Chapter Five
Bethany was at work Friday afternoon when her phone alerted with a message asking for search and rescue volunteers. “Mom, I need to go,” she said. “Someone is hurt.”
“Oh no.” Her mother frowned. “Carter and Dalton are both leading tours.”
“They’re probably out of cell range right now anyway. But I can go.” She hurried out the door.
She kept her gear bag in the back of the Subaru and had only to change into sturdy boots—also tucked in the car—to be ready to roll.
The scene at search and rescue headquarters was organized but tense. “We’ve got an injured climber in Humboldt Canyon,” Sheri said. “Danny is at work, so I’m stepping up to command.”
Bethany helped load gear, then got a ride with Grace Wilcox and two others in Grace’s car. Chris wasn’t here today, she noticed. Probably busy with family.
They were getting ready to leave when Carter and Dalton raced in. “Just in time,” Dalton said as he crowded in beside Bethany. Up ahead, Carter found a place in Ryan’s truck.
“I thought Humboldt Canyon was closed to climbing,” Bethany said as they headed out.
“I heard there was a group organizing a protest there today,” Dalton said. “Carter and I were going to go, but we couldn’t figure out how to get out of work.”
“Why aren’t you at work now?” she asked. “I thought you were leading a tour.”
“We were almost finished when we got the alert,” he said. “So we raced back to the office.” He chuckled. “We gave those tourists the ride of their life.”
“You’d better hope no one complains.”
“They won’t. They loved us. When we told them we had to get back to save someone’s life, they cheered us on.”
She believed that. Carter had yet to meet a person he couldn’t charm. “You’re not saving a life,” she said. “It’s the whole team.”
“Right. But we didn’t want to miss out.”
She was surprised to be greeted by a crowd at the entrance to the canyon. Tony Meisner, at the wheel of the specially outfitted Jeep that served as the search and rescue vehicle, had to blip the siren to get people to let them through.
They parked at the base of the cliff and piled out of the vehicles.
Bethany stopped to gaze up at the figure caught like a fly in a tangle of ropes near the top of the cliff.
A short distance away, a white banner had been plastered to the rock.
No Via Ferrata it declared, in slightly crooked lettering.
“We tried to haul him up, but then we were afraid we were hurting him more.” A lean, narrow-faced man in climbing gear was talking to Sheri when Bethany moved in to help unload gear.
“Tell me what happened.” Sheri stared toward the suspended climber.
“Mike had just finished hanging the banner and repositioned to start down,” the other climber said.
“I think an anchor must have pulled out? All I know is that one minute he was fine, and the next he was falling. The belay did its job and held, but somehow his arm became entangled in the line. I don’t know if his arm is broken or what, but when we tried to haul him up, he screamed and passed out. Now he’s just hanging there.”
Sheri turned to the others. “Ryan and Tony, I want you to climb up to Mike from the canyon floor, one on either side. I’m going to descend from the top, along with a litter. Once we’ve assessed Mike’s condition, we’ll cut him free, maneuver him into the litter and bring him up.”
“You’ll need a couple different riggings up top,” Ryan said.
“Eldon, you and Caleb work on those,” Sheri said.
“Dalton and I can help,” Carter said.
“Bethany, you and Grace and Anna help up top with the ropes.” Sheri assigned others to be in charge of other gear, and still others were tasked with keeping the crowd away from the cliff.
“Do you know how to get to the top of the canyon?” Ryan asked her.
“There’s a dirt road that heads up that way, but you have to park and hike through the woods,” Sheri said. “We’ll take the Beast.” She opened the passenger door to the rescue vehicle. “Pile in, everybody.”
Bethany was climbing into the back of the Beast when a commotion rose up behind her. “What do you people think you’re doing?” Ian shouted.
He wasn’t addressing the rescuers but the crowd of onlookers. “You’re all trespassing,” Ian said. “The sheriff’s deputies are on their way now.”
“Our friend is up there, hurt,” one man protested.
“And he wouldn’t be hurt if he hadn’t been climbing illegally,” Ian said. “Search and rescue are here now. The rest of you need to leave.”
“He wouldn’t have been up there if you hadn’t closed off the canyon,” someone else shouted. “We have a historic right to be here.”
“You don’t have a right to anything,” Ian said. His face was flushed, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. Sunglasses hid his gaze, but Bethany could hear his anger.
The climber lunged at Ian, who fought back. Eldon and Ryan moved in to separate them.
“Everybody calm down.” Eldon said as he dragged Ian away. “Leave the crowd control to the cops.”
The climber was still shouting as Ryan and another man tried to calm him, but Ian immediately quieted.
He looked over and saw Bethany but quickly looked away before she could react.
The sight of him facing the crowd of angry protestors alone sent an ache through her.
She wished she could go to him, to let him know he had at least one other person on his side.
“Come on—we need to go,” Grace said.
They had to travel less than a mile to reach the spot overlooking the injured climber, but it took the better part of an hour to do so.
Once they reached the parking area on the narrow dirt forest road, they had to unload a mountain of gear from the vehicle.
Bethany and the others staggered under the weight of ropes, pulleys, break bars, anchors, pitons, a winch, the parts for a wheeled litter and other first aid gear.
Another thirty minutes passed as they assembled a spiderweb of ropes anchored at various points along the top ledge and fed through pulleys.
Caleb and Eldon worked together, talking of DCDs, tie-offs, belays and jiggers.
Bethany and Grace laid out what seemed like miles of brightly colored climbing ropes and passed them to Carter and Dalton, who relayed them to Tony and Caleb.
“What’s a DCD?” Bethany asked Grace.
“Descent control device,” she said.
“Like a brake bar or certain kinds of hitches,” Caleb said.
“How do you keep track with so many ropes?” Bethany asked as lines crisscrossed at the top of the cliff.
“Every rope has a specific purpose,” he said. “If you know the purpose, you can remember how to set it up to work most effectively.”
“How did you learn to do this?” She handed him the end of a coil of climbing rope, which he fed through a brake bar.
“There’s an organization called Rigging for Rescue that teaches seminars on this stuff,” Caleb said.
“Week-long hands-on practice. It’s pretty intense stuff.
Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue footed part of the tuition for me to attend this spring.
Ryan and Eldon went, too. And Tony has taken several advanced courses.
I think Danny and Sheri have, too.” He tested his knot.
Sheri joined them, having donned a climbing harness and helmet. “How’s it going?” she asked.
“We’re ready when you are,” Caleb said.
The radio mounted to her shoulder crackled, and she keyed the mike. “Go ahead.”
“Ryan and I are with Mike,” Eldon said. “He’s in and out of consciousness.
He hit his head when he fell. He says he was wearing a climbing helmet, but it must have come off.
His right arm is caught in the ropes and I think it’s broken, but the head injury is the real problem.
He’s not really able to assist much with the rescue.
We’re going to set some anchors and rope him to those so he’s not swinging by his belay rope. ”
“I’m headed down, and the litter will be right after me,” Sheri said.
“Grace and Bethany, I’m putting you on the litter,” Caleb said. “It will be light and pretty easy to lower down. Just try not to bang it into the cliff face too much.”
“What if we drop it?” Bethany asked.
“You won’t drop it. As soon as Sheri is down safely, I’ll show you what to do.”
Bethany leaned over the edge to watch Sheri descend.
The tall, lithe blonde was a fast, agile climber who made difficult pitches look easy.
Even wearing a bulky pack with first aid supplies, she seemed to float down the face of the cliff.
Only the trickle of gravel from the occasional foothold and the quiet grunts as she worked the ropes betrayed any sign of effort.
Eventually she stopped just below the injured man.
She spent a few minutes talking quietly with Ryan and Eldon, then she signaled for the litter to be lowered.
Other volunteers had assembled the lightweight aluminum litter, which broke down for easier transport.
They had fastened lines to either end and a guide line in the middle.
Bethany focused on not getting anything tangled as she and Grace carefully lowered the whole thing until Sheri could reach up one hand and grab hold.
Then, with Ryan and Tony’s help, they maneuvered the litter until it was beneath the injured climber.
“Hold steady while we get him secured,” Sheri instructed over the radio. “We’re going to have to cut his ropes, but we need to make sure he doesn’t fall when we do.”
“We can send down a sling if you need it,” Caleb radioed back.
“Do that,” she said. “I think I’m going to have to stand in it to take care of him. There’s no ledge or other good foothold in this section of wall.”
Bethany looked over the edge again, fighting a slight sensation of vertigo.
She could see the tops of the rescuers’ helmets in the nest of ropes below.
They all seemed so calm and focused. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to dangle on the end of a rope a hundred feet above the ground and remain so serene.