Close Call in Colorado
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Cindi Myers
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Chapter One
On the list of activities Carrie Andrews would like to be doing on a frigid March Saturday, rappelling into an icy canyon didn’t even make the top twenty. Yet here she was, standing on the edge of the canyon wall, in helmet, climbing harness and crampons, awaiting her turn to complete the descent as part of a required training exercise with Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue.
“I’ll send you down as soon as Tony and Danny are safely at the bottom.” Training officer Sheri Stevens came to stand beside Carrie. A tall blonde who regularly competed in—and won—ice climbing competitions, Sheri thrived on this kind of thing. Like several others on the search and rescue team, she made dangerous exercises like this one look easy.
Carrie clapped her gloved hands together, trying to force more warmth into her fingers. “I don’t know why I always get so nervous about these climbs,” she said. “I’ve done them dozens of times.”
“Just remember your training and take your time,” Sheri said. “Safety is way more important than speed, even in real-life situations where an injured person is awaiting rescue down there. You can’t help someone if you don’t get to them safely.”
Carrie nodded. “I know.” But after five years with the team, she also had a mental catalogue full of terrible climbing accidents they had responded to—a graphically illustrated memory bank of everything that could go wrong.
She forced her attention back to the two men currently rappelling into the canyon. SAR captain Tony Meisner descended swiftly, comfortable enough to use both hands to navigate around icy outcroppings, relying on his harness and the Prusik loop that provided a backup to the belay loop to keep him safe, whereas Carrie was never able to let go of her death grip on the rope as she descended.
Positioned several yards over from Tony, Danny Irwin was a more tentative climber. Like Carrie, he had trained extensively and could be counted on in an emergency to do everything required, but he wasn’t one to climb for enjoyment. Fun and easygoing on the ground, he was all business when it came to anything dangerous. A nurse in his day job, he had a reputation as a bit of a player, having dated every single woman on the team except Carrie, who had turned down his overtures when she first joined SAR five years previously. He hadn’t pressed the issue, and they worked well together on the team, but they weren’t close.
“Tony is really booking it today,” Sheri said. She moved over to get a better look. “He’s almost to that last tricky part where the canyon wall juts out.”
“Why did he choose that route?” Carrie shifted closer to Sheri. “Why not move over where he doesn’t have to negotiate around that spot?”
“He said he wanted a challenge.” Sheri shrugged. “You know Tony. He does things his own way.”
“I guess it’s good practice for difficult situations we might get into,” Carrie said. “But still, I—”
A shout went up from within the canyon. Carrie stared in horror as Tony’s rope hurtled into the chasm below. “What’s going on?” Sheri rushed to the edge of the canyon and dropped to her knees to look down.
“What is it?” Carrie asked, and hurried to Sheri’s side.
“Tony’s fallen.” Rookie Austen Morrissey joined them, his face ashen. The thirty-something had signed up with the team several months before, after relocating to Eagle Mountain. His expression reflected all the horror Carrie felt. “Everything looked fine and then...the rope just came loose.”
SHOUTING DISTRACTED DANNY from focusing on the descent. He steadied himself and turned his head to look across and down at Tony, who had been climbing ten yards away, skimming down the icy rock with his usual flair. Except Tony wasn’t there. The ropes he had been using in his descent were no longer there, and Danny’s heart rose into his throat. “Tony!” he shouted. “Tony!”
“What happened?” Sheri called down, using a battery-operated hailer. “Where is Tony?”
“I don’t know!” Danny looked up his own ropes, momentarily frozen. He had made similar climbs dozens of times in training and in real-life rescues, but he was never entirely comfortable. As a registered nurse, his chief role in search and rescue was to deliver medical aid, but he strove to be as physically competent as he could be, too. He never wanted to be the weak link in any rescue operation. But he didn’t have the natural talent people like Tony and Sheri seemed to have.
“Get down there and see if you can find him!” Sheri shouted.
The order got him moving. Danny focused on completing the descent as quickly as possible, his mind running through all the possibilities. The last time he had checked, Tony had been about fifteen feet deeper into the canyon than Danny was. Which meant he had fallen—what—twenty yards? Thirty? Had he had his crampons set in the ice at the time he fell? He forced himself to look over, half-expecting to see his friend hanging head down, leg bones snapped by the force of the fall. But he saw nothing except empty ice-and-snow-covered rock.
He tried to tell himself that was a good sign, but he only felt sick inside. There was a lot of rock and ice between the place where he had last seen Tony and the bottom of the canyon—lots of tree branches and rock outcroppings he could bash against or be snagged by. He divided his attention between his own descent and checking to his right for signs of Tony, but he saw nothing.
Nothing, that is, until he was almost to the canyon floor. Then he looked down and saw what at first appeared to be a pile of discarded clothing on the edge of a trickle of icy water from Grizzly Creek where it flowed through the canyon. He made himself move faster, though still methodically, until his crampon-shod boots crunched onto the canyon floor. He fumbled releasing himself from the ropes, then hurried toward his friend, shedding his pack as he went.
He dropped to his knees beside Tony, who lay with his legs bent under him, face bone white beneath his beard. The ropes he’d been using to descend—red-and-yellow climbing ropes—were still fastened to his harness and lay in a tangle over and around him. “Tony, it’s Danny. Can you hear me?” He unpacked medical gear as he spoke, even as the radio mounted on his shoulder squawked.
“What’s going on down there?” Sheri demanded. As training officer, she was leading today’s exercise.
“I’ve found Tony,” Danny said. “He’s alive. Hurt, but alive. Get a team with a litter started down right away and call for a helicopter.” The canyon was too narrow to get a chopper down into. They’d have to bring Tony up in a litter, the very exercise they had been training for this morning.
He touched Tony’s cheek. “Tony. It’s Danny. Open your eyes for me.”
Tony groaned, but opened his eyes. His pupils looked normal. His climbing helmet appeared undamaged, so maybe he hadn’t hit his head on the way down. “What happened?” Danny asked. He found the pulse at Tony’s wrist and started counting, eyes on his watch. The pulse was irregular but strong.
“Rope...came loose.” Tony forced out the words, then groaned again as Danny began to gently examine his legs.
Danny stared. Was Tony disoriented by the fall? Basic climbing procedure was to tie a firm stopper knot at the ends of the ropes to keep them from slipping out of the anchor chain. He had heard of people forgetting this step, but Tony was always so careful. He had been a member of search and rescue for almost two decades, and had trained many other people on safe climbing techniques.
Had the rope broken? Ropes were meticulously checked before and after each use and retired after a specific number of hours, whether they appeared to be worn or not. And yet either the ropes themselves or the gear they were attached to had failed to do their job. He shook his head and focused on assessing his friend, treating him as he would any other accident victim, which meant ignoring his groans of pain as he sorted out Tony’s various injuries.
By the time Hannah, Carrie, Eldon and Austen joined him in the canyon, Danny had started IV fluids and administered morphine. Hannah, a paramedic, and Carrie, second-in-command of the team, joined him, while Eldon and Austen began setting up a long line to transport the litter to the rim of the canyon. “How’s he doing?” Carrie asked. She rested a hand on Tony’s shoulder.
“We won’t know everything without X-rays, but he’s got fractures in both lower legs and probably one ankle. Probable rib fractures, and he may have a broken pelvis.” Danny forced himself to deliver the news in a flat tone, without emotion. It was a terrible laundry list of damage and didn’t begin to cover possible internal injuries.
“Let’s get him immobilized and warmed against shock,” Hannah said, already unpacking a thermos of hot water and several blankets.
“We need to get him untangled from these ropes,” Danny said. “Give me a hand here, Eldon.”
The two worked to carefully unwind the nest of ropes from around and beneath their friend. Danny worked his way to the end of the ropes, then froze, his brain not quite registering what his eyes were seeing.
“What are you staring at?” Carrie asked. She moved around to crouch next to Danny.
“Tony said the rope came loose,” Danny said. “I didn’t believe him. That just doesn’t happen. But look.” He held up the frayed and torn ends of the two ropes.
“We’ll take a closer look at this later,” Carrie said. “And we’ll check all of them. Maybe there’s some kind of defect we haven’t noticed before.”
Danny nodded. He hated to think of some flaw in their equipment that had escaped notice until now, but what else could it be? “Who’s up top with Sheri?” he asked as he and Hannah prepared to ease Tony onto a backboard.
“Ryan and Ted are up there,” Hannah said. She took out a cervical collar and began to fit it to Tony’s neck. Like Sheri, Ryan was a competitive climber, though he was still recovering from injuries incurred earlier in the year. The oldest member of the force at sixty, Ted was also an experienced, capable climber, but a good person to have helping to bring the litter up to the canyon lip.
“Ted pitched a bit of a fit about staying up top,” Carrie said as she positioned the backboard. “He wanted Austen to stay up there while he came down.” Austen was a rookie, not as experienced with climbing. Sheri had probably wanted him to get the practice today in a real-life rescue.
“We don’t need to be worrying about Ted along with Tony,” Austen said. He joined them and looked down at the captain. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s holding on,” Danny said. He didn’t want to say more with Tony able to hear them. “Is the helicopter on its way?”
“Sheri was talking to the air crew when I started down,” Hannah said. She was filling hot water bottles to tuck around Tony for the ride up to the top.
“What happened?” Austen asked.
“His ropes failed,” Carrie said. “We don’t know why yet.”
“How did that happen?” Eldon leaned over Danny’s shoulder to stare at Tony. “I saw him inspect all his equipment before he set up for the rappel. There was nothing wrong with the ropes then, or he wouldn’t have used them.”
“We’ll inspect all the gear when we get back to headquarters,” Carrie said. She stood. “Are we ready to take him up?”
Hannah tugged on the straps holding Tony into the litter, and double-checked the IV line running beneath the blankets. “He’s good to go.”
“Let’s get him on the line,” Carrie said.
How many times had Danny done this, in both training exercises and real-life scenarios, fastening the litter to the line and threading the ropes through the pulleys to haul the patient up to a waiting helicopter or ambulance? Every other operation he had focused on procedure—the mechanics of making sure the trip went safely. But Tony was their captain, the leader who ran every mission. He was also a close friend. Having him seriously injured in such a freak accident rocked Danny more than he cared to admit.
He wanted to go up with Tony, but Eldon was a stronger climber, so he made the trip, leaving the rest of them to gather their gear and follow at a slower pace.
He and Carrie were the last to reach the canyon rim, arriving just as the helicopter lifted off. “They’re taking him to St. Joseph’s in Junction,” Sheri said.
“Is here somebody we should notify?” Austen asked. “A girlfriend or his parents?”
“Tony’s parents live in Florida and he doesn’t have a girlfriend that I’ve ever heard him mention,” Sheri said.
“I think we’re his family,” Carrie said. “I’ll drive over to St. Joseph’s this afternoon and see if I can get in to visit him.”
“I’ll go with you,” Danny said.
She looked surprised. “You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“I want to.” He clenched his hands into fists since he couldn’t lash out at the anxiety that coiled in his stomach. “I was right there with him when he fell. I need to see him.”
Her expression softened. “Of course.” She cleared her throat. “It would be good to have some company.”
He had ridden to the training exercise in the Beast, the team’s aging search and rescue vehicle, but it had already pulled away without him. “You can ride with me,” Carrie said as they watched the modified Jeep drive away.
He didn’t especially feel like talking, but Carrie apparently needed to deal with her emotions out loud. “I still can’t believe that happened,” she said as she headed down the mountain road toward the town of Eagle Mountain. “Did you see him fall?”
“No.” He shifted in his seat. “I don’t look around all that much when I’m climbing.”
“Me either,” she said. “It’s the part of this job I dread most.”
“I don’t dread it,” Danny said. “It’s just not the most comfortable thing.” He glanced at her. She was an attractive woman, with honey-blond hair and a strong, compact frame. She was friendly, but not overly so. Self-contained, he would have said. He knew she was divorced and had a couple of little kids and worked as an architect, but she wasn’t one to socialize after hours, and the one time he had asked her out she had made it clear she wasn’t interested in him that way. If she was dating someone, she definitely kept that person’s identity to herself.
“I don’t like heights,” she said. “But I make myself do it because it’s part of the job.”
“We’ve had other people join and end up quitting because something scared them,” Danny said. “There’s no shame in that. Not everyone is cut out for this work.”
“I do it because it scares me,” Carrie said. “I think it’s good for me to face my fears.”
Do you have a lot of fears? he wondered, but he didn’t ask. Some other time he would have, but not now, with the memory of looking over and seeing empty space where Tony should have been still an icy spot in the center of his chest.
Carrie pulled her SUV into the parking area next to search and rescue headquarters and Danny followed her into the barn-like building where the others were already busy unloading gear and hanging it to dry. “Let me see Tony’s ropes,” he said to Carrie.
“We all want to see those ropes,” Sheri said.
Carrie plopped her pack onto the table at the front of the room, and the others gathered around as she took out Tony’s climbing ropes and uncoiled them.
“The ends don’t look cut,” Ted said. He reached out and pointed to the frayed fibers, uneven and fuzzed.
“They look more worn than anything else,” Carrie said. “But the rest of the rope is in good shape.”
Danny picked them up to examine the ends more closely. He ran a finger across the torn fibers, then looked along the length of the ropes. Both lines had severed near the end, just below where the stopper knot would have been. There was fuzzing in places on the rest of the rope—normal for something that was dragged across rock on a regular basis. “It looks a little discolored, on the end by where it broke,” Eldon said.
“Nothing unusual about that,” Sheri said. “The material fades with sun and sweat and water exposure.”
“Where’s the anchor chain?” Danny asked.
“I’ve got that.” Austen stepped forward and laid the bundle of chain on the table. The stopper knot Tony had tied held firmly above the chain link, the frayed ends of the rope dangling below.
Danny brought the torn ends to his nose and sniffed. The sharp odor made his mouth pucker, as if he had tasted lemons. He turned to Eldon. “Let me see one of the other ropes,” he said.
Eldon fetched a purple coil and brought it to the table. Danny laid it beside Tony’s and studied the trio. The purple was a little discolored, though not as much as Tony’s, but the purple rope might be newer. They were constantly replacing gear as it became too worn to be safe or reached the end of its useful life. Danny sniffed the line. It smelled of rock dust and fabric. Not lemons.
“What is it?” Carrie asked. She wasn’t looking at the ropes anymore—she was studying Danny’s face.
“I’m not sure.” He handed her the end of one of Tony’s. “What does that smell like to you?”
She brought the rope to her nose and sniffed. Her eyes widened. “It smells like acid,” she said.
“What?” Sherri grabbed the line and sniffed, too. She stared at Danny. “Do you think someone poured acid on Tony’s ropes?”
“I don’t know.” But acid would eat at the fibers and weaken them. The damage might not be noticeable until too late.
“How did acid get on the ropes?” Eldon asked. “Did he spill something on it? Some kind of cleaner or something?”
“I don’t think we use anything that strong to clean,” Carrie said.
“If it wasn’t an accident, it was deliberate,” Ted said. His face looked craggier than usual, thick gray eyebrows drawn together in a scowl.
“You mean someone did this on purpose?” Eldon asked.
“I think someone meant for Tony—or someone else—to get hurt,” Ted said. “Sabotage.”
