The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [169]
“But you know the B-course backwards,” he retorted. “I’ve never even seen it before.”
“I’ll agree to a race, but only if you’ll consider a wager,” I replied.
For the first time I could see I had caught his interest. “How much?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing so vulgar as money,” I said. “The winner gets to tell Caroline the truth.”
“The truth?” he said, looking puzzled.
“Yes,” I replied, and shot off down the hill before he could respond. I got a good start as I skied in and out of the red flags, but looking back over my shoulder I could see he had recovered quickly and was already chasing hard after me. I realized that it was vital for me to stay in front of him for the first third of the course, but I could already feel him cutting down my lead.
After half a mile of swerving and driving he shouted, “You’ll have to go a lot faster than that if you hope to beat me.” His arrogant boast only pushed me to stay ahead, but I kept the lead only because of my advantage of knowing every twist and turn during that first mile. Once I was sure that I would reach the vital newly marked route before he could I began to relax. After all, I had practiced over the next two hundred meters fifty times a day for the last ten days, but I was only too aware that this time was the only one that mattered.
I glanced over my shoulder to see he was now about thirty meters behind me. I began to slow slightly as we approached the prepared ice patch, hoping he wouldn’t notice or would think I’d lost my nerve. I held back even more when I reached the top of the patch until I could almost feel the sound of his breathing. Then, quite suddenly, the moment before I would have hit the ice I plowed my skis and came to a complete halt in the mound of snow I had built the previous night. Travers sailed past me at about forty miles an hour, and seconds later flew high into the air over the ravine with a scream I will never forget. I couldn’t get myself to look over the edge, as I knew he must have broken every bone in his body the moment he hit the snow a hundred feet below.
I carefully leveled the mound of snow that had saved my life and then clambered back up the mountain as fast as I could go, gathering the thirty flags that had marked out my false route. Then I skied from side to side replacing them in their correct positions on the B-slope, some hundred meters above my carefully prepared ice patch. When each one was back in place I skied on down the hill, feeling like an Olympic champion. Once I reached the base of the slope I pulled up my hood to cover my head and didn’t remove my snow goggles. I unstrapped my skis and walked casually toward the hotel. I reentered the building by the rear door and was back in bed by seven-forty.
I tried to control my breathing, but it was some time before my pulse had returned to normal. Caroline awoke a few minutes later, turned over, and put her arms round me.
“Ugh,” she said, “you’re frozen. Have you been sleeping without the covers on?”
I laughed. “You must have pulled them off during the night”
“Go and have a hot bath.”
After I had had a quick bath we made love, and I dressed a second time, double-checking that I had left no clues of my early flight before going down to breakfast.
As Caroline was pouring my second cup of coffee, I heard the ambulance siren, at first coming from the town and then later returning.
“Hope it wasn’t a bad accident,” my wife said as she continued to pour her coffee.
“What?” I said, a little too loudly, glancing up from the previous day’s Times.
“The siren, silly. There must have been an accident on the mountain. Probably Travers,” she said.
“Travers?” I said, even more loudly.
“Patrick Travers. I saw him at the bar last night. I didn’t mention it to you because I know you don’t care for him.”
“But why Travers?” I asked nervously.
“Doesn’t he always claim he’s the first on the slope every morning? Even beats the instructors up to