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When Abe plunged the party into the whiteout, he was confident in only two things: the first, that Lars was holding tightly to his shoulders from behind; the second, a tree branch was holding tightly to him from ahead. The spruce trees behaved as ushers, or escorts, as it were, sending out long-tendrilled branches to feel for him, ready to receive him from the previous branch. Otherwise, they were lost to the blizzard. It was a strange blizzard, unlike the one or two they had already experienced: this one was coming straight down, as if thrown down from the peak of the mountain.
Lars was right, Stoic: you made a claim against the mountain itself—himself, some sort of personification. This is not good.
So the snow howled and stung, and Abe shivered as heat left his body. This is bad, Abe. This is really bad. “KEEP MOVING!” He heard Lars shout from directly behind him. “WE WILL DIE IF YOU SLOW DOWN!” No kidding, Lars.
The rumbling had not ceased.
Boulders began to appear underfoot. As much as Abe entrusted himself to the spruce trees, he found himself constantly stumbling on bowling-ball sized rocks which emerged as frozen spheres in the very path he meant to tread. With the help of the spruce trees, he did not fall, and he felt that he was able to maintain something in the way of a decent pace.
Then, with the snow and the rising boulders, shards of rock began to slide into his path, in the same way bits of slate roof might slide to the gutters below. Walking became as if he were making a path atop an automobile’s engine, where the rocker shaft was doing its oblong oscillations covered with oil. Again, the spruce trees proved to be great allies to the party: in a tireless, systematic repetition, one branch reached to him, grasped him as the previous branch was just releasing him, and pulled him forward until he was within reach of the next branch.
Otherwise he was utterly lost to the blizzard, and the party was lost to the blizzard.
He heard before him a great thump and a crack. The spruce branch which had him paused.
What was that?
After one, long, terrifying, ice-filled moment, the spruce branch handed him off, only this time to the extended root of a spruce tree. He looked, and through the snow he saw what remained of a great spruce tree, its trunk hopelessly smashed near its base.
“A BOULDER!” he shouted.
“WHAT?!?” said Lars.
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Abe quavered. No, Stoic, you have to stand fast. This is not for Sano. This is not for Lars. This is for you. If you panic, you die. If you panic, you lose the trees. If you panic, it was all in vain. Stoic, life is not in vain. He steeled himself back into Command, and the root handed him off to the next reaching branch.
“OKAY?” Lars asked.
“OKAY!” he shouted back.
Another humongous boulder bounced off the ground mere inches before him, but it did not strike him, and the trees were wiser, so there was no demoralizing crack following the thump. The mountain is shedding itself onto us in a rage, Stoic. What have you wrought?
They continued forward, as doughboys advancing under heavy artillery, almost literally. Another great shadow suddenly appeared with a now-familiar thud, followed quickly by a crack which filled Abe with unspeakable sadness and horror: the mountain had struck down another spruce tree. As before, though, the stricken tree extended a root. This is not obeisance, Abe. This is homage, even love. The trees love you, Abe, or they love the one who sent you. Who sent you to them? Will you care for them? A vision of a great elm tree emerged within the white of the snow, then was gone.
The mountain heaved from itself another chunk of rock, this one bouncing immediately to the left of Abe, then over his head. He clenched his jaw, thinking nothing but of Command, trusting the trees to his powers. For just a moment, the snow abated as the wind shifted direction, and he saw with clarity that they were all still together, holding for life to each other. Blake was the rearguard, and he was holding Sano, who was holding Perry Tuck, the leader of the three. He was holding Manuel Rojacamiseta, and he was holding Merdith Donaldson. Meredith was holding Lars, who was, finally, holding Abe with both hands.
Without warning, the wind swirled once, then resumed its downward fury, screaming with all the wrath of all the gods ever dreamed or realized by man, shrieking through the spruce trees, which bent, but were not assailed, unless struck by boulders. They are at war, Stoic. The trees are suffering under an unprovoked battle against their everlasting homemaker. The mountain is a she? Is she mother to these, and to all who dwell upon her? Shall we call her mother, Stoic?
Over the shrieking wind came another shriek, that of a human being. Abe had felt the flinging of another piece of mountain, but he had not heard the thump or crack as before. Instead, he heard something like a smack, and at that moment, Lars’s hands were torn from his shoulders. He stopped and turned.
Lars was immediately behind him. He reached for Abe and turned to find Meredith Donaldson. He was, indeed, behind Lars, and Lars pulled him forward to himself and Abe. “WHERE ARE THE OTHERS?!?”
“MANUEL LET GO!” Meredith Donaldson shouted.
A spruce branch was reaching behind them, pulling forward Perry Tuck, who still had Sano and Blake attached. They huddled so they could hear each other shouting over the power of the mountain.
Perry Tuck said, “A BOULDER TOOK MANUEL. HE’S GONE.” His face was filled with grief and terror. “MANUEL ROJACAMISETA IS GONE. I’VE LOST A MAN.”
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Blake motioned with a great gesticulation of his hand that they should keep going. A boulder bounced over them. Abe commanded the spruce trees to continue. The power of the mountain seemed to fill the spruce trees with a borrowed power, and they redoubled their efforts to bring the party home. Instead of pulling Abe along in a slow, aided, trudge through snow and over rumbling mountain, they picked him up: a branch picked him up off the ground, and it delivered him over to the next waiting branch.
At first, Abe was terrified that the trees had chosen to save him at the expense of his friends, but his fears were quelled in the next moment when he realized they were using the wind to whip back and forth in a kind-of rapid-moving assembly line. When one delivered Abe to the next branch, it whipped back to pick up Lars while that next branch was delivering Abe forward, and so forth, until, in a truly magical instance, they were very quickly whisked to the door of the bower, which opened immediately.
Upon passing through the vestibule, they were greeted by a clang and the voice of Umezawa. He and Jason were glistening in the firelight, their nearly naked bodies oiled from forehead to toe. They wore nothing but thin spruce twigs tied as bikini bottoms, with rounded-sawn spruce stubs tied together as bikini tops. They shouted a welcome to the returning party and began to sing.
Abe saw Perry Tuck freeze in utter shock and disbelief.
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