Kayli Unknown

Chapter 30 - A Night

Cross country skiing is something you love or hate. It takes skill and patience. And it can be exhausting. Kat was hoping for exhaustion. It would be a significant improvement over frustration. It also required a certain amount of discipline – care when dressing (lots of attention to socks) and attention to detail when waxing the skis (temperature of the air and of the snow). So she needed to pay attention. And attention to skiing left little attention for all the other things that had been racing around her head.

She had about an hour of daylight by the time she had her skis ready. She thought she would cut two trails, one fairly short, the other longer. Short trail? Around the lake. Not much of a lake. One of the reasons the original owner of her lodge had gone bankrupt. Rich people weren't going to pay big bucks to fly to a tiny town and fish a tiny lake. But it worked for Kat. Not much to look at – a fairly shallow oval surrounded by forests. The road that went around the lake was about a mile long.

Kat crossed the road, set her skis, and started rounding the lake, making a trail through some trees and across some open areas. Mostly it was flat. Easy skiing. Not much to look at really. The lake itself was just an open field of white. She tried to weave a bit through some birch groves to lend a little beauty to the trail, but there was a limit to what she could do. There was a reason people skied the Rockies and fished Montana.

The snow was deep, over a foot, but it was powder. No crust to have to break through. If there was a virtue to the cold of January, it was that no thaw had tried to melt the snow and leave a crust on top. That would come in March, along with the heavier snows. Now she just had fourteen or sixteen inches of powder, enough to bury her boots. It also hid fallen branches and some rocks, which she had to stop and clear – or detour around – but for long stretches she could hit a good stride and stretch out.

It was best when she could hit a rhythm. She found a pace. So close to double time – the pace of her military service. Her mind drifted off now as it had then. One foot in front of the other, breath coming naturally, arms swinging with ease. Double time. Cadence of a soldier. She stretched, she slid, she heard the whistling of her skis through the snow, the cool wind on a warm face, a sea of white in every direction. Her shoulders dropped as her body relaxed and slipped into the rhythm she knew so well.

Time around the lake? Less than an hour. Now that she had the course set and the obstacles removed, she would ski it again in a day or two. Packed down well, she thought she and her guests could do it under twenty minutes. A good warm up, or maybe an end of day trail leading back to a bonfire she would make on her beach. Either would work. Both would be fun.

The sun had set by the time she finished circling the lake. But she wasn't tired, and it wasn't really dark. Snow reflects. A half moon was up. She could see. And she wanted to try the logging road. So she followed the lake road for maybe a quarter mile, then reset her skis and headed up a logging road she knew well. Trucks rolled up the road maybe once or twice a summer. If some section was being logged, trucks would venture deep into the forests to pull out second growth poplar, birch, and pine for pulp mills. Trees turning to paper. Less of that lately as people turned from paper to pixels. But still enough logging to keep these old roads open.

Like any farm road, this was basically two ruts with a mound between. She picked the left rut and started moving. Sometimes there was brush leaning out over the road, and she stopped to break off branches that might scratch any guest. But she didn't have to stop very often. She was able to set her pace again. Her stretches and slides gaining length. Into the forest. Into the night. The moon giving her enough light to see the road, but leaving the rest of the woods hidden. She had never taken a group out at night. She wondered if they would like it. She did. Up the road, over low hills, around gentle curves. She had to herringbone one hill, but the rest was easy strides.

She thought five miles. That had been the right length for most of her guests. Five miles out, a stop for sandwiches and hot chocolate. Half an hour for pictures and talk, and then a return to a warm lodge or a warm bonfire. Good for her guests. Kat wanted more. Her wax was perfect on the snow, the road was interesting, the night was cold, but windless. This was where she wanted to be. This was what she wanted to do. Her long legs stretched, and her long arms swung. And her world became her breath, her skis, and the road ahead.

Two hours out, she stopped. She listened. She felt her breath in her chest. She looked into the forest. Paper birches were nearby. She could see them white and ragged in the moonlight. Everything else was black, and silent. She stood. She breathed. She felt the sweat on her face begin to chill.

And, she felt she had gone far enough. Whatever had pushed her out into the night had faded away. She felt peace. She lifted her head, felt the cold on her cheeks, and slowly turned around. She set a pace going back. Double time. Over hills, around curves, a steady, even pace she could follow all day or all night. A pace she had followed for twenty years. She slipped back into the pace and was back at the lake road before she even noticed her proximity.

She popped off her skis, laid them across her shoulder, and walked back to the lodge head high and shoulders back.