An indelible memory

This picture is of Lake Manitook, the small lake in Granby where I grew up. This picture is from the south looking at the north shoreline. In among those trees was where our family shared a "beach" with another family, the Keenans. We both lived in houses located directly up the hill from the lake. It was a one hundred foot descent down "The Gulley" to get to the beach.
The Gulley did double duty. In addition to providing a footpath that was more gradual than the steep embankment rising from the edge of the small beach, during the winter it was the place we tried to recreate the difficult bobsled and luge runs of Lake Placid. Many days when the snows were still falling, we'd be out there in The Gulley, packing walls and making little jumps that our metal (later plastic)flying saucers would careen and fly off. The start of the track was pretty tame, but it soon got willie.
A root that served as a step in the summer was the first launch. After gaining air here, the ground dropped into a much more severe slope. Our footpaths for summer generally took us above winter's sliding zone and the boys, well we were vocal about maintaining that pattern.
"Stay off the track"
"Don't walk on the track"
"You're gonnna ruin it"
These howls either echoed off the sides of the gulley, adding to their shrillness, or were hushed by the new snow - Mother Nature's was of saying, "Calm down. I'll make more. It won't be the end of the world."
Anyway, once the track had been set in place, we'd pray it would stay cold and last the winter. I don't think it ever did.
Sometimes, after a series of warm days or sunshine on it followed by very cold nights, the snow would harden like cured steel. That's when the track got really fast. Then, when blessed by Mother Nature with a slight dusting of snow (an inch or less), things could get exciting.
Did I mention The Gulley wasn't exactly a straight shot to the lake?
About two thirds of the way down it sort of eased its descent. There, in summer, was a fork where one could go left to the beach or right to the collapsed boat house. Straight ahead of you was a very small shack in the middle of an area the forest was busy reclaiming when I was a child. Birch trees, oak and maple saplings were busy turning into strong hardwoods. As long as they didn't grow on the path, we didn't bother them because they weren't bothering us. There was one in particular though that had terrorized us with threat which one day was fulfilled.
It was about three inches in diameter and it was maybe four feet off of summer's path, dead in the middle of the fork.
That winter had been very kind to children and the track had been hard set for maximum speed. Ample snow and Wide World of Sports bobsled coverage had inspired us to new heights. Being in the youngest group of siblings, Billy Keenan and I had finally reached the age of being bigger than our fears. I think I was 10, Billy 9. So at that fork, we opted to build a left turn which was followed by a right then a rapid drop straight toward the lake which was by now frozen to the edge. Every year's great hope was that you could make it all the way down the track and zip out onto the frozen ice with a triumphant "YIPPEE!" A small bit of brush had been cleared away to make the ice accessible.
A cancelled school day due to an inch or two snowfall had us out to try our luck. It took a few runs to pack the new snow into the track, but now things were getting up to speed.
Billy and I had had a couple turns and were climbing back up when we heard the raucous laughter. My sister Heidi (she's my Irish twin) and Billy's sister Maggie (she would have been 7 then) were going to give it a go.
Next thing I know, Maggie is screaming down the hill, both in speed and voice.
Over the jump and she is still on the plastic toboggan! She didn't fall off!
She whooshes by me as I stand above the track under the great hemlock tree where the Keenan's path goes up. Precariously balancing myself, I swivel my head to follow brave Maggie, her red hair a mass coming from her knit cap, racing to catch up. Never before and never again would my eyes behold someone traveling that fast our little track.
Unfortunately for Maggie, our engineering prowess (or lack of) combined with youth's impatience had left the wall at Maggie's Fork of Destiny about as adequate of the 7th Street levee in New Orleans. Instead of directing her to the left and a world record run onto the ice, it served as a launch pad. With more air under her than Tony Hawk, Maggie and the plastic toboggan went their seperate ways. Her body rotated to face us, parallel to earth. I think she looked at Billy with a mixture of blame and planned revenge.
I swear I thought she broke her back.
Saved by the flexibility of youth, Maggie hit that tree with the middle of her back at top speed. If I had slo-motion film, I'll bet we'd see her feet go past her head as she wrapped around that tree.
Stunned, Billy and I stood paralysed, rooted like the trees around us.
You know that moment in between? The one that seems like it lasts forever and later you wish it had? Between something bad happening and the realization that something bad happened?
Maggie's in between hung between us all. Billy and I frozen in place. Heidi at the top of the hill staring with a mixture of disbelief and I-told-you-so (Heidi has always been more prudent than I). And Maggie trapped in her in between time.
Then the moment snapped with the howl of her terror and pain.
What happened next, I can't really describe. It is lost in time, blocked out by the larger memory of brave Maggie sailing through the air on her way to meet that tree.
I'm sure we comforted her, made her promise not to tell her mother (it had to be the boys' fault, somehow) and confirmed she was ok.
No Care-Flight helicopters.
No lawyers or lawsuits.
No permission slips needed.
Just four kids out being kids in Mother Nature's playground.

All I know is this. Just when I thought I had outgrown my fear, it leapfrogged me that day. Suddenly a run that ended on the ice became an impossible dream, for never again would I travel The Gully with complete abandon, hands up, feet tucked in, trying for every bit of speed. Whether it was respect for or fear of the laws of physics, I somehow slowed myself before that fork.

I wonder why we didn't just make the wall higher?