by Amelia Autin
“Ready.” Rennie slid her flashlight in her belt. “Just one thing. When I reach the ledge, I’ll call for you to stop. I don’t want to put my full weight on it without testing it first.”
“Okay. And be careful.”
“I will.” Rennie took a deep breath and exhaled, the warm air escaping in a small cloud, then braced herself, and stepped backward off the cliff.
With Emily skillfully playing out the rope in measured increments, Rennie descended the thirty feet to the ledge where Nicki lay in less than a minute. She told herself she didn’t have time to be afraid, but each second stretched interminably.
Her heart pounding, she clutched the rope like the lifeline it was, and did exactly as Emily had instructed. She didn’t dare look down, but she didn’t need to. Her destination was burned into her memory. The ledge below was eight, maybe ten feet long, and scarcely five feet wide at its widest point. Other than the ledge, there appeared to be nothing but a vertical drop all the way to the bottom.
Can’t think about that. Can’t think about falling. Can’t think about Emily losing her grip on the rope and—
She squelched that thought and focused instead on how lucky they were to have found Nicki at all. Emily’s horse stumbling in the same spot where Nicki’s horse must have stumbled, spotting where Nicki had gone over the edge—both things were luck, sheer luck.
Or was it divine providence? She didn’t know. But Rennie hoped it would apply to her, as well. One small ledge had stood between Nicki and certain death when she fell. The same ledge would be the only thing that might break her own fall should anything hap—
Damn! Don’t think about falling. You’re almost there. Think about Nicki. Dear Lord, please let her be okay.
At that moment her feet touched something horizontal, and she quickly yelled up to Emily. “Stop!”
Emily responded as they’d planned, and Rennie felt herself being lifted slightly. She glanced down. Nicki was on her right, but too close for the test Rennie wanted to do. She pushed off from the wall and maneuvered herself over a couple of feet, away from the little girl, her toes reaching for the ledge. “Down a little,” she called. Inch by inch now, the rope lowered her, until her full weight had been accepted. The ledge remained firm.
“Give me some slack.” Emily’s affirmative floated down, and several feet of rope followed.
Rennie hurried to Nicki and knelt beside her, hands reaching for a pulse. There! Yes, it was there! A little weak, but steady. “She’s alive!” she shouted, then bent her head and whispered through sudden tears of thankfulness, “She’s alive. Thank you, God.”
Very gently she placed a hand on Nicki’s back and felt the shallow rise and fall of breathing. Good. At least that was one less worry. She pulled out her flashlight and shone it on Nicki’s face, shaking the girl’s shoulder slightly at the same time.
“Nicki? Wake up, Nicki.” No response. She tried again, louder this time. “Nicki, it’s time to wake up.” Did her eyelashes flutter? Rennie couldn’t be sure. She tried a third time. “Nicki! Wake up!” Still no response.
She sat back on her heels for a moment, considering her options. Deciding she’d better see how badly Nicki was injured, Rennie ran her hands carefully over the little girl’s body. Her first aid training, learned years ago on her father’s ranch and never forgotten, came in good stead right now. Other than a nasty gash and a sizable lump on Nicki’s forehead, which obviously were the cause of her unconsciousness, there didn’t seem to be anything else seriously wrong. She couldn’t be sure, though.
Nicki’s proximity to the far side of the ledge worried Rennie. If she wakened, the little girl could easily roll right over the edge before Rennie could react. She thought about pulling Nicki farther away from the edge, but decided against it. Spinal injuries were dicey things, and Rennie wasn’t going to chance moving her any more than she absolutely had to.
A memory from her time in the hospital came back to her, and she carefully worked one of Nicki’s boots off, then removed her sock. She ran her fingernail along the sole of the little girl’s foot, and was relieved when the toes splayed reflexively. No paralysis, thank God, and probably no damage to her spinal column.
But she still didn’t want to risk moving Nicki, just in case, so she put the girl’s sock back on, then untied the rope sling, her fingers fumbling a bit from cold and impatience. When she finally worked the knots loose she slid the rope under Nicki. It wasn’t easy to do without shifting her, but eventually she was able to secure the rope beneath the little girl’s arms.
Then she removed Emily’s jacket and spread it lengthwise over Nicki. Although her stepdaughter was dressed warmly, Rennie knew that the cold night air was especially dangerous in Nicki’s unconscious state.
Tiny clods of dirt tumbled down from above, prefacing Emily’s voice. “Rennie? Can you hear me?”
She cupped her hands and called up. “Yes.”
“I’ve tied off the rope. How is she?”
Rennie spaced her words carefully. “She’s still unconscious, but she seems okay otherwise. I can’t find anything broken, and her reflexes are good. I don’t want to move her, though.”
“So what do we do?”
“I’ll stay down here with her. Can you try to get Gideon or Jim on the phone? We need a stretcher.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
Rennie shifted, settling herself as close as she could to Nicki, but keeping her back to the wall. Now that the urgency to reach Gideon’s daughter had passed, fear returned in waves. She was more than ever aware of the precariousness of her position, especially now that she’d given her lifeline to Nicki. From this angle, with the flashlight slicing through the darkness, they seemed to be perched on the edge of a bottomless abyss. One wrong move...
She shivered, cold and fear combining to make her tremble uncontrollably. She turned off the flashlight, pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. Now the night was illuminated only by the moon. Rennie kept her gaze elevated. As long as she didn’t look down, she’d be all right.
But she couldn’t keep herself from sneaking peeks at Nicki’s inert form every few seconds. A couple of times she leaned over and checked Nicki’s pulse and breathing. Both times she was reassured. Still, the wait seemed endless.
“Rennie?”
More dirt fell, and Rennie ducked her head to avoid it. “What?”
“I couldn’t reach Gideon. But I did contact one of the other search parties back at the ranch. They’re on their way with a stretcher. And a med-evac chopper is standing by.”
“Good.”
“How’s Nicki doing?”
She’s doing better than I am, Rennie thought wryly, but only answered, “Fine.”
“That’s good. Rennie?”
“What?”
“There’s only one problem.”
“What is it?”
“They don’t know the way up here. I’ll have to go back and meet them at the truck.”
Momentary panic washed over Rennie. I can’t stay here on this ledge all that time! I can’t! At least when Emily is here I have someone to talk to, someone to keep my mind off the possibility of falling.
But she knew they had no choice. Even if Emily traded places with her, Rennie didn’t know the way back down the mountain. And it was inconceivable to leave Nicki on the ledge by herself.
She struggled with her unreasonable fear, telling herself not to be such a coward, and when she finally trusted herself to speak, she responded. “I understand.”
“I’m taking your horse. Barnum is more surefooted than my Mariah, and I’ll make better time.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can. Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, then. I’ll be back in a flash.” And she was gone.
The sound of hoofbeats faded away. Terror circled her, like a pack of hungry wolves closing in for the kill. She fought it off, checked on Nicki once more, then w
rapped her arms around her knees again. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her knees. It didn’t help much.
* * *
Gideon galloped into the clearing where Rennie and Emily had stopped to rest their horses. When he and his men had come upon Cheyenne a few minutes past, nothing could hold him back. He had outdistanced the rest of his search party in his urgency to find Nicki.
The familiar clearing seemed strange by moonlight. He’d followed the trail through this small clearing to the place Jo had called the Top of the World many times in his life, but never like this—with fear stalking him. When Jim had found him and relayed Emily’s message, he’d quickly realized that she could be right. His daughter just might have come to this mountain searching for reminders of happier days, when her mother was alive.
His eyes darted around, seeking some sign of his daughter. Nothing. He swore in frustration. Then guilt surged up in him again.
I failed you, Jo, you and Nicki both. I didn’t mean to, but it happened. Don’t you fail us. Watch over her, Jo. I’m counting on you to keep our daughter safe until I can reach her.
The rest of the search party came up behind him amid a jingle of metal and the thud of hooves.
“Any sign of her?” Mike, his ranch foreman, asked the question.
Gideon shook his head, then spurred forward. Suddenly he heard something from the opposite direction and pulled up sharply, silencing the men behind him with a word. Then they all heard it, hoofbeats coming down the trail at a fairly steady clip.
Emily entered the clearing from the other side and reined in when she caught sight of Gideon and the other men. “Gideon! Thank God! Jim must have found you.”
“Yeah, he did.” He rode over to her. “Where’s Rennie?”
“Back up the trail a little way. She’s with Nicki.”
Relief coursed through his veins. “You found her? Is she all right?”
Emily bit her lip. “I don’t know. She’s unconscious. I tried to phone you, but the signal wouldn’t go through. So I called the ranch and they’re bringing up a stretcher. I have to meet them at my truck.”
“A stretcher? Oh, God. What’s wrong?”
She touched his arm in sympathy before breaking the news to him in a rush. “She fell, Gideon. About thirty feet. She went over the side of the cliff and landed on a small ledge.” Emily felt the flinching in him and tightened her hold on his arm. “But Rennie thinks Nicki will be all right. Nothing seems to be broken. The stretcher is just a precaution.”
Gideon shook his head, trying to clear it. “What do you mean, Rennie thinks Nicki will be all right? How does she know?”
“Rennie went down the cliff to check on her.”
“What the hell?” A new fear sank its fangs into Gideon. His worry about Nicki was momentarily shouldered aside as he thought of Rennie deliberately endangering herself for his daughter. He knew from experience she was stronger than she looked, but that hip of hers wasn’t up to the kind of stress it had endured in the past forty-eight hours. He went cold just thinking about what could happen if it gave way without warning.
“She insisted she be the one to go down,” Emily said, “and I had to agree. She’s smaller than I am, and we were concerned about the stability of the ledge. So I made a rope sling and belayed her.”
“Where are they?”
“Not far. Just follow the trail. But be careful—the footing is pretty bad. And watch out for the rope I lowered Rennie with. It’s strung across the trail. I tied it to a tree so I could fetch the men with the stretcher and lead them back up. They don’t know the way.”
“Joe and Charlie can do that.” He looked at the two men in question and they nodded, immediately turning around and heading back the way they came. Gideon returned his gaze to his sister-in-law. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Rennie turned off the flashlight once more. She’d needed it to check on Nicki and to read her watch. A shaky sigh escaped her. Only ten minutes had passed since the last time she looked, and only eighteen minutes since Emily had left. By Rennie’s reckoning, Emily still had a long way to go just to reach the truck, and then they had to come back up that winding trail. At best she had to endure a couple of hours on this ledge. At worst...
She scrunched herself tightly against the wall, but her thigh muscles and her bad hip protested. Sitting here with nothing much else to do, each ache was magnified. She tried to shut out the pain, just as she tried not to think about how far down the bottom was from this ledge. But the only other thing that came to mind was that all this was her fault in the first place.
“I should never have come here,” Rennie whispered to herself. “I should never have married Gideon. If I hadn’t, Nicki wouldn’t have been so unhappy, she wouldn’t have run away, and she wouldn’t have fallen.” She lay her head against her knees again. “It’s all my fault.”
Despair washed over her, and for a moment she was too tired to fight it off. Just as she had done when she’d first learned about Johanna Lowell’s death months ago, she let guilt ravage her.
Guilty. God, she’d felt so damned guilty when she read the private detective’s report, she’d cried herself to sleep. Two little girls left motherless and a baby boy who would never even know his mother because of Rennie.
Her mind slid back to what little she remembered of that fateful night. She’d fought with Jess that evening about her returning to Montana. She’d kept in touch with her father’s old foreman for years, and when he’d written that her beloved Circle F was up for sale again, she’d approached Jess about lending her the money to buy it.
He’d turned her down flat, so sure that he knew what was best for her, and they’d fought. But she hadn’t convinced him, and at the end she’d stormed out in tears. She remembered the rain-slick roads, remembered the heartbreaking disappointment that had distracted her, remembered dashing tears from her eyes as she drove. But the rest of her memory was gone, swallowed up by gray blankness.
So although she hadn’t been driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, she knew in her heart that she’d been driving in an unfit state emotionally. That’s why she blamed herself for the accident. That’s why she felt responsible. And that’s why she was here.
“You’ve been all through this before,” she told herself, wiping the corners of her eyes on her sleeve. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
But it isn’t fair, her heart cried.
No, none of it was fair. It wasn’t fair that Johanna died. It wasn’t fair that Gideon lost the wife he loved so deeply. It wasn’t fair that Johanna’s children lost their mother so young.
And it wasn’t fair that she, who loved children and who had always planned on having a house full of kids someday, would wake from a coma to find herself denied even the possibility of having children of her own.
Was it any wonder she’d devised this...this...scheme? When she’d read Gideon’s ad, it almost seemed fated. Gideon needed a mother for his children, and Rennie needed children to love. The rest of it was unimportant, she’d told herself. She’d work it out, somehow.
And now Nicki lay hurt and unconscious just a few feet away, because Rennie’s conscience had brought her to Wyoming.
Thinking about Nicki made Rennie get up and check on her again. Satisfied that the girl’s condition was no worse than before, she knelt beside her for a moment, stroking the tangle of golden hair. “I’m sorry, Nicki,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
The echo of her grandmother’s voice came to her from over the years. “What’s done is done—you can’t change the past. You can only go on from here.”
Rennie didn’t remember the occasion that had prompted the words, but it didn’t matter. A kind of peace stole over her then, giving her the strength and courage she needed, and a renewed hope. She went back to her spot by the wall, and folded herself down.
Thinking about Gram, Rennie began to sing softly to herself, a song her grandmother had sung to her a hundred times, and one t
hat had always comforted her over the years. At first her voice was wobbly, a pitiful sound that could scarcely be called a tune. But by the time she reached the end the song had done its job. That song reminded her of another, and this time the notes came out sure and true. In the stillness her voice carried clearly, a sweet soprano that floated on the air like a bird in flight.
She stopped in mid-song, startled, when she heard unexpected sounds above her. Then a bright light fell upon the ledge, accompanied by a shower of dirt, and a deep voice carried down to her.
“Rennie?”
“Gideon!” She brushed the dirt out of her hair and started scrambling to her feet before she realized what she was doing. She quickly sat down again, then glanced up, shielding her uplifted face as more dirt rattled down the cliff. “Gideon, be careful! That edge up there is crumbling.”
“Yeah, I see that. Are you okay?”
The concern in his voice warmed a small place in her heart, and she tucked the memory away for safekeeping. “I’m fine. Nicki’s here. She’s unconscious, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“I know. I met Emily on the way up.” He spoke to someone behind him, something Rennie didn’t catch. Two more flashlights played over the ledge. Then he said, “Watch out. I’m coming down.”
“No, Gideon, don’t! It’s not safe.”
“I’m coming down,” he insisted.
Rennie flattened herself against the wall. Less than a minute later a length of rope tumbled down beside her. She continued to look upward, watching fearfully as Gideon swung over the edge and rappeled down the cliff face. She couldn’t bear to watch, but she couldn’t look away, either. Each second lasted a heart-pounding eternity, as she expected disaster to strike at any moment, but he finally reached the ledge safe and sound.
He knelt immediately beside Nicki, his glance taking in the jacket laid across her to keep off the cold, and the rope tied around her body to protect her from falling. Rennie’s jacket. Rennie’s rope. A tiny part of him wondered at that, then he pushed the thought aside.