by Anna Schmidt
“We have lights,” another of the students said, more to himself than to Rachel.
“Let’s go,” the third added as he took the knapsack that held his medical supplies and a large LED lantern from the truck. “If they can’t get him out, then maybe we can figure out how to get a man down there. If by some miracle he is still alive, then he’s got to be badly dehydrated.”
Rachel followed the group to where the rescuers stood helplessly off to the side as the woman repeated her son’s name over and over again, her voice now no more than a whisper.
After consulting with the rescue team, using Juan Carlos as their interpreter, one of the medical students edged his way carefully toward the opening. “You’re the nurse?”
Rachel nodded.
“Come with me.”
With every step, a trickle of pebbles tumbled down the slope. The young man would freeze waiting for everything to settle before pressing on. At the base of the pile, Rachel saw the workers setting up more lights and focusing the beams on the path that she and the medical student must take to reach the opening. Isabel sat up, watching them come.
“I cannot see him,” she said. “It’s so dark.”
At last, Rachel and the young doctor made it to the opening and sat down. “Then let’s throw a little light down there, okay?” He tied a rope to a thin but powerful flashlight and slowly lowered it into the crevice. The rescuers had not been kidding when they said the opening was impossibly narrow. There was no way that any of the men could make it down there.
“Raoul?” Isabel called. “The doctor is here now. Just hang on a little longer. The doctor will save you.”
“I can’t see anything,” the doctor admitted. He scooted to one side. “You try.”
Rachel settled herself between him and Isabel then lay prone as she edged her way over the lip of the crevice. The light swung like a pendulum as the med student lowered it as far as the rope allowed. She could see the boy. He was on his back, one leg straight and the other at an angle. His hands, white with the dust of the rubble that surrounded him, were resting against his chest. He wore a dark T-shirt and shorts.
Rubbing sweat from her own eyes, Rachel studied the boy, searching for signs of life that she prayed she might find. And then she thought she saw the slightest twitch of the boy’s eyelids and lips. Surely it was a mirage, a longing for the boy to have made it when there was almost no possibility that he could have. Please.
She waited, forcing her breathing to steady. Then, seeing no more signs of life, she considered how best to break the news to Isabel. Suddenly one of the boy’s hands moved toward his face—less than an inch—but this was no mirage. He’s alive, she thought incredulously. Never in her life had she witnessed a miracle. Yet this child had been lying at the bottom of this pit with no food or water for two days now, the extent of his injuries—especially the internal ones—unknown and still he was alive. She shouted the news to those gathered above her.
She sat up, felt Isabel grasp her shoulder, and then carefully lowered as much of her upper body as possible into the opening for a closer look. Now the boy’s hand was thrown across his eyes, so there was no doubt that he was alive.
“Raoul, lie still. We’re going to get you out,” she promised and closed her eyes tight for a moment as she sent up a prayer of thanksgiving. The odds against getting this child to the surface in time were still astronomical. It would take hours—perhaps days. Please. He’s made it this far. Don’t let us fail him now.
She felt a hand on her back and turned her head to find Isabel and the med student both leaning in close. “He’s really alive?”
Rachel nodded as she pulled herself back to the edge and faced Isabel. “Your son is alive,” she told her, “but he is very weak. We need to get him medical attention and fluids as soon as possible.”
Isabel nodded, her tears flowing freely now, her smile radiant even in the darkness that surrounded them. She leaned closer to the opening, her hand extended as if to touch her son so many feet below her. “We are coming, Raoul. I promise you … we will come.”
“Do you think we can get to him in time?” the medical student asked Rachel.
“We must. Isabel has given her son her promise, and we mothers do not make promises we cannot keep.”
By morning the trio of medical students had rigged up tubing by which they could send down a trickle of water for Raoul, but even in the rare moments when he was conscious the boy was too weak and disoriented to follow their instructions. An engineer was studying the area, trying to decide the best way to get to the boy without causing the rubble around him to collapse. And at the base of the earthquake-created hill, everyone else gathered to pray and sing, hoping to keep up the spirits of the rescuers as well as provide comfort for Raoul and Isabel.
Rachel could not stop thinking about the boy. The place where he lay was not so very deep. There was a jagged piece of concrete jutting out from a wall of rubble that prevented them from getting all the way down to where he lay. One of the medical students had actually climbed down to the thin ledge, but his report was not good. He had been unable to reach Raoul, and unless they could get past the barrier …
Rachel closed her eyes. There has got to be an answer, she prayed. Show us the way.
Two rescuers walked past her on their way back to their trucks to gather more supplies. “If we had a kid—a skinny kid …”
“You can’t ask any kid to go down there,” his companion argued. “What if the whole thing caves in? Then we’ve lost two kids, devastated two families.”
Rachel opened her eyes, pressing her palms down the front of her apron. Suddenly she stared down at her hands, stilling them on her body—her thin-as-a-boy’s body. Could she make it past the barrier? And if she could, wasn’t she the next best person to reach Raoul first? To administer the emergency care he so badly needed? To check him for injuries not readily evident from their vantage point at the top of the hole that held him?
“Justin!” She beckoned for her son to join her in the tent the staff used as their sleeping quarters. Inside the tent she pulled out a pair of her son’s jeans and a shirt. “Sit there,” she said, indicating the cot next to his. “I need to talk to you while I change.” She pulled closed the curtain that hung between cots to give herself a little privacy and began laying out her plan while she changed into Justin’s clothes.
“But Mom, it’s dangerous. Let me go.”
Rachel’s heart swelled with love for him. She pulled back the curtain, her change of dress causing his eyes to widen in surprise. “You are such a brave young man.”
“You look—different.” He glanced toward the top of her head and then to the starched white prayer covering lying on the cot.
“Ja.” She knelt next to him and took his hands in hers. “I have asked a great deal of you since your father died, Justin.”
“But …”
She pulled him close and stroked his hair as she continued, “And if you had not asked to come—to be a part of this youth mission, then just think … We would not have been here.”
“And you would not be doing this,” Justin argued.
“Time is wasting, Justin. Tell me you understand why I need to try.”
He sighed. “Because like Raoul’s mom or Sally’s, you can’t stand seeing any kid in trouble. It’s a mom thing.” His voice dripped with resignation. He straightened and faced her squarely. “But I’m going to be there and if there’s any chance at all that …”
“I’ll be tethered to a rope—they’ll pull me out if anything starts to go wrong,” she said.
“Promise?”
“Promise.” She waited. If he begged her not to go she wouldn’t. Justin had already lost one parent, and he was right to be concerned about the possible danger. “If you don’t want …”
“Maybe this is why we came here, Mom. Do you think maybe this is why God sent us here?”
She had never loved her child more than she did in that moment. “I don’t k
now. What does your heart tell you?”
“Go,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and held on. “Please come back safe, okay?”
To Rachel’s relief, Hester and the others from their church had gone to get their lunches in the mess tent when she made her way up to the opening on the rock pile. It was going to be a lot easier to convince the rescue team that she was the perfect candidate to go and get the boy than it would ever be to convince her friends.
And sure enough, they had already rigged her to the necessary climbing apparatus and begun to lower her into the hole when she heard Pastor Detlef’s stern voice. “Bring her out of there—now.”
She found her footing on the cleft of concrete and looked up. “It’s okay, Pastor. I’m here. Now what?”
On a separate rope, the medical team lowered down a canvas bag that they had packed with emergency medical supplies and water. Lying flat on her stomach, she lowered the bag past the jagged edges of her fragile platform and down to where Raoul lay. He was so still, and there had been almost no sign that he was still alive for hours now.
“Okay,” she reported, feeling the dust fill her lungs. “Going now.” She paused for a moment to gather her wits and heard the faint strains of a favorite Christmas carol sung in harmony. She smiled. It was Christmas Eve. Surely God would be with them on this of all days.
She was halfway between Raoul below her and the ledge above when the rope caught on one of the jagged edges. For an instant she was left dangling, swinging back and forth the way the flashlight had the night before. She was surrounded by the ominous sound of rock coming loose. Instinctively she covered her head with her arms as a trickle of stones and dust pelted her from above.
“That’s it,” she heard one of the medical students say. “This is too dangerous.”
Rachel swung her body over toward the place where the rope was caught, freed it, and landed with a thud inches from Raoul’s inert body. “I’m here,” she called up and immediately opened her bag and took out what she needed to check the boy’s vitals.
In an instant she was lost in her work, oblivious to her surroundings, focused only on calling out her findings, checking Raoul for injuries, and assessing his status. Using one of the clips from her climbing apparatus, she was able to hang a bag of fluids and get an IV started. He groaned a little when she poked him with the needle. She thought it was the most wonderful sound she had ever heard.
He was alive and with God’s help, he was going to make it. She pulled out a thin but strong nylon sheet the engineer had given her. “Once he’s got that first bag of fluids in him, then we can move him. Wrap him in this and then hitch the ropes to him like so,” he’d instructed her as they’d lowered her into the hole. “Hopefully we can get him through the crevice and past the concrete barrier. Once we accomplish that he’ll be home free, and we’ll send down the rope for you, okay?”
Rachel set the drip on the IV and then squatted against the rough wall to wait. Above her, she could hear Isabel praying the beads of her rosary.
She sat for a long moment, watching the fluid slowly drip down the tubing. And she thought about Ben. Where was he spending this Christmas Eve? Would anything about the season touch him, bring back memories of what his faith must have meant to him once? Sharon had told her how as a teenager Ben had been a real leader—at school and in the summer camp they had attended. “But not in our father’s church,” she had admitted sadly. “He and Dad never seemed to be on the same page.”
Finally, the IV bag was empty. Rachel pushed herself to her feet and unhooked the tubing, leaving the port so that once Raoul was brought to the surface he could continue to receive the vital fluids.
“Call the others. I’m getting him ready for the ascent,” she said.
It took the rescuers nearly half an hour to maneuver Raoul’s wrapped and upright body to safety. Then a shout of victory echoed around the opening and funneled down into the hole where she waited her turn to be brought up. She smiled and thanked God for this blessing. Then she heard another sound, nothing so soothing or consoling as the hymn singing or the shouts of celebration. No, this sound was a sharp crack followed by silence followed by a scattering of stones and dust falling from above.
Rachel turned to face the wall and covered her head with her arms when she heard a loud thundering noise that seemed to be coming directly at her. Seconds later she felt the scrape of something sharp and hard brush her shoulder and then land with a heavy thud inches from where she crouched. She waited an instant, aware that above her the celebration had gone silent, and now there were voices calling out for her as the hole around and above her filled with dust and falling debris.
In the sudden shadowy confines, she realized that if she hadn’t moved to where she now was, the heavy concrete slab that had broken loose and fallen would have landed right on her.
“Mom!” she heard Justin shriek.
“Rachel!” Hester sounded every bit as panicked.
Her throat was filled with dust and her bag with its bottled water and other supplies was buried beneath the huge piece of concrete. She coughed and tugged on the dangling rope. “Right here,” she croaked.
“Get her out of there now,” she heard Pastor Detlef order for the second time.
This time she hoped the others would listen to him.
Chapter 27
Justin had never in his life prayed as hard as he did that afternoon. He squeezed his eyes closed and kept them that way, allowing his ears to tell him what was happening with the rescue. A shout of joy from the rescue workers told him that the boy was alive.
“Thank you, God,” he murmured aloud. “Now please please please bring them both out of there alive.”
Was he asking for too much?
He felt Hester’s comforting hand on his shoulder, and then he heard another cry of relief from those gathered on the hillside. Opening his eyes, he saw rescue workers grab hold of the boy as he reached the opening. They carefully put him on a stretcher they’d had waiting, and two workers carried the stretcher down the hillside toward the medical tent.
But where was his mom?
Justin broke free of Hester’s grasp and started up the hill. “Mom?”
He heard a distant rumble like thunder, but it wasn’t coming from the sky. It was coming from the ground. Around him small avalanches of stones trickled down the hillside. “Mom!” he shouted and ran for the place where Pastor Detlef and others were leaning over the opening.
“Get back, Justin,” John Steiner ordered.
He looked worried and scared. “Is Mom …”
“She’s okay,” John said. “We have to figure out how to get her out of there.”
A thousand thoughts raced through Justin’s mind. What if they couldn’t get her out? What if she was trapped like the boy had been? What if they were too late?
“Mom?” he shouted and was grateful when everybody else stopped talking for a minute.
“I’m okay, Justin. Do what John tells you, okay? John and Hester will take care of you, okay?”
He tried to make sense of her words. Why would she say something like that? “Mom? You promised,” he shouted, and then he broke down in the tears he’d forced back ever since he’d watched her head up that hillside.
“You promised,” he sobbed as Hester wrapped him in her embrace.
Rachel thought her heart might actually break when she heard Justin calling out to her. It was hard not to cry out to God to stop her son’s suffering. But instead she closed her eyes and prayed the prayer she had known from childhood on. Thy will be done.
And after a moment she felt such a sense of peace wash over her. In spite of the fact that she was pretty certain that she had a broken arm and perhaps other injuries, she felt sure that whatever her fate might be, it was what would be best for Justin. She would keep her promise of giving him a better life.
Hester and John would take Justin if she didn’t make it out of here. Hester had told her as much once when they’d been t
alking about how hard things were for Justin without James.
“Thank You, God, for bringing Hester back into my life,” she murmured and then coughed because her throat and mouth were filled with the dust that continued to fall all around her. If this was to be her death then she was at peace because Justin would have a good life with Hester and John.
Suddenly she felt the rope she was holding grow taut, and her will to survive and care for Justin herself kicked into high gear. “I can climb the wall if you pull,” she called up to the men above her. It would be difficult with only one working arm, but she was determined to do it.
She planted her feet against the wall and squeezed her body past the barrier above. She felt the sharp rock rip her clothing and into her skin, but she was not going to let that stop her.
“Pull,” she called, and then she closed her eyes against the sudden brightness of the sun as she realized that she had finally reached the top.
She held out her good arm to John, wincing as pain shot through her other arm. “Thank you,” she whispered as John and another man pulled her the rest of the way out and helped her to a stretcher,
“Mom!”
Never in all her life had she heard a sound more sweet than Justin’s voice.
“Right here,” she answered, and as he buried his face against her chest, she cradled his head. “Right here as long as you need me,” she said.
On Christmas Day everyone stopped working to celebrate. Together they all sang carols and Pastor Detlef along with the local priest led services.
A few days later Justin and his mom and the others were at the San Jose airport. It all seemed like a world away from the little village as they waited for the plane that would take them back to Sarasota.
“Mom?”
“Right here,” she said, and patted his knee.