Page 39 of K-9 in Pursuit

“A rock grazed him, but he should be okay,” Connor said. “Where was your other friend?”

“Oliver?”

Paul was clearly dazed. “Where was Oliver when the avalanche started?” Connor asked again.

“He was…he was behind me. I think.”

“Was he wearing an avalanche beacon?” Connor asked.

“No beacons,” Paul said. “We were inbounds. We didn’t think we needed them.”

Brian thought of the sign posted at the gate to this area. Halfway down the list of precautions a notice advised that avalanche beacons should be worn when skiing all backcountry terrain. But you couldn’t require people to comply with this.

Connor’s gaze met Brian’s. This wasn’t really helping. Oliver could be anywhere in the snowfield, carried forward or to the side by a river of snow.

“Keep searching,” Connor said. He patted Paul’s now-exposed shoulder. “We’ll have you out in a few minutes.”

It took another half hour to dig out Paul. In the meantime, the dogs searched and the humans not involved in retrieving the man probed the snow with flexible ten-foot poles, alert to anything more soft and yielding than rock and ice.

Connor paused in his search to watch as Chase, Raz, and Anders carried a litter bearing Paul Leonard past, up the snowfield to one of the snowmobiles. From there he would be transported to the ski village, and taken by ambulance to the local hospital.

“Is he going to be all right?” Brian asked when Connor moved in beside him.

“His right leg is broken and he’s a little shocky, but he should be okay,” Connor said.

Too bad about Oliver. Neither man said the words out loud, but Brian was thinking them, and figured Connor was, too. The odds of anyone surviving being buried by an avalanche this long were minuscule.

Resort director of operations Doug Elam arrived a few minutes later. Six feet tall with chiseled features and silver at the temples of his dark hair, Elam was often featured in magazine and newspaper articles about the resort and was a familiar figure on the slopes, not content to manage from behind a desk.

“How did this happen?” he asked Connor when he joined the others on the avalanche field.

Connor gave his explanation of warming temperatures and shifting rock. “As hard as we try to control the terrain, Mother Nature is unpredictable,” he concluded.

“No chance that this was human caused?” Doug asked.

“One of the snowboarders could have triggered it.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. I mean, did someone do something to deliberately trigger the slide?”

“I don’t think so,” Connor said.

“So not like last time,” Doug said.

By last time, he meant an inbound avalanche triggered deliberately in January by a group who had stolen explosives from ski patrol. Connor’s girlfriend, Stacy, had helped catch those responsible, but Brian didn’t blame Elam for being worried.

“How many people involved?” Elam asked.

“Three snowboarders. One of them escaped and called for help. He’s being checked out at the hospital because he was hit in the head by rocks. The second guy was only partially buried and is on his way to the ambulance now with a broken leg and shock.”

“I saw him just now,” Elam said. “And the third person?”

“No sign of him.”

Doug groaned.

“We’re going to have to call the search soon,” Connor said. “It’s getting too dark to see. The dogs and everyone else are exhausted. We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”

“We’ll have to close this section of the resort,” Doug said.