The hill was broad. After a while, they trudged west to find powdery portions untouched by their careening. Frank tried a standing run and flipped instantly. Sometimes they hurtled down simultaneously, trying to bumper-car each other. They moved for better snow a few times, then decided to pair off for more momentum. It didn’t work for Rex and Frank, who split apart off their sled and tumbled like cylinders downhill. Somehow Frank’s boot catapulted out from under him and shot in the air like foam off a geyser.

Mary got set to ride with Jeff, and he pried his weapon out from its shoulder holster and tossed it aside. “Potential projectile,” he said, laughing. The denseness of it sank out of sight into the snow, and she put her arms around him like a girlfriend.

At the top again, Rex took her and lifted her over his shoulder, and she bent at the waist, her arms down his backside, which she smacked and punched. She was kicking too, and they were laughing so hard he staggered, but then he got her down on the fiberglass and pulled her into his chest. She was thrilled for it. She pulled up snow as they flew down the hill, smashed it back in his face, as junior-high as she could be.

At the bottom, Frank gave her a hand up off the fiberglass and said, “X, play nice.”

She had a stab in her, and then, as if her babyish hurt had appeared in the landscape, she pictured a boy at the ridgeline, crouching to fish Jeff’s sidearm out of the drift. She looked up a little too fast.

“Jumpy,” Frank said, but he wasn’t teasing.

“Just a—” She stopped.

Frank’s eyes followed hers up the hill. Rex was already halfway up, tramping on a slant to get closer to Jeff, who was on his knees. Mary scanned, her vision skipping and sliding along the pylons, the doubleback line of the next pass, trembling lines of mountains behind it. All she saw was Frank tearing up after Rex.

She heard a footfall. She turned, and the white blinkered her in a shout. She tripped forward, leaving the fiberglass behind, scrambling up with both hands, crabbing the hill when she backslid from trying too hard. She didn’t look up. She put all of it into scaling the height. She rasped out Jeff’s name. She called for Rex.

“Frank,” she tried to shout when she reached the ridge.