Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
They’d outrun the avalanche only to run straight into the mountain’s jaw, where they were now trapped. He knew this cave well. The death trap it had been before. Freedom was an illusion—and the mountain had only tightened its hold on them. Blackspire Mountain wasn’t finished with them.
He shook off the thoughts and shoved away the exhaustion. He should be grateful they’d made it this far, against all odds.
Grateful to God.
He had to stop giving the mountain a presence in his mind, as if it were a monster chasing them.
But he couldn’t shake the sense that, at the very least, they’d traded a roaring death for a silent one as they wasted away without escape in this stone-cold, icy cave.
Except, that wasn’t true—there was a way out.
Ryder just had to find it. Sounds from the outside world remained muffled, but the wind’s savage howl battered the slope, its eerie, foreboding wail seeping through the wall of snow and ice sealing them in. At least, from this direction.
Ryder had no desire to go deeper into the cave. The memories accosted him, lashed at him.
“So, what’s your story, Ryder?” Sarah’s soft voice broke through his self-recriminations. “How do you know about this cave, but you didn’t know about the crashed plane?”
“Who said I knew about this cave?”
“Oh, so you just happened upon it as we raced for our lives?”
“Okay, yeah, I knew.”
“And the buried fuselage? How come you didn’t know about that?” Her tone held no accusation but, rather, simple curiosity.
She made a good point. One he might ponder one day, but no one had been looking on that slope for a crashed plane. Their only focus had been to rescue a stranded hiker.
“I mentioned my father’s death. This is where it happened.” Well, up top.
“What? Oh . . . that makes sense. I’m so sorry. But if an SAR team was here, how did they not find the plane?”
“Two years ago it was probably completely buried under snow. We were here for one purpose. Get in. Rescue the hiker and get out.”
“Who was the man you rescued?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Maybe he was here searching for the same thing we were. After all, you said no one comes up this way.”
“In general. There are no specific trails, and considering the mass and breadth of the mountain, this is a relatively random spot to end up. As for his name, I don’t remember. Again, why does it matter?” He tried to forget the details.
Above them, the cave groaned and ice cracked. “Let’s go. We need to get out of here,” he said.
“And do what? Go where? It’s going to get dark.”
He had nothing but admiration for this woman who worked so hard to hide her fear and panic—she had to be dying inside with worry for her son. With God’s help, Ryder had to find a way out of this and a way to save Jeremy.
“We’ll find a way,” he said. “We have the pack, so we can survive. I think Dean might have left it for us. I have no other explanation. It isn’t mine, but better than nothing. I don’t think Maddox was going to let us live.”
“My priority is getting my son back, Ryder.”
“Mine too. But to do that we have to get out of this cave and off this mountain.” He couldn’t imagine what the boy was going through, or Sarah’s sister-in-law, if she was even still alive. Sarah was holding up despite the pure terror that must be gripping her.
He stood. Unzipped the pack to pull out a flashlight and turned it on. “Let’s go.”
He led her deeper into the tunnel. “Careful. Watch your step. It’s slick.”
“Right. If I fall and break a leg, then we’re both going to die. Or at least I will.” She ground the words out as if resenting their situation.
He understood. “I wouldn’t leave you behind.” Maybe she just needed that reassurance.
They had to get out of here before night fell and the temperature dropped even more. Before whatever came next found them buried here like everything else. If they’d been left to the hazmat suits—not rated for these freezing temperatures—they would probably already be hypothermic and near death.
Boots crunching along the icy, rocky corridor, Sarah followed him.
After what felt like entirely too long, he finally spotted the sliver of light he’d been searching for, shining down from above.
He rummaged through the pack again to find what he needed.
Deeper inside, he found his Glock—thank you, Dean!
—pulled it out and slipped it into the holster clipped inside the pocket of his cargo pants.
But why couldn’t the guy have left him some kind of communication device?
Regardless, he found no rope, no climbing gear whatsoever.
Now he wished he hadn’t traded his paracord bracelet for Dad’s old watch, as if that would be adequate. No matter. They could do this.
He paused, secured the pack again, then took a deep breath.
The slope ahead rose steep and jagged at about a sixty-degree angle, slick with patches of rock and ice, but it wasn’t sheer, and with that, he grabbed onto hope.
Ryder planted his boot on a jut of rock, testing the tread’s grip, then dug in the toe to crush a soft crust of ice.
His gloved fingers splayed against the cold stone, searching for a hold.
He was grateful he always wore insulated mountaineering gloves because a guy never knew when he’d have to climb a wall.
Sarah, on the other hand, might be at a disadvantage, but her gloves would work.
He’d made sure she had the right kind—Maisie had given him a knowing smirk when he’d tossed them on the pile.
“It’s climbable,” he murmured. But barely.
“Stay close.” He looked back at her, almost fearing what he might see.
The flicker of light above glinted in her eyes as she stared up at him. “What . . . what are you doing?”
“We have to go up.”
“Ryder, I can’t climb that.”
He stretched his hand up to the edge and into a narrow crack. “Watch me. Follow me. Do what I do. It’s not a sheer vertical wall. You can do this, Sarah.”
“You mean like a solo climb?”
Drawing in a big breath, he hoisted himself higher. “This isn’t that, and even if it was, our exit out of this cave is up there.”
“Why don’t we just dig our way out the way we came in?”
“You’re fit. You’re healthy. This isn’t that far. These foot- and handholds were chiseled in years ago for an escape.” Someone had gotten trapped under these exact circumstances, or maybe they’d chiseled the holds for nothing more than a fun challenge.
“I see the daylight streaming through, but that’s a small opening.”
You aren’t going to argue your way out of this. “Just wide enough for us to squeeze through. It’s a natural skylight, collapsed inward from a previous rockslide or avalanche.”
His muscles screamed. His shoulder burned like fire from the recent bullet. Back throbbed where the snow had slammed into him as he dove into the cave. Still, he climbed.
Foothold. Handhold. Foothold. Handhold.
Breath by ragged breath.
But none of it—not the ice, the stone, the fire of his wounds—hurt as much as the memories tearing through his chest, clawing at his barely healed wound. He’d been here in this place before, and this was one more desperate scramble to outrun the past.
Once they could climb out and arrive up top, Ryder knew how to get them back.
He would avoid traversing across the avalanche debris field.
That was too risky, too hazardous, and he couldn’t risk taking them through the cave, even if he could dig their way out of snow and ice and probably rocks too.
No, this was the right way. He’d . . . seen the light.
He had to trust God was directing his path. He’d prayed. He’d asked. He’d trusted. What more could he do? If only the images didn’t fly at him now.
The look on Dad’s face. The regret, and still . . . the love, the forgiveness . . . as he fell to his death.
Ryder tried to push away the torment as he climbed closer to the last place he’d seen his father. But the memory was alive in his mind now, as if he was there in that moment. In his mind’s eye, the images slammed him as if through a tunnel of ice—clear and focused.
Dad’s voice had crackled over the radio, breaking in and out. “The anchor’s loose . . . shelf’s shifting—Dean, get him back!”
Ryder sprinted, lungs burning, boots thudding over packed snow, then through the cave where they’d traversed to search for the fallen man. Ryder had climbed up and out, and finally he reached the scene—late, always late—after leading another group out of the backcountry.
The helicopter couldn’t reach them—not with the weather, the altitude, no place to land. A hundred reasons. A million.
And time . . .
Time had never been on their side. Why had Dean let Dad step out there? Why wasn’t I there sooner?
Dean had the hiker half dragged to safety, but Dad—
Dad was still out there. The ice shelf groaned, spiderweb cracks racing beneath his father’s feet as he worked the carabiner, trying to free the stuck rope.
“Dad!” Ryder’s voice tore from his throat. “Leave it! Get back!”
Their eyes locked across the distance.
Ryder ripped a coil of rope from his shoulder, hands fumbling with the frozen line. “Just hold there, Dad. Wait for me!”
His father gave a faint, crooked smile—so much love in his eyes, it hollowed Ryder out. “It’s okay, son. I love you.”
“What are you talking about? No! I’m getting you out!” Ryder staggered closer, the ice shuddering beneath his boots. He hurled the rope and missed. Tried again. The crack split the air, sharp as the report of a rifle.
His father didn’t flinch.
He just . . . let go.
And Ryder had been helpless—no hero, no savior. Just a man replaying that day a thousand times, drowning in everything he should have done differently.
Breathless with climbing, and maybe more from the memories, he paused and leaned into the wall. Squeezed his eyes shut. Released a calming breath.
“Ryder? You okay?” Sarah’s voice broke through his pain, soft and reassuring.