Chapter 17 #2
Steve was beside them now, pale face stretched into strange lines and hollows. Behind the guide Pike slid into visibility, gaping at the scene.
“We need to—what do we need to—” Dave couldn’t seem to pull his thoughts together, groping at his pockets as if answers hid in one.
“How was Russ when you found him?” Steve asked Zach.
“He was asleep, but he woke up fast.”
Bram’s voice came from behind him. “He’s okay. Thank God.” A pause. “Where are the others?”
“How do you feel?” Steve asked Russ.
“My side—it hurts. My face. I’m—kind of dizzy?”
“I’m going to check you out, okay? I’ll be gentle. Just want to make sure nothing’s broken.”
Russ didn’t respond until Steve lay hands on his left side, which made his face twist in pain.
“It hurts there?”
“Yeah. Otherwise—the eye. And my head.”
“Could it be—” Dave hesitated, as if voicing his worry might manifest it, breathe life into it, then whispered, “Could he have internal injuries?”
“He may have broken a rib. Or bruised it. Cracked it. No way to know. The eye’s swollen but looks okay. If he was unconscious when Zach found him, and with head pain, that black eye, he might have a concussion. We’ll have to get him help.”
Bram’s head jerked around alert, an animal trying to locate its food. “Where’s Shane? Where are the others?”
“He—” Zach had to clear his throat to choke out the words. “Shane and Jon skied down. Lower into the Bowl. Before Russ started his run.” He pointed at where the two men had dropped out of sight.
“I told you. I said it!” Dave snapped. “It wasn’t Russ. I saw where it started, it cut uphill, was triggered from lower down. Those arrogant little shits, I—”
“We need to find them,” Bram interrupted with grim determination. “They’re not responding on the radio.”
Steve nodded. Stood.
“You’re not—you’re not just leaving my boy here?” Dave said.
“Mr. Fisher’s right.” Steve stepped back into his bindings. “Russ is okay. Stable. You get him warm. Give him water. Something to eat. If the others were caught, they’re dying right now. There’s no time to waste. You take care of your boy.”
Bram was already moving out of the trees in the direction Zach had indicated, but seeing that the guide was getting something out of his bag instead of following, asked, “What are you doing? Shouldn’t we hurry?”
Steve took out what appeared to be a brightly colored radio.
“Sat phone,” he said. “I’m gonna try again.
I don’t think I got through before.” He dialed a number, waited.
“I’m calling to report—hello?” He took the phone from his ear and looked at it with a frown, then spoke into it again.
“Hello, can you hear me?” He gestured to the sky above.
“Interference from the storm. Or the tree cover. Hello? Hello? Uh, SOS, emergency? We have an emergency. There’s been an avalanche at Mount Mariah above Pantheon Hut.
One injured, two missing. We need immediate rescue.
Hello? Acknowledge? Mariah Bowl. Immediate aid—shit.
” He shook his head, then redialed. “Emergency! SOS! Avalanche at Mariah Bowl above Pantheon Hut, immediate help needed. One injured, two possibly buried. Hello?” Again he took the phone away from his ear and looked at it.
“You’re wasting time.” Bram gestured downhill, exasperated.
“Maybe they heard,” Steve said, more to himself than the group.
“It’s hard to tell. I’ll send a message.
” He typed for a moment, then tucked the phone in his coat.
He pulled out a smaller device Zach recognized as similar to the Garmin his mother insisted Zach have on trips in case of emergencies, and began hitting buttons.
“What now?” Bram said.
“SOS communicator,” Steve said without looking up. “Anyone else has one, now’s the time to use it. It won’t call Mountain Rescue directly, but it will ping an emergency line that will call them.”
From his pocket, Bram fished out a device Zach recognized as his own.
Bram had pulled it from the neat piles of gear Zach was packing before the trip, telling him he was too young for it, that his mom should never have wasted the money on something so expensive for a child, when had she even gotten it?
“I could do it,” Zach offered, “I could send a message if you—”
His father hit the SOS button, then pocketed the device. “It’s done. You stay here.”
Zach nodded, relieved at being commanded to rest, at being absolved of further responsibility.
“They should get the distress calls.” Steve’s soft voice inspired little confidence. “And we’ll try calling again. Out of the trees. Ready?”
Yes, the trees closed in tight above, and the clouds brooded over them dark and dense.
Zach felt a nauseating gap in his knowledge, because he hadn’t known that might matter, he’d assumed such devices always functioned.
But his mother, perhaps obeying Bram’s ‘no phones or internet for kids’ edict, hadn’t yet taught him how to use a sat phone, hadn’t taught him anything about the functionality of the small alert device Bram had taken for himself beyond showing Zach how to send an SOS, cautioning, If the worst happens, you call for help, but if someone in your group is buried, you search.
No rescue will be there as fast as someone who already is.
“It’s been less than ten minutes. We still have a window here.
” Steve spoke rapidly, desperately, as if trying to convince himself of his own words.
“We have to search the avalanche field. Spread out. Each of us three”—he pointed to Bram and Pike before resting a hand on his own chest—“will take a section, grid search it with the beacons, and if you get a signal you call out. I’ll go down first. Get the lay of the land just in case.
Then you two follow when I radio. Got it? ”
His father and Pike agreed, but a blankness behind their eyes reminded Zach of Bonnie when she pretended to understand a word she didn’t know.
Steve skied out of sight.
How to explain to his father and Pike the way beacons worked? What a grid search was? How because the signal arced out from a beacon in winged parabolas, there was a specific strategy to efficiently trace a signal to its source?
It was all too much, too difficult, too technical.
It was a thing that had to be learned well enough to become second nature, and even then when Zach had searched for Russ he’d stumbled, been slow and messy.
The stress, the fear, the awful need for speed…
Zach could only lay out the most basic element.
“You have to turn your beacons to ‘search.’ Like Steve just did. Or else you won’t be able to pick up a signal.”
His father didn’t look at him, focused downhill where Steve had gone.
“You need to switch to ‘search.’ Or else you’ll be sending a signal instead of receiving it.”
Steve radioed Bram to follow, and wordlessly Bram pushed off so fast it was as if his body had been coiled in wait.
Zach stared at the empty space Bram left behind. Had his father even heard him? Had he already switched his beacon? Maybe. Or maybe Zach should have been louder. Stronger.
Pike fumbled in his coat. “What do I switch?”
“That there? At the top? Flip it to ‘search.’ ”
Pike frowned at his transceiver, then hit the switch. “All right. All right.” He waited, shifting side to side and looking blankly at his feet.
Zach pulled a Mylar blanket, still in its packaging, from his backpack. Dave had managed to get Russ atop the snow, and he and Zach silently wrapped Russ in the blanket, tucking it over his dented helmet, around boots where part of a broken binding dangled.
Pike didn’t move when Steve said it was his turn. Steve radioed again. Nothing.
“Pike?” Dave said.
“Yeah?”
“Time to go.”
“I know.” Pike’s sigh caught and trembled. “It’s just—I shouldn’t be here.”
Dave, cradling his injured son in his arms, Russ’s lips still bluish, his face still that sickly white, the blood on his nose a browning red, said clipped and cold, “Either stay and help, or go and help.”
Pike blinked at him for a moment, then turned downhill.
Dave held the cocooned Russ on his lap and rocked back and forth. He groped for, then squeezed Zach’s mittened hand. “No matter what happens, Zach, I will never forget this. What you did for my Russ. Thank you, son, truly. I thought—”
Dave kissed Russ on the forehead. “We’re going to get you out of here,” he said, and began to weep.
Zach had never seen a grown man cry before. He stood and moved away, unmoored.