Right Out of Nowhere

by Laurie Salzler

  “Every. Single. Word.” Roni wasn’t sure she could walk on her own, let alone stand without the tree for support.

  “I do have a favor to ask.” Selena put her arms around her and inserted her hands into Roni’s back pockets. She stroked up and down with both thumbs.

  “Ask and I’m yours.” Selena’s soft caressing was like a drug, and Roni wanted more of it.

  “You’re mine anyway. The helicopter will be here in about an hour to pick me up. The plan is to get the boy off the mountain and to the hospital. I’ll only be gone overnight, but because of scheduling maintenance or some other such nonsense, they can’t bring me back up. Will you bring a horse down to the Selway River Rec sites and pick me up?”

  “How could I possibly say no when you have your hands in my pants?”

  “I thought you’d see it my way.” Selena chuckled and removed her hands. “I have to get the medical bag and my duffel together.” She kissed Roni quickly and hurried toward the cabin, stopping just before the trees ended, to blow her a kiss.

  Roni missed the warmth of Selena’s body, her kiss, and God, those hands. She wondered what she’d done to deserve a woman like Selena. She vowed to do everything possible to keep her. A plan suddenly formed in her head. If she could convince Jeff to stay on for another three days, she’d be able to show Selena just how much she meant to her. Her legs were finally steady enough for her not to fall on her face when she put one foot in front of the other. She pushed away and strode back to the cabin with a smile on her face.

  Forty-five minutes later, she watched the rescue helicopter take off with Selena aboard. She held onto her hat with one hand and waved with the other. It was time to go work on Jeff. She found him in his bedroom. He’d thoughtfully given them some privacy to work out their rendezvous plans for tomorrow and to say goodbye.

  “She get off okay?” He lay on his bed reading and hadn’t bothered to look up.

  “Yeah.” She leaned a shoulder against the door frame. Her mind immediately rolled right into the gutter as she reminisced about their encounter in the woods. God, how she wished Selena would’ve let her touch her. Just one little . . .

  “You got laid, didn’t you?”

  She refocused her eyes and furrowed her brows. “What? What makes you think that? No, never mind. I don’t want to know.” She turned to leave and then remembered why she’d been there in the first place. She looked at him and the shit-eating grin on his face. “What?”

  “Your zipper is undone.” He pursed his lips and looked back to his book.

  She knew her face was crimson by the way her skin had heated up. She quickly pulled her zipper up and crossed her arms over her chest. “I have a favor to ask.”

  “And what would that be, miss-sex-in-the-woods?”

  “Jesus, Jeff, do you have to make this so hard?”

  “Aw, don’t be embarrassed. I’m happy for you, Roni, really. So tell me, what’s this favor?”

  SELENA STEPPED ABOARD the helicopter and a familiar face looked out from the cockpit.

  “Hey, Selena, you may as well sit up here with me,” Tom said.

  “You’re by yourself?” She grasped the helmet resting on the copilot chair and set it on her head. She secured the chinstrap, pulled the visor down, and moved the boom microphone to her mouth.

  “Yeah, Kim got called off on another mission, so they sent me up here to get you. We’ll do a quick touch-and-go at the Elk City pad, pick up another medic, and then head off. I’m hoping they don’t assign Ward to this flight. I have a feeling it’s going to be bucking pretty good up there.”

  Selena glanced over as he increased the rotor speed and then turned to look out her window. She lifted her hand in a wave to Roni as they left the ground.

  After Roni, the cabin, and the meadow were out of sight, curiosity got the better of her. She inspected the cockpit, amazed at the number of gauges, switches, and levers.

  “I’ve never flown shotgun before. This is pretty cool. Tell me what all this stuff is for,” she said, sweeping her hand in front of her.

  “You bet. I love the Bell because it handles so smooth, even when flying in nasty shit. Anyway, do you know how one of these babies works?”

  “A little. See if I get it right. It flies from the thrust that’s created by the rotation of the blades. They’re attached to a main rotor mounted on a shaft above the fuselage, right?” Tom nodded. “As I understand it, as the blades rotate, an airflow is created over them, resulting in the lift.”

  “You sure you’ve never done this?”

  She smiled. “No. I like physics, and whenever I read something I think is interesting, it sticks with me.”

  “Photographic memory?”

  “Something like that. What I don’t know is how you maneuver this thing in the air.”

  “That’s the easy part. By increasing or decreasing the thrust produced by the tail rotor, I can steer to the left or right, which is what these pedals are for.” Tom demonstrated with the foot pedals. “Then I have this cyclic pitch stick here.” He indicated the control he held in his right hand. “It tilts the helicopter forward, backward, and sideways. And over here on my left, which you can’t see very well, is the collective pitch stick. That’s used to make this thing climb and descend vertically. Just like I said. Easy.”

  “Holy crap! Easy for you. How about you stick to flying, and I’ll take care of the rescue and medical?”

  He laughed. “You got it.” He glanced at Selena. “Kim lost a good one in you.”

  Completely taken aback, she didn’t reply, nor did she know how. She had no desire to get into her personal life with somebody she barely knew. She had no idea what Kim might have told him, and if she could be honest with herself, she didn’t care. Her priority was to get the boy off the mountain and to safety and get back to Roni as soon as possible.

  Thirty minutes later, Tom touched down on the helicopter pad. The ranger building sat behind the hangar. Several trucks and SUVs with the USFS emblem sat parked next to it.

  They barely had to wait ten seconds before a nondescript figure trotted out of the hangar. It was impossible for Selena to determine the gender because the person wore a baggy flight suit and already had the helmet visor pulled down. She watched as the individual instinctively ducked their head as soon as they approached the aircraft. She smiled to herself, knowing it was a precaution everybody took, despite the fact the blades were too high up to pose any danger to anybody walking upright.

  Tom slid the cockpit door open and waited until the third member of their crew took their seat and belted in. “All set?” Getting a nod, he closed the door and engaged the controls. The helicopter was airborne a few seconds later.

  She noted the northeast indication of the compass in front of her and wondered about their approach.

  “I’m going to stay under the clouds until we get close to the mountain,” Tom said, as if reading her thoughts. “I’m hoping to save on fuel because we may need it, depending on how crazy it gets up there.”

  As Boxcar Mountain loomed closer, the wind whirled snow around them. He was right. This could get hairy really quickly.

  “Do you mind if I move to the back now?” Selena said. “I want to get acquainted with the third member of our crew and decide who’s doing what and when.”

  “Roger that. We’re about twenty out.”

  She unhooked her seat belt and stood up. She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed slightly. “Keep us safe, captain.”

  He gave her the thumbs up without looking at her. She watched for a moment as his eyes flitted from the gauges, to the view ahead, to the controls, and back again.

  She raised her visor and slid the cockpit door open. “Our pilot said we’re approaching Boxcar. I thought we’d better go over procedures to avoid confusion when we get on-site,” she said to the person seated in the back.

  “Ayala, is that you?”

  Selena cocked her head slightly. “Do I know you?” The voice was somewhat fam
iliar but she couldn’t place it.

  “Cooper. Anna Cooper.” The woman raised her visor.

  “Cooper! Wow! I never in a million years expected to see you flying rescue missions. Brushing up on techniques?” The same Anna Cooper who’d trained her and countless others in SAR now worked missions? Something was odd.

  “You might say.” Cooper flashed a smile that revealed perfect teeth.

  “I guess we don’t have to go over procedures then. We just have to decide who’s working the rope and who’s swinging.”

  Cooper’s eyes flashed a bit nervously. “I’ll work the basket and winch. It’ll be good practice for you.”

  Selena laughed. “Always the teacher.” She turned her attention to selecting a harness and soon had it strapped over her flight suit.

  A sudden lurch of the helicopter sent her scrambling to regain her footing. But the force and angle of the tilt still caused her to slam hard into the wall of the fuselage. “Holy crap. Tom said it was liable to get dicey.” She attached the rope to the harness ring at her waist and sat down.

  Cooper was unusually quiet. At SAR training she came across as a confident, self-assured, yet somewhat cocky woman. Many of Selena’s classmates were completely enamored and hung on her every word, if not her. But it seemed she might have tempered that attitude down a bit. Interesting.

  “Okay, people.” Tom’s voice came over the mic. “Better hook in. We’ve got work to do.”

  Selena leaned forward and peered out the window. It was difficult to distinguish between the loom of the snow-covered mountain and the curtain of white flakes surrounding them. Her heart rate increased several notches, and the helmet did nothing to mask the pounding in her ears.

  “ETA one minute.”

  Selena stood up and opened the hatch door. Cooper moved to stand by her side and readied the winch control.

  “See them yet?” Cooper looked over Selena’s shoulder.

  “No. I don’t know how Tom can fly in this stuff. I give him a lot of credit.”

  “Leave it to the experts,” Tom said smoothly, having heard her over the open mic. “Thirty seconds and we should be right over them.”

  Selena lowered her visor, looped her wrist through the safety strap mounted on the door frame, and leaned out. At first she had trouble distinguishing bare rock from the human forms below. Until a couple of them moved.

  “I have a visual,” she said. “Rescuer ready.”

  Tom repeated the words to ensure there would be no mistaking intent or action.

  She nodded at Cooper and turned her back to the void beyond the door. She grasped the rope in both hands, braced her feet against the lip of the doorway, and leaned out.

  Suddenly a gust of wind rocked the helicopter. Her feet slipped off. She endured three terrifying feet of free fall before jerking to a halt. Fortunately, Cooper acted quickly and pulled the boom toward the fuselage while engaging the winch.

  The whine of the helicopter’s engine penetrated Selena’s helmet above the adrenaline-induced pounding of her heart. The noise was deafening. God, I hope we can do this, she thought. She regained her footing and once again gave the signal to Cooper that she was ready. As she leaned back, Cooper let out slack until Selena was nearly at a forty-five degree angle, the boom moved toward her and she pushed off.

  The wind sucked her breath out of her lungs. She tucked her chin. “Rescuer going down.”

  She closed her eyes briefly to avoid the dizziness that threatened from the wild spinning the blasts of air put her through.

  “Rescuer, hold on.” Tom’s voice sounded tinny in her ear.

  Selena looked down. So close. She looked toward the horizon and saw the mountainside flying toward her. Oh shit! She braced herself for the imminent impact. The helicopter tipped away from the windswept rocks. She’d been so close she could see the snow racing itself in streams.

  “Sorry about that, Selena. I need to pull you back in. We’re going to try an approach from a different direction.”

  “Roger that. Rescuer up.”

  A short time later Selena repeated her exit. Cooper released slack, and she rapidly descended.

  Just before her feet touched the ground, the wind let up. It was just a temporary lull. They needed to take advantage of it. Without hesitation she unhooked herself. Cooper reined in the rope and prepared to send the rescue basket down. “Rescuer on the ground. Ready for basket.”

  Selena raised her visor and looked into the worried but very relieved eyes of a man.

  “Wow. I didn’t think you were going to make it. Josh is over here,” he said, already walking.

  They couldn’t afford precious time exchanging pleasantries. Every second counted.

  She glanced up, pleased to see the basket already descending toward her. “I’m sorry I can’t examine him down here. The weather’s too unpredictable, and we have a very small window to extract him.”

  The basket hit the ground. She unfastened it and waited until Cooper let out enough slack for the heavy hook to lie on the ground, which would keep it from flailing around and accidently injuring someone.

  With the help of one of the Boy Scouts, Selena dragged the basket over to the injured boy. He was nearly unrecognizable under the many layers of sleeping bags.

  “Hi, Josh. My name is Selena. We need to lift you out of here before the wind picks up again.”

  A glassy-eyed boy with rumpled black hair peered out from the tightened hood of a sleeping bag. He attempted to move, but Selena stopped him.

  “Let us do the work, Josh. You just have to stay still.”

  They gently lifted the injured boy into the basket and relocated it to where the hook lay.

  Selena secured the safety straps over Josh’s body. “Basket is full. Ready for ascent.”

  Five minutes later, she was on her way up into the helicopter. She gave the onlookers a quick salute before closing the hatch. In the same movement, she unhooked herself from the rope and focused on stabilizing her patient for the flight to the hospital.

  Chapter Nineteen

  DAWN BROUGHT THE promise of a bright blue sky and cool temperatures, which added to Roni’s high spirits. As she secured the string of three horses, she checked a mental list to make sure she had remembered everything. She’d spent much of the evening before, packing and pulling together the essentials for the next couple of days.

  “Don’t forget this.” Jeff trotted down the porch steps and handed her the rifle. “I still think you’re taking a chance staying down there overnight.”

  “Thanks, and don’t worry. We’ll be fine. I’m taking Puller with me as a lookout.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.” He looked at the healed claw marks on Sparky and frowned.

  She could see the concern in his eyes and gave him a quick hug. “I promise. We’ll take every precaution known to woman, horse, and dog.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t taking a bigger chance with him?” He indicated Sparky with his chin.

  “I’m sure. He and I have come a long way since I first brought him up here. I can always switch and ride Chenoa if I need to.” She’d decided to bring both horses in addition to Selena’s, figuring it would be good experience for Sparky. For the ride down, she’d chosen the red horse as her mount with Chenoa bearing the weight of the pack harness. Although it’d be the first time for Sparky to take the lead position, she was convinced he could handle the job.

  “I guess you’d know better than me.” He play punched her in the arm. “Have fun, Roni. Selena’s a good match for you.”

  “Don’t go getting all sentimental on me.” She flashed him a bright smile. “She is pretty special, though.” She put her foot in the stirrup and bounced up into the saddle. He handed Puller up to her, and she gathered the reins. “See you in a couple days, then.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  She nudged Sparky into a slow jog as they passed through the meadow. The other two horses calmly kept pace. Just before entering the woods, she stopp
ed and waved to Jeff who still stood in front of the cabin. Despite all the teasing and her admitted jealousy, she loved her brother with all her heart. Well, almost. Selena had started to make a place for herself in there too.

  Seven hours later, the horses stepped foot on the trail that would lead them to the recreational sites. Since the way was relatively flat and clear, Roni pushed the horses into a ground-covering trot. By her calculations, she figured she’d meet up with Selena by late afternoon.

  She was extremely pleased with Sparky’s performance. There’d been only one place on the trail where he’d hesitated and needed to be coaxed through. The gigantic round boulders on either side of the trail midway down gave him cause to be nervous. Mountain lions loved a height advantage when hunting, and instinctively Sparky knew the danger. After they’d passed through though, he’d been as smooth as silk. The flat trail they were currently on evidently appealed to him. With his head up and ears perked, he relaxed into an even stride. His years on the racetrack, keeping pace next to the long-legged thoroughbreds, had probably taught him the importance of using his body as efficiently as possible.

  Roni slowed the horses to a walk for the last two miles, although she didn’t let them dawdle. They broke out of the tall white birch stand, and she recognized Selena’s form reclined on the porch of one of the cabins. She halted the horses a hundred feet away, dismounted, and walked the rest of the way on foot. It appeared Selena had her eyes closed, and judging by the steady rise and fall of her chest, she was fast asleep. Roni stopped and admired the beautiful woman before her.

  Selena’s eyes fluttered opened and locked with hers. A slow, sexy smile crawled up Selena’s face. She unfolded her arms and stretched like a cat. “Hey, beautiful, have you come to rescue your damsel in distress?”

  “You better believe it.” Roni sat down next to Selena, took her hat off, and kissed her cheek. “You look tired. Did everything go okay?” Puller wiggled out of her pocket and oozed onto Selena’s lap. He looked up at her with adoring eyes and a wagging tail.

  “Yeah. It got a little hairy on the mountain. For some reason that part of the range funnels some wicked winds up against Boxcar. For a while there, we weren’t sure we’d be able to lower the basket without losing it, let alone get the kid up safely. Finally there was a short lull in the airstream. We had to work fast, but we got him out of there. I give the pilot a lot of credit.”