Falling Snow Read Online Free PDF Page B

hilarious.”
    “Yeah, so anyway, I’m about to start my twenty-four. I’ll call you in a week or two and try to put a weekend together to paint the town. Don’t get your hopes up though. Unless you ski or snowboard these people won’t look at you twice.”
     
    ***
     
    Adler had washed away the tears she shed in the small bathroom of the ski chalet next to the X Games competitor parking lot. It was actually on the next mountain, she had to take a small bus over the pipe like all of the other competitors with events on Buttermilk Mountain, that was the only problem with that mountain it had no parking.
    Amy and Gordy hadn’t noticed any change in her which was fine. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about. She didn’t need to air her dirty laundry. She had already done two warm up runs and her blood was still boiling from the overheard conversation. She was beyond sad, she was just plain pissed.
    She pushed the button to start the loud rock song on her I-Pod and tucked it in the inside pocket in her jacket and pushed off when she got the all clear signal. She dropped in and carved across the pipe with more speed than she intended and the icy bottom was slippery. She held her line and flew up into a backside seven two, then carved across again and up into a double nine-twenty. She landed perfectly, still carrying a lot of speed she shot up the wall and into her new trick but she pushed out over the deck and was at risk of getting seriously hurt. She quickly opened her body to stall the spin and her board hit the edge of the deck on the way down. She tried to ride it out but it threw her down and she tumbled twice before sliding to a stop in the middle of the pipe.
    When she didn’t move the ski-patrol rushed to her side. Adler tried to open her eyes but everything was black. Her head was fuzzy and throbbing. She tried to move but someone pushed her back down.
    “Do you have any pain?” The male voice asked. She tried so hard to see him.
    “My head is pounding. I can’t get up.”
    “That’s because we are holding you still. You need to go get checked out.” He waved for the ski-basket to be brought into the pipe. It looked like an orange half cage shaped like a person. She stayed still while they rolled her onto a backboard then set the backboard into the basket to ski the rest of the way down the middle of the pipe.
     
    ***
     
    Cason was walking through the ER, which was connected to the little area she used for trauma, when she heard the radio say an ambulance was coming in with a downed snowboarder with a possible head injury. She figured she better hang around to see how serious it was. Dr. Smith was wrapped up with two minor MVA’s and a couple minor slip and falls and the other doctor working the ER was wrapped up with a rash of food poisoning coming from some fly by night taco joint.
    Two EMT’s pushed a yellow stretcher with an orange backboard strapped securely to it through the double doors. She met them inside ER room one. The snowboarder was obviously female and she could see a few blond strands of hair, but she was still in her ski cap and helmet.
    “She crashed hard, hit the deck from about fifteen feet in the air and sort of somersaulted down the wall of the half-pipe.” One of the EMT’s said as they unstrapped the backboard and set it on the hospital gurney. “BP’s stable, she never lost consciousness that we know of. She’s complaining of a headache.”
    “Let’s go ahead and send her for a CT scan.” Cason said to Katie, the nurse that had been working most of her shifts since the switch of schedules.
    Cason watched the gurney being rolled down the hall. The young woman looked vaguely familiar, but then again she’d seen over a hundred people in ski clothes since she arrived in town three weeks ago. She shrugged and went back to the nurse’s desk to get the new patients chart. She subconsciously dropped the metal clipboard when she read the name across the top. Adler Troy. She