He was asleep in his father’s bed, snoring a little, when there was a rap on the door. He didn’t move, eyes stayed shut. A pause, and then another rap, sharper. Casey stirred. Took a moment to open his eyes. 

“Yeah?” 

From the door’s other side: “I’m putting on coffee.” 

Casey raised his head and looked around the dim room, trying to get a fix on where he was. Looked over at the window, could see it was still dark outside. 

“What time is it?” 

“Time to get going.” 

                                                #          #          # 

Forty-five minutes later, Nat Janz, wearing a headlamp, was leading Casey through what was left of the night, following a snow-covered hiking trail. Both of them were on snowshoes, Casey trying to get a feel for his. Nat had a rucksack and a pair of skis strapped to his back. 

He could hear Casey’s heavy breathing, called over his shoulder, “How you doing back there?” 

Casey said, “I’m fine.” 

“Let me know if you wanna to stop.” 

“Yeah, right,” Casey muttered. 

The trail had been taking them through a tall pine forest, the branches bent under heavy snow. The two kept a steady uphill pace and gradually they emerged from the trees, could see from the pink on the peaks above them that dawn wasn’t far off.     

They stopped for a minute on a snowy ridge where Nat took off his headlamp, stuck it in his rucksack. He pointed down at some specs of light, the village of Copper Crest still in darkness far below. 

“You can get an idea how high we’ve come.” 

“How much further?” Casey said. 

“A ways.” 

He could see that Casey wasn’t looking down there, was keeping himself away from the edge. Nat didn’t say anything, just turned his snowshoes back to the trail and continued on. Casey glanced down at the village, quickly looked up and followed. 

Last night before they’d turned in, after finishing the burgers that Vera dropped off, Nat had gotten the conversation back to them needing to work out a plan. “We need to give you some kind of a focus,” he said, “get you acclimated to what’s going on here. Give you some kind of identity besides throwing punches in public places.” 

“Hey, he started it.” 

“Doesn’t matter. All that folks are going to know is that the new kid’s got a short fuse -- till you give them something else.” 

“Like what?” 

Nat had studied him, this handful he had to switch into some kind of a new life. Trouble was, his own was no great model to work from. But if he sifted through it, looked hard enough, maybe there was something he could pass along, get the kid on some kind of track. He'd sat there tapping his can of beer, thinking. Sipped and glanced at Casey’s skateboard over there in the corner. Finally, he took a long swig, finished his beer and pushed himself up off the sofa. “You get yourself ready for bed, put your things away. I’ll be back in a minute.” 

And that’s how Casey wound up here on snowshoes, a pair that Nat went out and borrowed from a friend down the street. Nat, of course, had his own. 

Which Casey was watching him unbuckle now at the bottom of a sharp incline they’d come to after another half-hour of climbing. It was a section of hard-pack above the tree line that went up to a summit that even at this early hour had a snow banner blowing off it. 

“Take yours off,” Nat said, “it’s too crusty to use them.” 

“I can wait here.” 

“Hey, the whole idea is to get you a look at what’s up there, get a feel for the neighborhood.” 

Casey didn’t like it, but he took off his snowshoes.  

They left both pair down there and started up the wind-buffeted slope, kicking foot holds for traction. Casey kept his head down, trying to keep his eyes off the surroundings, the nightmare goddamn surroundings, wind getting colder as they went up. 

But soon there was no more up to go. 

They came over an icy crest, both breathing hard, stopped and looked down. 

Casey froze. 

“Welcome to the Steeps,” Nat said, nodding at the sheer drop-off, couple thousand feet of vertical ice and hard-pack snow that ended who knew where. 

Casey turned away, couldn’t look. Nat frowned. “Something wrong?” 

Casey didn’t answer, stayed turned away. Nat watched him, didn’t seem surprised. “I figured there was something wrong when I heard you wouldn’t fly.” 

“So you bring me here.” 

“Lemme tell you something, there’s one thing I’ve learned.” 

“Yeah, what?” 

“When something scares you, there’s only one way to beat it.” 

Casey still wouldn’t look over the edge. 

“You listening?” Nat said. 

“I’m listening.” 

“The only way you beat it is to go right at it. Attack it.” He watched his son, watched the wind whip his shabby parka, the bandana tied around his head. Casey’s eyes were riveted on his boots. “Look at me,” Nat said. 

With reluctance, Casey turned to him, making sure to keep his eyes off the drop. 

“When I was your age I had the same hangup,” Nat said, “so probably you got it from me.” This was bullshit, but it served a purpose. 

“So?” 

“So I worked through it.” 

“You want me to jump?”  

“I want you to watch. See what the deal is. Then we can talk.” He unslung the rucksack and the skis from his back and set them down on the ice-packed summit. “Go on back down till you come to that fork past where we left the snowshoes. You can cut across where it’s marked and wait for me at the bottom there.” 

Casey didn’t move. 

“Go on,” Nat said. “Just follow our tracks down and cut left. You’ll see where it branches and then follow the trail markers.” 

Realizing he wouldn’t get down any other way, Casey reluctantly turned to the trail they’d made by kicking footholds coming up. He shuffled across the ice, put his heel in the first one and carefully started back down. 

“Give a wave when you get there,” Nat called, “so I can see you made it.” 

Twenty minutes later, below the tree line again, and with his snowshoes back on, Casey trekked along the marked trail through the pines that Nat said to follow. Eventually he came to a rock outcropping that he guessed was near where he should be. He went around it and looked up. And up. Whatever vision he’d formed on the summit wasn’t diminished by what he saw now. Soaring above him for what seemed like a mile was what he would learn was one of the most treacherous (if not suicidal) off-trail drops anywhere: 

The Steeps. 

He stared up the sheer snow-covered face, could just make out a dot against the cobalt-blue sky – his father. Casey undid the red bandana from around his dreads, flapped it open and waved it so his father could see he was there. 

“Old dog, new tricks,” a voice said behind him. 

Casey spun around. Ten feet away, knee-deep in the snow, was the old woman he’d met on the bus. She gave him a smile and looked down at the Chihuahua cradled in her arms. 

“Right, babe?” 

The dog gave a little high-pitched bark. 

The woman looked back at Casey, still with the smile, then raised her eyes to the top of the Steeps. 

She stood there looking up, Casey too confused to speak. Then, like gusts of powder snow, she and the little dog vanished. 

Casey stared at the spot where they’d been, no sign they were ever there. He turned his eyes back up to where the woman had looked. 

Far up there on the precipice, Nat Janz was keeping loose, moving in place on the edge of the drop, sliding his skis back and forth. Something below caught his eye. He stopped his moving and squinted, could see a speck of red down there, moving the tiniest bit. Knew it had to be Casey’s bandana.   

He planted his poles and took a deep breath. Smiled and pushed himself out into space. 

Hung mid-air – and then dropped. 

A long, long drop. 

Down and down the face of the Steeps. 

His skis touched for an instant, and then he shot back into space, picking up speed. He touched again, edging quickly in the vertical snow, doing it every hundred feet or so, making airborne turns with the ease of a skier who thrives on this terrain. 

Casey at the bottom was watching transfixed, seeing a side of his father he never knew. Saw him pull off turns he could never have conceived, long drops in between, each quick landing setting off a mini-avalanche. 

Nat kept coming, adding bolder variations to his aerial maneuvers. At the end of one, he caromed off an icy bump and pointed his skis straight down hill, tucked his poles under his arms and schussed the last several hundred yards. At the bottom he pulled up with a graceful tip-roll, planted his skis and smiled at Casey. 

“So now we have a plan.” 

“What plan?” Casey said, stunned by it all. 

“When you can take your board down that,” Nat said, “anything else sucks.” 

“You’re not serious.” 

“Actually, I am.”