Her Sister's Child

Seconds later, Bobby Cutter and two other rescue workers rappelled down the slope in a fraction of the time it had taken her to cover the same distance. Bobby and one fireman rushed to her side, while the other waited for a fiberglass backboard to follow them on ropes into the gully.

Bobby leaned over her, flashing a brilliant light in her face. “So how’d you manage to get yourself in this situation, MoonPie?” he asked.

She couldn’t see his expression and that was just as well. If she’d detected a smart-ass smile on his face, she’d have found enough strength to slug him—once she got out from under Cameron. She frowned up at him. “Just get us out of here, Bobby.”

“Will do.” He ran his hand down her arm while his buddy examined Cameron. “Do you think anything’s broken, Julia?”

“No. I’m fine, but I’ll be even better once I know that this guy on top of me is okay.”

Bobby switched to rescue mode. He helped the third member of his team position the board next to Cameron, then asked if the victim could be safely lifted. The rescuers’ voices blended together in a flurry of well-rehearsed commands and evaluations.

And Julia lay back, waiting patiently, relieved to be turning the task of rescuing Cameron Birch over to the experts, at last.

THE TRIP up from the ravine proved much easier than the one going down. Of course, it helped that Julia was tied securely to a two-hundred-pound fireman who attached them both to a pulley controlled by a team at the top. With his arms around her, she let the pulley do all the work, and if it hadn’t been for her concern over Cameron, she might even have enjoyed the ride.

The rain had finally stopped, and Cora and Katie stood at the edge of the road when the fireman set Julia on the pavement. She tried to take in all the details of the scene at once. A half dozen emergency vehicles, red lights flashing, lined the road. Barricades placed a hundred yards in either direction from the breach in the guardrail kept traffic from hampering the efforts of the rescue team. A news helicopter circled overhead, its bright light illuminating the ravine where efforts to bring Cameron to the top were still ongoing.

Julia assured waiting EMTs that she was fine, and traded her slicker for a blanket Cora had brought from the cabin. The storm had left behind a brisk, clean breeze, signaling the first cold snap of the autumn season, and Julia shivered in her woolen cocoon.

“Will he be all right?” Cora asked her.

“I hope so, Mama, but I don’t know. He was still unconscious when the rescuers got there.” She recalled the skill and confidence with which the three men went about their job. “I’m sure the guys are doing all they can,” she said.

She looked down at Katie, who was huddled in a worn parka at least two sizes too small for her. New winter coat jumped to the top of the mental shopping list Julia had been preparing for her niece over the past several days. “And how are you, sweetie?”

“Okay. I was worried about you, though.”

“I know, but I told you I’d be all right.” Julia tucked a strand of wispy hair inside the hood of Katie’s jacket. “I’m a mountain girl, remember?”

Katie nestled close to Julia’s side. When Julia put her arm around her, she said, “I guess I’m one now, too.”

Julia smiled at her. “You know, I guess you are. And you’re going to make a fine mountain girl. I can tell.”

When a stark light shone in her face, Julia blinked and squinted. “What’s going on?”

A woman approached her, walking in front of a man with a large camera balanced on his shoulder. “Cut the light, Benny,” she said. She stuck her hand out to Julia. “I’m Margo Wright from Channel Seven News. From the details I’ve gotten from onlookers, I figure you’re the hero of the hour.”

Julia minimized the comment with a shrug. “Hardly.”

The reporter moved her fist in a circular motion, indicating the camera should start rolling. “Don’t be modest, Miss…” She flipped a pad open and took a pencil from her pocket. “Would you spell your name, please?”

Julia did. Though the last thing she wanted to do was be interviewed when she didn’t even know Cameron’s condition, she understood what it was like to be on the reporting side of the camera—not an easy job with an uncooperative subject.

“I understand the victim is a professor from North Carolina State University,” Margo said.

“That’s right.”

“What was he doing on Whisper Mountain?”

“You’ll have to ask him that,” Julia said.

“Okay, but you can tell me what happened down there.”

Julia kept the facts simple and brief. “His car rolled over the edge and I pulled him out before it submerged in the river.”

Katie gasped. “Did you really do that, Aunt Julia?”

She hadn’t allowed herself to piece together those frightening moments until now, though she was quite certain the entire panic-filled episode would stay in her mind forever. “I guess I did.”

“Tell me what you were thinking as…”

Julia no longer heard the reporter’s voice. The rescue guys had just appeared, the tops of their protective headgear the first signs that they were finally coming out of the gully. One man on each side leveled the board while Bobby guided it up. Julia broke away from the reporter and rushed to meet them.

With efficient calm, the rescuers relayed information to a team of paramedics who’d come from a waiting ambulance. Cameron was transferred to a wheeled stretcher and taken to the emergency vehicle. Julia grabbed Bobby’s arm as he followed the medics. “Will he be all right?”

“I think so. He’s kind of busted up, but he was starting to come around about halfway up the mountain.” Bobby patted her arm. “You done good, MoonPie. And by the way, it’s nice seeing you again, even if the circumstances that brought you home aren’t the best.”

“Thanks, Bobby. And you done good, too.”

Bobby walked off toward a woman who offered him a cup of coffee, and Julia suddenly felt as if her legs would no longer hold her. She didn’t want to talk to the reporter again. And she hoped she wouldn’t be questioned by the police right now. Searching out Cora and Katie in the crowd, she said, “Let’s go home. Tomorrow will be plenty of time to sort all this out.”

A paramedic stepped from the back of the ambulance. “Hey! Which one of you is MoonPie?”

Julia grimaced but slowly raised her hand. “I guess that would be me.”

The medic waved her over. “Can you come here? The patient says he won’t go to the hospital until he talks to you.”

Julia hesitated, but Cora urged her forward. “Go on. Cameron probably wants to thank you.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“You want to see how he is, don’t you?”

That was certainly true. Julia hadn’t climbed down the ravine, had the wind knocked out of her and taken an unplanned mud bath just to have Cameron die on her. She went to the back of the ambulance and took the paramedic’s proffered hand. He helped her inside and went back to work, adjusting gauges and checking IV lines.

Cameron lay on the stretcher. She took a few awkward steps toward him in the confined space. He tried lifting his head to see her, but his movements were limited by a restrictive collar. Nevertheless he smiled. That same devastating smile she remembered shining upon her from the podium of a Riverton College classroom, not even diminished now by a background of nasty lacerations.

The medic pointed to her. “Professor, meet Julia, Glen Springs’ one-woman mountain rescue team.”

“Actually, we’ve met before,” Cameron said. He stared intently at her and added, “MoonPie?”

She exhaled and shook her head. “It’s a long and very uninspiring story.”

“I think I’d like to hear it.”

“Someday, maybe.” She sat on a bench built into the side of the ambulance and leaned toward him. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive. Thanks to you.”