Free Fall

“Just this morning, three of them were spread right here across the cliff,” Lily said, baffled.

“They’re gone now.” One of the patrollers scratched his head. “Hard to blame the guy for getting into trouble when he didn’t know he was heading into it.”

“Oh, no. No excuses. Anyone in his right mind would know to stay off this cliff.” Lily shook her head. “But still, this looks bad.”

“Some stupid punk prank,” Chris said, setting up a strobe light to help them see in the growing dark. “Someone thought they were funny.”

“What do you think?” Lily asked. “Take him down from there, or back up on a rope?”

“Either way,” Chris said, “it’s going to be a tricky rescue.”

They knew what they were doing, Logan told himself as he stood there silently, but he itched to pitch in and help.

Another call came over the radio. Seemed the identical-twin troublemakers hadn’t followed Lily’s directions and were now fighting on the front lodge steps. Adding to the problem was the crowd of their buddies hooting and hollering and urging them on, and an increasingly aggressive crowd.

Looking royally pissed, Lily nodded for three of the crew to go down and handle it, leaving just her and Chris. The snow kept coming down, plus it wouldn’t be long before they’d need the lights—daylight was fading fast, already impeding vision. “I’ll go after this idiot,” she said, resigned.

“Skiing out from there will be tough going,” Chris said. “And we’d have to send a snowcat to pick you up, which’ll pull someone away from another post. We’re already short-staffed.”

“It’ll be a climb back up, then.” She began to gear up with the harness and ropes the others had left. “Can you set up some caution tape to close off this area until we find the signs?”

Watching her, Logan discovered he couldn’t sit back any longer. “Let me go down for him,” he said.

“Logan—”

“Your knee might give out on you on the way back up. I’ve done this a thousand times. More.”

“In the snow? On ice?”

“In the snow, on ice,” he assured her. Maybe not at this altitude, and not at a ski resort, but so what? He could do this, more safely than she could at the moment.

She looked at her patroller. “Chris, you should officially meet Logan. He’s SAR out of Ohio, a helicopter and rappelling expert. We can use his help, yes?”

“Are you kidding? Yes.”

“Hey!” came a faint cry from over the cliff. “You guys ever coming for me or what?”

Lily rolled her eyes at Chris, then leaned over the edge in a way that suggested a great ease with heights and an even greater confidence in herself. “Are you injured?”

“No! Just cold!”

“I’m coming.” She grabbed the ropes but her walkie-talkie chirped again, and at the news from Danny at base she swore softly. They had a kid on his last run of the day with a broken wrist on the bunny slope, leaving her team stretched thin and thinner. “Chris—”

“I can’t leave you alone, Slim.”

“I’ve got Logan.”

Logan moved in. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”

Chris agreed reluctantly and turned to Lily. “Rappel down to him, but risk the ski-out, since you don’t have enough manpower to pull you back up. Keep on the radio. I’ll send in a snowcat to pick you up at the bottom.”

“And then there were two,” Lily said to Logan when Chris had left.

“My knee’s good enough for what needs to be done.” She prepared to rappel over the edge. “Don’t let me fall.”

He looked at her in horror. “I won’t.”

She smiled. “That was a joke, Logan. Gotta lighten up some. After I’m safely down, send my board down, too, then maybe you could gather the ropes for me and shut off the light. I’ll ski the guy down to meet the cat.”

And with that, she was gone. Totally trusting, believing in him, confident in her own abilities to make this thing happen.

She had to be the most amazing woman he’d ever met in his entire life. But that thought would have to wait because he now had her hanging off a sheer, icy cliff in questionable weather, her life in his very hands.

How many times had he put his own life in his teammates’ hands and never given it another thought? Hundreds. Thousands. So he had no idea why his stomach had fallen to somewhere near his toes, with his heart in his throat, where it firmly remained until she signaled to him that she had reached the victim.

He sent down her board, then pulled up the ropes, gathering them so that he could ski with them looped over his shoulder. When he took another look over the edge, Lily and her rescue vic were already gone. Safe, he hoped, knowing they were moving down harsh, unwelcoming terrain not meant for humans.

Logan quickly taped off the area and shut down the light. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the growing twilight, and then began his own descent, on the regulated, patrolled slope closest to the rescue, stopping only half a minute later when an odd flicker of reflection came from the cluster of trees to his right. Skiing off the trail, about five feet in, between two tight trees, he found three signs.

Three “out of bounds” signs. He gathered them up, tucked them under his arm and, with the ropes still looped over his shoulder, headed down again, not stopping until he was at the lodge, standing in front of the first-aid cabin to its right, listening to the radio conversation between a patroller on a snowcat and Lily.