Blood in the Snow

Red blood on white snow
Disappears when the wind blows
Wiping the slate clean

The older I get the more I think about my childhood. I probably remember less but I think about it more. I am old enough to remember movies in elementary school, real movies on reels that were shown with a projector in a dark room. When the movies were over we always begged the teacher to show them backwards. That was the best part of any movie, people running backward, smoke coiling down into a fire, snow falling up, and water climbing out of a mouth and back into its glass. I also remember one of my favorite childhood toys, a Magic Drawing Board. It was a Mylar sheet over a soft black plastic board with a red plastic stylus. When the Mylar sheet was lifted your work would disappear with an ear pleasing "shhrriiip."

Yesterday's ride began in the sun. The sky over Cache Valley was blue and the air was calm. Above the Bear River Range, layers of dark-grey angry clouds swirled in opposite directions. Patty had spent the morning near Beaver and told me about the "blizzard" going on up there. "How bad could it be," I thought, as I rolled along the Shoreline Trail and up Green Canyon.

The road up Green Canyon had been groomed on Friday and was covered with a few inches of fresh snow. Near the second gate the snow was deeper and the going was not so easy. I put my head down and started to sweat. Suddenly, the movie began to play backwards. I looked up and saw a familiar dog. Then, I saw Kris Homel and two friends walking down the road wearing worried but determined looks on their faces. One of them had a paper towel hanging from his nose. We passed so quickly, there was only time to exchange "hey," not enough time to ask about the paper towel twisted into the friend's nostril. As I followed their footprints up the trail, the movie in reverse effect became overpowering. There on the fresh powder, every 50 yards or so, was a bright red drop of blood. The wind began to blow. The snow got deeper. I pushed on. The drops of blood began to appear closer and closer together. Then, there in the snow, I saw numerous footprints where all three had been standing around for some time. Off to the right was a circle of blood one or two feet wide. Beyond the blood were footprints stumbling, and beyond them, footprints running.

I rode on, working harder and harder. The snow got deeper. I took off my balaclava. The sweat froze in my hair. All of the foot prints disappeared. It was just me, alone, making tracks in the un-tracked snow. As I neared the end of the road the wind began to blow harder. It blew me up the canyon and pushed me along. Then it swirled and stopped me dead in my tracks. The ridge lines above were veiled in tumbling dark clouds, close enough to touch. The snow became too deep to ride. I walked a while, and then I turned around, blinded by the blowing snow.

Riding down was easy and fast. The blowing snow was quickly erasing my tracks. When I reached the area of the stumbling footprints and blood, they were nearly covered with drifting snow. "Shhrriiipp." My world had become a Magic Drawing Board.