“We’re going to hate life when we’re headed up again,” Maggie said. “We usually start down there at the crossing, come all the way around this hill until we meet the road.”
“If you’re feeling like a real candy-ass, you can take the long way back to Sully’s,” Tom said. “It’s not uphill at least.”
As the trails were beginning to come together around the site where the boy was last seen, they spied more and more of the search team on trails in the distance. They all went up and down and around the hills, but the searchers had to veer off the paths to check behind trees and shrubs. The trail they were on was close to the edge in places and Cal, being a little worried about heights, hugged the hillside as the path curved around.
“He wouldn’t have wandered off the trail, would he?” Maggie asked Tom.
“He might’ve wandered off the trail before he realized he was lost. He’s ten. He could’ve seen a fawn or a squirrel or something. Maybe he wanted to pee. Then he could’ve turned around to go back to the trail and couldn’t find it. Half the time they wander around in circles.”
They’d been out about an hour and a half, logged maybe three miles of trail when the radio sputtered. We got him. Everybody come in.
“That was easy,” Maggie said.
“Up we go,” Tom said, turning on the trail.
“Can we have a minute to rest?” she asked.
“Not too long,” Tom said. “There’s a cold beer with my name on it, waiting for me at Sully’s.”
“Some men have a one-track mind,” Maggie groused, though her mind was on the same track.
They got in the truck and started down the mountain when there appeared to be a lot of activity along the road. Members of the search party had gathered on the side of the road above a steep and intimidating ridge. A couple turned and waved for the approaching truck to stop.
Tom pulled over. “Tom, it’s Jackson,” a man said. “There was a small rockslide and he went down! We called rescue—they’re on their way!”
Tom was out of the truck so fast it was as if smoke came off his shoes. He ran to the edge of the ridge and looked down. “Jackson!” he yelled. “Jackson!”
Maggie was right beside him. The hill was steep, too steep to walk down, but beyond that narrow shelf was a sheer drop. Jackson lay on a ledge about twenty to thirty feet below the road.
“He moved, Tom!” someone yelled. “He’s alive. We saw him move!”
“What’s rescue’s ETA?” Maggie asked.
“We don’t know exactly, but at least we have the access road. They’re going to need transport.”
Tom ran to his truck and began to dig around in the back for his ropes and climbing gear. Maggie followed him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going down,” he said, stepping into his harness.
“And what are you going to do when you get down there? Move him and break his neck? No, uh-uh. I’m going down.” Then she ran back to the edge, looked down and thought, suicide. There were loose rocks along the ridge, part of what caused Jackson to slip and fall, and the drop to the ledge was sharp. And, beyond the ledge down the hill, deadly. She wiped her sweaty hands on her shorts.
She put her pack on the ground, dug around for her knife and asked Cal for the blanket. “Cal, cut this blanket in strips about one foot wide. Roll them up and put them in my pack.” She put on her gloves. “Faster!” she said to Cal. “Tom, do you have a drill?”
“A what?”
“A small drill, cordless.”
“Maggie, what the hell are you going to do with a drill?” Cal asked.
“Try not to think about it,” she said. Someone handed her a flashlight, then Tom gave her a drill and a plastic case holding bits. She stuffed her backpack. It was heavy. She hefted it, then put it on.
“Maggie, no,” Cal said.
She completely ignored him and grabbed one of Tom’s nylon climbing ropes, starting to wrap it around her waist. “I don’t have rappelling shoes and the pack is too heavy.”
“Let me go,” Tom said. “You can tell me what to do.”
“That’s not going to work. Get me down there. There isn’t time to talk about it.”
One of the other search-and-rescue members pulled the rope out of her hands and took over, making sure it was securely and safely tied around her waist. He fashioned a loop she could slip a hand through to hold on. Someone else handed her a helmet, which was just dumb luck—they didn’t typically wear helmets on the trails.
“Thanks. Let’s do this. I’m going down on a drop,” she said. “Way over here, the shortest distance to the ledge and the farthest from that weak spot that crumbled. I don’t have the right equipment to rappel and I don’t want to disturb any more rock and have it fall on him. You have to lower me. Take me down very slowly.”