She, too, had been given much, and look what she’d accomplished. A useless term in office, the destruction of Gage’s livelihood . . . all because she’d been trying to prove something. Take control of her life, make sure it mattered.
That she was worth the effort God made to save her.
Ollie lay on his back, his mouth open, still sunk into slumber. She shucked off her jacket, wiped her hand across her cheek as she reached for the stove. She needed water, so she ducked her head outside and scooped up some nearby snow.
Gage didn’t look at her.
She could fix this—she just needed a minute to figure it out, to take it all apart . . .
“Sis?”
She looked up to see Ollie staring at her.
“You look upset.”
“I’m fine, Ollie. Go back to sleep. I’m getting breakfast made.”
“My head really hurts.” He winced.
“I don’t see why. It’s as hard as granite.”
She smiled at him, but he didn’t move, his eyes fixed.
“How bad is it?” she asked, leaning over him.
His body jerked, hard, and he started to flail.
“Ollie!”
She grabbed his arm, but it shook out of her grasp. His eyes rolled back. Then his entire body went rigid, arching up.
“Gage! Help! He’s having a seizure.”
But Gage was already there, appearing by her side. “Help me roll him to his side, in case he vomits,” he said, his voice calm. He put his hands on Ollie’s shoulders. “Get his head.”
She fought to control her breath as she steadied Ollie’s head. “What’s the matter with him?” She smoothed Ollie’s hair back.
“I don’t know,” Gage said. “Could be from the head injury. Maybe a stroke—”
“A stroke! He was fine! He talked to me just a few seconds ago!”
“I don’t know, Ella.” Gage pressed his fingers to Oliver’s neck, against the carotid artery. Timed it against his watch. “His pulse is a little high.”
Ollie’s body suddenly went limp.
“Let’s roll him onto his back.”
She held his head and they rolled him to his back. Gage opened his eyes. “Pupils are reactive, but slow. One is more dilated than the other.”
“What does that mean?”
He sat back on his haunches. “It could be a brain bleed.”
A brain bleed? Her voice cut low. “He was fine. He was laughing last night and—he just asked me if I was okay.”
Gage looked up at her then, as if registering her words. She looked away.
Silence passed between them.
Then Gage said, “We need to get him to help ASAP.”
“How are we going to do that?”
He ran a hand across his forehead. “We can’t wait for the PEAK team. I don’t know when they’ll get here.” He looked at her. “We’ll have to get creative.”
She just stared at him.
“We can make a stretcher out of the sleeping bags, reinforce it with the tent poles. But I’ll need help carrying him out.”
She nodded.
“We’ll take the trail I took last night, get out to the ridge, call PEAK, and get an extraction.” He was already moving toward the door. “Let’s get him inside the bag. Get his helmet on him. I’ll work on creating a litter.”
He disappeared out of the tent.
“Oh Ollie, stay with me. Please be okay.” Her hands shook as she tucked Ollie into Gage’s sleeping bag and zippered it up. His head wound hadn’t looked that bad. Still, she had a memory of that destroyed helmet.
She clipped on his helmet, then cinched the sleeping bag drawstring around his face. He looked like a mummy, frail, his skin pale.
Gage came back inside. “Okay, I found a couple long branches that should work.”
She hadn’t a clue what he was talking about and could only watch as he took her sleeping bag and pulled it back outside.
“Grab my pack, Ella. I need the ropes and carabiners.”
She pushed the pack out of the tent, then climbed out and brought it over to him. The sunrise turned the snow to gray shadows tipped in gold. The fire had died down. Gage crouched next to a couple thick branches about the width of her wrist. He had unzipped the bottom of her bag, leaving the rest attached, and now took both poles and shoved them into the bag. “He can lie in the middle, and it’ll make a sort of sling for him,” Gage said without looking at her.
She handed him her pack, and he set it on the ground, then dug out the rope he’d used to secure their tent to the rock. “We’ll strap him in. And then we’ll just have to do our best not to jar him.”
Much. He didn’t add that, but she felt it in the quick, grim look he gave her.
“Help me get him out.”
She climbed into the tent, grabbed Ollie’s feet as Gage took his shoulders. They grunted, easing Ollie out of the tent.
Only when they had him settled on the makeshift litter did she look up and see the cloud cover. “Is it going to snow?”
“It might. Or it might pass us, but we need to get going.” He had strapped Ollie into that stretcher, running the rope around his shoulders, across his body, down to his feet. Roughly three feet of branch length emerged from the top.
Then he took his ski poles and ran them horizontally across the top. Secured them with webbing from his bag.
“Are we going to carry him?” Ella asked, moving her hand over Ollie’s nose and mouth to make sure he was still breathing.
“We’ll ski him out.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How—”
“We’ll need his board.” He grabbed Ollie’s board and set it beneath the lower end of the stretcher, binding the board to the bottom. “It’ll flow over the snow better.”
Finally, he took her backpack and unclipped the straps. These, he secured to the rope near Ollie’s feet. “This is for you to hold on to, to help guide him down in case things go south. We’ll have to leave the pack behind, but be sure and grab anything out of it you need. You can add it to my pack.”
She stared at the makeshift stretcher, and her brother strapped into it like something out of a survival reality show, and shook her head. “This is crazy, Gage. We can’t carry him out on this.”
Gage was dismantling the tent in record time. He shoved it into its tiny carrier, then packed it in his bag.
Now, he stood up, buckled his pack on. “Did you get everything from your pack?”
She nodded and turned to get her board, but he caught her arm.
She looked up, met his eyes.
And whatever hurt, whatever anger he’d held in them before, had vanished. Instead, he wore a look of dark determination. “Trust me, Ella. I’ll get him home safely.”
She nodded. Because it didn’t matter if she deserved it or not, Gage was a hero.
And she trusted him with everything inside her.
That had never been her problem, really. It was getting him to trust her.
“I do,” she said.
He drew in a breath, nodded.
He tried PEAK one last time before he dropped his board at the head of the stretcher. He clipped in his boots, then picked up the ends of the branches, holding Ollie up in his grip. Ollie’s head was raised to nearly waist height.
She stepped up behind him, grabbed the webbing. The sun was just starting to hover over the eastern rim of the earth, gilding the snow.
Tiny flurries swirled in the sunlight, probably whisked up by the wind.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Just stay in my line and we’ll all get down this mountain in one piece.”
16
PLEASE, GOD, let me not be killing Ella’s brother.
The prayer simply bubbled up, more like a moan of desperation as Gage wound his way toward the ridge. He’d tried to make the ride as smooth as he could for Oliver, but the trail he’d cut last night was designed for speed, not comfort.
He tried to cushion the jarring of the drops between tre
es with his knees and arms. Occasionally, Ella, behind him, let out a tiny gasp of terror, but she stayed on his line without a word.
His entire body ached. And not just from the fatigue of staying up most of the night, but . . . he longed to rewind this day, back to last night. To before her revelation of her betrayal.
They came to a clearing, the morning sun turning the snow to crystal, the powder thick, save the groove he’d made through it last night. He skidded to a stop, breathing hard.
Oops, too fast, because Ella slid up behind him, nearly tumbling over into the stretcher, bypassing it with a quick cut, a spray of powder.
“Gage!”
“Sorry, I should have given you warning.” He set Oliver down, rolled his shoulders.
She glanced at him. “No, it’s fine.” She fell to her knees, scooted over to Oliver. “He’s still out. But he’s breathing.”
He pulled out his walkie and put in a test call. No answer.
She pushed herself up. “How far are we from the ridge?”
“Maybe another hour, at the speed we’re going.”
He sort of expected her to press him to go faster, but she just nodded, her mouth grim.
He couldn’t take it. “Ella, listen, about this morning. I was just . . . you just . . .” What? Because suddenly he ached to put it behind them. Wasn’t that his hope in moving home, to Mercy Falls? To break free of his mistakes?
You’re not the only one whose life was destroyed over it.
Maybe not like his, but clearly neither of them had emerged unbroken.
And he was tired of looking over his shoulder, of trying to piece together his life.
I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.
Yes, that’s what he wanted to say, wanted to cross the distance to her, pull her into his arms.
Start over, like the pristine grace of a fresh snowfall.
She shook her head. “Let’s just get Ollie down, and then I promise I’ll never bother you again.”
Right. Priorities.
Still. “You’re not a bother, Ella,” he said, and picked up Oliver.
Her eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m completely a bother.” She picked up the tail end. “Let’s go.”
He urged his board forward and started down again slowly through the trees. The sun bled through the shaggy pines, fingers of shadow pressing on the powder between glimpses of golden light. Such silence sliding through the trees like this—nothing but the swish of their boards. He loved freeriding, getting lost between the trees.
Maybe, someday, he could start over.
Oh, who was he kidding? The accident and the lawsuit shattered his pro career. No sponsor would take him now . . .
And yet, a little voice he couldn’t help hearing whispered, So? He liked his life with PEAK Rescue. Liked saving lives. No, he couldn’t change the past, make Ella break her confidentiality, and resurrect his career. He could only choose what he did next.
What if he just . . . forgave her? No one was forcing him to hold this grudge, to hate her for not sacrificing herself for him.
She cared for him. And just a couple hours ago, he was sure he loved her.
He felt the change in the wind even before they reached the ridge. Sharp and frigid, it thundered up his jacket, turned his overheated body into a shiver.
They came out to the ridge, the snow sweeping off it into the drop below. This time, Ella came up slowly, as if sensing the danger.
The sun had risen and now turned Crystal Point and the Going-to-the-Sun Range a glorious, snow-capped lavender. But the wind buffeted his helmet, his jacket, raising the collar. No way PEAK would be able to bring the chopper in.
He made the call anyway. “PEAK HQ, this is Watson, come in. Over.”
Almost instantly he heard Jess’s voice. “Watson, PEAK HQ. We’ve been trying to reach you. The chopper is a no-go. We’ve sent Ty and Pete in on snowmobiles. Over.”
“When?”
“Two hours ago. They’re planning on meeting you at the base of Bishops Cap. Over.”
“Wilco. Are you in radio contact?”
“Roger.” She gave him the frequency.
“We’ll ski along the ridge, then down the northern edge of Bishops Cap. If I can’t get ahold of them, tell them to look for us on the eastern wall.”
“Wilco. How’s Oliver?”
“Not good. He had a seizure. How’s Bradley?”
“Your dad operated on him last night. Says he’ll be fine.”
He glanced at Ella, who was standing away, listening, her arms wrapped around her waist.
“Okay, we’ll see you in a few. Watson out.”
He slipped the walkie back into his pocket. Met Ella’s gaze. “You can do this.”
She nodded.
Then he knelt by Ollie, took off his glove, and took his pulse.
Regular, if not a bit fast, but it bothered Gage that Oliver hadn’t woken up. Maybe if he had more than EMT training, he’d know what to do.
He put his glove back on. “Let’s go. Pete and Ty are on their way on snowmobiles.”
She moved over to the back of the stretcher.
“Listen, we’ll take it slow along this ridge—it’s pretty steep, but we’ll skirt the trees. It’ll come out on Bishops Cap.”
She nodded. “I’m with you.”
He hated how much he wished that were true.
He picked up the stretcher, his shoulders burning, but started the slide across the ridge, along the cornice. His thighs burned as gravity and the wind fought to push them over the edge.
He heard Ella breathing hard behind him and realized that she was probably in agony, holding onto the rope as if to slow them down.
This wouldn’t work once they reached Bishops Cap. The steep, nearly straight-down face would push the stretcher down on top of Gage, regardless of his strength. And Ella couldn’t hold it back.
Unless . . .
He had it worked out by the time they topped the cornice at the peak of Bishops Cap. A painfully steep drop, edged on one side by runnels of granite, and along the other side by another deep bowl. The snow glistened pure and unblemished, deceptive. When Gage had taken his epic run, he’d run the bowl fast, cutting hard the entire way down. But he’d never manage that with their makeshift stretcher.
“Ella, do you think you can cut a line down this?”
He glanced at her, and she let go of the rope, unbuckled one boot, and skated up next to him. Stared over.
He said nothing, but he hoped she read in his words exactly what he meant.
I trust you.
To cut a line, yeah, but also to help him figure out tomorrow. How to be the guy who made the right choices and didn’t let his mistakes take him down, but turned them over to God.
Maybe even to trust God, believe that he had something good for Gage.
So he let his question hang in the air.
She turned to him, finally. “I think so. Why?”
“We’re going to go down this backward. I’ll turn him around, go behind you. You guide us down.”
A flare of panic, or perhaps just doubt, flashed in her eyes. But she turned again to the slope. “Okay, let’s do this.”
And right then, all the residual anger broke away. Ella might have been the woman who’d stood against him three years ago, but she’d done it because she’d been trapped, just like him.
It was time to set them both free.
“You can do this, Ella. And this time, I’ll be right behind you.”
She blinked at him, then nodded and gave him a whisper of a smile. Then she knelt beside Oliver. “I am believing you can hear me, Ollie. You’re going to be okay. Just hang on.” Then she pressed a kiss to his forehead.
He frowned, began to squirm.
“Oliver?” Gage knelt beside him, too, raised an eyelid.
Pupils reactive to the light. Oliver groaned. “Leave me alone.”
“Not quite, pal,” Gage said.
Oliver opened his eyes,
looked around, clearly confused.
Ella leaned into his line of vision. “Ollie, it’s okay. You had a seizure. But we nearly have you down the mountain—just hang on, okay?”
He frowned again, fear in his eyes.
“You’re in good hands,” Gage said, meaning Ella, but she nodded.
“Gage will get you down.”
He looked over at her, then back to Oliver. “No, we will get you down.”
Oliver swallowed, and his eyes fluttered closed.
Gage stepped in front of the stretcher, turned, and grabbed the stretcher in a dead lift. Wow, Oliver had gained ten pounds in the last five minutes.
Ella took the front end line.
“Big, sweeping turns, okay?”
She nodded. Then with a smile she said, “Try and stay in my line.”
No problem.
Just go slow. Ella kept the words in her head, turning them over and over as she slid down Bishops Cap. Steeper than it looked in the pictures online, the face was more a spoon, dropping fast into a long run at the bottom.
She just had to make it down the face. She gripped the line, guiding the stretcher on the thin board, glancing back now and again at Gage, who braked with everything he possessed, trying not to run her over. He had to be in agony, his legs on fire.
And it was up to her to guide them home. “No, we will get you down,” he’d said to Ollie.
It was the first time he’d said that—we, together, like a team.
She didn’t know what to do with the confusion stirring inside her.
The wind whipped off the edge of the bowl, and it caught her, threw her off balance. She held out her arms, fighting for control, her legs shaking. If she went over the edge of the lip, she’d fall into the next bowl.
And that one boasted a cornice just waiting to collapse.
She made her turn, wide and gentle, brought the makeshift sled around, and traversed her way across the bowl, the other direction, toward the ridge.
“You’re doing great!”
Gage’s voice carried on the wind, and she glanced back at him. He held up the sled as if he’d been lifting weights his entire life. Nodded at her. “But keep your eye on the slope!”
Right. She skidded toward the next turn, took it easy and wide. Gage followed her.
See, this wasn’t so hard. Just one turn at a time, not unlike how she’d slarved Angel’s Wings.
A Matter of Trust Page 24