Fatal Descent

by Beth Groundwater

  She and Kendra had swapped rafts, so Mandy let off her passengers from her paddle raft next. While Cool and Gonzo gathered the climbing gear and passed out helmets and water bottles for folks to carry with them, Mandy helped Kendra and Rob tie the two paddle rafts to the backs of the two oar rafts. Diana and Hal sat quietly in Kendra’s raft and gazed sadly at Alex’s body bag in Rob’s raft beside them.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t find anyone here,” Mandy said to them. “We’ll look again at the top, and you four can look for other rafters while you go around the Loop.”

  “We know you’re doing your best,” Hal said. “We can’t ask for anything more.”

  “See you on the other side,” Rob said to Mandy, as he and Kendra pulled away.

  “Try to spot some sheep—for Diana,” Mandy reminded him.

  Diana and Hal waved goodbye to their daughters from the front of Kendra’s oar raft, and Diana yelled, “Take lots of photos.”

  “We will!” Les held up his small knapsack, from which Mandy had seen him pull out a camera and lenses during the trip.

  “Let’s move out.” Cool said, taking the lead in front of the hiking group.

  Gonzo positioned himself in the middle of the group, and Mandy brought up the rear, carrying a first-aid kit and extra water in her backpack. Cool set a slow, steady pace up the steep trail with stops every fifteen minutes or so to drink water and encourage others to do the same. A couple of times he pointed out lizards sunning themselves on the rocks—a whiptail and the colorful collared lizard with its yellow head, green body, and black collar. Les zeroed in on that one with his camera and snapped away.

  About two thirds of the way up, after climbing around a boulder fall, Amy stopped and said, “Boy, I’m glad Mom and Dad didn’t try to do this.” She was panting herself.

  Mandy took the opportunity to make a suggestion. “Maybe you can talk them out of doing the Doll House hike, too. It’s just as steep and even longer because it goes all the way to the top of the plateau.”

  “That’s going to be tough,” Amy said. “Dad’s been talking a lot about wanting to see the rock spires in the Doll House. Alex said it was the best feature of the trip.”

  “And who are we to stop your dad if he really wants to do it?” Les said over his shoulder from in front of her. “C’mon, Amy, you need to step it up. You’re falling behind. We’re already last.” He turned and strode ahead.

  “Do you need to rest?” Mandy asked Amy. “I can stay with you.”

  “No, I’m fine.” She wiped her sweaty brow and scrambled after Les.

  When they reached the top of the ridge, Amy sank onto a boulder and drank heavily from her water bottle. Mandy noticed Amy’s flushed complexion, but she seemed likely to recover. She had probably just pushed herself a little too hard to keep up with Les and the others.

  Cool pointed out the views of the river on both sides, then he and Gonzo headed north to where the cliff face made a sheer drop of over a hundred feet. They started rigging rappelling and climbing lines. Meanwhile, the Nortons and the women friends took photos of each other with the river in the background, first on one side of the ridge then on the other.

  Mandy searched for rafts for as far as she could see in either direction, but she saw only Kendra and Rob’s tiny flotilla. Then she searched the sky for small planes and the canyon rims for hikers. She saw nothing but a couple of hawks making lazy circles in the thermals high over the river, hunting for their next kill. Damn!

  When Cool hollered, “Ready for climbers!” Mandy asked if anyone did not want to rappel, but everyone seemed to want to give it a try. They lined up behind Cool, who stood at the top of the cliff. Mandy looked down and spotted Gonzo perched on boulders at the base of the cliff below.

  “First, we’ll give everyone a chance to rappel down,” Cool said. “Then those who want to can climb back up and either hike down or rappel down again.”

  “How can I help?” Mandy asked.

  “After Gonzo ties rappelling harnesses on that other line,” he said, “you can pull them up and hand them to me.”

  She noticed that he seemed to relish the idea of bossing her around for a change, but she gave a nod and took up her position at the top of the second line.

  They spent the next hour sending all of the clients down one at a time. Before each person came down, Gonzo would take the harness off the previous rappeller and send it back up to Mandy. Then when it was the next person’s turn, the second harness would be waiting for them. Betsy, Mo, and Viv took their turns first and each of them whooped the whole way down. That set the mood for the rest of the group.

  When it came time to climb back up, Amy opted out and found a place to sit out of Gonzo’s way to watch the others. Les went first, then took out his camera to take photos of Alice climbing. The Nortons and the three women friends followed, then it was time to rappel back down. Mandy had been scanning the river for boats the whole time and noticed Rob and Kendra pulling up to the river bank below them.

  “The rafts are here, so we should wrap this up soon,” she told Cool. It was also approaching lunchtime, according to her watch and the position of the blazing sun. She knew Kendra and Rob would start preparing the food as soon as they secured the rafts.

  “Okay, folks,” Cool said to the clients standing with him at the top, “we need to finish up here. This rappel should be quick, since you’ve done it before. Then it’s a short hike to the river.”

  “Rob and Kendra should have lunch waiting for us by the time we get there,” Mandy added.

  Cool asked Paul to help him strap harnesses on people, to make the process go quicker, and Les offered to carry harnesses from Mandy to Cool. Amy stood up so she could help Gonzo at the bottom of the cliff by attaching harnesses to the retrieval line for Mandy.

  Alice, Betsy, Viv, and Mo rappelled down quickly, then started hiking on their own to the rafts. With Amy and Gonzo watching from below, Paul and Cool buckled Elsa into her harness.

  Les snapped a photo of the process, and Tina said to him, “Would you take a family photo for us?”

  Elsa frowned but put up with Paul and Tina flanking her. Tina tugged at her mother’s harness to smooth out the wrinkles in her pants so she would “look less dorky.” After smiling for the camera,

  it was time for Elsa to ease backward off the ledge. She fed rope with one gloved hand through the belay tube fastened to her harness with a locking carabiner. With her other hand, she held the rope below her away from her feet and body. Her technique looked proper to Mandy.

  Cool yelled, “Looking good, Elsa!”

  Elsa was less than halfway down the hundred foot cliff when the waist strap on her harness snapped, releasing the hardware and the rope. Mandy gasped.

  Screaming, Elsa clutched the rope, one hand above the belay tube and one below it, while her body dangled free.

  “Oh shit! Hang on,” Cool shouted to her over Tina’s screams. “I’ll lower you.”

  He started playing out the rope from above.

  “Go get help,” Gonzo yelled to Amy, and she took off down the trail.

  Sucking in a breath, Mandy watched Elsa in horror. She prayed that the woman was strong enough to hold on until Cool could lower her to a safe distance. She had over fifty feet to go.

  Gonzo shouted from below, “Hold on, Elsa! Squeeze your hands as hard as you can.”

  Elsa dangled precariously for a few seconds. Forty feet left. Then she lost her grip with the hand above the belay tube. With nothing left to brake her, she started sliding one-handed down the rope. “Help!”

  Les and Tina gasped, and Paul yelled, “No!”

  Legs kicking frantically, Elsa managed to grab the rope again with her other hand. But with nothing still to stop either hand, she continued to slide.

  The grimace on Elsa’s face showed her palms were being abraded inside the gloves from the
friction. The woman wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer.

  Thirty feet. Mandy glanced at Cool, whose face was grim, but he couldn’t seem to play out the rope any faster.

  Time slowed. Mandy’s hands clenched and unclenched as she stood there unable to do anything to help. The tension was excruciating.

  About fifteen feet from the bottom, Elsa finally lost her grip and fell. She landed hard on her feet and tumbled over onto loose boulders. She let out a yelp of pain.

  Tina screamed, “Mom!”

  Gonzo ran to Elsa. “Don’t move! Let us check you first.”

  “Get me down there,” Mandy said to Cool. “I’ve got the first- aid kit.”

  He and Paul helped her into the other harness. Nervous after the break in Elsa’s harness, both she and Cool quickly double-checked the gear. They rigged another belay line, then Mandy went over the cliff. She rappelled down as fast as she could, unbuckled and joined Gonzo and Elsa, who was now sitting up and holding an ankle.

  “No signs of concussion,” Gonzo said to Mandy. “Good thing she was wearing a helmet.”

  “Where do you hurt?” Mandy asked Elsa.

  “My palms are burning, and my ankle is killing me. I think that’s all.”

  “She can move her toes and knees,” Gonzo said.

  Mandy was thankful for that. She eased Elsa’s sock down and gently probed around the ankle. All of the bones seemed to be in place.

  “Can you flex it, Elsa? Go slow.”

  Elsa did, with a grunt of pain.

  Mandy nodded. “I think it’s a sprain, not a break.” She turned her face toward the top of the cliff, where Tina and Paul stood clutching each other and staring down at them. “She’s going to be okay.”

  “Thank God!” Paul shouted back. “We’ll hike down as soon as we can.” He released Tina and turned away from the rim to help Gonzo and Les pack the rest of the climbing gear.

  Mandy took a chemical cold pack out of the first aid kit and massaged it to get the reaction started that would cool it. She placed the pack on Elsa’s ankle and wrapped an ace bandage around to hold it in place. Then she pulled off Elsa’s gloves and cleaned the abrasions with an alcohol wipe.

  When Elsa hissed, Mandy said, “Sorry! I hate adding to your pain.” She gently spread on some antiseptic and covered Elsa’s palms with taped-on gauze pads.

  By then, Rob had arrived, out of breath after running up the trail from the river, to ask how Elsa was and how she fell. While Gonzo filled him in, Mandy glanced at the top of the cliff. Cool was leading Tina, Paul, and Les down the steep hiking trail that wove back and forth across the rocky hillside beside the cliff.

  “Gonzo and I will carry you to the raft,” Rob said to Elsa. “We’ll take it slow and gentle.”

  “I think I can stand on the other foot,” Elsa said. “It might be better if I just lean on one person while I hop down. But can we get this stupid harness off me?”

  “Sure.” Gonzo moved in to loosen the thigh straps. “I want to find out what happened to it, too. These things are tough. They just aren’t supposed to break, even with a three-hundred-pound guy in one.”

  He worked the harness off of Elsa’s legs. Then he and Rob helped her stand on her good foot.

  Rob pulled her arm over his shoulder and put an arm around her back. He studied her face. Mandy knew he was checking for signs of dizziness or shock.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” Elsa replied, and they slowly started a three-legged walk down the trail.

  Gonzo had been examining the harness. He let out a long whistle and held up the waistband strap for Mandy to see.

  “It was cut almost all the way through. The extra strap that allows the waistband to be loosened for a big person was lying over the cut, so it couldn’t be seen.”

  Mandy fingered the jagged edge beyond the cut where the waistband had ripped loose. “How was it cut? There was nothing sharp in the pack with it.”

  “A pocket knife would do it.”

  They exchanged a meaningful glance. Pocket knives were such useful camping gear that almost everyone on the trip was carrying one.

  “When do you think the cut was made?” Mandy asked.

  Gonzo thought for a moment. “I think it must have been cut right before Elsa’s turn.”

  “How long did it take for the waistband to rip the rest of the way?”

  “As soon as any weight was put on it, it would start to rip.”

  “Then the question is who cut it.” Mandy’s grip tightened on the harness waistband. She looked up at the four hikers working their way down the trail. Besides herself and Gonzo, they had all touched the harness—as had Amy—before Elsa went over the cliffside.

  Which one of them wanted to hurt—or kill—Elsa?

  ten

  The water is your friend. You don’t have to fight

  with water, just share the same spirit as the water,

  and it will help you move.

  —aleksandr popov

  When Mandy and Gonzo reached the rafts, she saw that Rob’s raft with Alex’s body inside was tied off at a respectful distance downstream from the others. Diana and Hal and the clients who had already hiked down were sitting on the pontoons of the other rafts and munching on tortillas rolled into cones that held teriyaki chicken salad. Whole apples and oranges completed the lunch that could be eaten easily by hand. Mandy had planned that because Rob had told her before the trip that there was only enough room on shore here for the handwashing station and a small card table for food preparation.

  Contrary to the anxiety churning Mandy’s gut, the scene looked peaceful and absolutely normal. After Cool, Les, Tina, and Paul arrived, Mandy quietly observed them and Amy, and how they interacted with Elsa. After a cursory “you okay?”, Les grabbed his lunch and sat next to his wife to eat.

  Cool hovered around Elsa, babbling about how that had never happened before, he couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong and so on. To Mandy, he seemed more concerned about Elsa blaming him for the accident and reporting it than about her welfare.

  Both Tina and Paul asked if Elsa was in pain and seemed to genuinely care about her well-being. However, either one of them could have been putting on a great show.

  Once all of the clients had food and water, Mandy signaled to Rob to walk up the trail a way with her so they could talk. Gonzo asked Kendra to follow him downstream to “check on the current.” Mandy and Gonzo had arranged this on the way down, so they could relay their suspicions to Rob and Kendra. She had decided not to reveal the harness was cut to the whole group, because she didn’t want the clients to panic.

  “Five of them had access to the harness,” Mandy said to Rob, after telling him about the cut waistband. “Amy took it from Gonzo and put it on the line for me, Les passed it from me to Cool, Cool and Paul put it on Elsa, and I remember Tina tugging on it before Les took their photo. Any of them could have cut the waistband with a knife hidden in their hand without the rest of us noticing.”

  Eyeing her, Rob said, “You and Gonzo think one of them tried to kill or hurt Elsa?”

  “Yes, we do. And that’s why we’ve got to keep an eye on all of them.”

  Rob thoughtfully chewed the last bite of his chicken salad cone and swallowed. “What reason would any of them have to hurt her?”

  “She was pretty blunt rejecting Cool yesterday when he tried to get that water fight going. He was really embarrassed and he’s pretty hot-headed. Maybe he was trying to get back at her.”

  Shaking his head, Rob said, “I just don’t see it. Yes, he was mad at her, but cutting her harness seems like an over-the-top reaction. And if word got out that he did it, it would not only land him in jail, it would ruin his career. No one would hire him. It’s crazy!”

  “Precisely,” Mandy replied. “We don’t know him that well. Maybe he is
a little crazy. And he knows climbing gear well enough that he probably figured it wouldn’t break until she was partway down and she’d just be hurt, not killed.”

  “I still think it’s far-fetched.” Rob took a bite of apple. “What about one of the others?”

  “There’s no connection between Les or Amy and Elsa that I can figure out,” Mandy said.

  “Elsa was screwing Amy’s brother, Les’s brother-in-law.”

  “I doubt either one knew that, and if they did, why would they care? How did Amy react when you brought Elsa down?”

  “Just like the others,” Rob said. “Everyone gathered around Elsa, asked her how she was, said how lucky she was that she wasn’t hurt worse. Amy was right there in it, even helped Elsa to her seat.”

  Mandy bit into her chicken cone and mulled over the problem while she chewed. “Elsa’s affair with Alex makes me suspect Paul or Tina more, and it links her fall with Alex’s death. One of them could have found out about the relationship before the trip. Maybe they got so upset about it that they killed Alex to eliminate him as a rival for Paul, then hurt Elsa to make her pay for betraying them.”

  Rob scratched his head. “Shit, just yesterday, you thought Elsa killed Alex, and I didn’t agree. It’s just as hard to believe that either Paul or Tina is a killer. And you said Tina acted like she didn’t know about the affair last night and ran to tell her father.”

  “Acted is the key word here. Whoever did this is acting now, so she or he could have been acting last night, too.”

  “This is like a damn soap opera!”

  “It’s a lot more serious than that.” Mandy’s stomach turned. She looked at her cone and suddenly couldn’t eat anymore. “We’ve got one dead client and one injured one.”

  “And both look like they were accidents. Not a good track record at all for this trip. If word gets out, this could seriously hurt the reputation of RM Outdoor Adventures.”