Chapter 15 #2
“Pete was running drugs.” Harley’s voice sounded distant to her own ears. “Using the fuel runs as cover.”
“These men here”—Winter pointed to a figure in one photo—“that’s Brand Sorros so this must be from before he was convicted. And this is Jago.”
“Why would your dad keep these files here?” Echo asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he was worried—”
“Tommy Reid.” Winter held up a picture. “That was one of the deputies, right?” She pointed to the man in the picture with Pete. “That’s him.”
Harley took the picture. “Wait, I know Tommy. He works in Juneau now. Private security.”
“Think he was dirty?” Winter asked.
“Could be Dad was building a case against him and Pete.”
Until someone stopped him.
“Clearly Pete wasn’t just running drugs. He was working with the Sorros gang,” Harley said softly. “And they wanted my dad dead.”
“Who do you think killed Pete?” Echo picked up the picture. “Wow. So crazy.”
“I don’t know. Mars?” Harley offered. “Maybe because the Sorros brothers were behind the crash and they wanted to keep a lid on Pete naming them?” Harley started gathering the photos. “Jericho needs to see these.”
Silence.
She looked up. Echo was grinning.
“What?”
“Your first thought is still to go to Jericho. See?” She held up a fist to Winter. “You two need to be together.”
Winter met Echo’s fist. “For your own good.”
“Just . . . fine. Let’s go.” Harley headed into her bedroom to change clothes.
Okay, yes, maybe her first thought was Jericho. She glanced at his old window, dark now and . . .
“The longer we hold on to old hurts, the harder our heart becomes.”
Oh she wanted a new heart. One that didn’t flinch in defense or accusation or hurt every time Jericho was . . . Jericho. “It’s not all the time God gives us a second chance to live the life we were destined for.”
She drew in a breath. Remembered her prayer from the Bowie lodge . . . Okay, God, help me trust you. Help me trust Jericho.
Maybe it was simply she needed to trust God. Maybe that was her new heart posture—a heart that trusted God rather than herself. A heart that saw what God saw . . . and offered grace and love.
She pulled on her socks, then stood, stared out into the morning. Okay God. I know I’ve been . . . trouble. And maybe that’s how you made me, but I also know I’ve been angry. And hurt and . . . offended. I don’t want to be offended.
I want a new heart.
She put her hand over her chest. Please forgive me. Please . . . give me a heart that trusts you.
She breathed in and, somehow, her ribs didn’t burn.
And the deep ache in her heart released.
So maybe, yes, there was hope in the air.
She grabbed a sweater, then headed back to the kitchen.
If Mars Sorros killed Pete to cover his tracks, then . . . well, then Gabe would be next. And maybe even Jericho and her and—
She emerged to see Winter and Echo standing in the entry, wearing their coats and stricken expressions.
She slowed her step. “What is it?”
“There’s been an avalanche.” Echo’s voice cracked. “In the out-of-bounds area near the old Sterling Mine.” She glanced at Winter and swallowed, her voice turning small. “Harley . . . Jericho’s missing.”
Her heart banged like a fist against her chest. And then, suddenly, all she could hear were his words from yesterday.
“I can’t watch this. I can’t do this.”
Except, the voice sounded painfully like her own.
She caught her breath. “Okay, okay . . . He’s smart. He has his beacon, I’m sure. And Orlando—”
“The dog is missing,” Winter said. “Caught in the slide too.”
Oh.
Echo caught her arm. “Winter will drive you,” she said. “I’m sorry. I need to get home.” She met Harley’s eyes, then pulled her into a hug. “It’s going to be okay.”
Harley closed her eyes.
Please, God. Give me the chance to tell him. To make this right.
Winter headed toward the door. “Let’s go.”
They dropped Echo off in town, and of course, by the time they arrived at the Eagle’s Nest, the parking lot had transformed into a command center. Deke’s Bronco, two ski patrol trucks, SAR vehicles.
Winter parked on the road, and they ran up to the slide area.
Harley’s imagination had made the slide catastrophic. In truth, snow buried the mine entrance, with trees and boulders littering the lot, but it hadn’t taken out the vehicle building—just slammed against it and buried it.
Still, the slide left ten, maybe twenty feet of snow, enough to bury a man, over the thirty-foot area.
Two search dogs circled, as if trying to catch a scent.
Hudson broke away from a cluster of rescue workers, his face granite-hard. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Where is he?” The words scraped her throat.
He took a breath. “We don’t know. There was a ping from his radio right before the slide. It’s gone—”
“What about his beacon?”
He shook his head.
She stared at the workers. “I don’t understand. What was he doing here?”
“He saw someone at the mine.” This from Deke. “According to Marla, the ski patrol, he was working with Orlando on the backwoods slope and he spotted a truck. He skied down to get them to leave the area.”
A truck? Oh no . . . “How long has he been under that snow?”
Deke checked his watch, his face tight.
“How long, Deke?” Harley meant the rise in her voice.
He gave her a grim look. “Maybe an hour.”
The numbers crashed together in Harley’s head. An hour without fresh air. An hour in the dark.
“We’re setting charges.” Hudson pointed to the slope. “We’re going to blast through the debris. But the whole face is unstable—”
“Wait, what?”
“We’re setting—”
“You do that, and the mine will collapse. If he’s in there . . .” She drew in a breath. “We need to just stay calm. Let the dogs work.”
“It’s been an hour—”
“He’s alive, Deke. Maybe he made it into the mine—and if you blast, it could cave the entire thing in.”
Deke turned, as if considering the mine. Hudson too, his brow furrowed.
Silence fell, broken only by the wind and the crackle of radios.
Finally, Hudson spoke. “Get a probe. And someone find Harley a radio. But we’re running out of time. If we don’t find him . . . we’ve got to blow the mine.”
“Hudson,” Harley started.
Hudson gave her a look, something of mercy in his expression.
Oh no. “You think he’s dead.”
“I think we need to keep hoping.”
HE WASN’T DEAD.
Yet.
But blackness poured into his eyes and breathing hurt.
Jericho pushed up from the floor, the thunder behind him long ago silencing.
He’d lost his pack. And his phone. And maybe his sanity when he’d thrown out that snow grenade. Yeah, so maybe not a super brilliant idea, but then again, he had nothin’ else.
Except impulse. Or panic.
And maybe, yes, for a second, he understood that feeling that drove Harley to . . . just do.
Somewhere above, Marla would be wondering why he wasn’t answering.
Probably she would have noticed something was wrong by now, would have the dogs working search patterns.
But they’d be looking in the wrong place, checking the avalanche debris field, not knowing he was trapped here, that the mountain itself had become his prison. His tomb, if help didn’t come soon.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d wanted to protect Harley. Instead, he’d been the stupid one.
And now Mars was out in the wild, and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
The darkness pressed closer, filled his lungs like water.
And somewhere in that darkness, the old timbers groaned under the weight of too much snow.
Weirdly, the conversation with Hudson yesterday, before the argument with Harley, returned to him.
“What if I stick around and help you.”
“And Harley?”
“I’m hoping she’ll figure out that she can stay too.”
Yeah. So much for that happy ending.
He would die in here and she would never know that . . . Oh, he loved her. The fact of it pulsed inside him, hot, bitter.
Yeah, he was a fool for leaving her, again.
He needed to get out of here.
He sat up, leaned against the mine wall. “Orlando?” The black ate his voice.
He closed his eyes. Please, God. He wanted to see Harley again. Tell her that he shouldn’t have walked away. Shouldn’t have . . .
Well, maybe it was arrogant, just like Hudson, or Sully, or whoever had said, to think he could protect her. Or should protect her.
Frankly, he couldn’t even protect his dog. Or himself.
The cold seeped through his jacket, numbing everything but the ache in his chest. Okay, if Deke had gotten his GPS signal, at least they’d know he was here.
Still, they couldn’t know if he was alive.
“Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” The words from yesterday’s sermon whispered through his mind, and he stifled a brutal laugh.
He’d die under the earth, in darkness. No mountaintop for him.
And wow, he was turning dark.
He sighed, and the quiet words of his father’s journal settled in his mind.
“I know he longs for his own life . . . help him not lose himself.”
In all his striving, all his longing, Jericho hadn’t found the life he’d wanted.
“You are their refuge and their strength and you go with them. Help them to trust you in all things, with their lives, their hearts, their futures.”
He’d done exactly none of that, and as he sat there, hearing only the thump of his heart and the occasional creak of the mine, he stirred the words around his heart.
What if God led me . . . into darkness?
Except he didn’t, did he?
God had rescued him. Over and over. In Afghanistan, in Montana . . . and now, God had led him home. To a second chance.
Jericho’s throat tightened.
And he’d been ready to walk away from it because of his pride. Nice, Jer.
“Maybe instead of running, you need to figure out why you’re so scared of staying.”
Great, now Sully was in his head, with his diagnosis of Jericho’s problem. “You can’t be enough to stop, well, bad things from happening. And that requires you to trust.”
True, but really . . .
Really, it required him to surrender everything. To pull his heart out of his chest and ask God to give him one that wasn’t mottled with years of hurt and anger and shame and . . .
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.”
He should have listened more to the sermon, although as he sat there, Pastor Neil’s words seemed to surface, perhaps embedded inside earlier.
“There is no fear in a heart that belongs to God. For a heart that is from God is a heart that is not offended. It’s the heart of Jesus—trust, grace, mercy, patience, kindness, goodness . . .”
The heart of love.
Suddenly Jericho’s entire body ached with the need for it, the longing for something new. A heart that no longer ached, was no longer bruised, wounded, riddled with regrets, the terrible what-ifs and oh-nos that stirred his nightmares.
“God.” The word escaped like a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
For his pride. For thinking he had to do everything alone. For hurting the woman he loved.
“I love her.” The confession broke free, echoing in the dark. “I’ve always loved her. And if you’d just give me another chance”—his voice cracked—“I’d do it different. All of it.”
The cold pressed in now, and he shivered. His chest ached.
“You want my heart?” His voice cracked again. “Take it. Make it new. Because this one’s not working. I can’t—I can’t do this anymore.” He leaned back, his heart thumping hard now.
His voice dropped, almost a whisper. “Please forgive me and give me a new heart.”
He put his hand to his chest. The hammering had stopped.
He drew in a breath. Opened his eyes.
And before him, the image of Harley yesterday, so much anger, even hurt, blazing in her eyes . . .
“If I’m never found, please help her to be okay with—”
A sound echoed through the darkness. Scratching. Whining. A bell ringing.
“Hello?” His voice cracked again.
A familiar bark.
“Orlando?”
The bell jangled, and just like that, the dog plowed him over.
Jericho fell back but put his arms around the Bernie as Orlando licked his face. “Okay, okay, yeah, I’m okay.” He caught the dog’s face, moved it away from his, then sat up.
“What happened to you?” He ran his hands over Orlando. The animal seemed to be in one piece.
“I missed you too.”
The dog broke free, then backed away. Barked.
“What? I know we’re stuck in here.”
The bell jangled.
“Trust me, if I could find a way out—”
The bell rang, louder. As if the dog circled, going to work.
“Hey, bud, don’t—”
The bell sounded, frenetic now.
“Wait!”
But the ring turned wild, and then . . . faded in the darkness.
“Orlando, come!”
The black ate the sound, and silence filled in around it, save only the lonely beating of his heart.