She didn’t have time to question her decision. She removed her tree harness from her pack, pulled it up over her legs, and readjusted the buckles and straps to fit her smaller size. She had more than two hundred feet of parachute cord. She doubled the cord and tied two figure-eight knots that she looped through the carabiner on the front of her harness. Then she brought the rope around the trunk of the closest pinyon that grew about ten feet away from the rock face on the northwestern side of the ledge. She had not rappelled since her earliest years in Colorado when a man she had worked with had a second job on the weekends as a canyoneering guide and would sometimes ask her to come along, and they would climb up rock walls and rappel over rock ledges.
A new burst of light lit up the sky, comets and aerials, and with the next set of flares, she gleaned her surroundings. She slid her crutch through the back side of her harness. Then she set both her feet as close to the edge as possible and leaned back so that she was almost at a near perpendicular angle. She lightly pushed herself out, her right foot feeling its way for a place to land, and once it was steady, she pushed off again, using her left foot much like a stabilizer on a bow. Another push-off and step, another landing, and she had descended a couple of feet. Instead of focusing on the height and the shadows, or the muscles in her legs that had long since atrophied and now quivered beneath her weight, she focused on her feet and the rhythm of her steps and push-offs, and counted the distance by approximately two feet for each push-off and landing that she made—ten feet and then twenty-five, until she was at almost seventy-eight feet—and her right foot landed on the ground. She removed the figure eight from the carabiner and pulled the rope from the tree at the top of the ridge, until the entire length had slid down the rock face and was lying by her feet. But when she gathered the rope and went to add it to her pack, she realized that in her haste she had left the pack on the ridge next to the tree. She coiled the rope and slung it over her right arm, not knowing if she might need it again, and positioned her crutch so that it supported her left side and leg. If she remembered correctly, the oil pit should be no more than sixty yards directly in front of her. Earlier that afternoon, before falling asleep, she had memorized the different landmarks as if drawing diagrams on a map. She had been gauging the distances as she would when spotting a deer or an elk on a hunt, when she did not have a range finder and would have to rely on her natural vision. To get to the oil pit, she would cross between a rock that jutted out like a wedge of concrete and a crooked juniper, and beyond that there would be two pinyons that grew directly adjacent from each other with no other trees around. In ten more yards, she would be at the fence enclosure for the pit.
Every three to five minutes the fireworks continued, and the light shone brighter as she drew steadily closer, allowing her to focus on her markings and footpath. Relying on her adrenaline, she moved deftly around the rocks and sandstone and the eleven patches of snow between the rock wall and the fencing. A loop of wire had been wrapped around the top of two metal fence posts to keep the gate shut. She squeezed the posts together and removed the wire, then opened the flimsy gate. She tossed the coil of rope onto the ground and removed her coat. She wrapped the coat and tied it around the flat end of the crutch. She would hobble the rest of the way without her crutch if she had to, not worrying at this point about the pressure on her foot. The fireworks continued to blast through the sky. The light allowed her to see more clearly and let her know there was still someone out there. Again, she called out, emptying her lungs, and then her body felt more depleted from the effort.
Bird netting covered the opening to the pit but was loosely secured, and when Amy Raye pulled out her knife and released one of the corners to peel it back, she saw a dead swallow with a broken wing whose feet had gotten tangled. The waste level was a couple of feet from the surface and the stench so strong Amy Raye almost gagged. She reached down into the pit with the crutch, dipped her jacket into the thick sludge, and swirled it around to make sure the fuel had soaked into the cloth. If the people shooting the fireworks couldn’t hear her, at least they’d be able to see her with this torch, and she’d be able to see her path and cover the distance more quickly.
—
I was more than halfway to Rangely and within miles of the turnoff for Highway 139 when I heard Dean over the radio: “Seventeen, Dispatch, I’m at the scene of the report. We’ve got a couple of boys shooting fireworks. Over.”
“Dispatch, Seventeen, copy. Are there any weapons involved?”
“Seventeen, Dispatch. No firearms.”
I knew Dean didn’t have a cell signal. I wouldn’t be able to get him on the phone. I picked up my radio receiver. “Alpha One, Seventeen.”
“Go ahead, Alpha One.”
“Can you describe the boys?”
“Driver of the red and silver pickup has blond hair. Blue eyes. Six feet. Over.”
Dean was describing Joseph. He knew I would know that. We were on public radio. He wouldn’t be able to say the boy was my son. I decided to continue on to their location. “Alpha One, Seventeen, I’m about twenty minutes en route. What is your location? Over.”
“Seventeen, Alpha One—” Static.
I was unable to make out what Dean was saying. “I didn’t copy that, Seventeen. What is your ten-twenty, come back.”
Static.
“Deputy Scholtz, do you read me?” I said.