The Storm You Chase (Hell Yeah!)

by Sable Hunter

  Adam’s explanation touched Jensen. She’d never thought about SAR in those terms. Clutching the note in her hand, she waited to see who’d be called upon next.

  “Thanks, Adam,” Beau murmured. “Very compelling reason. What you’re referring to is a very viable and important form of SAR called urban rescue. We’ll make sure you have more information in that area. Canyon, you’re up next.”

  Standing to his feet, the big man nodded. “Thanks. I’m Canyon Brady. I’m Tebow’s blacksmith. Newly married. Blessed. Able-bodied. And I want to give back.” He shrugged. “I’ve taken part in several rescues with my local volunteer fire department. Our latest was the tragic Duck Boat accident on Lake Travis a few months back. I’d like to learn more ways I can be of service to my community.”

  “Excellent,” Beau said. “Thanks, Canyon.” His eyes moved down the table, then cut over in her direction. “Dr. Mistretta?”

  Jensen jerked, not expecting to be called upon so soon. Dropping the note on the table, she stood to her feet. “Hello. Please call me Jensen. As someone who works in the medical field, I would appreciate an opportunity to put my skills to work as a volunteer in this worthy cause. In my spare time, what little of it I have, I enjoy hiking as well as rock climbing. To share what I’ve discovered on my travels, I record my adventures in a blog. In doing so, I’ve communicated with many people who’ve related stories about the dangers they’ve encountered. I’m here to learn, so I can pass on worthwhile information to others who are making decisions about where to go and what to do in our nation’s wilderness areas.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea.” Beau gave her an encouraging smile, then turned his attention to several of the others who appeared skeptical. “Do you know how many people die snapping selfies on the rim of the Grand Canyon? Sometimes they leave the boardwalks in Yellowstone and fall into the boiling, acidic waters of the thermal hot springs. Folks go hiking in the summer heat with insufficient water. They wander off trails, not realizing the dangers. Some venture out unprepared with no supplies, not even a packet of trail mix. They ignore warning signs and guardrails as if the laws of physics don’t apply to them. Some just encounter simple bad luck, a stepping-stone that looked normal but was slick as snot. An icy crevasse hidden by newly fallen snow. A careening boulder that comes barreling down the face of a mountain of its own volition.” He pointed at Jensen. “If she can warn people of those types of dangers and others, that’s a good thing. How many followers do you have?”

  For some reason, Jensen wanted to glance at Clint for support – but she resisted the temptation. “Around 95,000.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “People who have influence need to be informed.” With a smile, he indicated for her to sit down. “Jonah, you’re up next.”

  Clint studied the man who rose to speak. He’d seen this guy working on farm equipment around Tebow when he dropped his mother off for a visit.

  “Hello. I’m Jonah Callan. Mechanic. My dad was in the coast guard. I don’t know how many times he told me about being rescued in Alaska after abandoning ship during a tsunami.” He bowed his head. “My pop has Alzheimer’s now, but I’m very thankful he’s still with me.”

  “I hear ye, man.” Beau gave Jonah a quick salute. “Okay, let’s hear from our rocker. Zion.”

  Zion came to his feet, smiling sheepishly. “I’m Zion Chastain. What drew me to this session was the hope of finding someone I care about who is currently missing. One of my friends was on the streets and now she could be anywhere. I’d give anything in the world if I could find her.”

  “God, Zion, I’m sorry.” Ten stood to his feet. “Is this the woman Pepper mentioned? Loren?”

  Zion nodded, unable to speak.

  “We’ll team you up with Adam for urban rescue training. Also - let’s talk a little later. I’d like to help you if I can.”

  “Thanks.”

  As the rocker took his seat, Jensen’s heart went out to Zion. While she considered his problem, she absentmindedly picked up the note she’d sent Clint. He was the only one left to speak. She couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say.

  “Joseph, do you want to do the honors, since you guys are family?” Beau stood back, ready to relinquish the podium to his friend.

  Jensen’s mouth dropped open at this revelation. Family? What the heck?

  “Sure.” Joseph jumped up and clapped his hands. “I’m sure this guy is a familiar face to all of you. Running Back for the Houston Texans. Clint Wilder.”

  Clint pushed his chair back and stood slowly. “Yea. I’m Clint. My plan was to tell all of you that I didn’t really have a meaningful reason to be here.” He nodded toward Joseph and Ten. “These two dudes are my first cousins, so this is a good chance to have an adventure with them.” He gave them a quick grin. “But that’s not what’s driving me to be involved.” He glanced at Jensen, who was watching him intently.

  “I hadn’t thought about my buddy, Russ, in quite a while. Not until I was reminded of the time my teacher gave us the task of creating a family tree as a homework assignment. I remember walking home with Russ from school and inviting him home with me to play catch. He told me he couldn’t, his grandparents were visiting. He was counting on them to help him fill in the branches of his family tree. At the time, I was jealous because he had grandparents and I didn’t.”

  For a moment, he stared at the floor – thinking about what he wanted to say. Glancing up, he looked at Beau. “I hope I’m not taking too long.”

  “No. No. Go ahead.”

  “Anyway, Russ and I continued to hang out, on and off the football field. In fact, we played college ball together. I recall a weekend when his grandfather took us camping. I think we were twelve at the time. Seeing the way they related to one another only made what happened to them later even more tragic in my mind.” He raked his hand through his hair with a pensive look on his face. “Right after I moved to Houston to play for the Texans, Russ and his grandparents loaded up their station wagon and headed to one of the national parks. They’d just given him a new car and he wanted to spend some time with them as a thank-you. For their age, they were in great shape. I think they regularly walked five miles a day. Anyway, they decided to go snowshoeing together and wandered off the mapped area. As best as the search and rescue people could tell, they walked onto a shelf of snow that looked solid but wasn’t. The shelf gave way and all three of them tumbled about four hundred feet down a slope. They landed on the rocks below, the grandmother died instantly.” Clint didn’t look at anyone as he was saying this, he just stared at a spot on the paneled wall that resembled an anteater. “The grandfather’s leg was broken; he was unable to walk. So, Russ went for help. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it more than half a mile before a storm overtook him.”

  His voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Russ stopped to get warm, or to rest, and ended up freezing to death. Search and rescue finally found the bodies of the grandparents a week later with the help of some folks who’d witnessed their station wagon heading down a logging road. When the S&R team found Russ, he was sitting upright with his knees tucked up against his chest, his face hidden in his coat.” Clint barked out a sharp laugh. “I tell you, that mental image haunts me to this day. I’ve often wondered…if more could’ve been done to find him before it was too late.” Without saying anything else, he returned to his seat.

  For a few long moments, there was silence in the room. Jensen found herself staring at Clint. This was a side to him she hadn’t seen before.

  As Tanner stepped up to thank Clint for his contribution and give everyone a preview of the agenda, she kept moving the scrap of paper between her fingers. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she’d never read what it had to say.

  Casually, she opened the note.

  Needing to come down off his confessional high, Clint chose Jensen’s face to focus on. Seeing her eyes grow impossibly wide in reaction to what he’d written made him smile.

  Fate brought us together
once more. There’s no way I’m leaving. FYI. I intend to kiss you again before the night is over.

  “I don’t think so,” she muttered under her breath. “I didn’t come here to play games with you.”

  Knowing she could hear him as well as he could hear her, Clint folded his arms and grinned. “We’ll see.”

  Jensen fumed at his whispered reply. We’ll see. Her mother used to use those words when she was sure she could control the outcome of whatever debate they were having.

  “All right…lady and gentlemen,” Tanner continued. “We’re going to take ten minutes to grab a cup of coffee, then dive right into our first exercise. At this point, you’ll team up with your tablemate. Canyon and Jonah. Zion and Adam. Clint and Jensen.”

  “What?” Jensen hissed. At her side Clint chuckled under his breath.

  Turning her head, she glared at him. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “Oh, I think it’s going to work just fine.”

  “We’ll see,” she fired his own words back at him.

  When everyone else rose and began to move around the room, Jensen took advantage of the opportunity, jumping from her seat to intercept Joseph. “Excuse me.”

  “Yes?”

  “Could I request a different teammate. Any of the others would do.”

  “Something wrong with Clint?” Joseph asked patiently, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

  “Uh, no,” Jensen muttered with a sigh. “I just don’t think we mesh.”

  “Why don’t you give him a chance? One of the lessons we endeavor to teach in this session is how to cope under difficult circumstances.” He gave her a sympathetic smile. “If things become too tense between you two, then come see me.”

  Great. “All right. Thanks.” For nothing.

  Returning to her seat next to Clint, she exhaled loudly.

  “He wouldn’t switch you to another partner?”

  His calm on-spot question just frustrated Jensen further. “No. Maybe if you asked?”

  “Why would I want to do that? I’m perfectly content with you.”

  “Why? Because you know I’m not content?”

  “Oh, just give me a chance. I know I can satisfy you,” he said as he leaned over the table, his arms resting on the smooth surface. “Remember?”

  A flash of desire swamped over Jensen, causing her cheeks to turn pink. God, yes. She remembered. “Stop it.”

  “Stop what? Turning you on?” He punctuated the question with a wicked smirk. When she just rolled her eyes at him, he chuckled. “How did you find out about this training?”

  “I’m friends with Libby McCoy. She told me about it.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he pointed his finger at Jensen. “The day of the tornado, you’d been to see Libby at Highlands.”

  “Yes. I was taking her home after a meeting.”

  Clint nodded with a knowing smile. “So, she told you about this group. I bet she told you I’d be here, didn’t she? That’s why you signed up.”

  “No.” Jensen disagreed. “That’s not what happened at all.” She pointed her finger at him. “Libby told you I’d be here, that’s why you signed up.”

  He opened his mouth in mock shock. “Don’t try to turn this around on me. You’re the one who keeps tracking me down. I bet you ran off the road and into that fence on purpose, just because you figured I’d be close behind.”

  “Oh, yea. I arranged for that tornado to come along at just the right moment to lure you to my side.”

  “Ha. Probably.” He knew he was teasing her unmercifully, but he couldn’t help it. There was something about the way she was acting that gave him hope she might not be as unhappy to see him as one might think. For him, the banter was a way to keep the lines of communication open. Yes, there was the great possibility she would just shut him down again. He guessed he was a glutton for punishment because that was a risk he was personally willing to take.

  “Not in this lifetime,” she hissed, refusing to give into the need to fan herself. Despite her better judgement, Jensen felt warm and excited. Several seconds passed while she stared into Clint Wilder’s eyes. His sparkling sexy eyes. “Believe me, I’d rather associate with any random skunk who came along rather than you.”

  “Oh, yea?” He knew he was taking his life in his own hands, but he just couldn’t resist it. “I think you’re just pretending to dislike me. Actually, my instincts tell me that you dream about me every night. You probably touch your…”

  “Hush!” As her heart rate spiked off the charts, Jensen gave him a look that would freeze lava. As a person who’d always suffered from a mild case of hypotension, she had to acknowledge the man was probably good for her low blood pressure. “Look, let’s just agree to stay out of one another’s way. Can we do that?”

  Clint refused to let the faint glimmer of hope he harbored die on the vine. “Might be easier said than done. This is supposed to be a team effort after all.”

  “Don’t remind me. At least you won’t be unsupervised.” Jensen felt her emotions going haywire. She needed to calm down and not let his presence send her spiraling out of control.

  Clasping a hand to his chest in fake distress, Clint whispered playfully, “Ah, you wound me, Jensen.”

  “I’d like to wound you,” she grumbled as Bowie came to the podium.

  “All right, folks. Our first task is to become proficient in compass and map reading.” He paused to see what kind of response he’d get. When his comment was met with anticipatory silence, he smiled. “Good. I hoped I wouldn’t get any groans of protest, because being able to read a compass and a map is super critical. Like I’m sure you learned in the online course, it’s not as easy as you might think.”

  Adam held up his hand. “This is probably a dumb question, but why not just use the compass and the GPS on your phone?”

  “That’s a good question and I have a good answer. In the wilderness, phone batteries will die, and service for your phone will be spotty to nonexistent. A compass and a map will always function and should be one of the ten essential items in your survival pack.” As he spoke he passed out compasses to everyone. “Similar to the one introduced in the computer simulation, this is a Suunto M-3 D, a baseplate style compass with a declination adjustment, optimized for use in forested or mountainous terrain where you can rarely see your destination.”

  Clint studied the clear plastic compass, running his finger over the smooth surface. “Have you ever used one of these before, Jensen?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I spend as much time as possible outdoors, but I’m embarrassed to say I rarely stray from the beaten path. How about you?”

  “I have a compass, but nothing like this one.” He spoke slowly, memories bombarding his mind. “My dad gave it to me when I was six. Compared to this one, it’s a toy.”

  “To put it simply,” Bowie began to speak again, “your compass shows magnetic north, the four cardinal points, and the numbered dial, called an azimuth displays 360 lines of direction called bearings. North resides at zero, East at 90 degrees, South at 180, and West at 270.”

  Zion shook his compass. “Wouldn’t you say 360 possible directions is a little bit of an overkill?”

  Bowie chuckled. “Not really. The farther you venture from your starting point, the greater the distance becomes between each of those lines. If you walk ten miles but veered ten degrees off-course, you’ll end up two miles on the wrong side of your destination.” He gave everyone a moment to study their instrument. “Now, box your needle by turning your azimuth dial until the fat orienting arrow lines encases the needle. You have to orient the compass in this manner for it to be of any use.” He waited until they all performed the task. “As you can see, the transparent breastplate is marked with a thin, forward-pointing arrow indicating the direction of travel. That arrow will prevent you from ever holding your compass backwards.”

  Canyon laughed. “Does that happen often?”

  “It has happened, unfortunately. Many people who die i
n the wilds do so because they get confused about the directions. They travel away from security because they have been, as they say, turned around or lost.” Holding up the compass, he pointed to one edge. “Also, rulers on each side of the baseplate will make it easy to measure distances on a map. Now, we’re ready to navigate.”

  Over the next half hour, he taught them how to use the compass. “You’ve all heard about trying to get one’s bearings – this is where that phrase came from. If you’re on a hill where you can see your destination but have to traverse a thick forest to get there, you can take a bearing from the hill with your compass and note it. Then, as you descend into the woods, the bearing will guide you until the destination becomes visible once more.”

  As Bowie talked, Clint noticed Jensen writing down every word he said. “Can I borrow your notes?” he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

  “I guess that’s how you made it through school, using someone else’s notes.”

  Clint didn’t respond, he just smiled. No use busting her bubble to admit he graduated with honors.

  After he finished with the compass, Bowie moved quickly to pass out a map. “This is called a topographical map where you can gauge the lay of the land and what lies ahead of you. With this tool, you can tell if there are obstacles between you and your destination.” He went over how to read the contour lines, how to determine the map’s scale, and how to interpret the legend. “If you’ll notice, you can clearly discern ridgelines, cliffs, and creeks. This will help you decide if you need to recalculate your route. Just remember, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points – unless there’s something blocking your path.” Bowie clapped his hands together, then began to pass around another hand-out. “Enough talk. Let’s take a ten-minute break and study this chart. Once we’ve finished our coffee, we’ll apply what we’ve learned by going on a short hike. Lost Pines is an extensive property and it borders one of our state parks. Even though we’re fairly close to civilization, there are some rough wilderness areas nearby that can provide quite a challenge. Each team will receive a different course to complete. Whoever follows the instructions and returns with their red flag first gets the prize. When we start out, remember to take the packs we’ve assigned you.”