by Dinah McCall
Mike shifted his backpack, moved his flashlight to his other hand and followed right behind her.
“It’s too damned dark to be walking,” James said.
Deborah didn’t respond.
Mike glanced back at his dad, who shrugged. They walked for a few minutes more, then Mike felt the need to comment.
“I can’t see where I’m going,” he muttered.
Deborah stopped. There was anger in her movements as she swept the trio with the beam from her flashlight. They were quite a group. James, who was the oldest, had snow and ice frozen to the stubble on his face. Evan’s eye patch, which had started out black, was frosted over so thickly that it was almost the same color as his pale face. Mike’s cheeks were burned a deep, angry red—she supposed from the bite of the winter wind—but his eyes still burned with something close to a glare.
She sighed.
“Can the three of you see me?” she asked.
They nodded.
“Then that’s all you need to worry about.”
“What? You trying to tell us that you can see in the dark?” Mike fired at her.
“I’m not seeing…I’m feeling. It’s like someone has a rope around my waist and is slowly pulling me upward. All I’m doing is following the pull. If you want to find your boy, then shut up and follow me, because I swear to God, he’s what’s at the other end of that rope.”
Evan didn’t need to be told twice. He knocked the snow from the treads of his boots and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m right behind you.”
Mike and James could do nothing less.
Deborah turned around and resumed her march.
There was a bit of muttering to one another from behind her, but she paid them no mind. She knew what she knew, and there wasn’t time to waste on explaining the process.
They’d been walking for almost an hour when Deborah suddenly picked up the pace. There was an urgency in her steps that the men couldn’t help but notice. Not a one of them could bring himself to ask why. So when she suddenly stopped, they stopped, too, holding their breath and waiting to see what came next.
The whistle. It had been echoing in her mind all along, but now she couldn’t hear it anymore. She didn’t want to think what that meant. She began to pace back and forth, and then suddenly stopped and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
Deborah’s shoulders slumped.
“The whistle…I don’t hear it anymore.”
“Oh, God,” Evan said, then covered his face with his hands and dropped, as if his knees had just given way.
“What can we do?” Mike asked.
Deborah was slightly surprised by the calmness in his voice.
“We can’t stop looking,” she said.
“We can’t see a damn thing in the dark. We could walk right past them and never know it,” James muttered.
“I’d know it,” Deborah said.
Mike hesitated, then offered, “If Deborah says she can do it, I’m game.”
Deborah was surprised that he seemed to be taking her side, but she was concerned about Evan. She wasn’t sure he could go on.
She knelt beside him. He was so thin and so drawn. She could feel his suffering.
He looked up. Deborah resisted the urge to put her arms around him. He wanted to cry. She couldn’t afford to let him give way.
Instead, she dug through her backpack and handed him a piece of jerky, then stood up and handed each of the other men a piece, as well.
As they watched, she took one more piece from her pack and began eating it, biting, then chewing slowly, as if to get the most nutrition possible from the cured meat.
James took a bite; then his eyebrows arched approvingly. “This is good stuff. Did you make it?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to give me your recipe. Trudy and I always—”
The moment he mentioned his wife, his voice stopped short and died. The other men knew why. Deborah sensed a sadness in James O’Ryan but wisely didn’t comment.
“It’s simple enough. I’ll be happy to share it,” she said, then put a hand on Evan’s shoulder.
“Can you do this?” she asked.
“Hell, yes,” he said. “You’re the one who stopped, not me.”
She laid a hand on his knee, then gave it a brief pat.
“All right. Everyone up.”
As soon as they were all upright, she turned to face them.
“Here’s the deal. It’s no longer safe to walk any way but single file. You need to walk directly behind me so that no one has a misstep and falls off the mountain.”
Mike’s first instinct was to argue. It wasn’t in him to let a woman do the hard work while he stood back and watched.
“Okay,” he said. “But while you’re claiming to be psychic, remember you’re also the one who ran into the tree.”
Deborah stifled a smile as she wiggled her nose. “It was just a branch,” she said. “And while we all know I can’t see in the dark, this is still my mountain. I know where I am…more or less. It would be safer to wait until morning, but I don’t think Molly and Johnny have the time to waste. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong, but it’s difficult to stay connected with them.”
A fierce frown darkened Mike’s expression. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I’m right behind you. Evan, we’re trading places, and don’t argue.” Then he pointed at James. “Dad, keep an eye on him.”
James put an arm around his grandson’s shoulders and gave him a brief hug.
“I can do that,” he said gruffly.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Evan said.
“No. What you need is a doctor,” Mike said sharply.
“That’s enough talk,” Deborah said. “Let’s go, and don’t forget to stay directly behind me.”
7
The luminous dial on James O’Ryan’s digital watch registered just after midnight. Twice he’d had to catch Evan as he staggered from exhaustion, and he was just at the point of telling that damned woman she was going to have to slow down when she suddenly stopped.
Ever since the quartet had started up the mountain, Deborah’s sense of urgency had not let up. Her feet were so cold that she’d long since lost feeling in her toes, and her face felt like a block of ice. If she had to change expression, she was pretty sure her face would break.
Because of the urgency, she’d moved without care or thought for the three men behind her, reacting to the inner voice that was leading her through the dark.
Once she tripped on something buried under the snow and fell flat on her face. It didn’t help the pain she was already suffering from being hit by the branch. However, within seconds, James and Mike yanked her up by the arms and set her back on her feet. She didn’t know that her nose was bleeding again, or that she’d busted her lip, because she was too cold to feel the moisture.
Mike saw the blood and winced, but said nothing. Instead, he took out his handkerchief, took off his gloves and proceeded to wipe the blood off her upper lip. Then he handed her the handkerchief, put his gloves back on and kept moving.
Deborah was silent but thoughtful as they continued upward. This was twice now that he’d picked her up and put her back on her feet. And twice she’d felt the growing connection to this man. She didn’t know how this was going to turn out, but she knew that when these men left, she was never going to be the same.
One hour, then another, passed, and she feared that no matter how fast they moved, they were going to be too late.
Then they walked into a clearing, and Deborah felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. All the air was gone from her lungs. It was a feeling she’d had many times before—like hitting a wall, unable to go any farther.
And she knew what it meant.
They were here. Somewhere in the dark, probably buried beneath the snow, was the little boy who needed her.
She held up her hand to signal silence, the
n began turning in a slow, steady circle, aiming her flashlight around the clearing. Although the snow had stopped falling, the night was dark, without so much as a sliver of moonlight by which to see. Again she stopped, her head tilted, as if she were listening to something they couldn’t hear.
“What’s up now, lady?” James asked.
Evan swayed on his feet, then pushed past the men to get to Deborah. He grabbed her by the shoulders. His eye was bloodshot, and he had a two-day growth of iced whiskers on his face. There was a muscle twitching at the edge of his mouth, and his lips were so cold it was all he could do to form words.
“Where is my son?”
Deborah’s eyes widened, as if she’d suddenly remembered she wasn’t alone; then she shrugged out of Evan’s grasp.
“They’re here, they’re here,” she mumbled. “I don’t see them, but I know they’re here.”
“Here?” Evan asked, then aimed his flashlight around the small clearing as his voice broke. “There’s nothing here but snow and trees.”
“They’re here, damn it! Help me look.”
Mike joined in, shining his flashlight into the darkness, catching nothing but brief glimpses of the thick stand of pines as Evan began calling out to his son.
“Johnny! Johnny! It’s Daddy! Where are you?”
“Johnny! Molly!” Deborah called. “I can’t see you, but I know you’re here. Johnny…I can’t hear the whistle! Blow the whistle for me!”
Molly was dreaming. She was sure of it. It had to be a dream, because she could hear voices calling her name. In her dream, she opened her eyes. To her dismay, she could see nothing. Either it was night or she’d gone blind.
The child was still in her arms. But he was so still and so cold. She started to call out, then realized there was something in her mouth. Something hard and cold and frozen to her lips.
The whistle.
It had to be the whistle.
She had a vague memory of blowing it for the boy, but he wasn’t talking anymore, and she wanted to go back to sleep.
“Blow the whistle!”
She flinched.
“Johnny! Molly! Blow the whistle!”
Molly frowned. She hadn’t imagined it. Someone was calling her name. She tried to answer back, to call “Help, please help,” but that whistle was in the way.
So she blew.
Once.
Twice.
Then again and again. Every inhalation drew oxygen into her lungs, and every exhalation went out through the whistle frozen to her skin.
Deborah gasped. “Did you hear that?”
“Hell, yes, I heard that!” Mike cried as he flashed his light around the area.
Evan began running from one side of the clearing to the other, shouting Johnny’s name.
The shrill sound of the whistle mingled with the searchers’shouts, echoing from one side of the clearing to the other and distorting the origin.
Suddenly Deborah’s instincts focused on a large mound of snow beneath a pair of dead trees.
“There!” she cried, pointing toward a large snowdrift.
The men converged on the site, then dropped to their knees and began digging. Deborah circled the drift and began digging from the other side. Within seconds, they all realized that it wasn’t a solid drift of snow after all, but a large, snow-covered limb with branches cupping the ground. Even stranger was the fact that the tree was an oak, but the branches on which the snow had collected were evergreen.
Mike’s heart skipped a beat. This was a man-made shelter, and from the appearance of the limbs, a recent one. He dug through the snow in desperation, praying for a miracle but fearing the worst.
Evan was the first one to break through. He thrust both hands deep into what he thought was snow, lost his balance and went facedown. With snow up his nose and snow in his eyes, he pushed himself up.
“It’s not a drift!” he yelled. “There’s open space here. Shine a light. Shine a light! I can’t see what I’m doing.”
Deborah jumped up and circled the area, then aimed her flashlight directly into the dark opening. At that moment everyone went silent, afraid to see what was in there, yet unable to turn away.
The quiet was startling and unexpected, and everyone’s fears all went to the same place. Had they come this far only to be too late?
Evan’s heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he didn’t know the whistling had stopped. The moment the light had shone down into the opening, he saw something he would never forget. The whistle that he’d given his son was frozen to a young woman’s lips. But where was Johnny?
“Johnny! Johnny!” he cried, and began pulling at the snow-dusted blankets covering the woman’s body.
Within seconds he saw the back of a child’s parka. He grabbed at the coat and pulled. The woman moaned. To his horror he realized that the chain holding the whistle was still around Johnny’s neck, so if he picked up his son, he would rip the whistle from her mouth, taking skin and flesh with it. To get to Johnny, he had to separate the whistle from Molly’s lips. He tried to slip the chain over Johnny’s head but didn’t have enough space in which to work.
“Oh, God…Dad…somebody…help me move this branch.”
“Let me,” James said. He stepped in front of the drift, slid his arms beneath the limb and stood abruptly, breaking it free from the icy ground and tossing it aside.
Now they could see what the branches and the snow had hidden.
The woman and child were wrapped in each other’s arms and covered with a couple of small blankets. Immediately Mike recognized them as the kind used on airlines for passenger comfort. The young woman was probably beautiful, but it was hard to see past the gashes and bruising on her face.
“God…Dad…” Evan muttered as he viewed her injuries. Johnny was similarly hurt, but he had no way of knowing whether either one of them had any broken bones or internal injuries. In fact, he didn’t even know if Johnny was still breathing, because it was obviously the woman who’d been blowing the whistle.
“Johnny? Can you hear me, son?” Evan said. “It’s me, Daddy. I found you, just like I promised, and I’ve come to take you home.”
The little boy’s eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t speak. The silence was frightening.
“That whistle is frozen to her lips,” Evan muttered.
James thrust his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out a small flask.
“Here,” he said. “But be careful where you pour. Don’t want to choke her on the stuff.”
Mike looked up at his dad and arched an eyebrow as he took the flask.
“What?” James asked. “You never know when a good shot of Kentucky bourbon will be needed. Besides, it doesn’t freeze, all right?”
“Let me have it,” Evan said, and quickly unscrewed the lid. Carefully, he held the flask to Molly’s lips and poured. Drop by drop the liquor fell onto her mouth, until there was enough moisture to unstick the whistle. He handed the flask back, then yanked off his gloves. Gently, he rubbed the liquor on her lips and around the whistle until it finally came loose.
“All right,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, and leaned down to lift Johnny up.
To his shock, the young woman suddenly grabbed his arm. Her grip was strong—far stronger than he would have imagined. When he looked at her face, his heartbeat stuttered to a momentary stop.
She was staring up with a fierce, protective glare. It never occurred to him that all she saw was the silhouette of a man backlit by a small halo of light, or that she might think he was a threat, not a rescuer.
“Don’t touch him!” she cried.
Evan fought back tears at the depths to which a stranger would go to protect his child.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “I’m Evan O’Ryan. I’m Johnny’s dad.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief as she ran a gloved hand across the place on her lips where the whistle had been. Then she reached up and touched his face.
“Is th
is a dream?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “We’re real. All of us. Now, rest easy. We’re going to help you. Is either one of you too injured to walk?”
“No,” Molly said, then pointed to Johnny. “But something’s wrong with Johnny. He isn’t talking to me anymore.”
Evan gazed down at his son, then quietly picked him up. For a moment he just held him close, cheek to cheek. It was difficult to believe that this long-legged child was the little toddler he’d left behind.
“Johnny, can you hear me? It’s Daddy.”
Johnny was so cold—and so still. Fear made Evan hold his son that much tighter. “We’ve got to get him warm,” he said.
“My house isn’t far,” Deborah said.
“Are you serious?” Evan asked.
“Absolutely,” Deborah said. “We can be there in less than an hour.”
“Then let’s do it,” James said, and reached down and helped Molly up before shouldering their packs.
“Oh!” Molly cried, as she put weight on her leg.
“I’m Mike O’Ryan, Johnny’s grandfather,” Mike said as he steadied her on her feet. “I can carry you, if need be.”
“No, I can walk. I’m just cold and stiff,” Molly said.
Mike turned around and found himself staring straight into Deborah Sanborn’s eyes.
“You did it,” he said softly. “God bless you, woman. You saved my son’s sanity and my grandson’s life.”
“They’re not safe yet,” she said. “We need to get them warm.”
Mike’s gaze softened as he brushed snow from the side of her face. “And we will, thanks to you.”
“What about your friend Tony? We need to let him know we’ve found them,” James said.
“Cell phones won’t work in these woods,” Deborah said. “Wait until we get to my house.”
Mike nodded, then turned and gave Evan a close look.
“Son, let me carry Johnny for you.”
But Evan wasn’t budging. “Thanks, Dad, but I’ve got him.”
Mike frowned. “Just let me know if you need help.” Then he glanced at his dad. “Ready?”
James nodded. “As I’ll ever be. Let’s go find a fire.”