Early that morning, suspended in air, Richard Sojun stared into an icy breeze as the sun's first blue rays lit a crown of jagged rock along the rim of the bowl above him. The ski lift had stopped, and he swung back and forth, the sunlight shortening the shadows beneath the high Sierra ridge.

        His young friend Norman usually directed the action, setting markers to herd the mountain traffic, but he had left Richard alone this morning to do his own work.

        Richard took inventory of the landscape, looking for hazards in the untracked snow. A pair of sapling lodgepoles, one of the usual spots to mark, had disappeared, a bulge where the snow tented them over. It was difficult to tell what might pose danger. First, he had to mark the hazards in the gulley beneath him and then across part of the mountainside's steep face.

        A cannon boomed and echoed as he jerked into motion, the lift starting up again. Norman and some other patrollers were firing at the adjacent crest, chipping away the bowl to prevent avalanches. The ski area had been closed the past two days while storms pounded the summit, and the new snow lay everywhere chest high or deeper, magnificent and deadly. Norman had taken Richard on avalanche control the previous day, showing him how and where to throw the short-fused bombs on the routes they patrolled. At one point, Norman had lit a fuse and arced it over their heads, surprising Richard and yelling at him to duck, laughing as the hand grenade exploded above them. All yesterday afternoon, they skied to cut up the snow where the bombs had exploded.

        He spotted a lone snowboarder, a small figure powering down the gulley beneath the ski lift. The young boarder moved fast, and Richard wondered how anyone had gotten on the mountain before him; it didn't appear to be a staffer. He was about to bellow out a warning to slow when he noticed the snowboarder's tri-colored cap: Zee, his son, who was supposed to be waiting for him in the lodge.

        "Zee!" Richard yelled, cupping his hands.

        The boy couldn't have heard, and he passed underneath Richard in a flash, coming off one side of the natural half-pipe shape of the gulley, bent low for balance. He was going too fast. Richard swiveled in panic to watch him fading down the mountain.

        His son took air, shooting up the opposite side of the gulley and hitting a snowed-over ledge, flying a good twenty feet before he skittered off a mogul. He was certain he would crash, and the thought came to him that Zee would be his first rescue, but Zee straightened his back as the board hit the snow, arms flinging out wildly, and somehow, after another hop, landed the jump and shot toward the wide, groomed snowcat trail, disappearing from view.

        Zee could have flipped, broken bones, got caught upside down to drown in the snow, and yet there was a thrill to witness the boy's emerging skill. Richard's quickened pulse warmed his hands, and he sucked in the chilly air. Inexperienced as a father, he wondered what to say to Zee when they met.

        At the top of the lift, he skated to the supply shed, whipped off his gloves and unlocked it. He grabbed a backpack and an armload of fiberglass poles.

        The mountainside he and Norman patrolled was good terrain, popular with the locals. The gulley which ran beneath the lift, where Zee had been riding, featured jumps and snow walls the snowboarders sought. Even if he didn't like Zee storming through the gulley so fast, he knew the terrain was fairly safe.

        The Waterfalls were different, though. Hidden between a beginner's wrap-around and the gulley, unprepared skiers and boarders happened on the cliffs unsuspecting and had to side-step or climb out. Richard would mark them to keep people away, at least till the afternoon, when the sun fully lit the mountainside and he could make another assessment.

        His first trip, however, he followed his son's solo track. He dropped toward the top of the gulley, fiberglass poles in hand, a tightrope walker's feat of balance. Without the benefit of ski poles, he plunged into the natural half-pipe and came up the other side, leaping in order to spin around. He leaned back, slowed, and contemplated his next move. Most of the usual rocks and logs that he and Norman marked were buried. He had never patrolled on a day like this, when the snow was so deep and dry, so perfect.

        He followed his son's track, the first and only track in the gulley. Where his son had jumped off the ledge Richard crossed two red fiberglass poles, warning other young boarders away. He doubted the spot was really worth marking as a hazard: the deep snow provided a soft landing, but Richard understood only that he didn't want Zee making the same jump again.

        He skied on, six poles left, trying to find a passageway hidden in the trees that led from the gulley to the Waterfalls. The mountain had changed this morning, the new snow altering the landscape, and he was having problems seeing the terrain. Gaining some speed and shooting up the north side of the gulley, he side-stepped over the soft lip which gave way beneath him so that he struggled for a minute, lifting his knees high to free himself of the moving snow and its peculiar sliding gravity.

        He crossed another pair of red poles near some trees where an unmarked trail that led to the Waterfalls always developed over the course of a day. He took off his backpack to get a roll of yellow nylon line and strung the rope across the stretch of trees, tying red ribbons that fluttered in the breeze alongside a "Closed" marker.

        Kids would duck under the line anyway. Had he not been on patrol himself, Richard, acting like a kid, wouldn't think twice about circumventing "Closed" and "Out of Bounds" markers. When the cover was in such perfect form, a person had to take advantage, one or two days of heaven before everything congealed to cement. And yet he remembered Zee, the panic of his son's jump. He knew he had to lecture the boy not to do these very things.

        He jabbed his last two poles near a craggy drop-off and skied to the bottom of the lift. He rode up the mountain again, thinking how Eva, his wife, would marvel at this magnificent snow. She had skied all over the country, all over the world in fact, but she'd never heard of the small resort where Richard patrolled.

        Four years had passed since Richard abandoned them, leaving the East for this mountainous dreamscape. Their marriage lingered. He and Eva both avoided discussions about filing the paperwork. They still told each other "I love you" over the phone. She said she didn't want a reconciliation, and yet she didn't seem to want a divorce. He knew their marriage was over, but there was comfort in the fact that it wasn't legally finished.

        Zee had come to visit for a week this past Christmas, his first trip to the Sierra. His son soon made clear he didn't want to leave, and Richard didn't force him, and now Zee's stay had extended into its third week, well into the new year; Eva was frantic, and school was about to begin back East.

        Richard wasn't sure, though, that he wanted Zee to leave. He'd found a new life, and he wanted to be a good father, to change his own history, to put aside the last remnants of who he'd been for who he wanted to be.

        He slid off the chair at the top of the ski lift and skated to the shed, grabbed more poles, and crept along the edge of the steeps near the Waterfalls, careful in his balancing act.

        He held up where the Waterfalls dropped away; he drew a yellow rope taut between two spruces, hanging another "Closed" marker.

        He crossed back and forth along the snowy ridge, marking spots with the fiberglass poles and the laminated "Closed" markers. When he ran out of poles, he reached in the pack for his collapsed ski poles and, taking a deep breath, ducked beneath one of the ropes he'd set. Past forty, he felt in the best shape of his life.

        The Waterfalls were rocky palisades interspersed with spirals of dark-hued rock. As far as he knew, water never ran there spring or summer, despite the name. A pair of bladed outcroppings gave the place a dramatic feel and clearly warned what lay ahead--or what didn't. The drop ranged from a dozen to fifty feet. Making short turns in the powder, he contemplated where he would jump. It would be most safe, alone as he was, to angle his jump, but deep as the snow was, soft as the landing would be, Richard aligned himself with gravity.

        There were a dozen points where he could launch, and he had a few fearful seconds to think. He headed southward where the slope rose, holding his elbows to his ribs, bent low, sailing over the cliff into a profound silence.

        He landed in a blur, kicked back and recovered. When he could finally stop he was a football field down the mountain. He looked back to determine his jump, and he felt a rush of self-satisfaction. He pushed with his poles, picking up a line of speed and running through a stand of pine trees. He felt the snow freezing on his beard as he bobbed through a garden of branches drooping with ice, the needles hairy with pogo-nip. He skied in shadow down the quiet mountain, an electricity resonating inside him where he had fallen into silent air yet not moved.

*

        Zee was restless by the time Richard found him in the lodge. It had been an hour since he saw his son barreling down the mountain, and the teenager was obviously anxious to get on the snow again.

        "They wouldn't let me on the mountain," he lied. "When will they open? I want to get up there."

        "I feel terrible for you, Zee," Richard said sarcastically. He watched Zee's expression melt from defiance to shame. He knew he'd been caught. Zee was in a precarious situation these days. Richard suspected his son was hiding his true combative nature: Zee didn't want to go back East for school, and he must have figured that everything hinged on his behavior, not on circumstance, on forces beyond Zee's control.

        "How the hell did you get on the mountain so early?" Richard asked.

        Zee began shifting around, playing with his baggy snow pants. "I promised I wouldn't tell. He said he'd get in trouble."

        "Damn right he'd get in trouble, letting you up there by yourself," Richard said. An unfamiliar, passionate anger overtook him. "What if you'd been hurt? What if you'd twisted your knee? How would you have gotten out, Zee? You might die of hypothermia before anyone found you." Zee seemed to be taking this seriously, and Richard, amazed at himself, understood he was giving the talk of a good father. "Do you know there are a hundred ways to die in the snow?"

        He eased off, letting a lighter tone ring in his voice. "Are you familiar with the term 'liability'? Because your little lift operator friend sure isn't." At the same time, Richard had to admit he was happy that Zee could ingratiate himself with the older, seasonal workers, a testament to his boy's charm.

        "I wasn't going to hurt myself," Zee said, pulling off his colorful cap. His unwashed blond hair protruded in unlikely criss-crosses. Not yet fourteen, he had the pale eyes of his mother.

        "There'll be good snow all day," Richard said, relenting. "Just let me get coffee."

        Plodding in his boots, Richard led his son down the stairs toward the locker room. Zee, wearing soft snowboard boots, passed his father and stood impatiently, arms dangling at his sides, as if he'd already forgotten Richard's concerns.

        "Why do old people need so much coffee?" Zee hopped along, giddy, like a boy half his age. His son had been only eight when Richard left. Eva had sent him to a boarding school, despite Richard's arguments against his leaving home so young. That ongoing feud was one reason he'd left.

        "You're right, Zee," Richard said, "coffee's bad. I'll give it up some day."

        A memory came to him, Richard when he'd first moved to Truckee. He rolled, shivering on a bare mattress. Circumstance had forced him to substitute employee-discounted coffee for his cocaine. He didn't know any dealers in the area. Soon, he discovered that his days of snorting were behind him, along with his job, his wife and his son. He didn't seek more. That was four years ago, and Richard had become a part-time manager of the same coffee shop where he first found minimum wage employment.

        "Norman drinks Pepsi in the morning," Zee observed. "God, what would Mom say if I did that?"

        "Best not to think about it," Richard smiled. "Have you noticed I stopped smoking?"

        "You smoked?" Zee was mystified.

        Richard filled a styrofoam cup. If Zee were to move here, he'd have to retrieve his things from Eva's house in Port Washington, an impossibility. She loved Zee too fiercely to give him up. He thought about buying Zee a whole new wardrobe, new school supplies, new everything. It would strain his new low-wage accounts, but he could do it.

        "Eva's about out of her mind with me," he told Zee as he sat on a bench. "She's really upset. I say, 'Let Zee stay another week,' and she says, 'He's got school.' She gets so mad at me she starts hissing in German."

        Zee snickered. Richard's son spoke German too, and possibly some French. He wasn't sure. When he'd met Eva at Brown, he didn't know any of her native language, but he learned some as they traveled. In Vienna, near her home, Richard asked her to marry in halting, awkward German. Ich hab' Vorschlag, dass wir soll heiraten, he'd suggested, rather than asked.

        "I'm going to school in Truckee," Zee said, trying to sound confident. "Norman says they've got a good soccer team."

        "When did we make this decision?" Richard slurped his coffee. He hadn't told his son anything of his thoughts and nascent plans. If he decided the move was possible, he still had to work out the logistics, and he wanted to surprise Zee altogether when the time was right. There was no use getting his hopes up over nothing. "How do I break the news to your mother?"

        Zee didn't say anything, hunched over the bench. "I don't have to go home yet, do I? I hate that fucking school. Uniforms. It's way out in the middle of nowhere."

        "Just like here." Richard ignored the f-word.

        Norman walked into the locker area, but Zee, his head hanging, didn't see him. Richard motioned to his friend, making a face to indicate that Zee was pouty, so Norman plowed into Zee, shoving the boy's hip aside with his own, saying, "Make room."

        Zee shouted in anger. Richard was startled at the ugly rat's face his son made as he tried to wrestle Norman off the bench. Norman pretended to be overwhelmed and shrilled, "Stop picking on me."

        "Can I get going yet?" Zee said when they tired of their struggle. Norman put a fist in front of Zee's face, and he knocked it away.

        Norman announced that he'd set up a private lesson for Zee. "The advanced instructor," he said, and Zee raised his chin in pride. Richard made plans to meet his son at lunch, and Zee stalked out of the room.

        Norman recapped the morning's avalanche control activities as they left the lodge.

        "Thanks for getting Zee someone to board with," Richard said when they were back on the ski lift. The mountain had opened, and long lines of skiers and boarders were forming.

        "No problem," Norman said. "She's doing it as a favor."

        Just past nine o'clock, there was already an injury in the adjacent bowl. Richard and Norman listened on the radio but nothing exciting happened.

        "If you're ever going to see action," Norman said, "it'll be today."

        "You know it." Richard was excited at the prospect of making a rescue.

        "People go crazy in this kind of snow."

        Richard had put in eight days with no incidents. It hadn't taken him long to become a candidate, passing try-outs in the spring and taking a winter emergency care course over the summer. After four seasons of ski bumming around Tahoe and Truckee, the ability tests didn't present a problem. Possibilities enticed him, but so far he hadn't skied out any broken legs or done anything but mark terrain.

        Norman was almost twenty years younger than Richard, and without fear. Richard couldn't help liking him. They had met when he expressed interest in the patrol, and Norman had become a kind of mentor.

        "When Fremont came up the Truckee River canyon," Norman was saying, pointing east over the mountains, "a Pyramid Lake Paiute led the way." The young man looked back and forth across the mountain, watching skiers plow through the deep snow. For Christmas, Richard had given him a biography of Fremont and some history books. He was glad to hear his gifts weren't collecting dust. "They were getting snowed in. Finally, the Indian left them. Fremont was crazy. He didn't know anything about these mountains. He'd just come off the Black Rock Desert, then he's trying to pass this summit."

        Richard found it hard to believe his friend could barely graduate one of the local high schools. Norman admitted both stupidity and drug use, but from Richard's perspective, he didn't seem dumb and his drug use was minor compared to what Richard used to do.

        In some ways, Norman was as childish as Zee, but he possessed a calm assurance while on patrol. Richard admired his attitude; he tried to adopt it. He felt as if he wore a new skin, a completely different self.

        They'd become good friends, despite their ages, even deciding to move in together for a year to save money. Norman paraded women into the loft every other night, familiar, nameless girls that made Richard miss his girlfriend Kelly, a massage therapist in Tahoe City. She was in her early thirties, unmarried, but she didn't want to stay single. She made it clear she wanted a husband. Richard told her Eva was unwilling to divorce, that when he was free to marry, they would have a future, but she suspected his lie, and he hadn't seen her since Christmas Day, when she met Zee and gave him the tri-colored ski cap his son now wore daily.

        "Rich," Norman said, "I got to ask you something. How long is Zee staying with us? It's not bothering me or anything," his tone brightened, "but I feel bad about, you know, bringing friends over to drink or smoke, or whatever."

        Zee slept on the couch, below the loft. From his bedroom, the only room in the cabin, Richard hadn't heard any lovemaking recently, another reason he admired Norman, who showed some discretion and respect for his son. Richard's loneliness too, which he'd been feeling since Christmas, was assuaged by the silence in the loft. He thought of apologizing for Zee but decided not to.

        "I'm thinking of asking Zee to move here," Richard said, "permanently."

        Norman shook his head and stared. "That's great, Rich. Eva won't like that, will she?"

        "That's the year's first great understatement. No way she'll give up Zolan."

        Zolan was his son's real name, Eva's choice, a family name. Richard had prescribed the nickname "Zee" when the boy was an infant.

        "What are you going to do?"

        "I don't know," Richard admitted. "I ran the idea of Zee living here for a while by her, and she freaked out. She was out of her mind, said she was calling her attorney. I mean, she sounded serious about his getting back...there," he hesitated from saying the word "home."

        "She said she was going to come get him," Richard said. "I don't want that."

        He thought of the night that he found himself in the crowded lobby of a small Victorian hotel on the Upper West Side. He wove through the throng, looking for Eva, when suddenly a pair of twelve foot doors sprung open and a rush of smiling people saturated the crowd to hug family and friends. She screamed a greeting and kissed Richard deeply, in a way that had become unfamiliar, leading him through the noise into a huge conference room where all the people gathered, holding hands along three walls. She didn't seem to care that Richard was high on coke and drunk. Perhaps she thought he would be more flexible that way. She told him that their lives could change forever.

        The group's leader, immaculately dressed in banker's attire, spoke into a microphone. Richard was still confused.

        "Your friends and family who have invited you here tonight have come a long way, sometimes on paths of spiritual recovery, always on a path to new life. Welcome to Life Spring."

        Wild applause exploded from the crowd of converts. Richard's shoulders slumped.

        Eva squeezed his hand.

        At the end of a long evening of tears and troubled stories, during which Richard slipped into the bathroom to snort part of a vial, beginner's fees were collected--seven hundred dollars for the first step toward new life, petty cash for a new beginning. Richard shook his head at her as her cheeks reddened. She searched the room for her fellow seekers, her new friends. They ganged up on him, and finally he told them that he would begin the program of empowerment, the search for primal joy, marital bliss, and all things good. Of course, he'd lied. Eva sought a new life with her cult and within the year Richard had left his old life for the mountains of the Sierra.

*

        "Want one?" Norman asked, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He held out a pack.

        "N'thanks," Richard said, distracted.

        At the top of the lift, they split up, meeting at the bottom of the hill after they checked separate runs. They repeated the procedure twice before a call came in. They glanced at each other, moving up the ski lift. A snowboarder was missing. He'd been with friends, but they'd lost him, maybe in the gulley. He'd been missing an hour; everyone was heading to their mountainside for the search. It wasn't yet noon.

        "Probably boarding the trees above the Falls," Richard said.

        Norman directed the search to the Waterfalls over the radio. At the top of the lift, they skated to the shed, then closed off access to the gulley.

        Richard felt a morbid rush of excitement, his first rescue.

        "Too long," Norman said, looking at his watch.

        Richard followed him. They circumvented the Waterfalls and found nothing.

        "Could you find out where Zee is?" Richard asked when they came together.

        "She'll be coming to help out," Norman said, meaning his friend, the instructor.

        "She wouldn't've let Zee out of her sight, right?" Richard thought of Zee suspended beneath the snow, losing air and body temperature as the search hovered uselessly above.

        "Where is this kid?" Richard asked when they again reached the slow, inching ski lift. "Let's get this kid's name. What's his name?"

        "I didn't get a name, Rich."

        Teams scoured the mountainside. Norman and Richard ducked beneath the fluttering ribbons that Richard had set above the Waterfalls that morning. They dropped off the palisades, and Norman called out. Richard skied toward his voice and found Norman swimming into the snow with his arms where he'd spotted the top half of a snowboard.

        "No one here," Norman shouted.

        "Call for shovels?"

        Norman stood and gazed around. He hollered and waited for a response.

        "He must have gotten hurt and tried to walk out," Richard said, hopeful.

        "No."

        "There," Richard pointed. He was grasping at anything that would let the boarder be alive. There were ski and snowboard tracks all around.

        "Those aren't foot tracks. Hell, Richard, no one could walk out of snow this deep." Disgusted, Norman lifted his downhill ski and let it fall backwards, pivoting away from Richard.

        Norman got on the radio and called for a sled.

        "Did you rope off the passage from the gulley?" Norman yelled over his shoulder.

        "Of course," Richard said, angrily.

        "Shit." Norman waved his arm toward a ridge. "Where'd he come from?"

        Someone skied down a bundle of orange-tipped poles on a stretcher, traversing below the Waterfalls. Norman yelled at some spectators to go away.

        A group of patrollers and instructors grabbed poles and formed a line. The line tightened at Norman's direction, and they shoved the poles into the snow. Richard, terrified, thought of Zee.

        One of the women yelled out, and everyone struggled in the powder to surround her. Five or six people began to dig, and someone said, "A glove."

        Norman and Richard were on opposite sides of the hole, Norman scooping snow away from the head that suddenly appeared, closer to the surface than Richard would have suspected. The dark hair was a strangely welcome sign. Richard pushed the cranium back a few inches, and the open eyes were surprised and dead, but Norman dug for the mouth anyway, the parted lips blue, almost maroon, the pale skin tinted by a lack of oxygen. It wore a shocked expression, but hollow, without humanity. He was older than Richard had thought, older by a couple years than his son. He felt remote from the unliving thing, and without pity or sorrow. He had to imagine Zee's body trapped here before his emotions stirred.

        The patrollers grabbed arms and wrists, pulling at the loose clothing, but it was stuck in the snow as if in dried cement. They dug a wide, deep hole, and Richard fell into it on his knees, grabbing the thick body around the waist to help hoist it out. Through his gloves and the layers of clothing, he felt the fat and muscle of its flesh.

        They tugged at the limp body, which doubled over sideways in a sitting position. Exhausted, Richard flopped onto his back.

        "They should know," Norman said, helping him to his feet. "Hell, they come under the ropes. It doesn't make any difference."

        He told Richard to ski the body down the mountain.

        As patrollers strapped the body in the sled, Richard saw Zee across the hill, peering around a young woman who had been helping in the search. Richard lifted his arm, gloomy, and Zee waved back. He should've been more glad to see his son standing there, safe.

        The instructor, Norman's friend, pushed herself on her snowboard, one foot strapped in, the other sinking into the snow as she propelled herself like a skateboarder. Zee, both feet strapped to his board, fell backwards several times before he made it to the sled.

        "What happened?" Zee asked.

        "He got scared," Norman said. "Threw his board over the rocks and jumped."

        "Maybe he tried to climb down and slipped," Richard said.

        "No, he jumped. Plunged into the snow." Norman had a few words with his friend, the instructor, then said, "See, Zee, this area's supposed to be closed off, but people ignore the signs."

        Zee nodded.

        "Why don't you go home now," Richard said. "I'll meet you back at the cabin. Take the shuttle."

        "There's three hours till closing," Zee protested.

        Richard was about to answer when Norman pointed to the body behind them and said, "Hold it."

        Norman said he would take care of Zee and told Richard where to meet in a half hour. They needed to file reports.

        Without looking at anyone, Richard began snowplowing, the tips of his skis meeting in a V. It took him a moment to realize how slow he was skiing, as if the boy wrapped in the silver blanket behind him had a broken leg. He was bending deep in the knees, gingerly taking up the shock, foolishly, so he straightened his skis, gaining speed, and the stretcher bounced rhythmically over the snow.

        A medic received the body near first aid. Another patroller escorted the medic to the ambulance by snowmobile, the stretcher in tow behind them.

*

        That afternoon, Richard made phone calls to check on plane reservations. When he arrived at the cabin, Zee and Norman were still talking about the accident. Richard knew Norman had let his son snowboard the rest of the afternoon, but it didn't matter. He realized he'd been overreacting.

        "That was so bizarre." Zee was enthused, talking in the tiny kitchen as Norman boiled pasta. There seemed to be no fear underlying his son's amazement. "What was that kid thinking?"

        "It makes you think, eh Zee?" Norman said.

        "About what?"

        Richard and Norman laughed, and Zee scowled.

        "I jumped off a big rock today," Zee said. "Dad saw me." He got no response.

        "I push it to the edge," Zee informed them.

        "You got something in the mail," Norman said, handing an express packet to Richard.

        Warily, Richard took the package, noting the return address, Eva's attorney. He didn't need to open it.

        He noticed Zee staring. He tried to smile reassuringly at his son. Eva must have felt he had no chance of gaining custody of Zee if they were finally divorced. He knew she was right. The legalities were pointless, though. Richard had already decided he couldn't keep his son.

        After they ate, he spoke to Norman, who was about to leave the cabin with friends.

        "Norman," Richard whispered, "Zee's leaving. Tonight."

        "You're joking," Norman said, seeing he wasn't. "OK, we'll talk." He told Richard to meet him later at a bar in Truckee.

        Norman went over to Zee and said goodbye, not saying anything about leaving but holding his hand in a soul brother shake and hugging Zee tightly with the other arm. Zee glanced at his father in panic as Norman walked for the door.

        "I'm sorry, Zee. School starts next Monday. After the semester, we'll talk with your mother." He told him to pack his bags.

        "Do it, Zolan," he commanded when Zee protested. He was surprised that his son quietly acquiesced.

        When they were in the car, Zee said, "I didn't want to stay here anyway. I'm never coming back."

        Richard gripped the steering wheel, staring across Royal Gorge, the snowy range beyond darkening purple in the sunset. "I hope that's not true." His son would never understand how impractical the idea of living here was. He couldn't protect Zee. His innermost self, again, told him to abandon his son.

        There was no one at the train station. The ticket window was closed. Richard left the engine running and tried to explain to Zee that his life would be limited if he came to stay--few friends, no good schools. He refrained from saying Eva wouldn't allow it. He didn't want to place the blame on her. Richard was the one who had left when Zee was a helpless boy of eight. He'd cut himself free from the pleasures and fears of fatherhood. A taxi rolled into the small lot.

        "Name's Sojun?" the driver asked.

        "I wish I could ride with you," Richard told his son, "but I'm so tired, and I've got work early. He'll take you to the airport. It's an hour or so. Show them this confirmation number. I'm proud of you, Zee. I'll tell your mother to send you here over summer."

        "Sure," Zee said, not letting the driver take his largest bag from him, struggling to push it into the trunk.

        Zee climbed in the back seat, silent and stoney-eyed. Richard handed him a list of directions and phone numbers, but he knew his son was an experienced traveler. He called goodbye and waved, watching the taxi pull away.

        Now, Zee would have no illusions about ever living with him.

        The bar was just across the street, along Truckee's single downtown row of shopfronts. He felt out of place with Norman and his friends, uncomfortably aware of their age difference.

        "You're really on pro patrol now," Norman said to him, smiling.

        Richard didn't understand.

        "Your first real experience, it makes it official. We'll get you going on avalanche control."

        Norman called his friends around and they toasted Richard.

        "This man's had a hard day," Norman announced, rubbing Richard's shoulder.

        When the others dispersed, he said, "I'm sorry, Rich. About Zee. Listen, some day he'll understand."

        "I'm not sure I understand," Richard said, but the truth was he did understand. He didn't want Zee living with him. He didn't want the burden of a son who was so much like his father. The constant, necessary watch would take too much out of him, too much away from him. What if Zee got trapped in the snow?

        Norman wandered to the end of the bar where he put his arm around a girl. Richard tried to recall her name and ordered another double Scotch. He felt an old, familiar high tingling up his neck. There was space on either side of him with the bar so empty, and he felt a solitude like the cocaine crashes he used to have. That was the way things used to go --from ecstasy, to a second of reflection, to dead tired.

        They were better off apart, he thought. He couldn't provide Zee the continual vacation his son desired. Back East, Zee might retain some respect for the man who pulled corpses from the snow.

        He thought of the snowboarder leaping from the palisades--to escape what, his fears? his life? his job and his family?--he thought of the landing, into the panic of soft earth, the struggle and last seconds of air. But there was that prior instant, the absolute freedom of free fall, the ecstatic moment that is the love of death. This Richard knew.

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