Niklaus could hear for himself that Noah was no longer preaching nor praying nor muttering nor responding to his name, and he himself prayed that his friend was simply in his usual unconscious state following the exertion of falling under. While the circumstances of his preaching on this day had been even more unlikely than most days, if he was now simply asleep and in stillness unaware of his danger, this would be the most gracious blessing the Lord could bestow on his servant Noah and all those who loved him.
Above Niklaus, Charles descended steadily and with due caution. Not since their youthful days working in a lumber camp, when both of them had quicker reflexes, had Niklaus witnessed Charles in a situation that might have brought him danger, but he knew him to be steady of spirit. Patsy’s light seemed to grow farther and farther away. The one they needed now was the one Adam carried—since Shem’s recklessness had deprived them of the one that Niklaus had intended to carry down the mountainside. No one could fault Adam for taking the smallest lantern to look for Susanna, and perhaps the young pair would be the first to reach Noah. Who could say?
But no matter who reached Noah first, with which light and with which length of rope, all supplies would be needful.
“Charles?” Niklaus called up. His voice echoed.
“Yes, my friend.”
The response warmed the loneliness of the dark task.
“I hope you are praying for our Lord’s assistance.” Niklaus spoke up for his voice to carry.
“And for the assurance of your heart,” came Charles’s answer.
Niklaus peered into the darkness for his next foothold and pushed off one more time, once again aligning himself to Patsy’s lantern, which felt smaller with each push.
Where was Adam’s light?
Patsy was accustomed to standing in the farmyard watching her father press his heels into his horse while lifting his hat in one hand to bid his wife and daughter farewell in rising morning sunlight. Watching him grip a rope in gloved hands, brace his boots against a mountainside, and gradually disappear into shadow was an experience for which she was not prepared.
Papa.
She wanted to call to him, but she didn’t. He must not know how nervous she felt for him. No one must. Niklaus. Susanna. Adam. Her father. Noah. Even the bishop. She was nervous for them all.
Two white circles with dark centers cast upward, and Patsy recognized them as her father’s eyes. She allowed herself only a fleeting glance, first because her primary duty was to keep Noah within view as best she could with only one feeble lantern to assist the lights thrown across the night sky, and second because if she met her father’s gaze, she might not be willing to look at anything else. Charles had a rope around his waist that was tied to a horse that was in turn tied to a tree. He might smash an ankle or find himself hanging upside down through his own carelessness, but he would not fall. Noah was tethered to nothing and in an unknown state of consciousness.
Patsy was already on her belly with her arm outstretched, but she dared to creep forward another two inches, her shoulder aching as if it might leave its socket. If only she were tied to something. She would gladly hang upside down against the side of the ridge if doing so would shed more light for those climbing down below. But there were no more lengths of rope. Adam had the only loose one.
“You had better have a good grip on Susanna,” Patsy muttered. “If you can’t reach Noah, at least bring Susanna back.”
Patsy crept another inch forward, feeling the edge of the ridge at her waist now. If she risked another inch, the laws of gravity would send her tumbling. She stared at Noah’s unmoving form, a dark blotch against a murky background, before daring to glance over her shoulder. No loose length of rope was available, but she was only inches from the rope that tied her father to his horse. If she scooted to the right, she could twist her ankle into his rope. Then she could lean farther over the ledge. If she ended up dangling from the cliff, it would be her own fault, but believing the rope would hold, she was willing to take the risk.
The bishop eyed her movements. She was alone with him after all, she stretched out holding the lantern over the edge of the ridge and he with his hands through the bridles of the two horses whose movements governed the fates of the men below. Patsy was sure of the horses—they were her own Galahad and her father’s horse, after all. She knew them well. They would follow instructions in a trustworthy manner.
It was the bishop she was unsure of.
He held his position, his hands ready to guide the horses the instant the signal came. Remorse stung her conscience for not trusting him.
Patsy wriggled her foot into the rope that connected her both to her Methodist minister father and to the Amish bishop, feeling like a schoolgirl assigned to write an essay about a circumstance most unlikely to happen.
“Look! There!” Susanna held the lantern high and turned her head to make sure Adam’s gaze followed its light.
“Niklaus reached him.” Relief gushed out of Adam.
“And we will be there soon.” Susanna pushed past another branch. The direct climb had been too steep, and they had calculated that weaving back and forth at longer distances but more yielding inclines would be a more efficient use of energy and time. She suspected they had been right but was nevertheless mollified that when they reached Noah they would not be on their own to assess his care and determine the best way to return him to safety.
“The bandages,” she said.
“I have them,” Adam said.
They pushed through another rank of trees, uncaring of the needles that scraped against their skin, leaving marks where blood would well, and now Susanna saw that Charles was not far above Niklaus. There would be four of them to sort out how to care for Noah. She was not sorry she had taken matters into her own hands when she left the ridge while the men were quarreling and wasting precious moments. She might have gotten to Noah first if they had left even three or four minutes later than they did, or if they had run into trouble on the way down, or if she and Adam had not misjudged and had come out just a few yards closer to Noah. None of that mattered now. They were there, four of them converging on Noah.
Niklaus straddled a thick branch and scooted toward Noah six inches at a time. “Adam! Your light!”
“We’re coming!” Susanna’s next step snapped a dry branch on the forest floor, and a raccoon scurried across her path, but she did not break stride. Adam was near enough that his breath warmed her neck. She reached for his hand, and he obliged as they scrambled up the final yards of the slope in tandem.
“Is he all right?” Adam called up as his uncle slowed his tedious progress even further to test the weight the branch might bear.
Susanna squeezed Adam’s hand as they came to a stop directly beneath the tree that cradled Noah. “How do we get up there?”
“Just wait,” he whispered.
“We can climb to a different branch,” she said, loosening her grasp on his hand.
He tightened his fingers around her. “Just wait.”
They looked up. Charles had reached the treetop, chosen a different branch, and begun working his way toward Noah.
“We have bandages,” Susanna called up.
“We are going to need them,” Niklaus said.
Susanna widened her eyes at Adam, stripped the stack of bandages off his shoulder, hiked up her skirt, and chose her first foothold. He could come or not. She was going up with the light and bandages. In only seconds, she felt Adam beneath her, ready to catch her if she fell. Shooting up a tree trunk hand over hand was a skill that remained in a girl’s muscles, whether she was four or twenty-one. The condition of her stockings was a small price to pay for being within reach of Noah almost as soon as Charles was.
Noah remained unconscious.
“I do not think he is simply sleeping.” Susanna fought the panic that cracked her own voice.
“Nor I.” Nicklaus slipped a hand beneath Noah’s head and shoulder. It came out damp and sticky.
“B
lood?” Susanna whispered.
Niklaus nodded. “We will need those bandages now.”
Susanna gripped them and extended her arm to first pass up the lantern and then the strips of her apron.
“’Tis his shoulder, Susanna,” Niklaus said. “Not his head. We must stop the bleeding either way, but it is not his head.”
She blew out her breath. “I want to help.”
“You have. You are the only one who had the sense to make sure we had bandages. Now Charles and I will patch up Noah, and we will figure out how to get him back up to the ridge.”
Adam reluctantly admitted he would have to untether Susanna and surrender the extra rope for the good of Noah. Susanna’s fingers were already fumbling at her waistline, and Adam certainly had no credible reason to constrain her. He made sure to keep an end tied to one wrist, lest he and Susanna both loose themselves at the same moment and send their valuable cable tumbling into uncertainty. He need not have worried. Her haste was not so foolhardy. She carefully wound several yards of rope before handing it to him. Only when he had secured charge of it did she swing to another branch where she could get a better look at Noah.
“Susanna!” Adam said.
She did not meet his eye.
“Are you certain that branch will support you?” They were all high up in the trees among thinner branches, uncertain whether some might only be shadows.
She ignored him, her hand on Noah’s forehead.
Charles glanced at Adam. “She is well positioned.”
Adam nodded. What else was there to do?
“We’ll need your rope now,” Charles said.
Susanna held the light, and Adam aimed and threw one end up.
Charles caught it on the first try. “We’ll tie him to me.”
“You?” Niklaus said. “I had supposed me.”
“I feel some responsibility,” Charles said.
“You are not responsible,” Niklaus said. “No one is.”
“Affinity then,” Charles said.
“What’s going on down there?” The shout came from Patsy.
“We have him,” Adam shouted back. “We are all here. Give us a few minutes to tie him to your father, and we will send him up.”
Adam ventured closer to Noah and Charles. He wanted to satisfy himself that the knots were right. If Noah should wake partway up the mountain, he must not be able to thrash, not one foot nor one hand, nor disturb the other man’s balance to any degree. Once he was satisfied, Adam called instructions to Patsy, who passed them on to Shem to lead the horse gently, a step at a time, to pull the men up, with Charles shielding Noah at every turn from banging against trees or rocks.
CHAPTER 41
Slow!” Susanna could not help adding her voice to the bevy of instructions bouncing among the rocks of the mountainside.
“A step at a time,” Niklaus said.
The words had become a motto. The horse pulling up Charles and the inert Noah could move no faster than Charles could feel around for a foothold that would keep them from slamming too harshly into rock or tree, or perhaps allowing him enough time to swing around and make sure he, rather than Noah, took the brunt of any collision.
Charles had refused the offer of the only light available to the group below the ridge. Once he and Noah were harnessed and the knots had been tightened three times, what need had he for a lantern—or with which hand would he hold it? Surely no one would suggest it hang lose to smash into the first hard object it encountered.
So they watched, Niklaus, Adam, and Susanna, as the tangle of limbs and ropes that was Charles and Noah rose foot by foot. Niklaus held the lantern as high as he could for as long as it was useful to do so, but the time came that they were in a void beyond the reach of Adam’s small lantern and not yet within the yellow spread of Patsy’s.
“They are fine,” Adam whispered in her ear.
She reached for his hand in the dark.
He pointed up. “Let the stars light their way. With every step of the horse, they are closer to the God who placed the lights of the night.”
“‘Who is God save the Lord? Or who is a rock save our God?’” Susanna murmured.
“‘For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.’” Adam jumped from Psalm 18 to Psalm 31.
Susanna’s response took her to Psalm 78. “‘And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer.’”
“He is almost up,” Niklaus said. His lantern hung at his side, but now Patsy’s hand also went out of sight.
“What happened?” Susanna lurched against Adam. “Why can we not see them? Where is the light?”
Niklaus breathed the laughter of relief. “I imagine she had to put it down so she could grab the rope and guide them to safety.”
“Of course.” Susanna let her own breath out. Shem was at the horse. Patsy would have done nothing else than to reach for Noah, just as Susanna would have.
A moment later, Patsy’s light reappeared and she waved her free arm. “They’re here,” she called down. “They’re safe.”
The trio cheered.
“I’ll try to throw the rope down for you and Adam,” Patsy said.
Noah was at the top. That was all that mattered. Susanna would scramble back up in the dark if she had to.
“The rope could snag on the way down.” Adam cupped his hands at his mouth and called up to Patsy. No one had thought beyond getting Noah up the mountain.
“I have to try,” Patsy said. “There are three of you, and only one rope down there.”
“Is it too much for Galahad?” Adam asked.
Patsy scoffed. “Do you expect me to receive that inquiry seriously? Too much for Galahad? Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not helpful at a moment like this.”
Behind Adam, Susanna snickered, and he turned to glare at her.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“We will figure it out,” Adam called up to Patsy.
“Not with one rope, you won’t. You’ve got my best friend down there, the man she loves, and his uncle, who is one of my father’s dear friends. I am not leaving all that to one spindly rope.”
“Let her throw it down,” Susanna said. “If it catches in a tree, I will climb to get it.”
“The two of you should just take this rope,” Niklaus said, pulling at the one around his waist, “and I will sort things out.”
Adam and Susanna rejected the idea simultaneously.
“We are not leaving you here.”
“We need a better plan than that.”
“We can go back the way we came down.”
Three heads tilted back and looked up at Patsy.
“Is Noah still unconscious?” Niklaus shouted up.
Patsy paused to look over her shoulder. “Yes.”
“Then you must keep one rope to secure him to the spare horse. You must not risk losing both ropes in the trees.”
“Swing wide and throw far,” Adam said. “And make sure it’s tied to one of the horses.”
Susanna cleared her throat. “She does not like people telling her what to do.”
Above them, Patsy set the lantern on the ground, braced her feet, and swung the rope as if she had spent the last ten years lassoing bulls at a rodeo. Perhaps she had lassoed bulls, Adam realized. Her father was gone most of the time, and Harvey the farmhand seemed to accommodate Patsy’s request when she demanded to learn peculiar skills.
The loop of the rope left the range of Patsy’s lantern and entered the void. Susanna squinted, trying to catch sight of its movement.
The rustle above told her Patsy’s effort had very nearly found its mark. She turned and grinned at the dumbfounded Adam.
Niklaus leaned his head back and waved, while Susanna scrambled up the tree and pulled the rope clear of impediment.
“Susanna should go up next,” Adam said when the three stood with the rope. He pulled on it, as if to test that it was in fact tied to a horse, hoping that it w
as his stallion.
“I agree,” Niklaus said.
“Alone?” Susanna said.
“You are slight of weight with quick reflexes,” Adam said. “The journey up will be far easier than the route you chose down.”
She elbowed him. “You will be right behind?”
Uncle and nephew nodded.
“You can trust me to send Adam up next,” Niklaus said. “As soon you’re off the rope, make sure Patsy throws it down again.”
“There could not be a better horse to entrust with our welfare than Galahad,” Adam said. “I will not take my eyes off you.”
Susanna fiddled with an end of the rope, considering the knots. Adam took it from her.
“I will harness you myself,” he said. “Remember Psalm 31. ‘Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.’”
Susanna nodded.
Niklaus watched Susanna make swift progress, her skirts conformed closely to her legs, giving her clear sight of her feet and where she must put them. Charles had to calculate how Noah’s limp weight might affect how they swung and how it would be up to Charles alone to compensate, but Susanna was free and clear to climb with her feet while also moving hand over hand up the rope. It took no time at all before she was above them. The spunk and determination she had shown in the last few hours, even in moments of anxiety, were remarkable.
“Nephew,” Niklaus said.
“Ja, Onkel.”
“If you do not tether yourself to that girl in marriage, I may have to take you to one of those English doctors to see what is wrong with your mind.
“Onkel!”
“Adam, my boy, I am as fond of you as I am of my own son, but she will not wait for you forever.”
Adam kicked the dirt.
“I hear she may not have a choice,” Niklaus continued. “Her family would not be the first to up and move west looking for a new start for their children.”
“You need say no more,” Adam said. “I do not know what I was thinking, telling her that I could not see her. The reasons seem so petty when life is full of moments like these last hours. Moments that matter. Moments when everything might change, and not for petty reasons.”
Gladden the Heart Page 28
