Chapter 10 #3
“No. My cat shapes her life around my driving.”
Before she could respond, the skydiver came into stark view, the trees suddenly looking like they were bleeding.
Red was everywhere; the parachute was caught in a vertical clump, red strings willy-nilly.
A dude in a huge puffy-heart costume that was at least five feet wide dangled about twenty feet off the ground.
He waved sheepishly.
Kell’s dad’s white truck with the words Luview Tree Service on it was parked directly underneath the guy, the truck bed helping to narrow the guy’s gap between dangling body and ground..
“Tree landings, man,” Kell muttered. “Poor guy.”
“Tree landings?”
“That’s what this is called. It happens to loads of parachutists, but it happens a lot to amateurs around Valentine’s Day.”
“How are you going to do this? Don’t you need one of those huge bucket things? Like electric companies use to fix power lines?”
“A cherry picker?”
“Is that what it’s called?”
“Ayup.”
Rachel began giggling. “You just said ayup again.”
“So?”
“In D.C., you never had a Maine accent.”
“In D.C, I wasn’t in Maine.” With that, he climbed out of the truck, Cally leaping on top of the back of the front seat, then out of the cab, at his heels. Rachel followed, carrying the tray of coffees. Kell was holding his, and took a big swig as they neared the tree.
Dean took the tray out of Rachel’s hands and gave her a beaming smile.
“Ah, my boy. Trained you well,” Dean said, coffee already to his lips before Kell could say hi.
Kell looked up and shouted to the skydiver, “Brought you a coffee!”
“I’ll need a really, really long straw!” the guy called back.
They all laughed. Dean held his non-coffee-holding hand out to Rachel. “Sorry to be so rude, but I needed that caffeine. Nice to finally meet you, Rachel.”
“You too, Mr. Luview.”
“Gee-awd, no. I’m Dean,” he said. Did his father just suck in his gut? Kell grimaced as his dad went on. “None of this Mr. Luview stuff.”
“Okay,” Rachel said with a sparkling smile. “Dean.” She looked up and waved at the poor guy. “Hi!”
“Hi! I’m Joey. Joey Stupid. Call me Mr. Stupid.”
Dean shouted up, “Nothing about love is stupid. You just caught a bad wind.”
“If you toss me a knife, I can cut myself down,” Joey said.
“Now THAT would be stupid, dude,” Kell replied, shaking his head. He looked at Dean. “Ladder?”
“Yeah. He’s only twenty feet up.”
“Is it in the pickup bed? Or do we need to call the fire department?”
Dean looked up, analyzing the guy’s situation, studying each rope, the slope of the parachute material, and the guy’s harness.
Kell’s dad was big like him, but all three of his boys were taller, Dennis and Kell the biggest, but Luke was no slouch.
Like Kell, Dean worked with his body for a living, so the man was still mostly muscle, though a small beer gut had formed as Kell did more of the hard work and his dad handled the office responsibilities.
“I think if we can get you up on that branch,” he said, pointing for Kell to see, “you can cut that line on the right and he’ll drop another five or eight feet. That’d make this a hell of a lot easier.”
“Yep.” Kell drained the rest of his coffee and walked toward the back of his dad’s truck for harnesses. Rachel gave them curious looks.
“You’re going to climb that tree? It’s HUGE!”
Kell shrugged. “It’s not that big. I’ll use the ladder to get to the thick limb, then ropes to get up there, crawl over to that far red line that’s holding him up, cut it, and he’ll drop a few feet. Then he’ll be close enough that we can grab him.”
“Shouldn’t the fire department do this?”
“Nope.”
“And you aren’t worried about the danger?”
“Worried?”
“It’s a lot of responsibility. What if something goes wrong?”
“We’re not leaving him here to be picked off by crows, Rachel. Someone’s got to cut him down.”
“What about something to cushion his fall?”
“Are you offering to lay down on the ground under him and do the honors?”
“I was thinking about one of those trampoline things you see in the movies.”
By the time she finished the sentence, Kell was half in his harness. He turned to look at her. “This is an aerial rescue. I’m a tree climber. This is what I do, Rachel. We’re not hobbyists.”
“You’re trained for this?”
“Naw. Dad and I thought we’d just come out here and cut some dude out of a tree because there was nothing good on TV.”
“Kell!”
He laughed, looking down her. “I am a working arborist. I have a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and forestry. I’m ISA certified.”
“ISA?”
“International Society of Arboriculture. OSHA, too. I’ve got my first aid and CPR certifications, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I know what I’m doing.”
“I had no idea you knew all of this. Is this new? Since D.C.?”
“Nope. I went to D.C. with all of this training under my belt.”
“You never mentioned it.”
“I got the impression people would look down their noses about it. Now, we can talk, or poor Joey can get cut down so he can feel his legs again.”
“Go! Sorry!”
Dean walked over to Kell and said, “Coupla ways we can do this. He’s too far out from the trunk to just use a ladder. He’s just high enough up that I don’t want to cut that right line without a secured harness on him. Climb up and drop him a safety line.”
“Isn’t he wearing a harness?” Rachel asked.
“That’s for his parachute. I mean one we put on him to secure him to the tree,” Dean patiently explained.
“Oh.”
“Hey, Joey!” Kell shouted up. “I’m climbing on that branch above you, and dropping you a rope. Secure the clamp to your harness. It’s just to make sure you’re safe in case you drop.”
Joey gave a thumbs up.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Rachel asked.
“Drive into town for us if this goes horribly wrong,” Dean said in a serious tone.
She looked at Dean’s truck. “Is that a stick shift, too?”
Both men laughed.
“Kell, you gotta teach her how to drive a stick.”
“No kidding.” The look he shared with Rachel was warm and comforting.
Destabilizing, too. Here she was, on a rescue run with him like it was no big deal, fitting into his life like she was meant to be here, talking about her being around long enough to teach her how to drive a stick.
He wanted to teach her. Be with her. Have her here in his life, seamless and easy.
Kell wanted to let go of the grudge he held, even if it wasn’t just a grudge. Whatever you called it, he wanted to will it away, re-envision how he saw Rachel, and how they were together.
He missed his friend, and here she was, hanging out, up for adventure, helping out. And more than missing his friend — he missed the chance for something more with her. He wanted all that potential back again. All the what-ifs. All the ripe opportunities.
Was that enough to let go of the past hurt?
For the next ten minutes, Kell focused on checking all the lines and clamps for safety as Dean did the aerial assist, throwing weighted ropes with an enviable precision.
His dad might be getting older, and his time climbing trees was narrowing, but he had bullseye perfection when it came to throwing.
And then Kell got to do what he loved most about being an arborist: climb.
Moving up required full attention. No one ever wanted a rescue mission to turn into a double. Kell easily climbed the twenty feet up to the big branch Joey was caught on and unclamped the line Dean meant for the poor guy.
“Joey! I’m dropping this to you slowly,” Kell called as he balanced carefully, his own harness supporting him fully if needed.
His dad and Rachel were looking up, faces focused but not scared.
Fortunately, Joey got the weighted clamp in his hand on the first try, securing it easily.
Step one accomplished. Dean could hold the line down below and offer leverage now, in case Joey slipped.
Kell shimmied back a bit, then reached for his knife, cutting the red parachute lines that were keeping Joey up.
“Get ready, Joey. Five-foot drop coming.”
“Okay!”
Snip.
With an airy whuff!, Joey dropped, a groan coming out of him followed by another thumbs up.
“Kell!” Dean shouted. “I think you can just cut the rest. I’ve got the line. Let’s do this without the ladder.”
“Be careful!” Rachel called out, as if he weren’t. Deanna did the same thing every time she watched an operation, though, so he understood.
Being helpless at the bottom was worse than being in danger up top. At least here, he could pivot as needed to make himself safer.
Watchers didn’t have that luxury.
Going back over the same part of the branch he’d just been on, Kell warned Joey, “Here we go!”
Cut.
Joey dropped a bit.
Cut.
Joey dropped more.
“Dad!” he called out. “You need Rachel to help hold the line behind you?”
“Sure!” Dean said something to Rachel, who put down her coffee and did as told, looking eager to be of help.
And then Kell cut the rest of the parachute lines, leaving Joey hanging, Dean and Rachel holding the other end of the line like a pulley, both moving closer to the tree to lower Joey slowly, slowly…
Just as the company that was handling his skydiving adventure arrived, the familiar red truck that read LOVE YOU SKIES appearing in the nick of time.
Or not.
Love You Skies was known for this, an out-of-town company from New Hampshire that capitalized on the Love You name but didn’t bother to make contingency plans for when amateur skydivers blew off course.
“Hey,” Dean said, waving as Kell climbed down from the tree, trying not to get mad. He knew how this would work. Love You Skies would offer Dean the least possible amount of money for their help, if any at all, and take all the credit by doing the cleanup.
“Man, thank you,” Joey said from the truck bed as Kell walked over to him, shaking his hand. Rachel carried over the now-lukewarm coffee for Joey. Kell watched his dad have a low, serious talk with Jimmy, the owner of Love You Skies.
This issue he was leaving to Dean.
“I got it!” his dad shouted to him, as if reading his mind.
“You sure?”