Rescue Me(56)
Finally, Vi. Willow got her up, gently worked on her harness. “Vi. You are stronger than you think. You can do this. Sam will lower you slowly . . . just sort of hop down. Lean back, let him do all the work.”
She helped Vi over the edge, held her arm as she leaned back. Kept her gaze in hers as Vi descended.
“Now what?” Willow said as Vi reached the bottom, collapsing into the arms of Gus. Josh was helping her off with her harness.
“Now you go, Willow,” Sam said.
“But—”
“When you get to the bottom, I’ll rappel down. It’ll be easy with the descender, I promise.”
He wore his Deputy Brooks face.
He pulled the harness up, and she took it and climbed in, cinching it tight. Clipped in the rope.
She was just walking to the edge when he added, “We’re going to make it, Willow. We’re going to get home, and everything’s going to be fine.” He offered a smile, so much warmth in it, it almost turned her weak.
But even as she nodded, even as she stepped over the edge, her life in Sam’s strong hands, Willow knew that no, after today, with Sam back in Sierra’s embrace, Willow would probably never be fine.
Sam sat in the rocky wash, his back to a boulder, staring at the crushed remains of the van, unable to find words.
Just in case he was caught in some crazy nightmare, he blinked.
The van remained, the front windshield blown out, the top pancaked in, glass scattered, oil and gas blackening the earth.
He couldn’t move. Or take a full breath.
Never mind the ache in his side whenever he inhaled. Or exhaled. Or really, thought about the fact that they could have slipped right over the edge in their initial careen down the hillside, ended up dead under a twisted coffin of metal.
Willow’s words yesterday on the mountain had an ironic twist.
“See, when we’re stuck in our everyday troubles, we can get focused on them, and that’s all we see. We don’t see God at work in our lives, just the darkness around us.”
In this case, the light of day told him exactly how God, maybe, had saved them. That was the only answer to why they hadn’t perished or at the very least ended up with more than a few scratches. Yes, Vi probably had a broken leg, and they all appeared banged up—split lips from hitting the seat in front of them or from flying debris, Josh’s horribly broken nose, Willow’s shoulder, clearly still aching judging by the way she favored it.
But all of them were breathing, and, save any more crazy accidents, would stay that way.
Against his gut advice, Quinn and Riley had shimmied through the dented window frames in search of their personal belongings—backpacks, iPhones, food. Probably a good idea, because now the youth group sat around finishing off the hiking lunch leftovers, drinking water, and adding layers that they hadn’t been able to locate last night.
Someone had given Willow a brown wool stocking cap for her wound. Her golden brown hair cascaded down over her shoulders. She sat with Vi and Maggy, sharing a cheese stick and a package of Oreos, probably speaking words of encouragement.
The woman who’d nearly shaken apart after the crash, or even the one who’d leaned into his embrace last night, had vanished when she’d climbed down to retrieve the pack. Determined. Brave. Risking her life for her youth group.
His stomach still roiled at the memory of it. The second she started climbing down, his gut knotted, his hands turned slick, and he’d wanted to reach down, yank her back.
Some hero he was.
A little broken rib—and he felt pretty sure that he’d managed to break at least one, given the radiating pain under his arm—shouldn’t have kept him from taking her place.
He glanced at Willow now, the way she leaned her head back against the boulder.
He hadn’t realized, really, how amazingly pretty she was. With the slightest smattering of freckles across her nose, and lips that curled up into a smile almost on their own. Her hair took on a burnished gold sheen in the sun, and a warmth shone in her hazel-blue eyes that pressed him to keep looking, discover that light that glimmered inside.
He exhaled, pulling himself back. It was just the emotion of the crash, the relief at being at the bottom of the cliff. Safe.
Josh came over, sank down next to him. “Now what?” He offered Sam a beef jerky roll, and Sam took it. “Wait here to get rescued?”
The PEAK chopper did have a better chance of spotting them in the ravine—if it happened back on its search. Still . . . “I don’t think so. They’re not looking for us this far north. Once they figure out we’re not at Huckleberry Mountain, they’ll spread out, but my guess is that they’ll go east, deeper into the park to the more travelled hikes. The Numa Trail Lookout isn’t a hugely popular destination.”