by Jen Blood
“Okay. Now we can go.”
“Good enough,” Hogan said. “God forbid we bring one of your dogs back less than ecstatic.”
I snuck a side glance at him, and noted just a trace of a smile. Small as it was, it was a relief to me. I’d worked with Hogan on a couple of searches when he was with the state police, back when I was doing search and rescue on the side while working for Brock. That was nearly ten years ago. What I remembered most about those days, apart from how much he cared about his job, was his sense of humor. Verbal sparring had come with the territory back then, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether the change I saw now was a result of the years apart, or something more immediate was affecting him.
As we talked, I shone my flashlight beam around us. We’d strayed farther from the path than I’d intended while searching for Jack. To my left, I spotted a plastic orange marker wrapped around the branch of a spruce tree, its branches heavy with fresh snow. When I shone my flashlight to the right, however, expecting to find another marker, the trees were empty. I paused.
The search team working the grid area adjacent to ours had used blue ties to indicate where they’d searched, while Jack and I had used orange. Right now, though, I didn’t see either blue or orange ties. Strange. I made a mental note to mention it once we were back at base, then pushed it out of my head in favor of the thought of a blazing fire, warm food, and a soft bed.
I’d no sooner had the thought than Casper froze where he stood, nose up, then turned toward me with the same intensity he’d shown during our game a few minutes before. He barked at me, his gaze this time fixed to the west – the exact area where I’d noted the absence of plastic ties.
“Where are we?” I asked Hogan. “I’m not seeing any markers around here. I thought Michelle’s team was supposed to cover this area.”
“There’s a ravine not far from here. If Jack had gone another twenty feet looking for a hiding place, he would have found a hundred-foot drop instead.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that before we started the game?” Jack asked.
Hogan shrugged. “You’re a smart guy. I figured you’d notice before you hit the end of the world.”
“So no one searched the ravine?” I pressed. At my feet, Casper was growing more and more agitated, his body tense and his focus locked on some invisible point in the distance.
“I don’t know,” Hogan admitted. “I assumed the IC sent a team out here, but it’s not an easy trail to get down. He may have figured that if somebody fell down there…” He faded. “It wouldn’t be an easy drop to survive,” he summarized.
Regardless, there was no question that Casper was locked on scent now, and it seemed to be coming from the direction of the ravine.
“What are you saying?” Hogan asked, new energy in his voice. “You think they’re down there? We had our team do flybys – they didn’t see anyone.”
Casper tugged at the leash once more, impatient. If it was as treacherous as Hogan made it sound, there was no way I’d risk letting Casper off leash for this part of the search. I switched out his regular leash for a ten-foot length of rope we used for training, my own pulse rate climbing.
Before we set out, Hogan radioed Michelle to let her know our plan.
“Are you sure about this?” Michelle asked, her voice a tinny echo on the radio. “How solid is Casper, over?”
I looked at my dog. His stubby ears were pointed forward, his body leaning into the harness in a desperate effort to move me along.
“I’m not positive,” I replied, leaning in when Hogan shifted the radio to me. “He looks solid, though. Over.”
There was what seemed like an endless pause before Michelle replied. “Careful. I’m sending fresh teams to the southern quad. Be there in ten to lend a hand. Over and out.”
I looked at Hogan once she was gone. “Looks like we have the go-ahead,” I said. “Okay?”
“If Hunter might be down there, you’ve got my blessing,” he said. I glanced at him, and watched his face change when he realized what he’d said. “Megan, I mean. I call her Hunter – because it’s her last name. And the others. All the women who are missing,” he amended awkwardly.
“Sure,” I said. I shifted my focus to Jack. “If you’d rather head back to the lodge, I understand. You don’t have to come.”
He smiled. He looked tired, but I could tell he was excited at the possible break. “You’d really drag me all over this mountainside and then send me home just when it’s getting good?”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Let’s do this.”
Buoyed by his enthusiasm and the prospective find, I knelt in front of Casper and cupped the dog’s block head in my hands.
“You need to be careful this time, okay, boy?” I said. “Bear would never forgive me if I let something happen to you.”
I got a big, enthusiastic lick on the cheek for my concern, followed by an impatient bark. Come on already, I could practically hear him say.
“Okay, Casper. Okay.” I straightened, gripped the lead tighter, and prepared myself to get hauled through the woods and, potentially, down a mountain. “All right – find them!”
I let him go. And boy oh boy, did that dog go.
Chapter 7
THE MOUNTAINSIDE WAS LIT like a New York City block in December within just a few minutes of alerting the higher-ups of our potential find. Helicopters hovered above as best they could in rising winds, spotlights shining into the trees. Other search teams set up spotlights on the ground, spaced evenly around the rim of the ravine. Casper ignored all the action, having no need for all that hubbub so long as he had his nose and a dog’s keen night vision. For my part, I was grateful for both the lights and the company.
At the edge of the ravine, I pulled Casper up short. All around us, searchers called the names of the missing.
“Megan! Violet! Ava! Shonda!” On and on it went, interrupted by the occasional bark of another search dog on the scent.
Over the course of the night, the state police had arrived, and Hogan told Jack and me that they were hard at work trying to piece together the details of everything that had happened at the camp. Meanwhile, they were waiting for the go-ahead from medical staff before interviewing Heather at the hospital.
Since the police were now working under the assumption that there was an active shooter loose in the woods, they were restricting the search to law enforcement, including those in the warden service and state and local police. Jack, me, and a few members of the snowmobile club were the only exceptions.
The temperature dropped the higher we climbed, until it was so cold that my nose and fingertips stung, and I eventually lost all feeling in my toes. I stopped periodically to wiggle them, afraid that I’d have nothing but blackened stubs left by the time we got back to base. My back ached; my legs ached; my lungs ached. Hell, even my skin hurt. Regardless, Casper had my full attention when I pulled him up short at the edge of a cliff that looked down into a hundred-foot void below.
He pawed at the snow with a whine, gently at first, then with more urgency.
“He’s got something,” I called back to Hogan and Jack, who were trailing me by a good thirty yards. I called Casper back to me, winding his long lead around my arm, and waited for the men to reach us. Hogan arrived first, Jack just behind him, both men out of breath.
“There,” I said, pointing to the area where Casper had alerted. Hogan went to the spot and, to my amazement, dropped to his knees and began to dig, using the baton in his belt to crack through the frozen snow.
It took only a few seconds before he stopped. I heard him swear under his breath before he got his phone.
“What is it?” I asked. Not far from us, I heard other teams approaching. Before long, they would all wind up here.
Hogan straightened and trained his flashlight beam on a single, orange rappelling anchor driven into the ground. I stepped closer. The WildFire logo was stamped at the head of the anchor.
“
They climbed down?” I said, incredulous. Hogan stepped a little to his right and started digging again. Sure enough, he found a second anchor.
“But that’s suicide,” Jack said.
Come out, come out, wherever you are, a familiar voice whispered to me. I’ll be right here waiting till you do, baby girl.
I shivered, the knot clenching in my belly once more.
“Unless they had no choice,” I said.
#
The wind had picked up and the sky had started spitting icy snow while we were trekking through the woods. Now, standing as we were at the edge of the world, we found ourselves facing a landscape of black and white: driving snow and ice-coated trees, while below was an abyss blanketed in pure white.
“What now?” I asked Hogan.
He responded by leaning out over the ravine, hands cupped around his mouth. “Hunter! The Maine Warden Service is here – if you or your students are down there, please respond!”
The words echoed in the stillness until they rang, empty, through the air one last time. No reply came.
How was it even possible for Megan, who had been shot according to Heather, to make this kind of descent? Could the shooter have forced them down into the ravine at gunpoint?
Probably not, I finally decided. It was logistically unlikely, if not downright impossible. If they did climb down there, they did it as a means of escape, not because someone had coerced them. I cleared my throat, and followed Hogan’s lead by cupping my hands around my mouth to amplify the sound.
“Megan, this is Jamie Flint. Bear Flint’s mom.” I wet my chapped lips with my tongue, and tried to imagine what might reassure me if I were in Megan’s place. I thought back to my days with Brock, pushing aside the shiver that always seemed to accompany that memory.
“Your dogs are all right,” was eventually what I came up with. The dogs had always been a point of contention between Brock and me, despite the fact that they were technically what brought us together in the first place. “Someone found them this morning, and they’re waiting for you. If you’re down there, you need to tell us where so we can come for you.”
Another long, laden silence followed. And then, like it was rising from the bottom of the ocean, I heard a woman’s voice.
“We need help,” the woman called. “Two of us are hurt down here. You gotta get down here.” She faltered, then continued. “I don’t know how much longer we’re gonna last.”
“We’ll be right down,” Hogan called. No response. I thought again of Brock’s voice. Where I’d been, emotionally, when things finally hit rock bottom. Despite Hogan’s presence, there was no way in hell I had wanted a man riding in to save me back then. Hogan must have figured the same thing, because he looked to me with a nod.
“That’s the warden you heard,” I called down. “His name is Nate Hogan. Can you tell me your name?”
The pause that followed this time was shorter. “Shonda,” the voice called up. “Shonda Waylon.”
I recalled the name from the roster. We’d found them! And, at least for now, they were safe. Alive.
“You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice, Shonda. Just hang tight. We’ll get you out of there.”
“I’ve got climbing gear on the sled,” Michelle volunteered, coming up behind me. She was alone now, Whippet apparently retired for the night. “The guys are on their way with it.”
“How’s your team with this kind of rescue?” Hogan asked her.
“I’ve got a couple of guys who just got their WFR recerts. They’re not the best with heights, but they can handle it in a pinch.” She hesitated, but only for a second before she looked my way. “What about you? Megan knows you…”
“I re-certified this fall,” I said with a nod. I expected Hogan to argue, but instead I watched with some amazement as he stripped his coat off and started gearing up himself.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going too,” he said. “If you get in trouble—”
“I won’t,” I said. “And you heard how quiet they got when they heard a man’s voice. Michelle and I can go down there, calm them down…”
“She’s right,” Michelle said. “And God knows I’d put Jamie up against half the guys on our team when it comes to this kind of thing. She’s got mountain goat blood running in her veins.”
“Are you sure you don’t need a third?” Jack asked. Hogan shook his head before I could do the same.
“No way in hell you’re going down there if I’m not. We send two down to assess: Jamie and Michelle. Figure out what it looks like, and then we can decide what happens next. I need all other hands up here assisting, at least until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Jack didn’t argue, but I could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t happy with the decision.
Within a few minutes, Michelle’s team was on the scene with a snowmobile packed with climbing gear: harnesses, ropes, carabiners, hardware, helmets. With Casper at a reluctant heel at his side, Jack fastened the helmet strap at my chin, then checked the safety lines on my harness.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said. “I could go. Or Hogan – isn’t that supposed to be his job?”
“Michelle’s right: these women may not respond well to a man being there. We have no idea what happened to them out here, much less what they’ve gone through that landed them on this course in the first place. We need to make the rescue as easy as possible on them. I’ll be fine.”
He held my eye as he checked the last line.
“Promise?” he said. Though I had so many layers on I could barely feel the brush of his gloved hand on my arm, the gesture still somehow warmed me.
“Promise.”
He stepped back with a grim nod, still uneasy. “Then do what you have to.”
I stepped to the edge of the ravine beside Michelle, both our backs to the abyss. Rather than using the rappelling anchors left behind by the WildFire crew, we’d decided to tie off to the snowmobiles. Not only was it more secure, but it had the added bonus of providing a handy tow if we needed it. Given the circumstances, that seemed more than likely.
“Ready to fly?” Michelle asked, eyes on mine. The lightness in her tone was infectious, and I couldn’t deny the bubble of excitement rising in my chest.
“Let’s do it.”
We both eased ourselves backward, behinds hanging over the edge. Michelle had floated the idea of getting one of the helicopters down here, but the winds were too strong. I felt those winds buffeting my backside now, and wondered just how I thought I was in a better position to fight them than a two-ton, state-of-the-art bucket of steel.
I was about to find out.
“Make sure you hang on to him,” I called back to Jack, who held tightly to Casper’s leash now.
“Let me worry about that,” he said, his own face tense as he watched me prepare for my descent. “You just focus on staying in one piece.”
“Got it.”
Since we didn’t have an exact location of where Megan and the others might be, our approach was admittedly low tech: as we lowered ourselves down the side of the icy cliff, occasionally slammed into the granite by the raging wind, we shouted. Stopped. Listened for a response.
Hoped to God we were gauging right based on the distant voices we heard call back.
Twenty minutes later, we’d descended maybe fifteen feet. My legs and arms were shaking with the strain of trying to hang on, and I was beginning to think it would be easier to wrestle a greased pig in a tornado than it was to hang on to an ice-coated granite cliff face in this kind of wind.
Michelle seemed to feel the same, since she doubled her rate of descent before long. I fought to keep up, battling fatigue and fear, focused on keeping my body balanced and my legs tight and bent at the knees as we continued to rappel.
“We can see you!” I heard a voice say suddenly, blessedly close by.
The same woman’s voice that had been guiding us along this entire
nightmarish descent was so welcome this time that I felt myself tear up, though that could have been from the cold air whipping past my face. “Just a few more feet down, maybe ten. Heather had her climbing gear – she helped us find this cave thing.”
Heather, I repeated to myself silently. Not Megan.
“You hear that?” I shouted to Michelle, who nodded. She looked more solid than I felt, her certification as a rock climbing instructor serving her well right now.
Suddenly, a fresh gust of wind blew through the canyon. It was so intense that it picked me up and moved me like I was on a rope swing, a solid ten feet to my right. I slammed into the cliff face. My head bashed into the rock so hard that I was sure my skull would have cracked if I hadn’t had the helmet on. Stomach churning, I fought to hang on.
I heard Michelle swear beside me, but couldn’t check on her until I had a grip on the rope again myself and was safely back clinging to the rock. I was shaking violently by now, the adrenaline too much for my overloaded system.
Not much farther, I told myself. You’ve done tougher than this. Though right now I wasn’t sure that was true.
“You okay?” Michelle shouted over.
“Just got my marbles rattled a little,” I shouted back. “But yeah. I’m okay.”
I looked to my left and saw her looking at me, concern apparent on her face. “Really,” I assured her. “Let’s do this thing already.”
“It won’t be much longer now,” she assured me. I hoped not, but I said nothing. Whatever happened, there was no turning back now.
Thirty-five minutes after beginning our descent, we landed on the ledge where Megan and her students had been waiting for rescue.
Once on solid ground, legs still shaking, I blinked my eyes as I tried to adjust to the darkness. The cavern was maybe five feet high, and extended no more than seven or eight feet into the mountainside. A small space for a group any size to hide for any period of time, especially when some were injured.