“He could have dropped it.”
“Please tell me he didn’t fall.” Abruptly, she pulled away from Buzz. She heard him behind her as she moved closer to the edge of the ravine and looked down. It was steep and chock-full of jagged rock, saplings, boulders the size of Volkswagens and drop-offs not even a mountain goat could scale. At the base, white water churned like ice in a blender.
“Eddie!” she screamed. “Eddie! Honey, answer me!”
Buzz hit the whistle three times. They stood frozen for an interminable minute and listened for a response that never came.
“Honey! It’s Mommy!” Struggling against hysteria, she took the field glasses from Buzz and put them to her eyes. She was shaking so badly, she had a hard time focusing at first. Then she caught a glimpse of white, saw a patch of blue denim. A shock of brown hair and a pale, frightened face.
“I see him! Oh, God! It’s him! Buzz!” She couldn’t stop looking at him. Vaguely, she was aware of Buzz speaking to her, but she didn’t understand what he was saying. For an instant, her entire world consisted of tunnel vision, at the end of which was her son.
“Is he moving?” Buzz’s voice reached her through that tunnel.
“No. Yes! I just saw him move his leg! He’s okay!”
Buzz reached for the binoculars. “Let me have a look.”
Kelly handed him the field glasses. Two hundred yards of impossible terrain separated her from her son. Heart pounding, she squinted down at the tiny figure huddled on a boulder the size of an SUV. Elation turned quickly to horror when she realized the boulder was surrounded on all sides by churning white water.
“He’s stuck on that boulder,” Buzz said.
“How on earth did he get there?”
“Must have fallen into the water at some point. Dragged himself out.”
A rush of nausea filled her mouth with bile at the thought of her son in that cold, violent water. “I’ve got to get down there.”
“Wait a minute—”
She swung around to face him, stuck her finger in his face. “Don’t even think about trying to stop me.”
“I’m not going to let you do something stupid.”
Ignoring him, she started for the edge of the cliff. The next thing she knew she was being pushed quickly, but firmly backward. Two strong hands dug into her shoulders. Her body jolted when her back encountered the wall of rock. She fought him, but he shook her hard until she was still.
“Snap out of it!” he growled.
She looked up to find herself pinned by a set of angry gray eyes. Eyes that reminded her of the smoke hovering above, hot and dangerous and violent. She tried to slap his hands off her shoulders, but she might as well have been trying to slap a tree off the side of the mountain. He merely tightened his grip and put his weight into holding her still.
“Don’t do this to me,” she said.
“Don’t get crazy on me now, Kel. Get a hold of yourself.”
“I need to get down there.” A sound erupted from her throat. A sob or a cough, she couldn’t tell. “Please. I want my little boy.”
“I’ll get him.”
“Buzz, he’s cold and hungry and scared.”
“I’m going down. But I need you to calm down first.”
“I’m calm.” She said the words, but she didn’t think he believed her. She sure didn’t.
“I need your help. I can’t get down there without it.”
“Okay.” She gulped air. “I’m…okay.”
Slowly, as if half expecting her to bolt, he released her, then stepped away.
Kelly drew a deep, calming breath. The jolt of adrenaline had eradicated the exhaustion, but her limbs felt shaky, her mind foggy, as if she were watching the scene unfold from inside a bottle. Bending at the waist, she put her hands on her knees and breathed in deeply, forcing back nausea, trying to clear her head.
“I’m going to rappel down there,” Buzz said after a moment. “I don’t have a full harness—just the light rig in my pack—so I’ve got to rig something. I need you to spot me from up here. Watch the rope for me. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.” She looked up to see him pulling a coiled length of yellow nylon rope from his backpack. Suddenly, a new fear rippled through her. A fear that didn’t have anything to do with her lost child, but for the man who was about to risk his life to save him.
Her legs shook when she crossed to him. “Are you sure you can get down there?”
“I’m sure.” He didn’t even look at her, but concentrated fully on knotting the end of the rope, then quickly stepping into the harness.
“Buzz, the bullet in your back…”
“Shut up, Kel.”
“I can rappel down,” she said. “I know how to do it. I’m in good shape.”