I picked up at the grocery store, including Sage Mountain’s highest quality macaroni pasta from a local pastamaker and a cup of tea, before my eyes slammed shut in the cozy king bed upstairs, where I had the most restful sleep of my life.
Waking early the next morning, Priscilla, too, seemed extra rested, having the zoomies as we traipsed downstairs to fill her food dish. She excitedly ate while I showered and dressed for another day on the slopes.
I decided to warm up for the day with a nice cup of hot chocolate. After starting my mug of milk in the microwave, the power surged, going out. “Oh no,” I said, with Priscilla even feeling that something wasn’t right about that. When it came back on ten seconds later, I restarted the microwave. “Hope that doesn’t happen again.” I was stirring the chocolate into my hot milk, already forgetting it when it happened a second time. But unlike the first, the power didn’t immediately come back on. I traipsed over to my purse, digging for my phone. Service was extremely limited out here, and I’d had it turned off to not be distracted by it, but it appeared I’d forgotten to plug it in because it was completely dead. “That's okay,”’ I told myself. “Don’t panic.” I looked out the windows towards town. Plenty of lights were on in the community; as the sun was just rising and I could see clearly, it wasn’t like an EMP or something. Gah, I’dread one too many apocalypse novels to be dealing with this alone at the moment.Don’t let the intrusive thoughts win, Presley.But the lights from Sage Mountain were comforting, and I saw the chair lifts in the distance. A reminder I was at a heavily populated resort that very likely had generators. It was quite possible it was just my chalet that lost electricity. However, I had no phone, no power, no Wi-Fi, and no way of getting help—unless, of course, I went out into the freezing temps and found it. As I looked back outside, I saw the snow was falling once again.
After several minutes of wrestling with what to do, I decided I would wait it out. I had a wood burning stove, after all. Ready-to-eat food in the fridge. The only thing that absolutely required electricity was my charger. All I needed was wood. Besides, Priscilla needed to go for a potty break anyway. Someone had been by to shovel the walks and the driveway this morning around my car, or the walks were heated, which made more sense. This place was fancy like that. It was safe, and everything was perfectly accessible. So, we bundled up—her in her pink puffer jacket with little rhinestone accents and her snow boots that she absolutely despised—and me, in my white ski jacket. I was wearing my ski clothes already except forshoes, so I threw on some snow boots. Holding Priscilla’s leash, I let her extend it as far as she needed to go while I headed for the wood pile, letting the door shut behind me. I grabbed as many logs as I could comfortably hold and waited for Priscilla to sniff every part of the earth. When she was done, we walked back to the front door.
Entering the code, the buttons made no noise. Hmm. I hit “Enter,” but nothing happened. What—is this door somehow hard wired into the electricity? I tried it three more times. A cold wind shifted in my direction—my knees started to tremble. Dropping the wood, I picked up Priscilla who was also shivering. “I’m sorry sweetie. It appears we’relocked out.” Ugh. It must have been connected to Wi-Fi!! How did I not consider that before going out there? It was eerily reminiscent of how every episode ofDatelinestarts. The narrator’s voice boomed in my head.“Presley Astor thought this was just like every other ski trip. . . She was wrong.”Now what? I looked around at the row of chalets, as I considered my options.
Priscilla’s Inner Monologue
Splendid. We’ve been cast into the cold. Just try not to trip as you carry me through the snow, darling.
Chapter 2: Ford
Blizzard Prep & Bad Press
The last five reps were the hardest of the set; it took everything I had in me to put the barbell back on its rack as I finished up my bench presses. I was covered in sweat and reaching for my towel as my phone started to ring,again.Checking the caller ID, I sent it to voicemail without another thought.
The third bedroom in my chalet made for a perfect gym: a few weight racks, a bench, and a treadmill kept me strong. Being raised on a cattle ranch and coming from a long line of strong, stocky men, I noticed from a young age that I had greater natural strength than most of my peers. Though I was far from a ranch life now, I couldn’t just sit idly. I needed to move and work my muscles.
For skijoring, while your body has to be strong to maintain control as you whip around the turns of the tracks, the biggest strength comes from your arms and hands. The abilityto maintain the rope hold is crucial; but you have to be able to work the rope, knowing when to give slack and adjust angles as you make your way around the track at breakneck speeds.
Not once did I ever consider that the sport would have taken me this far. Everything I had was from skijoring prize money, brand partnerships, and collaborations. I started skijoring when I was nine years old. Me and a few other ranch kids in the area would go to empty campgrounds in the winter where we’d build a track and jumps. Friends of their families would bring horses or snowmobiles to pull us around, while most of the adults just enjoyed the bonfire and socializing. Often, I’d ask whoever was pulling me to go as fast as the horse or machine could go in the conditions so I could practice. The other kids couldn’t keep up with me.
When I started entering the peewee divisions at the local rodeo circuits and winning, I kept up with it. Now, I’ve traveled all over the Rockies for skijoring. My manager even got me a short trip to Europe a few years ago. I could have kept going like this for the foreseeable future and had a great time. But I had a secret. At the end of that month, my manager’s contract was up. We renewed it every two years; and he had no reason to think this year would be any different. Except it was inevery way. I had my eyes set on another goal: retiring from the sport.
Since my fiancé ended things with me last year, after revealing she’d been having an emotional affair with the CEO of Sage Mountain Ski Resort, Trent Langley, I’d trudged on. I didn’t let it break me. Poppy and I had been together for twelve months, engaged after only ten weeks of dating. The engagement was as much her idea as it was my manager’s; the “family man image got more deals these days than heartthrob,” his words exactly. Truthfully, I didn’t need much nudging. Poppy was everything to me. I put her on a pedestal, weaving in and out of the red flags she casually put out, like a slalom race course. . . And there were many. Still, I believed she was the “one” that God had sent in my path.
Now, I had been having a really hard time connecting to God when I did everything I could to force His hand by getting in a relationship with a woman like that, and it only caused me to crash and burn. The hardest part? The dog that Poppy talked me into getting during our engagement—she took it when we broke up. My heart was broken twice, losing both my fiancé and my little buddy, an Australian shepherd named Toby. Sure, Wyoming ranchers are built differently from your average cityfolk, but all the strength in the world didn’t prepare me for the feelings I was dealing with now, like betrayal and losing my dog. On top of it all, I felt like I was losing my spiritual strength.
Every time I tried to talk to God about my feelings, I hit a wall. I was drowning in regret. Embarrassment. Shame. I wanted God to cleanse me of these feelings, but I just felt so wounded. Honestly, I was ready to move on. I was ready to let go. But with that dark cloud looming over my sport, and words traveling faster than a lubed up inner tube on a Black Diamond, I felt I’d guarded my heart and mind once again. This time, I wouldn’t be so quick to let anyone break through those walls.
My favorite thing about my new chalet here in Sage Mountain, other than its proximity to a great horse boarding facility that had a large barn for my horses, was that no one except my manager knew exactly where I was. Of course, it was known that I had a home here and was based at this resort over winters. Heck, it was listed on my Wikipedia page that I was here. After my breakup with Poppy, I sold my home and had this one built on land I’d bought years ago. And, with all of the chalets around me being short-term rentals, often full of families just trying to get their kids’ energy out on the slopes, I had managed to lay low so far. If someone was knocking on my door, it was afood delivery service and not someone who needed to speak with me. My phone buzzed again. I wished the same could be said about my phone number. I quickly hit “ignore.”
My other favorite amenity about this chalet was the hundreds of ski trails just out my front door. The new gondola installed enabled me to take runs at my fancy without standing in line with most of the general public, who still favored the other chairs. But I didn’t have as much time for skiing that season as I’d had liked. With the cheating scandal that was plaguing my sport and without knowing explicitly who had been involved, I opted to lay low that year, trading in my downhill recreational skis for my steady slalom racers I trained on. Besides, I got too much attention last year when it was revealed that Poppy left me for Trent Langley, and every once in a while, people still wanted to ask me questions about it.
Now, with the cheating scandal, I was afraid they might have asked more questions about the professional kind of cheating I may have witnessed, and I didn’t think my mind could take it. I couldn’t point a finger at my fellow competitors. My friends. Besides, I’d never even seen anything suspicious. So, if I was out in the snow on skis at all, I was at the training track. At least there, we had a strict athlete-only policy, and no presswas allowed in. There, I was free from the questions and could focus on improving my speeds.
After a shower, I threw on some jeans and a thermal long-sleeve shirt. I had to go down to feed the horses later but until then, I wanted to get to the bottom of that rumor. If half the talk was true, riders were throwing races so that another competitor could win. First things first—I needed to talk to my manager.
“Ford—just the man the world is wanting to hear from. What do I owe the pleasure?” My manager, Jack, always an air for the dramatics, answered the phone.
“Good morning, Jack. I’m seeing a lot of things in the news, and I just want to keep my name clear. I haven’t bribed any other riders to throw their races to get where I am. I just want to make that known.”
“Relax, cowboy. So far, no one is associating any cheating to us, Ford. Unfortunately, I can’t say that we don’t know anyone who is. Remember your pal, Beau Perry? That’s another story. He was seen chatting very closely with another competitor who just so happened to very awkwardly lose their race.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose as Jack told me the news. Beau was more than a fellow racer to me there in SageMountain—he was a friend. Last year, he boarded one of his horses with mine. The thought of him cheating was shattering.
“I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but I sure hope he hasn’t been involved in this scandal this whole time. Heck, he nearly whooped me on that last race of ours. If it wasn’t for him wearing the extra-wide Slalom skis that didn’t let him turn fast enough, I think he would’ve broken a world record.” I started overanalyzing the memories of the race to make sure I had thought it through. Nothing was out of the ordinary that I could remember.
“That’s my man. Ford, you’re the first to not throw a stone. I admire you for that. I wish I could say the same about some of the other athletes that didn’t make the Winter Games. Like Jace Kelly. It looks like his social media team has been hired by a prosecutor for Beau Perry. Not a single second spared throwing him under the bus.”
Grimacing at the thought, I was reminded that some athletes had an inability to keep to themselves. But, at the same time, it did feel like a betrayal to learn that someone you competed against maybe wasn’t playing fair.
“We’ll never know for Beau, it seems. He’s decided to take a leave of absence from the sport. Probably get aretirement announcement before too long from him. He was already having knee problems, after all.” I wished I knew what Jack thought of that, since it was exactly what I was planning to do, too.
“Thanks, Jack, for the information. Beau is a friend, and I wish him well,” I mumbled.
“Either way, this problem isn’t ours. Our association is long overdue for setting regulations for things like this, and sometimes, it’s the unfortunate circumstances like these that force their hand to do so,” Jack said.
