“Sam, Sam, you better come quick,” a runner shouted as he slid up to them.
“What’s wrong?”
“Benny just fell off Lover’s Leap.”
Kris didn’t ask for more explanation; she started running. The runner did a quick reverse and led the way; Sam stayed on her heels. As reported, the water was up to mid-calf for a stretch, but a line of fence posts was being hammered in place. The barbs on the wire between posts didn’t look too nasty. Close to the cliff, Kris spotted a light and cut toward it.
A half dozen men stood around one. A glance at the body showed Kris all she needed to know. The arms, back, and legs went in far too many directions. Gashes on the man’s face showed where he’d bounced off rocks on the way down. A gnarled pine lay across him. But that wasn’t what held Kris’s attention. The team was alternating lead climber. That climber would cover the next stretch, then pull the rest up by a rope secured to the rock face, trees, whatever was locally handy. What had gone wrong here?’ Had the rope broken? Were there more fallen climbers out in the dark? Kris ground her teeth as she eyed her commlink. But before she’d bother Tom, she’d make this dead man tell her everything he could. She stooped by the body, found a loop of rope and followed it. That required moving the body. She rolled it over with a firm shove.
“God, lady, that’s Benny.”
“She knows what she’s doing,” Sam cut in as Kris followed more rope. There was blood on it, and blood on her hands, but she followed the rope until she found the end under Benny’s lopsided skull.
“The rope’s been cut,” she said. “Did Benny have a knife?”
“Of course he does.”
“You see it?” The body was again moved, this time gingerly by men who knew and loved the man. Benny’s knife was missing.
Kris stood, holding the end of the rope, and swallowed hard at the message she read in it. “He cut himself loose when the pine came out.” Kris had tasted the courage it took to lead a drop mission, and she’d drunk deep of the courage that let you charge into battle, gun blazing, but she had to wonder if she could have eaten the plate that fate set before Benny. Could she cut herself loose, give herself the long fall, to make sure her fall didn’t take her buddies down?
“Kris, you there?” Tom spoke from the commlink.
“Yes, Tom. How is it?”
“Pretty bad there for a while.”
“I’m here with Benny.”
“Was that his name? God…” The link choked to silence.
“Have mercy on him,” someone finished beside Kris and knelt to close the dead man’s eyes.
“Anyway, we were in a bad place, but we’re all through it now. The next hundred meters looks pretty doable, but I still can’t see the top. We’re all tied back together. I’ll call you later. Out.”
“Kris, out.”
They left Benny where he fell; the body should go up the hill if they had time. Like all the climbers, Benny had been vaccinated, but Kris had no way of knowing if he was coming down with Grearson. If he was, Kris doubted the vaccine could have done much good in the few hours since he got the shot.
The water was already up to Kris’s knees as she waded across the low spot back to the cabin. That settled it for her; with two hours until dawn, she’d get everyone bundled up in whatever might keep them warm and start them for the trail head. “How are the sick doing?” Kris asked the medic as she came in the cottage.
He shook his head. “Give me one medevac flight, and I’d bet my last dollar they’d all live. But taking them out into that rain … I just don’t know.”
“I need to move them out there now. If we stay here much longer, I can’t be sure they’ll get to the trailhead at all.”
The medic closed his eyes and breathed out a long, hurting sigh. “And we’ve got to get them or their bodies up that damn cliff. Yes, Ensign, I know my duty to public health outweighs my obligation to my patients. Damn. I know it. That doesn’t mean I like it much.”
“Not much to like today, is there?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get tarps to the trailhead. The wind’s kicking up, but we’ll do what we can.”
Kris sent them out into the rain in groups of five or so. She wasn’t surprised an hour later to discover that she and Karen were nearly alone. An elderly woman remained; she’d been fussing about with children and somehow missed each group going out. The woman with the baby had also held back. “She’s got a bad cough,” she offered by way of explanation.
Kris took a last glance around the one-room house. It was strewn with empty food cartons, vaccine bottles, the general refuse of a hasty exit. The bed was stripped of blankets and sheets, used when the sick were carried out. If it stank, Kris’s nose was long past noticing. Collecting the lantern from its place on the dining table, Kris turned to follow the mother and child. The water was ankle deep as they stepped off the porch. Kris followed Karen and the old woman; they seemed to know the way. By the time they got to the start of the barbed wire fence, the water was up to Kris’s knees and had a current to it. Kris put one arm around the mother’s shoulders, the other to the wire. The mom hugged her baby close with both arms.
When they reached the low spot, it was clear the older woman had a problem. Short to start with, the water was well up to her shoulders. “You stay here,” Kris told her charge, then moved up to help Karen. Holding the elderly woman between them, they got her across the hundred meters of what could only be called a running river now. As a gawky teenager, Kris doubted there was any reason for a girl being six feet tall. Tonight, Kris would have gladly added another four inches to her stature.
Once across, Kris handed the lantern to Karen and immediately turned back. “I’ll go with you,” Karen offered.
“No, you two get to the trailhead. There’s still a patch of dry land there. Dry yourselves off.”
“In this rain?” the old woman cackled. “You’re dreaming.” But Karen got her charge moving. Kris took it slow going back, refusing to believe that the current had gotten faster, the water deeper, in just the time since she’d made the last trip.
Again, Kris put one arm around the mother’s shoulders, the other on the top wire of the fence. “Watch your step,” she told the mother and child. They went slow, planting each forward step firmly before removing weight from the back leg. Kris was lifting her trailing foot when the woman beside her went down.
In a second, Kris knew she was losing her. She grabbed for whatever she could and got a fistful of coat collar. Kris locked her hand down on the wire, grabbing a barb. Metal cut deep into her palm, but Kris squelched a scream that would have robbed her of air as she was dragged under by the burdened mother.
The fence had been meant as a guide, not a support. As Kris and her charge hit it, the poles nearest to them gave up their hold on the muddy ground. Kris fought to get a foothold, to get her head above water, to get a breath, to hold on to the wire, to hold on to the woman. Somehow she managed them all.
By the time Kris got one foot to hold, she was a good twenty meters downstream. Holding on to the wire and the mother, Kris knew a single foot could not hold, but the several one-legged hops she did manage let her get her head above water for a moment and breath into her lungs.
Now Kris concentrated on getting her second leg down. She did a double hop and sank both feet into the mud. Still, the pull of the current on her and the mother was too much. Kris was dragged downstream for another three hops before she got her stance just right to fight the power of the river. In place, Kris got her own head above water, then pulled the mother toward her, raising her head into the night air.
“Can you breathe?” Kris yelled into the woman’s ear.
“Yes.”
Despite the wild ride, the woman was still holding her child above the water. “The baby?”
“She’s coughing.”
“Good.” Kris turned to face the raging water. Feet firmly planted, leaning into the current at nearly forty-five degrees, Kris worked the
barb out of her palm with the fingers of her bleeding hand, then moved her grip on the wire over a hand’s width to the left. She risked a side step of a few centimeters. Then another. Moved the hand past the next barb, got a good grip, then moved a few centimeters over. Checked her grip on the woman. Then repeated.
The water was cold. Kris’s bleeding hand quit screaming at her. Now her problem was making sure the cold flesh was holding fast to wire and collar. Feet leaden, Kris pulled them from the mud and moved them over. Careful. Careful. Ignore the knotting in your calves, the ache in your thighs, the numbness spreading throughout your body.
A month passed, maybe a year, as Kris made her way, step by step, across the raging current. Despite the passing of eons, the sun did not rise to throw even gray light on Kris’s struggle.
Only when the water was down to Kris’s waist did she risk settling the woman in place behind her. “Thank you,” the mother said breathlessly. The baby sneezed. That was thanks enough for this whole damn project.
It took less than a week to get to ankle-deep water. Karen and Sam were waiting for them. “I was worried when you didn’t show,” Karen shouted in Kris’s ear. “Are you all right?”
“Now. I think,” Kris answered, and was grateful for an arm from Sam. The rancher took a look at Kris’s bleeding hand. “We’ll see if we can’t use some of those medical supplies you brought.”
The medic examined Kris’s palm, like a bleary-eyed gypsy fortune-teller. Then he gave her a shot, cleaned it out, and bandaged it. “That’s going to give you a problem going hand over hand up a rope,” he told her. “I’ll see that you get a lift up.”
“This little thing?” Kris said, making a fist. “Ouch.” It hurt like hell and didn’t get very tight.
“You get a lift,” the medic said and turned back to his fever patients. They’d rigged a lean-to using the tarps and some wood that had been part of the barn until recently.
Eighty people milled around in the space between the cliff and the rising water. Five small kids, now fed, had a game of tag going, chasing each other through the water and around the adults. That brought smiles from even the sick ones.
Kris looked around for what to do next.
Off to her left there was a rattle as rocks came off the cliff. A second later, a dark-clad body followed, hitting the cliff and bouncing into a stunted pine. Kris and Sam headed for it as Kris’s commlink came to life. “Kris.”
“I know, Tom. You lost another.” It was Akuba, the dark-skinned man that Kris had dragged upriver. The fall had crushed the life from his body. Behind Kris, mothers corralled kids and pulled them away from this sign of their mortality, possibly all their mortalities.
“We’re about twenty meters from the top,” Tom shouted from the commlink. “There’s no good way up. Akuba, Jose, and Nabil were trying three possible routes.”
“Akuba’s didn’t work,” Kris finished for him as she turned to face the ranchers. Several men and women knelt in the mud, praying. Kris hoped their god was listening. Sunday around the prime minister’s residence was a day for providing a church-based photo op to the media. That was all Father expected and all Kris understood of church. Tommy was probably up there, hanging on to a rock, and praying. Kris hoped Someone was paying attention to all the words.
“I know,” Tom went on. “Jose and Nabil are still climbing. They didn’t even look back when Akuba slipped. God, and I thought marines were tough.”
“Keep in touch,” Kris told Tom and cut the link.
“We’ll know in a few minutes,” she shouted to all the interested parties and turned back to Akuba’s body. From his jacket, a small chain had slipped out, the medallion on it covered with flowing arabic letters. Kris knew that Islam forbade images. “Allah is great,” she whispered gently as she closed the man’s eyes. Kris wondered if there was some sort of prayer she should have said over Willie, her dead wanna-be hero. Another thing she’d better learn to do if she intended to stay in this line of work.
If she didn’t drown today.
“Kris, Kris,” came fast from the commlink. “I think Nabil’s in trouble. Stay there. Don’t move,” Tom shouted on-line. “Let Jose get to the top, for God’s sake, man, don’t do it.”
Kris tried to picture the struggle taking place above her head. When you delegate a job, you’ve got to live with what happens, she reminded herself. She ordered herself to silence. The last thing Tom or any of them up the cliff, needed was someone yakking at them from the safety of the bottom.
Kris concentrated on what she could do. The water was starting to lap at the clearing around the trailhead. Akuba’s fall seemed to show that the climbers had edged to the right of the trailhead, the upriver side. “Those of you who want a job can start lugging the hay bales over here,” she announced in a calm, carrying voice that cut through the low rumble of ongoing babble. Some hurried to obey; others stayed on their knees. At the moment, Kris wasn’t willing to bet who was right.
“Damn you, Nabil,” came from the commlink. Kris got ready to dodge more falling bodies. “He made it,” Tom continued, his voice half awe, half laughter. “That son of a bitch made it!” That coming from the usually soft-spoken Tommy got a raised eyebrow from Kris as she tapped her wrist unit.
“Made what?” she asked softly.
“Not to the top,” Tommy quickly corrected. “But he was hanging on by a hand and a foot, and it didn’t look like he was going anywhere. He’s back to climbing, now.”
“The climber’s safe,” Kris shouted to the ranchers. Several crossed themselves. Others whispered, “Praise the Lord.”
“Kris,” came plaintive from Tommy.
“Yes, Tom.”
“Ensign Longknife, you down there,” came in an all-too-familiar and none-too-happy voice.
“Thank God you’re here, Colonel,” Kris screamed. “The Navy’s here,” she yelled, loud enough to be heard at the top of the cliff without benefit of net. “They’re here.”
“The marines have landed, Ensign, and the situation better not be out of hand. Drove all night like the devil to make it, but we’re here and alive. Ropes are going over the side, so look out below. How many people you got down there?”
“Ropes coming down,” Kris yelled; people backed off as six of her hired gunmen from Port Athens rode ropes down the hill. “Eighty to ninety, sir. And sir,” she said turning back to the commlink, “we can’t trust those boat bridges.”
“So I learned. One went poof on me as I was pulling it back to move on. The other left a convoy on the wrong side of a very deep ravine. Third time ain’t no charm with these jokers. Left me with a half-loaded convoy, so I came back to base early to find one of my ensigns had gone off half cocked.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry about that, sir.”
“You almost sound like you are.”
“It’s been a rough day, full of learning experiences.”
“Ensign, I want you on the first rope up.”
“Sir, we’ve got some pretty sick people,” was Kris’s answer.
Sam had come up beside her. “She’ll be on the first one,” he shouted over Kris.
“At least somebody down there has sense. Who’m I talking to?”
“Sam Anderson. I own this ranch.”
“Colonel Hancock, here. I own that ensign’s ass. Ship it back to me.” So Kris found herself on the first rope lift up, half climbing, half being dragged. There was applause as Kris started up the cliff. She put it down to the joy of the rescue starting. It couldn’t have been for the little she’d done. The cliff was not straight up. Some sections were rock, gravel, and mud at no more than a forty-five-degree angle. Kris climbed and slid her way up those, helping guide basket stretchers with three of the really sick civilians. Other parts were a rocky face, too damn close to straight up to make any difference. Kris let herself be pulled up those.
As expected, the Colonel was waiting for her at the top. Jeb was there, too, with a good chunk of her warehouse crew. Jeb had the winches well in
hand; at least the Colonel didn’t seem inclined to over-supervise him. “My truck,” was all he growled at Kris. But he handed her a blanket as he growled.
Kris found Tommy in the back of the truck the Colonel waved her to; huddled in a blanket, sipping on a hot cup of coffee with a big, satisfied grin on his face. He pointed at the thermos and Kris poured one for herself, took a sip, and almost choked. This was very Irish coffee. Someone had been quite liberal with the whiskey.
“No wonder you like it.” She coughed.
“Good coffee, but not worth what I went through.” He held out a hand, raw and bleeding. “I’m never so much as climbing on a chair for the rest of my life.”
“The medic should be up next lift. He can look at your hand.” Kris held up her bandaged one. “Barbed wire makes a lousy lifeline.” Tom sipped his whiskey-laced coffee in silence. Kris held the cup in her numb hands, letting its warmth seep into her. The whiskey she could do without.
A few minutes, or maybe a year later—time seemed quite flexible at the moment—the Colonel settled into the backseat. Kris and Tommy made room for him. Two civilians piled into the front seats. The driver goosed the engine to life, slipped the rig in gear, and headed them into the pouring rain. Wipers struggled against it. Maybe from the front seat they could see something; it wasn’t visible to Kris in the back.
“Is that fear I see in your eyes, Ensign Longknife?” the Colonel chided her. Kris leaned back in her seat, concentrated on her coffee. Wouldn’t do to have the Colonel think that after all she’d been through she was afraid of a little drive in the country…even if the driver were charging blind into the dark. “We’ve got the worst cases and the medic in the back, so don’t get too unwound,” the Colonel advised the team up front. They both leaned forward, faces almost in the front windshield.
“Right, boss. We get you there fast. Maybe even alive. No extra charge.”
“Civilians,” the colonel growled. “Almost as dumb as some ensigns I know. Just what did you think you were doing, Longknife?”
Kris Longknife: Mutineer Page 27
