High Country Christmas

by Cynthia Thomason

  She walked to her desk and saw a folded paper leaning against her pencil sharpener. Miss Cahill, it said. Personal.

  She picked it up and studied the script. She’d never seen Noah’s handwriting before, except for his signature when he filled out paperwork for Sawyer’s admittance, but somehow she knew that the note was from him. Bold, clear strokes of the pen reflecting the boldness of the man himself.

  She unfolded the paper and read. Disappointed that he was going to be gone for five days, she read on, hoping that perhaps he would be on campus long enough for her to see him once more before he left. And then she read the last part of the note. “Good thing I only have one kid...parenting is not my strong suit.”

  Something inside of her snapped, a sharp, painful ache that began in her chest and radiated outward. He had no idea how his casual observation would affect her. He had no idea he had another child. But he was thankful that he didn’t have any child other than Sawyer. How would he feel if he knew about Charlie? Would he be certain that Sawyer was enough of a problem and a responsibility?

  She banished any notion of guilt that she hadn’t told him about her pregnancy. He’d walked out of her bedroom and her life after a few hours of intense emotions that she’d never forgotten, not for one instant. Through the blur of her shame she heard him admit he was married, and she let him go. She didn’t know how to contact him. What happened that night was completely unplanned and unexpected. She wasn’t emotionally ready for what occurred, and he wasn’t free to pursue it anyway.

  No, Charlie was her responsibility. From the moment she discovered she was pregnant, she loved the life growing inside her. But never once did she think she was the appropriate person to raise him. She was busy twelve hours a day climbing ladders to success. Besides, what did she know about raising a child? She was scared. Petrified of making a mistake. Sure, she had a family, but not one close by. For all intents and purposes, she was on her own. Other moms, other families, could do better for her baby. Her baby deserved better. And now, she and Noah were in two different places about parenting. He knew that he had faults. She’d never given herself the opportunity to find out.

  But since meeting him, learning his ways, his confidence, his insecurities, the thought had entered her head that maybe, one day, he could know about Charlie. Once his problems with Sawyer were solved, he would want to know that he had a son. But no, this note, written so innocently, might have been an offhand comment. Or this note might very well reveal the truth of Noah’s feelings about fatherhood, and Ava couldn’t take that chance. He’d had one child. That was enough, and perhaps because of his flaws, maybe it was too much.

  Ava read the note a second time, or perhaps it was a third. She folded the paper and put it in the back of a desk drawer. It was for the best. Noah, with his long absences, his risk-taking lifestyle, wouldn’t be a good father for her Charlie anyway. Her Charlie... Hopefully one day those words would truly mean something. If she ever told him she was his mother, she would be in his life forever. That’s what her Charlie needed after suffering a tragic loss in his young life. Not a parent who risked his life almost on a daily basis, a father who had one child already who feared that each time she said goodbye to him might truly be the last time.

  Ava sat at her desk, folded her hands and waited. For what, she wondered. For Noah to “peek his head” in her door for a minute as he promised? For Sawyer to end her day in her usual funk of worrying and feeling abandoned? For Rudy to come by with an ultimatum? This was not going to be a good day. And now Noah would be gone for five days. And in spite of everything, she couldn’t deny that she would miss him—too much.

  * * *

  NOAH COULDN’T REFUSE his daughter anything. It was his way of making up for time lost, time that Sawyer couldn’t forgive. By the end of the shopping trip, he’d run up his credit card by nearly five hundred dollars. The biggest expense had been a new notebook computer, which he didn’t mind buying her. New earrings and shoes and purse—those things had just been fluff, and because of the job she hated, he could afford them.

  “You’re going to Tennessee in the snow?” she said when he dropped her back at Sawtooth and tried to discuss his plans with her “You’re really something, Dad, you know that? So now you’re not just climbing those stupid towers. You’ll probably freeze to death.”

  “I am climbing. But I won’t freeze to death. Remember, Sawyer, I have all the gear I need to stay warm and safe. I’ll be back in five days.”

  She got out of the truck. “Sure. Whatever. Just go.”

  He tried. “Sawyer, we’ve had such a nice day. Let’s not spoil it with...”

  She held up her packages in both hands. “Yeah,” she interrupted. “A great day. And now I know why.”

  “That’s not fair, Sawyer,” he said.

  “What is fair with us, Dad? You tell me. Is it fair for you to leave? Am I not being fair by criticizing your choices? I guess I’m just supposed to sit quietly and never say anything.”

  “That’s not true, Sawyer. We’ll talk more about this when I get back.”

  Her chin jutted out at a stubborn angle. “Never mind. Just go. I’ll see you whenever.”

  She slammed the truck door. “Five days!” he called through the glass. “Not whenever.” If she heard him, he couldn’t tell. She didn’t turn around and soon entered the cottage door. He backed up and headed down the drive muttering to himself. “Impossible. That’s what she is. No amount of reasoning gets through to her.”

  He was angry, both at his daughter for dismissing him emotionally and at himself for being impatient with her. He drove a bit too fast back to his house. When he walked inside, his phone was ringing. He hadn’t even taken his cell so nothing would interrupt his time with Sawyer.

  “Walsh,” he said. “What is it, Chad?”

  He listened to his crew chief complain about the workload, the difficulty of the projects, the narrow time structure they had to work under.

  “Let me grab a few hours’ sleep, I’ll leave at 5:00 a.m.”

  He could have left then. Maybe should have, but too many climbers had learned the hard way that driving through the night left them tired and careless. Noah liked to ensure that his crew had proper rest and recuperation. Not just for their bodies, which took a serious toll climbing those heights with a thirty-pound bag of supplies attached to them, but emotionally as well. Tower climbers were a particular breed of technical people and at forty years of age, he was still one of them. How much longer could he continue to do this job? His body would tell him.

  He had a beer, ate a frozen dinner and tried not to think about last night’s meal at Brickstones. When he crawled into bed at nine, he put Sawyer out of his mind and let the void fill with Ava. Not a bad way to drift off to sleep. And not a bad way to fill his mind on the drive to Tennessee tomorrow.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NOAH REACHED THE job site at ten o’clock. The sun was shining, but in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, snow was still thick on the trees and landscape. Not the pretty, thick snow—the cold, about-ready-to-turn-to-ice freezing stuff.

  He spotted his crew about fifty yards off the highway in an open field. Their pickup truck was parked close to the tower, which was a tall one, more than four hundred feet. He shivered, imagining the top and hanging on in what looked to be about a twenty-mile-per-hour wind. He was equipped with warm work gloves, a fleece jacket, knit cap and helmet, and fur-lined boots. He’d be fine. He’d worked in worse situations.

  Chad, his crew chief, was visible right away. At six foot five, he was easy to pick out in a crowd. Nearing fifty years old, he didn’t climb much anymore and never the tallest towers. He managed the guy wires down below and kept his attention on the progress up the tower. If anyone dropped a wrench two hundred feet in the air, threatening to hit a climber below him, Chad knew about it and hollered a warning before it caused damage.


  As Noah drove his truck to the site, he noticed something very unusual about the climb. Only one man was on the tower. Bad mistake. Everyone should have a climbing buddy, just like Noah had Karl. Whoever this was, he was going solo. Great. A problem he’d have to deal with right away.

  But then, as he got closer, he realized the guy was not only alone. He was minus the most important equipment. Noah jumped out of the truck and ran to confirm his fears. The man had no harness, no helmet, no satchel of work supplies. He was close to thirty feet off the ground, and he wasn’t moving. His feet were on two support poles; his arms circled a central pole and he was holding on as if his life depended on it.

  And Noah had the sickening thought that it probably did.

  He spoke to his crew chief first. “What the heck’s going on here, Chad? Who is that guy?”

  Chad’s normally placid face was etched with frustration. His eyes remained fixed on the climber. “He’s a new hire, Noah. Just came on this morning. Had all the right credentials and convinced me he knew what he was doing. You weren’t here, and we needed the help, so...”

  “Does that look like he knows what he’s doing?” Noah blurted out.

  “He’s a hotshot, Noah. A free climber. Told the crew this morning that he could shimmy one hundred feet up any tower with no safety equipment. A few of the guys tried to tell him it was senseless to try, but the dang fool set out to prove it.”

  Noah had met a few guys like this. Free climbers who tested their skill and stupidity by forgoing safety equipment for a temporary thrill. Noah didn’t allow such disregard for the rules on one of his teams so he’d never before worked with one. And never before had he been responsible for one. All that suddenly changed.

  “I suppose you told him to come down before he kills himself,” Noah said.

  “I’ve been yelling at him for the past fifteen minutes,” Chad said.

  “Great. And when he does come down, you’re going to tell him he’s fired.”

  “I should hope the dunce has figured that out by now.”

  Noah glanced around at the three other crew members who seemed spellbound by the careless act. “Why didn’t someone go up after him?” he asked Chad.

  “They didn’t believe he was in any real trouble.” Chad jabbed a thumb in the direction of the tower. “The guy, Rick’s his name, convinced everyone he could climb freestyle. Nobody knew he’d get thirty feet up and freeze. And once he got so high, well, nobody wanted to go up and save him.”

  In this weather, the word freeze had two entirely different meanings. The weather was one. Blind, numbing fright was the other, the kind that left a person immobile and unable to act.

  Noah uttered a few colorful phrases under his breath as he dashed for his truck and the equipment he could get to easily. He pulled on his helmet, snapped the strap in place, grabbed his harness, stepped into it and buckled it across his chest. Last he put on his gloves and grabbed a couple of cables and lanyards to secure his climb. He chose the strongest cables because he had a hunch he’d be coming back down with about one hundred and sixty pounds of dead weight hanging on to his shoulders.

  “You’re going up after him?” Chad asked.

  Noah stared at the man three stories above his head as he attached cables and lanyards to his harness. “Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be the boss. But I figure that idiot has a mother somewhere who expects him for Christmas dinner.”

  Noah took his first step up the tower. He called out, “Hey, Rick, you okay up there?”

  “I can’t move,” the man said. “It’s so cold. My hands are going to slip. I’m going to fall.”

  And then Noah began talking, saying whatever came into his mind. As he made his way up the climbing poles, hooking his lanyards above him with each step to secure his position for the next ascent up the tower, he continuously talked to Rick. “Got any kids, Rick? No? Where you from? Got a girlfriend?”

  Sometimes Rick answered. Most times he just cried out, “Hurry up and get me. I can’t hang on any longer.”

  Darn fool, Noah thought. If he at least had his harness on, even if his hands slipped, he’d stay attached to the tower. He might swing in this wind, get a few bruises from banging against the tower. But he’d live. As it was now, both of their futures depended on one harness.

  Noah had considered taking another harness up with him, but even if he’d been able to manage the extra weight, he would never have been able to attach it to Rick. The funny thing about freezing with fear is that the human body was truly frozen. The victim couldn’t move any part of his body. Attaching a harness would have been more dangerous than the attempt to get the guy down piggyback style.

  After ten minutes, Noah was breathless. The wind blew ice particles into his face that felt like needles. But he’d reached his target. He hooked the lanyards from both harness cables to a position above him and reached out to put a hand on Rick’s back. The wind beat relentlessly. Rick’s jacket flapped in the wind, making a racket.

  “We’re going to get you down, Rick,” Noah said. “But you have to listen to me.”

  Rick’s voice was hoarse and trembling. “I’ll try. I will. What should I do?”

  “I’m going to bring my head up under your arm. Then all you have to do is wrap your arm around my shoulders, as tightly as possible. Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t move. I’ve done this dozens of times, but today, I don’t know. The weather. I hadn’t planned on... I’m so sorry. I...”

  You may have done this dozens of times, Noah thought, but this is one time too many. He saw Rick’s fingers begin to slip on the pole. “Here I come. Under your arm just like I told you.”

  Noah had practiced the maneuver, but he’d never had to use it. None of his climbers had ever tried to free climb a tower, especially not in weather conditions like these. He was glad he’d never encountered this dangerous situation before. He would have fired the guy on the spot.

  This rescue maneuver was not intended for careless free climbers. This approach was strictly for safety climbers who had all their necessary equipment but had encountered an unexpected problem, a cramp, a broken bone from falling objects, a heart attack. Heck, Noah would have risked his own life without a thought for a guy like that. But this hotshot...

  He reminded himself of Rick’s mother, ducked his head and met the rock-hard wall of Rick’s upper arm. “Loosen up,” Noah hollered. “Give me a little space to get under you.”

  Rick’s muscles relaxed just enough for Noah to slip under his arm. He grabbed Rick’s hand from the pole and brought his arm around his own neck. He could already feel the weight of the climber on his back.

  “That’s good,” Noah said. “We’re attached. Just a few more moves and we’re going down together.” He could hear Rick grinding his teeth, sucking in quick breaths.

  “Now the other hand, Rick,” Noah said. “Let go of the pole and bring your hand around to clasp on to the first hand.”

  Rick didn’t move. Noah thought he heard something very like a giant sob. “You’ve got to do this, Rick. You’ve got to help me. Hell, man, I don’t want to freeze up on this pole with you!”

  Rick’s index finger slipped on the pole, loosening his grip. It was enough for Noah to grab his hand and pull it around to grasp the other. Now the climbers were head to head with Rick making a sort of choker around Noah’s throat.

  “Loosen up a bit,” Noah said. “Keep holding your wrists just like you are but I’ve got to breathe, son.”

  Rick exhaled, and Noah grabbed one of his legs. The foot slipped right off the pole, and Noah hooked his hand under Rick’s knee and brought the entire leg around his waist. “Okay, that’s good. Now the other leg.”

  “No. I can’t,” Rick cried.

  “We’re almost there, Rick. Lock your other leg around my waist and we’ll start down. We’ll be on the ground in te
n minutes. I’ve got you. I’ve got a harness. We’ll get down.”

  Rick whimpered, didn’t move. His knees dug into Noah’s ribs. His weight grew more cumbersome by the second. Noah had no choice. He forced Rick’s other foot from the pole, Rick’s last attachment to the tower, grabbed his knee and brought the leg around. A sharp pain sliced into Noah’s chest. He figured he’d cracked a rib. The phrase “I’m getting too old for this...” raced through his brain.

  “Okay. Now all you do is hold on. You can do that. Hold on.” Every word hurt, pushed by air from a damaged rib. “I’m taking the first step down the tower.” Sucking in a shallow painful breath, Noah released one lanyard, placed his boot on the next pole down.

  And Rick panicked. He screamed, reached above his head and clutched the second lanyard, the one Noah hadn’t loosened yet. The first rule of climbing. Always leave one lanyard attached. Even one cable will hold the weight of one man. And if a guy is lucky, maybe two.

  Noah reached up, tried to punch Rick’s hand away from the lanyard. He hollered above the wind for him to let go. But the damage had been done. Rick’s fingers depressed the clip, the lanyard slipped from the pole. There was nothing attaching both men to the tower. They were both suddenly free climbing. Only Noah had a cumbersome harness and the weight of another human on his back.

  His hands slipped. Noah heard the men on the ground holler up to him. He thought he heard Chad yell, “Call 911. They’re coming down.”

  Noah reacted instinctively. He’d been taught how to fall, how best to hit the ground. He had only seconds. He clutched Rick’s arms as they tumbled. Noah remembered two things. Duck your head. Land on your side. Five seconds later his body struck the hard, icy ground and everything went black.

  * * *

  THE CALL CAME into the administrative offices at the Sawtooth Children’s Home a little before noon. Ava and SherryLynn were going over some important paperwork that was due on Monday. SherryLynn paused to answer and spoke in a soft, serious tone. “Ava, you better take this. The man says it’s an emergency.”