I knew where the boys had gone. They would have parked the truck at the base of the hill and hiked the rest of the way up to the exposed rock surface where Joseph and I had camped. They would have been setting off their fireworks from there. I knew how to get to them faster than the route Colm had taken. But Colm had started out with at least a twenty-minute advantage. A little farther in, and I lost cell signal. I radioed Colm. “Alpha One, Command. I am taking a different route. Will keep radio on.”
I hit the turnoff road too hard, was thrown against the ceiling of the cab, and the smoke drifting in was making it difficult to see. I tried to anticipate the turns, avoid the washouts and boulders that jutted into the edge of the four-wheel dirt roads. Another five minutes and I saw the flashing lights on Colm’s truck, then his brake lights. I pulled up beside him, saw Farrell in the passenger seat. Colm and Farrell got out of Colm’s truck. I climbed out of my Tahoe.
The last word we’d had from Dean was that they were about a quarter mile on foot northeast of their vehicles.
“Stay with the truck,” Colm said to Farrell.
Colm grabbed a spotlight from the cab, and we took off, making our way over rocks and deadfall and washouts. About five minutes in we heard someone yelling.
“Over here!”
“It’s Joseph,” I said. And so Colm and I veered to our right, through a grove of pinyon and toward the ledge I knew so well.
“Joseph!” I yelled. “Corey!”
I saw Dean’s flashlight through the trees, and then they were there, right in front of us.
“There’s someone out there,” Joseph said. “We thought we heard a scream.”
“We called out a number of times,” Dean said. “We’re not getting a response. I’m not seeing anything either. We’d need a rope to get down there,” Dean went on. “Joseph thought he remembered a switchback. We tried it. That’s when I lost my radio.”
“The switchback is farther down,” I said. “Another sixty yards or so.”
I told Dean and the boys to stay on the ledge, to point Dean’s flashlight over the canyon so I could find my way back. Colm followed me as I took off toward the east, reading the ground before me like a well-studied map. I had never navigated my way to the switchback at night. And each time I thought I had found it, each time a clearing appeared near the footpath, I discovered only another steep dropoff.
Someone whistled. I assumed it was Corey. I was familiar with how loud he could whistle with two fingers, remembered how he had tried to teach Joseph how to do it. None of us had our search-and-recovery apparatus with us. We’d left our whistles and other tools at our vehicles. Any moment the fire could turn unpredictable. Should someone be out there, we couldn’t afford to waste time returning to our trucks.
“Everything okay?” Colm yelled to Dean and the boys.
“Okay,” one of them called back.
And then the ground changed, turned into what looked like a small, dried-up gully that ran over the edge.
“I think this is it,” I told Colm. I knelt and slid my leg over the side of the cliff. My foot reached for the rock that I knew would be about three feet below me. I landed securely and climbed down to the next rock where the switchback began. The boys thought they’d heard a scream. Dean thought he’d heard it, too. Hundreds of people had gathered for the founder’s day celebration at Trip’s ranch. The boys had wandered out here. Someone else might have wandered out here, as well.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Colm asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Keep holding the light. I can see better with you shining it from above me,” I said.
Maneuvering my way along the first part of the path was going to require the use of both hands. Without headlamps, we were better off with Colm remaining at the top of the ridge. When Glade and I had initially explored the site, we’d lowered our gear by rope to the shelter, and had then followed the switchback until we were at the lower ledge.
—
Amy Raye could not move her left leg so much as an inch. Her entire body felt limp. She tried to wiggle her toes, but if they moved, she could not feel them. She did not know if she had sustained another injury or if she was simply cold, or if the large rocks pressing into her hip were cutting off her circulation. She rolled her hip slightly, moved her arms and fingers, tried to improve her circulation. Smoke swept over her like fog being blown in, and though she could no longer feel the heat from the fire, with each attempt she made to moisten her lips, she could taste the ash, like catching a snowflake on her tongue.
“Help me,” she said, in a voice as anemic as she felt. “Someone please help me.”