The Snow Leopard's Home (Glacier Leopards Book 3)

by Zoe Chant

  Cal nodded grimly. "Grey, did you check in there?"

  "Nope, it was too far off the main ravine," Grey said. "You think that's it?"

  "There's a good chance."

  “Let’s get going, then,” Zach said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Let’s see if he’s up there.”

  Cal was already in motion. “We’re going. Zach. You’re coming with us, but I want you calm and level-headed, I don’t want you doing anything dangerous or foolhardy, and I want you to let Grey take the lead on any rescue attempt. Do you understand me? If you take any unnecessary risks, you’re fired as of that moment.”

  “I understand. Don’t worry.” Zach’s leopard was growling at him to forget caution, to get out there and rescue his brother. But he knew Cal was right. Most of the rangers here were more experienced than he was, and charging heedlessly into a crevasse wasn’t going to help anything.

  “Ma’am,” said Cal to the woman whose son was missing, “we think we might know where our ranger and your son are. We’re going to go do our best to find them.”

  The woman sat up. “I’m coming with you! My car is just outside...”

  “How about you and I go up together,” Teri said to her. “Maybe we could have a radio...?” She looked at Cal. “I’ll hold onto it. We’ll only listen, we won’t say anything.”

  There was a brief pause while Cal thought this over, and then he glanced over at Jeff. “Get her a radio.” He turned back to Teri. “You stay with her, make sure she’s all right, find her husband and wait at the campsite until we get back. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Teri took the radio Jeff handed her. “We’ll stay put, don’t worry.”

  “Thank you,” Zach said quietly to her. “You figured it out.”

  Teri blushed. “It was nothing. I didn’t do anything but ask a question or two.”

  Teri had quickly and confidently gotten a distraught mother to calm down and provide exactly the information they needed. “It wasn’t nothing,” Zach assured her, but he didn’t have time to say anything more—they were heading out. “I’ll see you up there.”

  Teri nodded with absolute conviction. “You’ll find him.”

  And somehow, when she said it, he believed her.

  ***

  Teri prepared herself to spend a couple of extremely nerve-wracking hours with Jean and David Morrison, Andy’s parents.

  Jean had driven the family car white-knuckled behind the rangers’ Jeep, and when they’d parked at the end of the drivable road, Jean had wanted to follow the rangers. Teri had had to hold her back.

  “We can’t distract them,” she reminded her. “They have a job to do, and they can do it better if we aren’t looking over their shoulders. They have training that we don’t, and we might get in trouble up there on the mountain, especially if there’s dangerous terrain.”

  Jean had sobbed at the idea of her son up somewhere dangerous overnight, but she’d agreed to take Teri back to her campsite.

  “This is Teri,” Jean said to her husband when they got there. “She works for the Park, she’s keeping track of what’s going on with the radio while the rangers look for Andy.”

  Teri decided not to correct that little mistake. Jean and David would probably feel safer with her if they thought she worked for the Park than if she were a random woman who’d happened to be standing in the office when Jean had come in.

  “While the rangers look for Andy?” David demanded. He was a heavyset man with a thick beard, and his cheeks were red with cold and anger. “A ranger came by to look for him last night! Where’s that ranger? Why hasn’t he reported in?”

  “Mr. Morrison, I know the ranger who went looking for your son,” Teri said soothingly. She didn’t feel like she was lying, even though she’d only just met Joel the night before. Zach had talked about him enough that she felt like she knew him. “He’s very experienced with wilderness survival. He’s skilled, reliable, and I know he’s doing everything he possibly can to make sure your son is safe. There’s a whole team out there looking right now. They’re going to find your son.”

  Teri just hoped they found him alive and well, and that Joel was alive and well alongside him. If this couple lost their child...if Zach lost his brother...

  She summoned a smile for Jean and David. “Our job is to wait here in case Andy finds his way back,” she said firmly. “I have a radio so I’ll know when the rangers find something. Meanwhile, we’ve got to stay calm and be prepared in case anyone needs first aid when they get here.”

  She set the Morrisons to preparing in case there was some kind of emergency, although she was fairly certain that in that case, the injured person would be transported all the way back to a ranger station and then to the hospital. It was important to keep worried relatives busy so that they wouldn’t work themselves into a panic.

  Teri had a lot of experience with worried relatives. This was the first time she’d had the opportunity to put that experience into practice outside her own family, though. She was learning that being the calm, experienced outsider was a lot easier, and a lot more gratifying, than being the person everyone was worried about.

  ***

  The crevasse was up where the mountains were still snowy, and steep enough to be treacherous. Zach pictured an eight-year-old boy running around among the rocks, and felt sick at all the possibilities for injury or worse.

  The rangers had taken their Jeep up as far as it would go, and now they were hiking. Each of them had a backpack of emergency supplies and rescue equipment. They were as ready as they could be to save Joel and the little boy. Andy, Zach reminded himself; the boy’s mother had called him Andy.

  He wished Teri were here with them.

  Logically, he knew that there was enough manpower and wilderness expertise in this group to take care of any situation as efficiently and skillfully as possible. But both his human brain and his leopard’s instincts were in agreement: if Teri were here, she’d help them. She’d keep Zach calmer, she’d project cheerful confidence that everything would be all right...and she’d probably have some practical ideas to help find Joel and the kid herself.

  But she was with the parents now. Zach didn’t doubt that she was keeping them calm and focused, preventing them from running off to do anything headstrong or get in the rangers’ way. It was selfish to want her here when she was taking care of other necessary things off by herself.

  He still wished she was by his side, though. It was a strange feeling, to want someone else’s help and support. He was used to being the person who offered help and support. But Teri had changed that, made him see that they could support each other as equals.

  Still, hiking up alongside Cal, Jeff, Grey, and Tyson, he knew that if Joel was there to be found, these men would find him.

  When they reached the crevasse, Zach’s leopard was growling deep in his chest. He was overwhelmed by a wave of fierce protectiveness—a need to protect his pack, his family. Surely that meant Joel was nearby.

  Forgetting that anyone else was around, his leopard driving him forward, Zach stepped up to the edge, where the snowy slope just fell off in a sheer, icy drop. A hand closed around his collar, and he glanced back—Grey had his jacket in a hard grip.

  “Just in case,” Grey said quietly.

  Zach nodded, and crouched down to look over the edge. He couldn’t see anything, but the visibility wasn’t good at all—the chasm fell down at an angle, and twisted and turned off to the sides. He took a deep breath.

  “Joel!”

  It was the same voice he’d always used to yell after his thirteen-year-old little brother when he vanished into the woods. A get-your-ass-back-here! voice. A you-better-listen-to-me-or-else! voice.

  Thirteen-year-old Joel had gotten pretty good at ignoring Zach when he yelled, but he’d always at least jerked up at the sound of that tone. Even if he straightened his shoulders and glared defiantly at Zach before stomping off on his own, he never just ignored it.

  And sure enough, after a
second, he heard a faint, echoing, “Down here!”

  Zach straightened up and looked back at the others, a relieved grin spreading across his face. “He’s here.”

  Cal took charge, then, marshaling the group in the direction Joel’s voice had come from. When they’d gone a hundred yards, he motioned to Zach. “Call again.”

  Zach shouted again, and Joel’s voice came echoing back, and they used the call-and-response to zero in on his location. Soon, Zach was leaning over the edge of the crevasse—Grey’s hand latched firmly onto his jacket—and hearing Joel call up from directly below.

  “We’re here!” he shouted. “Do you have the kid?”

  “Got him!” Joel yelled up. “We’re okay!”

  Something inside of Zach relaxed at that. Even knowing Joel was alive, he’d been terrified that he’d be badly hurt, maybe even injured too severely for shifter healing to fix.

  “We’re sending down a rope,” Zach called back, and turned to where the others had already started setting up the equipment—picks, rope, a harness, all specifically designed to pull someone up a slope when they were stuck and couldn’t manage it themselves.

  And Zach had spent enough time by now staring down the crevasse. Its sides were mirror-bright slick sheets of ice. Even in leopard form, with claws to dig in and climb with, Joel would’ve been taking a big risk to try to scale the walls, and that wasn’t considering the child he was with.

  They lowered the harness quickly, the ropes firmly anchored in the icy ground. After several minutes, Joel yelled, “Pull it up!” and they hauled it up more slowly, careful not to jerk it or let it swing. Joel would be sending the kid up first, and the last thing they wanted was for him to get hurt by slamming against the sides of the crevasse on the way up.

  Zach was closest to the edge, and he was watching as the harness came into view, holding a small body wearing a bright red parka and a knit hat. The kid looked up, craning his neck to see, and Zach waved at him. One puffy-gloved hand waved back.

  As soon as the kid was in range, Zach reached down and took his hand, more for reassurance than as any added force, since everyone else was manning the ropes and hauling him up easily. The kid clutched at him, clearly welcoming the contact, and when Zach finally hauled him over the edge, he pulled him into a hug before doing anything else.

  “Hey, Andy,” he said. “You’re safe now. We’re going to get you back to your parents as soon as we can. Can you tell me, are you hurt anywhere?”

  The kid shook his head, sniffling a little, and Zach pulled back to get the harness off and look him over. Jeff came over to crouch next to him, and Zach glanced over at him. Jeff nodded—the kid looked fine. Rosy cheeks, no stiffness or suggestion that he was in pain, no obvious hypothermia.

  “Hey, can I take these off for a sec?” Jeff asked with a friendly smile.

  The kid nodded, and Jeff tugged off his gloves. “Your fingers look just fine,” he said after a second. “I guess Joel took good care of you down there, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said the kid. “He taught me all sorts of stuff, about how to stay warm in the cold and how to stay safe while you’re hiking alone, and...”

  Jeff tugged the kid back away from the edge, making encouraging noises, and Zach adjusted the harness so it would fit a large adult man instead of an eight-year-old, and tossed it back over the side.

  It was only a few minutes later that Joel’s head appeared, and Zach watched him slowly rise up the crevasse with his heartbeat thundering in his ears and his leopard growling protectively. The second Joel was in reach, Zach grabbed at his hands and pulled him up over the edge and into an embrace.

  Joel hugged him back, laughing a little when Zach wouldn’t let go. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said into Zach’s ear. “I’m not going to fall again if you give me a chance to breathe.”

  Zach forced himself to let go of his brother and step back. Joel looked all right—no obvious injuries, skin reddened with the cold instead of dangerously white, giving Zach a tolerantly exasperated look. Overall, he seemed perfectly healthy.

  "What the hell were you thinking?" Zach burst out.

  Joel rubbed his forehead. "Here we go."

  "Where was your radio? How did you end up at the bottom of a crevasse? Why didn't you contact someone to let them know where you were? You know I thought you might be dead? I sincerely thought you could be dead out here in the snow somewhere. What kept you from telling anyone what happened?"

  Zach broke off, breathing hard. Joel waited a second after he stopped. "Are you done?" he asked. "Okay, then let me tell you what happened. I found the campsite with the couple who said their kid had gone missing. I figured he was climbing around on the rocks so I went off a ways and shifted to sniff around and see where he might have gone. When I caught his scent, I shifted back and grabbed my gear. I went up the mountainside a ways, further than I thought he would've gone, and just when I was about to radio in a missing child and double back to keep looking somewhere else, I saw him up on a rock just over there." Joel waved a bit up-slope, to where a rocky overhang loomed over the edge of the crevasse. “Found out later that he’d climbed up to try and figure out the way back. He’d been lost for a while.

  "You can't see the drop from up there, so when he slid down the side, he didn't know he was just going to keep going until he hit bottom, he thought he'd just end up on the ground. I shouted, but it was too late, so I had to run and try to catch him. I was just a little too late—grabbed his jacket, but went over the side with him, and we both slid all the way down. I caught a few bumps and bruises, but I kept myself between him and the ice, so he was fine, and the incline was enough to keep the impact from hurting too bad."

  "What about your radio?" Zach asked. "Why didn't you call in?"

  Joel dug in his pocket and came up with his radio. It was smashed. "I must have caught it on a rock during the fall. Let me tell you, I would've rather gotten hurt. I cursed a blue streak when I saw it, traumatized poor Andy's ears."

  Zach was more concerned about Joel than about Andy's ears. "You couldn't climb out?"

  Joel shook his head. "I might've managed if I could've shifted but with the kid..." He kept his voice soft to keep Andy from overhearing, but glanced over to where the kid was answering Jeff's questions. "It wasn't happening. And even if I'd been okay showing him the leopard, or if I'd gone off a ways down the crevasse and shifted while I was out of sight, I couldn't leave him alone for that long. It would've taken hours to get somewhere with a working radio and then get back to check on him. He could've gotten frostbite or hypothermia, and at the very least he'd have been scared out of his mind."

  Zach nodded grudgingly. In his head, he knew all of this was true, and he probably could've figured most of it out on his own. His instincts, though, were yelling at him to pin Joel down and teach him a lesson for getting into danger like this and giving Zach such a hell of a scare.

  "Besides," Joel added, with a hint of his old rebellious grin, "I knew you'd show up eventually."

  Zach punched him in the arm.

  "Ow, hey!" Joel gripped his bicep with his other hand, laughing. "I've been in mortal danger, here!"

  "If you gentlemen are finished," came Cal's dry voice behind Zach. They both straightened.

  "Sorry," Zach apologized. "I should've let him talk to you first."

  "Better late than never. Joel, it looks like you successfully kept yourself and the kid safe and warm overnight out here."

  Joel nodded. "I had my emergency supplies, so we had rations and a few things to help keep us from freezing. Taught the kid how to conserve warmth and protect the extremities. Radio was broken, but we managed just fine anyway. Thanks for finding us."

  "It was a group effort." Cal motioned them both away from the edge of the crevasse, and they went to join the others. "Good work," he said quietly to Joel as they walked.

  Zach glanced over at Joel as Cal went to talk to the kid. "Yeah," he said. "That was good work, Joel. You kept yourself and
the kid alive, and he seems just fine—not even scared."

  "Oh, yeah," Joel said. "I think his parents are going to have a hard time keeping him from going on any more unauthorized camping trips. He was scared at first, and here and there throughout the night, but overall I might have made it into too much of an adventure."

  "Better than the other way around." Zach took a breath. "I'm proud of you."

  Joel looked over at him, surprised, and smiled. "Hey. Thanks."

  "No charge. And if you ever do anything like that to me again, I will hurt you."

  "Have to catch me first." Joel darted over to the rest of the rangers, accepting a handshake from Grey and a noogie from Jeff, and exchanging a nod with the more reserved Tyson. Zach shook his head and followed.

  ***

  It was hard work keeping the Morrisons from completely freaking out, but Teri thought she did a good job. She made them set up an emergency medical station with what supplies they had, organize the campsite to make sure nothing would be in the way when the rangers got there, and quizzed them on camping safety as they worked. She was surprised at how much she remembered from her volunteer days in high school. She'd been putting the rules into practice whenever she went hiking or camping in the Park before her accident, but it had been years and years since she'd had to list them out like that.

  Finally, after what felt like a year of waiting—although she was sure it was worse for the Morrisons—the radio crackled.

  "Found them," came a gruff voice that Teri was pretty sure belonged to Cal. "Joel and Andy both. They're just fine. Be back at the campsite ASAP."

  "Got it," Teri told him, wishing she knew what the protocols were for acknowledging communications on the rangers' radio line. "Thanks." She turned to the Morrisons. "Andy's safe. They're bringing him back now."

  The next thing she knew, she was being hugged tight. She flailed a little, but managed to turn it into a return hug without too much awkwardness. Jean held her hard, fingers digging in. "Thank you," she was saying over and over, "thank you, thank you."