Snow

The smell is what I remember most vividly. To this day it brings me back to that snowy evening years ago. I was on my way home from my winter job at the resort’s rental department. The dying rays of amber winter sun filtered through the sparse, snow covered evergreens clinging to life on the steep slopes looming over my little orange Volkswagen with its narrow tires wrapped in chains. About ten minutes into the winding drive down the pass my weak headlights flashed over the reflectors of a group of cars stopped in the narrow road ahead. A group of people gathered outside their cars, backs turned away from the wind.

I pulled my little car up behind theirs’ and killed the engine, making sure to set the parking brake on the steep grade. I was already warmly dressed in my heavy boots and jacket since the Volkswagen’s heater core was busted. There were five or six people gathered around the bed of someone’s black pickup truck. A large carafe and a stack of paper cups rested on its open tailgate like they were having some kind of planned get-together.

“Hi there, help yourself to some coffee. Was on my way down to a party before the road got blocked,” said a big, burly man in a long, black coat and coonskin cap, his voice slightly muffled by a thick, yellow checkered scarf.

“Got some doughnuts there too,” he added, nodding to a large white box next to the carafe.

“No thanks,” I declined. “What’s the hold up?”

Another, shorter, portly man piped up from the side of the pickup. “There’s an accident up there. Big semi wacked an SUV. Both came around the bend over the center line. Can’t blame em’. The road’s hardly wide enough for a big truck alone.”

“Did anyone go for help? Is anyone up there helping the victims?” I asked, slightly flustered by their deadpan responses.

“Well I have a CB in my truck. Radioed the sheriff for some help and a lady drove back down to the resort to get help too,” the pickup owner offered while filling a cup with steaming coffee.

“OK, good, is anyone up there trying to help the people in the accident?” I asked again, looking around at the small crowd. They stared back at me blankly and looked down into their coffees.

“Would anyone care to help me then?” I asked, raising my voice slightly.

“Well I have a few blankets and pillows in my truck.” A girl behind the crowd offered, leaning around the big pickup guy, her curly red hair falling out of her blue knit wool hat and over the collar of her equally blue winter jacket.

“OK, good, go get those. I have a med kit in my trunk, “ I replied, turning back towards my car. A minute later we met up just in front of the stopped cars. She cradled two checkered blankets and two, crisp white pillows in her arms. I had my small, red med kit at my side.

“You work at the resort, right? At the ticket counter?” I asked. “I work rentals.”

“Yeah I do. Just started this season. I’m Sidney.” She replied.

“Cool, I’ve seen you around. I’m Tim.”

“Yeah I know. I’ve seen your nametag.”

She smiled. “I never forget a name if I can attach it to a face.”

We scrabbled our way uphill, slipping on the hard packed snow surface of the road and stumbling a few times. The walking became easier as the road leveled out just before a sharp bend. Halfway around the bend is where the smell first hit us. An icy breeze rolled down the deep mountain pass, pulling it down the narrow road and up into my nostrils. A metallic taste filled my mouth. The same created when you sand an old iron fence.

“Do you smell that? It smells like rust.” Sidney asked.

“Yeah I do,” I replied, giving her a sideways glance.

Seconds later we rounded the corner and discovered the source of the smell. It was blood. Human blood, and a lot of it. A woman lay before our feet. A dark red, slushy pool of frozen blood surrounded her, soaking into the snow. She was decapitated. Her head, still covered in a black fur hat lay a few feet away in its own smaller red slush puddle.

Sidney didn’t even pause. Without a word she ran past the dead woman, up to the red SUV. I stood back for a second taking in the grizzly scene; the smashed SUV in the foreground, a large, blue semi truck and trailer off the road behind it. Its driver leaning against the nearest fender, head in hands, bouncing up and down with his sobbing.

I saw movement in the SUV through its smashed windshield. Someone was still behind the wheel and there were people in the back too. Snapping out of my daze I sprung into action, joining Sidney by the driver’s door.

“It’s a family.” She observed as if recording notes for some report.

“Dad’s in the driver’s seat. That’s mom outside. Two kids in the back. Oh God!”

She grabbed one of her blankets and ran back to the mother. She snatched up her head by the hair, dropped it where it should be and covered the whole scene with the blanket.

“At least the kids won’t have to see her like that.” She sighed, rejoining me.

The father was conscious but clearly in a lot of pain. This was back before people really wore seatbelts. The steering wheel stopped him by the ribcage. The windshield wasn’t enough to stop mom. A big, bloody hole with a few strands of hair blowing in the breeze was all that was left of it. Dad had a big gash on his forehead; his face was covered in bright red blood and sparkling shards of glass. I dropped my kit on the ground and fished out a thick bandage. I carefully picked out as much glass as I could before pressing the bandage tightly against the oozing wound.

“Can you hold that on yourself?” I asked him. “I need to go help check on your kids.”

“Yeah I got it,” he breathed. “My wife. My wife. Is she ok?”

Sidney placed her hand on his left shoulder.

“I.. I.. She didn’t make it.” She whispered.

Hot tears welled from the man’s eyes, cutting paths through the blood caked on his face. He pressed his head into his hand on the top of the steering wheel.

“Ohhh Mary! Ahh my ribs, I can’t even cry without them hurting!” He sobbed.

Sidney and I moved to the back of the SUV. A young boy and a girl about the same age sat there on the last brown vinyl bench seat, their eyes wide and filled with tears. They weren’t bleeding anywhere and both were alert.

“Is daddy OK? Where’s mommy? Is she ok too?” The little girl asked, tugging on my sleeve with her little knit rainbow mitten covered hands.

I stood there, leaning over the seat, frozen with my jaw slack. I had no idea what to tell these poor children whose mother I had just seen lying decapitated on the ground outside and whose father was sobbing in agony and anger up front.

Sidney came to my rescue once more.

“Daddy is going to be fine,” she said, placing her gloved hand on the girl’s head. “But I’m sorry to tell you your mother is dead.”

The two children broke into tears once more, their faces scrunched in pain, hot tears dribbling down their pale cheeks.

“I had to tell them, they had to know” Sidney sighed turning back to me, her usually pale skin even lighter as blood drained from it.

“It’s ok. There was nothing we could do to save her.” I replied, dropping to one knee by the open door.

“The police should be here soon.”

That was over 20 years ago, but the whole event still haunts my memory. The father and two children were fine. He sends me a Christmas card each year, thanking us for possibly saving his life. Sidney and I dated for awhile, but eventually went our separate ways. She’s a doctor in an emergency room at a hospital in Seattle. I took a few first aid classes and carry a pretty extensive first-aid kit in my trunk next to my tire chains and a bag of salt. I haven’t had to use it yet, but I definitely won’t hesitate if the time comes.