by E. R. Mason
Cassiopia returned to her patient. Without speaking she began the backward pulling, keeping the sled close to the wall. With patience, she managed to pull everything around the jagged corner. A few minor adjustments stabilized the sled, allowing her to shuffle ahead and look at the ominous monster a few feet away.
Even in his semiconscious state, Markman knew something was wrong. Wearily, he twisted his head back toward her. “What is it?”
She started to speak, but stopped, not sure of what to say. Markman forced himself up on one elbow and twisted around, trying to focus his spinning vision enough to understand.
It was a wide crevice dividing the ledge. Cassiopia stood at the edge of it looking down at the three hundred foot drop to rock and snow. It was ten feet across. On her right, the separation in the cliff wall seemed to go on forever, disappearing in a blur of dusting snow. Above her, the V-shaped cavity gradually widened. Ten or fifty feet above her head, a huge boulder was wedged between the walls, with a portion of it jutting out overhead. It was too high to reach.
Cassiopia looked at the drop-off and sat down in the snow. The wind cut past her neck forcing her to gather her face covering together. It howled a threatening warning as it passed into the crevice. There was no going back, and there was no going forward. She had brought them to a dead end, in more ways than one. It wasn’t her fault. There was no way anyone could have known the only way would be blocked. They should have stayed in the shelter of the wreck and hoped for rescue. She looked back at Markman and felt a touch of anger that they had come to this.
Markman understood. “Maybe you can find a way across. You can cover me up and come back with help.”
Cassiopia was angry. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Scott.”
Markman smirked. “No chance of that.”
Cassiopia stared at him, as he lay covered with the braided wire rope and other pieces of a broken airplane. She looked at the braided wire rope, and then up at the large stone wedged overhead. She looked again at the ten-foot gap in the ledge and then back at Markman. For several minutes, she looked over and over at the dilemma plaguing her. Her mind began working the problem.
Still huddled, she rose to her feet and stood staring. Back at the sled, she hooked back up and pulled Markman closer to the drop-off. She gathered up her first fifty-foot roll of wire rope and went to the edge. With it wrapped it in loops, and one end tied off to her harness, she took careful aim and tried to throw the coil above the boulder overhang. It fell short, bounced off the side, and uncoiled down into the chasm. She wound it back up and tried again.
On the fifth try, it looped over and uncoiled down the other side. Quickly she retrieved the bar from alongside Markman and used it to fish the hanging end of the rope back in. She dragged it to a point on the cliff wall where a rock niche allowed her to tie it off.
At the edge once more, she sat against the rope to convince herself it would hold. She backed away as much as it would allow, braced and ran outward toward the drop-off. Near the edge, she skidded to a panic-stop and nearly fell, diving backward to catch herself.
Markman worked himself up on one elbow and called out. “You can make it.”
Cassiopia cursed under her breath. She stomped back, braced once more, and ran full out toward the jump. At the edge, she swung awkwardly outward, across the crevice, and slipped and skidded on opposite side. She staggered to a stop and grabbed the rock wall to brace herself.
There was a moment of temptation to see what lay around the next corner, but the fear of being separated was too much. She braced once more, swung back across the gulf, and caught herself on the sled, almost crashing into Markman.
Markman fell back into his pillow of clothes. “That’s it. You can go on. I will wait here.”
With new hope, Cassiopia disconnected herself and secured her new swing line.
“If I go, you go.”
“For cripes sake, Cass. Get real. If I stand up, the world will spin so fast I’d pass out, even if I could get a running start.”
“Of course you would. You can’t swing yourself over. It has to be done some other way. We can’t risk re-injuring your legs, either. You could go into shock.”
“So you go, and come back with help.”
Cassiopia came up beside Markman and looked down at him threateningly. She pulled the cloth down from her mouth. “If you say that one more time, I’ll never have sex with you again.”
Markman looked hurt.
She narrowed her stare and began removing items from the sled. Markman’s expression turned to one of doubt. After a moment of thought, he blurted out a short laugh. Cassiopia stopped and looked at him.
“Did you just laugh?”
Markman laughed again.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You!”
“Me? Why?”
“Cause you’re lying. You’ll never not have sex with me.”
“What are you talking about? Are you delirious again?”
“I’m the only person on Earth who has ever been able to get close enough to even kiss you. There’s no way you’re never gonna have sex with me.”
“Well, I could shut you off for a good while, Markman.”
Markman sobered up and thought about it. “Oh my God, we sound like a married couple.”
“Do not.”
“Do to. We could be a married couple.”
“We are not a married couple.”
“But, we could be.”
Cassiopia stopped unpacking the sled. “What do you mean by that?”
“Mean by what?”
“You just said we could be a married couple.”
“I can’t remember everything I said. I’m kind of delirious, you know.”
Cassiopia stared at him in wonder and resumed unpacking. When she was finished, she returned to the crevice and stood thinking. With luck, she could use the second sixty-foot rope to suspend the sled and swing it across, but it would be tricky. When she pulled him off the ledge, the weight of the sled would load and stretch the rope. The sled would end up lower than the ledge. She could then pull him across the chasm, but on a slippery, snow-covered surface, she might not be able to pull his weight back up and on. He’d be hanging over the gap with no way to get him up. She needed to raise the sled somehow before its weight stretched the rope.
She squeezed alongside Markman’s unconscious form and backtracked to a spot where she had seen rocks along the trail. One at a time, she began lugging them back to his position. When enough had been collected, she tested the sled and found she could raise the front enough to shove the first of the smaller rocks beneath it. She added others around it then went to the back of the sled and did the same. Next, a stone border was set up along each side. Satisfied with her stone platform, she went to the front and began again. As the stone platform grew, the sled slowly rose higher and higher. After a half hour of jamming rocks in place, she had raised the sled about a foot off the ground.
With great care, she fastened the swing rope to the sled in four places and threw it above the overhang. With the loose end captured and secured, a shorter rope, rigged to the front of the sled, provided a pull line.
The sled’s swing rope had to be fully tightened. With it as taut as possible, Cassiopia began to remove rocks from beneath the sled. As she pulled them out, the weight of the sled began to hang on the wire rope. Each rock was then carefully stacked to form a guiding wall on either side. With enough stones removed, the sled’s full weight finally came to bear on the wire rope. Cassiopia stood and looked nervously at the suspended vehicle she had created, held in place only by a few remaining rocks. Adrenaline pushed her on. She hooked her harness up to her own sixty-foot line, then picked up the sled’s pull line and spread it out so it could follow her across.
She checked Markman’s straps a last time, got set, and swung over to the opposite ledge, catching the wall to stop her slide. With her own swing line disconnected and secured, she went to the edge and wr
apped the sled’s pull line around her waste.
With the first cautious tug, it quickly became apparent the sled was ready to fly. It dragged lightly across the remaining rock bed, moving easily enough that it scared her. She jerked to a halt and prayed for it to stop. To her relief, it paused, half on and half off the bed of rocks, its nose teetering from side to side, as though it wanted to be turned loose.
She had to be ready. On the next pull, it would come completely free and swing out over the drop. It would need a steady pull the rest of the way and then a capture so it would not swing back. It would all happen at once, and it would happen quickly. She suddenly realized she had tied the pull-line around her waist. If the worst happened and the sled fell, it would take her down with it. Cassiopia looked at Markman’s unconscious form. A new feeling welled up inside her. She could not lose him now. That was not an option. Wherever he ended up, there she would be also, no matter what. She tightened the line around her waist.
With a last look around, Cassiopia braced herself. She took a step back and gave the line a steady pull. The sled obediently slipped off the rock bed and lurched forward. Hanging only from the wire rope, it glided toward her, and out over the drop-off, swinging free. The wire rope creaked and stretched from the weight and motion. The sled glided under its own momentum, past the halfway mark. Cassiopia furiously reeled in the pull-line. As it approached her, the glide slowed. She hurriedly backed up and pulled with all her strength to keep it coming.
The stretched line had lengthened just the right amount. The sled struck its front end on the rock surface in front of Cassiopia and skidded in like an aircraft making a belly landing. It slid along a short distance, turning slightly inward, the back end trying to slip out over the cliff edge. Cassiopia leaned back with all her weight and yanked it straight until she realized it was safe to stop. Her risky plan had worked. She collapsed on her hands and knees and gasped for breath. After a moment to regain composure, she stood and looked everything over to reassure herself.
Tromping around the ledge still carrying the wire rope, unwilling to accept that everything was okay, she inspected the sled and her swing line attachments. The wind howled a conciliatory groan. At last, she went to Markman, straightened the sled further, and gently collapsed atop him. She hugged him and kissed his cold cheek, and realized she was beyond exhaustion.
Unfortunately, the supplies were still on the other side. She couldn’t risk leaving them. She forced herself up, and made the jump twice more until the critical resources needed to remain alive were safely in hand. On the last trip, she set up a release for her swing line. The sixty-foot wire rope was too valuable to be abandoned. When it had been retrieved, it was finally time to set up a place to rest and spend the night.
Around the first corner, a slow descent greeted her. Further ahead, it ramped down even more steeply. A shallow, shoulder-high alcove in the cliff wall was a place available for partial escape from the elements. Cassiopia somehow found the strength to clear the snowdrift from it and drag Markman underneath. She set her makeshift oil-stove near his feet, hammered hooks into the cracks in the cliff, and hung the canvas to enclose their place of refuge. Although her makeshift fire-piston readily yielded embers, flame was much more difficult to produce here. After a half hour struggle, Cassiopia finally got a wick to light, the flame on the stove the first comforting event of the day.
With everything stored, she squeezed between the low ceiling and Markman’s unconscious form, and worked herself beside him and under the covers. It was enough jostling that Markman stirred. He looked over at her and struggled to wake fully.
“Where are we?”
Cassiopia tucked him in. “We’re in for the night.”
“Am I on the other side of that drop-off?”
“Yes dear.”
“How the hell did I get across it?”
“You swung.”
“Uh-huh. Did you just call me dear?”
“You might be delusional again.”
“You know, my headache is worse, the damn world is spinning faster, but holding on to you helps.”
“Yes. Me too.”
Markman’s eyes fluttered closed. Cassiopia pulled the covers up partially over his face and rested her head on his shoulder. Cold sleep came immediately.
Chapter 7