The Pirate
Desperate turns call for desperate measures.
By PHIL GALLAGHER

When she skied, people noticed. Power, grace, style—Bree had it all. When they found out she was a transplanted farm girl from rural Nebraska, it only made her legend grow like the lime-green stalks of her native state.

Five foot nine, shapely thin, and brunette with freckles, Bree was hardly the average ski bum. All her young life she felt called to the mountains. The flat streets and grazed plains of her youth felt alien and featureless. Snow called to Bree in whispers and dreams. She carried songs and visions of stark mountains and still waters and empty skies in her heart. Winter gave her a sense of joy and purpose, which she welcomed and embraced.

Living in a mountain town was everything she imagined it to be. There was so much flirting that it became a joke. She lost count of how many men on vacation hit on her, not to mention the locals. It was all gravy she told herself, semi-thankful that her demanding job kept her busy. Contrary to the stereotype most men (and some women) carried with them, Bree's real passion wasn't dating or flirting, but powder skiing. Her deep-snow skills soon became second nature.

Working for Karl wasn't easy, but being the assistant manager of the restaurant and bar inside the base lodge was worth the challenge. Plus it paid well and came with a free season pass. Bree worked from noon to 10 P.M. six days a week, which meant that for three hours each morning she was free to carve up whatever snow the mountain served to her.

Karl was a hands-on owner, a large, stocky Swiss-born man who could be sour and cruel. He hired Bree on the spot and gave her plenty of responsibility for a newcomer, but he was condescending at almost every opportunity. One time when Bree was restocking supplies in the back office, Karl purposely spilled his coffee on the floor and then asked Bree to clean it up while he watched. Another time she caught Karl cheating on his books. He threatened to smear Bree's reputation in town if she ever told anyone, and she feared he was influential enough to do it.

Alex the bartender had a casual way of brushing off Karl that appealed to Bree. Tall, well-dressed, with dark, curly hair, he knew Bree's favorite drink and loved to make it for her each night. He also seemed to show genuine interest in her life and skiing exploits, and though Bree was Alex's boss, the two quickly bonded.

Their schedules made it difficult to associate beyond work, but the day they finally skied together made an impression each would not soon forget. They hiked the ridge and found three-day-old powder in the trees. Later they dropped into Puma Bowl linking steep turns hot on each other's tails. On the ride back up, Alex pushed the conversation beyond small talk.

"Why do you let Karl push you around the way he does?"

The question startled Bree; she didn't think anyone had noticed, and the admission by Alex created an unexpected intimacy—one she at first resented, but soon welcomed. There were even worse things Karl did and said that no one knew about.

"I like my job," she stated flatly as their skis touched the off-ramp. "And I don't want to make trouble. Besides," she added with a wry smile, "I get more days on the hill than you, don't I?" And she skated away from the chair, leaving Alex stung and more interested than ever and struggling to catch up with her playful, dancing pony tails.


She passed by the bar as Alex was closing one particular night and asked if he would meet her later at Miletti’s, a watering hole in town. He agreed, and Bree went home to shower and change out of her work clothes.

An hour later, a double Johnny Red on the rocks chilled the fingers of her right hand. She played with the glass loosely, nervous. Alex gripped a pint of ale and she noticed the sinewy cords of muscle in his forearm. She noticed the fresh cuts on his middle knuckles. His eyes were bright and calm, something she should have found disarming. Feeling awkward, she got right to the point. "You know what's coming next, don't you?"

"Well if you're not here to fire me, I'd have to say Karl's got a hell of a crush on me." Bree laughed and reclined in her chair. He didn't look like a man in front of a firing squad.

"He wanted to press charges. I talked him out of calling the cops."

"I was wondering about that. Thanks. I'd hate to get locked up for what I did. It just wouldn't seem fair."

"No," she agreed. "No, it wouldn't be fair at all."

Alex took a drink and then ran his fingers through his curly hair. He could have done so much more with those hands, she thought. Fortunately his fist only broke Hans' collarbone. She felt the adrenaline all over again. She felt that if Alex hadn't done it, she might have.

"What are you going to do now?" She broke the silence, genuinely concerned.

"I'll go back to Montana. I'm really a patroller. My dad's been the head of the ski patrol at Snowy Mountain since I was 12, so I always have a place there."

"So there's nothing else for you here?" pried Bree.

"I think I've been here long enough. Four years. No one's gonna want to hire a fistfighting bartender, anyway. Bad for tourism."

"Working with your dad on the ski patrol... That must be really nice."

"Yeah, it's about as good as it gets."

She sighed and took a big sip of her scotch. She wasn't sure how she'd go back to work knowing that she'd just fired her best friend for assaulting her boss' nephew. Hans had it coming, she was sure of this. Karl had it coming in his own ways. The depth of the rage she felt earlier surprised her.

Bree reached into her bag and pulled out a grease-stained red and white striped cloth. "I thought you'd want this. I found it in the drawer by the register." Alex reached out and grabbed it.

"When I saw Hans dancing on this, and the other Swiss cooks laughing with him, I just lost it," he said. "I really don't know what came over me."

"My dad was killed when I was 11," said Bree abruptly. "He was getting close to retiring from the Marine Corps. He'd been in almost 25 years. He was a major." She pictured Karl's twisted, inhuman face as he pounded his fist on the table demanding that she fire Alex today or she was finished there, too. Her father never would have reacted that way. He was calm and respectful. Calm and powerful. Just like the man across the table from her now.

"You know that movie Gladiator?" she continued. "Where in the beginning they show Maximus when he's a general, and as he rides along his troops all kneel at his approach? That was my dad. His men loved him. Just like in that movie."

Bree recalled how she felt in Karl's presence earlier that day. She recalled how she had to calm him down despite her own anger and had to carefully advise him against calling the police. Once the papers got wind that the fracas started with Swiss cooks trampling an American flag, there won't be much local sympathy, she told him. And when the health inspector suddenly shows up, Karl, and the fire marshal, and God knows who else, but there will be others, they may all have a very big axe to grind at your expense, Karl, and you're not exactly running a tight ship, get the picture?

"He died in the desert," she continued. Alex remained silent. "In that goddamn Gulf War. Came home in a casket draped in a flag just like the one you picked up in the kitchen tonight. My mom and I buried him, and before they lowered him down, two of his soldiers reverently folded up the flag the same way you did tonight in the kitchen, and they gave it to my mother. It means a whole lot to simple people like me."

The bar door opened and three middle-aged couples walked in, still in ski boots and one-piece outfits, and sat at the next table. Alex scooted closer to Bree to better hear her.

"Would you do me a big favor?" she asked.

"Sure, anything."

"Would you tell me what it's like, you know, working with your father? In the winter, on the patrol with him."

"You mean kind of like George in Of Mice and Men, when Lenny asks him to tell him about the farm and how it's going to be?"

She smiled, remembering the book. "Yeah. Tell me about the farm. Tell me about the animals and how no one's going to tell us what to do. Tell me about the rabbits, George."

He waited a second as if gathering his thoughts and then he touched her hand. Bree listened intently as Alex recalled his days in Montana skiing and working with his father. She didn't know why she was suddenly so sad. It was as if a hole was opening inside her, something she had closed long ago for fear of being swallowed by it. Tears rimmed her eyes as she heard about Alex and his father on pre-dawn bombing missions ripping out loaded slopes, or sharing homemade sandwiches and Schmidt in the dank, slopeside patrol shack.

She cried even more that night in Alex's bathroom, though she was careful this time to hide it. She cried for the father taken too soon, and now for the man that was leaving for Montana. Later, as Bree slept in his bed, Alex couldn't help but read the metal dog tag she wore around her neck. Her father's name, service number, blood type, and faith were imprinted on the surface.

Alex felt an intense desire to stay, to be with Bree and give this town one more try, but he'd known for some time that Snowy Mountain was calling his name. Perhaps there was a way to make things work, but for now, in the morning, he would tell her goodbye.


It was President's Day, the busiest three-day weekend of the year, and Karl's restaurant had rolled in receipts of well over $20,000. Weekends like these often make or break businesses all over the intermountain West. Bree knew that Karl was happy. It was turning into one of the best seasons in years.

After firing Alex, Bree earned a new kind of trust from Karl, including handling most financial matters. Normally she would deposit the weekend's two-day earnings every Monday, but this week it was Tuesday due to the holiday, and the deposit bag was a day thicker than usual.

She left the lodge with the bank bag and walked toward her car in the underground parking lot. One row from her vehicle she saw the old pickup belonging to Stan the maintenance man, piled with all of his junk and tools in the bed. She stopped, made sure no one was around, and then casually buried the money sack under all the debris.

She waited patiently in her car. Fifteen minutes seemed about right. Then she got out and walked to the restaurant. Once inside, she acted frightened and ran into Karl's office, proclaiming that she'd been held up in the garage at gun point by a man in a ski mask. He drove away in a car with out-of-state plates, she said.

She took pleasure in watching Karl squirm. It gave her a feeling that things had been made right, as they say down near the Nebraska-Kansas border. The police came and a report was filed. That evening she left work early, with permission—she was distressed after all—and on the way to her car, positive that no one was following, she retrieved the bag.

Dark clouds carried the promise of an approaching storm. Snow fell gently on Bree's back as she buried the money in a Christmas tin, painted with a scene of dancing reindeer and hardy elk, in the woods near her house.

Though she figured she had enough dirt on him to keep him at bay, Bree feared Karl might catch on after a while. So in early March she cashed her final paycheck and headed back to Nebraska to see her mom. In July she sent an anonymous birthday card to Alex with five crisp one-hundred dollar bills inside. Then she bought a ticket to Chile, where she spent the summer skiing in the northern Andes.

When she returned to Nebraska in October there was a letter waiting from Snowy Mountain Ski Resort. It was an invitation for her to try out for the pro patrol for the winter season, along with five crisp one-hundred dollar bills.

Bree did well on the test and settled quietly into a life where snow, ice, and winter storms sang nature's song to a strong heart.


Kristopher Kaiyala contributed to this story.


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