Free Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad Page A

away some of the snow and exposed a faint trail. I tracked higher to root it out, sturdy on my four paws as a mountain goat.
    My hands found the scant trail ledge before my eyes saw it. I slinked low to eye the trail’s shape and trajectory. It traversed the chute, feathering away near the tree where the plane wing pulsed in and out of existence. The edge of the wing was fused into the snow at the base of the tree trunk. It was propped up at an angle. Shelter.
    I thought of the airplane’s floor rug. I remembered seeing it tangled amongst some twisted metal near Sandra. I needed it. Also maybe there’s an ice axe or shovel or at least some gloves somewhere in the wreckage. So I followed my prints back to the impact zone. Slipping was not an option. I was hunting for tools.
    I rummaged through the twisted pieces. Nothing to help me, except the rug. The frayed metal scraps would only cut my hands up, and they weren’t stiff enough to axe with. I coiled the rug and hefted it under what would be my downhill arm during the hike back to the wing.
    I heard Sandra whimpering. She was above me—I had tuned her out along with everything else that was a distraction. Her eyes were glassy, lashes frosted. I told her to carefully, slowly, step-by-tiny-step, move with me to the wing.
    No, she said. I can’t move.

CHAPTER 12
    D AD WAS HOLDING both our surfboards when I woke up, and it took a second to remember that we were in Mexico.
    Let’s get wet, he said. It’ll feel good.
    I was suspicious because he didn’t mention the waves at all, just the part about getting wet. I followed him down some rusty metal stairs and we passed a Mexican couple dressed up in fancy linen clothes. They huddled against the railing as if we were banditos or lepers or something. Down on the beach the swells became waves, big waves.
    It didn’t look so big from up high, I said.
    You’ll be fine. There are some beautiful peelers coming off that point. See them?
    Should I surf the inside section?
    Hell no, he said. If you don’t surf the point you might as well be anywhere riding the whitewash.
    I swallowed any further protests because I could see in his eyes that we were going out no matter what.
    Although the air was as hot as a two-dollar pistol, as my dad liked to say, the water was cool. I howled because the salt stung my raspberried hip and the scrapes on my ass and arm and hand.
    It’s good for it, he said.
    I clenched my teeth and put my head down and paddled. The stinging waned and after ducking under a few waves I felt awake and clearheaded for the first time in days. He pushed me through the bigger walls of whitewash and the salt scrubbed off the caked layers of sweat.
    Out on the point I shivered, more from buried fear than the water temperature. My dad rubbed my back and spoke softly to me about the waves and how a ride could be effortless, like a seagull gliding an inch off the surface.
    The swells came around the headland and stood up without warning. They were taller than my head. He told me I could do it, that it would be no problemo , and he turned my board around and told me to paddle for the little one rolling in .
    He pushed me into the wave. Not a little one , it was over my head. I swept my feet under my body and leaned back just a bit. The nose of the board dove for an instant and then planed out on the bottom. I turned my shoulder and the board responded perfectly, elevating into the face of the wave. I pumped my back leg to generate speed.
    My dad said these waves were perfect because they broke down the line without sections. I hoped he was right because no matter how hard I gyrated I remained in the crux of the wave—right where the face of the wave bent and the lip of the wave started to pitch outward. I kept pumping my legs and the lip kept pitching toward my head. After a string of near escapes,each one a victory, my legs got tired and I curved over the lip and down the back of the wave. I paddled to the beach before my