“Mason, I think you should know that one of the women is Gracie Shelton.”
Mason’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his too-long hair, “What?”
Sarah nodded solemnly, “I just didn’t want you to be surprised when you saw her.” It was common knowledge that a much younger Mason had been enthralled with Gracie Shelton. It also hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that he seemed to have changed once she left town. No longer the carefree teenager, getting into trouble and raising a ruckus. He’d become quieter, and more withdrawn. He’d also isolated himself from the rest of the female population. At least the single ones.
Even years later, his only female friends were either widows, cousins, or married. A fact the single women in the surrounding towns and Silver Springs lamented for far too often.
Sarah was sure it was because Gracie had taken his heart with her when she’d left, and she’d secretly prayed for the day when Gracie would be out from under her father’s thumb and come back to Silver Springs where she belonged.
“What is Gracie doing back here?” Mason asked, keeping his voice level and without the emotion racing through him.
“Doc put an ad out to find a replacement physician. He says he’s ready to retire. I understand Gracie just finished medical school a few months ago.”
Mason said nothing, his mind still reeling from the fact that Gracie was back in Silver Springs. On Maroon Peak. In the way of a dangerous winter storm!
“Thanks for the warning. Kai, let’s roll.” Mason’s desire to reach the women before the storm became too overwhelming had just raised ten notches.
The two men made short work of getting back to the cabin. Kaillar grabbed them some protein bars and water while Mason packed up the first aid kit, extra batteries for their flashlights, and some climbing gear. A short wave radio, rope, several thermal blankets, matches to start a fire with, and several C-rations completed their kits. They had no intention of being out on the mountain all night, but the first rule of survival in the mountains was to always be prepared for the worst, hope for the best, and deal with the hand you got to the best of your ability.
By 2:30 p.m., they were back in the truck and headed for the Northern Trailhead. The ranger was still waiting for them, and she described the vehicle and the three women in great detail. They’d passed the vehicle in the parking area, confirming the three women had not hiked down yet. They got detailed descriptions of each woman from the park ranger, and Mason knew. There was no doubt in Mason’s mind that the blond woman described to him was Gracie. No doubt at all.
As a teenager, he’d begged God to bring Gracie back to him. Now that it appeared to have occurred, he found himself alternating between fear and jubilation. Kaillar was driving, having found the ATV trail that would take them partway up the mountain and save some much needed time. While he drove, Mason kept his gaze on the approaching mountain peak. If Gracie were up on the mountain, he would find her, hopefully before any harm could come to her. That was his mission; he only hoped that he’d be successful in making it a reality.
Chapter 3
Gracie felt icy water on her face and slowly opened her eyes, taking in the ominous clouds right overhead. Snow was already beginning to fall from them, in great big flakes that were full of moisture. Looking at the surrounding ground covered in the white stuff already, she knew it had been snowing for quite a while, a period of time where she’d lain unconscious on the hard ground.
She started to move, but pain radiated through her body, and she recalled falling from the rock face. She lay still and tried to take stock of the injuries to her body. Her ribs were achy, but not so much so that she worried about cracks or breaks. Just bruises were bad enough. Her head hurt, and when she lifted a hand to her temple, it came away with blood on it.
Moving down her body, she was freezing, her teeth chattering, and her arms feeling sluggish and heavy. Her mind felt slow, and she wondered how long she’d been lying there. It was starting to grow dark, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the gathering storm clouds, or if the sun had already gone down behind the mountains.
Her back felt fine, and she gingerly tried to turn her head, relieved when she was able to do so without causing pain in her neck. Her head ached, but that was to be expected since she’ hit it hard enough to lacerate it. She carefully took inventory as she moved from her neck down, grimacing in pain when she reached her legs. Her left ankle was throbbing in time with her heartbeat. It was crumpled beneath her, and the pain centered around her knee for the moment. She gingerly rolled herself over to her right side, slowly untangling her left leg until it was mostly straight. It didn’t want to cooperate, almost as if the top and bottom halves were no longer connected. Stabbing pain in her knee told her she wasn’t walking out of here on her own.
She could still wiggle her toes, and based upon the location of the pain, she guessed she’d done significant damage to the ligaments holding her knee together. She gritted her teeth, and pushed herself up to a sitting position. She was about half a mile from the overhang where she was supposed to meet her hiking partners, and she hoped they had listened to her instructions and headed down the mountain when she hadn’t shown up.
Her pack had come off, and she scooted along the wet ground until she could reach it. She pulled her cell phone out, hoping for at least one bar of service. “Please, God.” She pointed it in all directions, but still came up with nothing. She wasn’t far enough around the side of the mountain yet.
It was snowing harder now, and for the first time in her life, Gracie began to panic. Pull it together, Grace. You know these mountains. Think. There has to be someplace you can hole up until morning.
The thought of spending the night, alone and cold, on the face of the mountain was daunting, but Gracie was a fighter. She unzipped her pack, and pulled the thermal blanket from its zipper pouch. She wrapped it around her shoulders, hoping to stave off getting any wetter while she examined her options.
She was sitting at the base of the rock wall, no shelter in site. If she could make it down the mountain another twenty yards or so, she could at least take shelter in the trees and the pine needles. She’d never had a chance to use the survival skills they’d learned in seventh grade science, but suddenly pieces of information popped into her head.
Find shelter from the wind and moisture. The trees would have to do.
Stay someplace where you could be seen from the air by a search and rescue plane. That one was a little more difficult. There was no open space close, but Gracie’s jacket was bright red and purple. That should count for something.
Snow caves can save your life. Okay, there wasn’t enough snow to build a snow cave, but the idea was that one could use nature to conserve body heat. There was a deep bed of pine needles beneath the trees. She only hoped that it was cold enough that any bugs who’d inhabited the needles during the warmer months had died or were in hibernation. She wasn’t a prissy girl who screamed at the sight of a spider, but she also didn’t feel up to sharing her makeshift bed with them.
She put her pack on her front, slipping her arms through the straps and tightening them so she wouldn’t have to worry about it falling off. She needed all of her concentration for what was to come. She scooted over to the rock wall so that she could try to pull herself to a standing position. It took her several attempts, but she finally was able to use her good leg to push her body up along the rock surface. She was panting with her efforts afterwards, and she stayed there for several minutes to let her head stop spinning and the nausea in her stomach ease. Her knee was protesting the slightest movement vehemently, but she pressed onward.
Ten minutes later, she felt able to continue. She brushed the snow off her hair, and took a look at her goal. The trees to be more specific. She had all of her weight resting on her good leg, and she was trying to ignore the pulsing pain in her injured knee. She just needed to reach the trees. She edged her way along the rock wall, using it as a support beam for as long as possib
le. When it was time to step out and head for the trees, she gingerly placed some weight on her left leg, screaming in pain as it buckled and she fell forward to the ground. She lay there panting, trying to control the pain, all while refusing to give in to the tears of despair and frustration that were stinging her eyes. “Come on, Grace! You have to do this!”
She pushed her torso up, and slowly began to crawl across the now snow-covered ground, using her good leg to push herself up while her injured leg simply dragged along. Her injured leg felt every stick, rock, and bump along the way, but Gracie gritted her teeth and pressed on.
She felt rocks and debris poke through her gloves, but she didn’t stop. If she stayed out in the open, it would possibly be the last thing she ever did. If she reached the trees, hopefully someone would come looking for her soon. If not tonight, then at first light. Her vision was blurry, and her arms felt leaden, but still she moved forward.
It was small comfort given her present predicament, but it was all she had. Determination had gotten her far, and it would see her through this situation as well. It took her twenty minutes before she reached the dense trees. Tears were streaming down her face, freezing before they could drop to the ground and mud and debris covered most of her body.
She lay there, panting with her efforts, trying to take shallow breaths so the nausea would abate. She rolled to her back, and then leveraged herself up under the first tree she came to that was still relatively dry underneath. Her thermal blanket was now covered in mud and melting snow, but she wrapped it around herself anyway. She tried to bend her knee to keep her body heat in close, but the muscles had finally stiffened up to the point that she couldn’t even bend it the slightest bit.
She scooped pine needles over her leg, hoping the survivalist who had taught their class actually had known what he was talking about. She wrapped the thin thermal blanket tighter around herself, covering her head and praying for morning to come quickly.
The wind howled, the snow continued to fall, and Gracie finally allowed the exhaustion and pain to overtake her, forcing her body into a deep sleep as her body temperature started to drop.
*****
Mason was sick with worry.
He and Kaillar had found two of the women an hour and a half ago, huddled beneath a rocky overhang, just where Gracie had told them to seek shelter. They were scared and cold, but otherwise in good health. They’d been relieved to see the two men, and then expressed feelings of guilt for not having attempted to make it down the trail on their own.
Neither woman seemed to have enough hiking experience to be up on the mountain in bad weather. Mason had assured them that staying put was actually the best choice they could have made. But they’d been worried sick about their friend. Gracie Shelton.
She was missing, and Mason and Kaillar felt horrible confirming that she had never made a phone call to the ranger station for help. Mason sent Kaillar back down to the station with the other two women, and he pulled a map from his pocket.
The women had described the location where Gracie tried to climb down, and he decided to take an approach from the bottom up. The snow was already an inch thick in most places, and more was accumulating by the minute. Even with ropes and anchors, trying to scale a rock wall in this weather was suicide.
He carefully made his way around the western side of the mountain, using the known trails and avoiding the rockslide areas, as they were too slippery and dangerous in this weather.
He finally reached the rock wall that he assumed Gracie had attempted to climb down, looked up, and shook his head. In this weather, he would have trouble descending this particular wall, and he was an expert climber. I wonder if she actually scaled the wall, and where she learned to do something this difficult.
He looked around the ground, and would have missed the signs that someone had been there if he hadn’t started to slip and reached out to catch himself. His hand came away from the rock with fresh blood smeared across it.
He looked around frantically trying to see through the falling snow. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he called out, “Gracie!” He sent up a silent prayer, hoping the blood was hers and at the same time, hoping it wasn’t. “Gracie! If you can hear me, call out.”
He listened carefully, the wind making it difficult to hear. He searched the ground for further evidence, and took his eyes in an ever increasingly wide circle out from the rock wall. When he was almost thirty yards out, he found what he’d been looking for. Drag marks!
He went in that direction, cupping his hands to concentrate his voice, “Gracie!”
He followed the drag marks, and then he saw the shiny silver blanket, partially covered in snow, but covering what appeared to be a very still form.
He slid down the remaining feet, and then quickly brushed the snow off the huddled figure. He pulled the thermal blanket open to reveal a mud covered female he could only assume was the girl of his dreams? This can’t be right. In my dreams, Gracie and I were always re-united in prom attire! Crazy dreams of a teenager, and this is most definitely a full grown woman.
Shaking his head at the fanciful ideas racing through it, he pulled off one glove and searched for a pulse. It was faint, and her skin was cool to the touch. Too cool. He immediately began to worry about hypothermia.
He shook her shoulder, “Gracie!” He didn’t even consider that the woman wasn’t Gracie. She bore the same half-moon scar over her right eyebrow as Gracie. A scar she’d received when they’d slipped past the safety gates and gone exploring inside the Silver Springs Mine. They’d been foolish, but at the age of twelve, they’d thought themselves invincible. With the images from the most recent Raiders of the Lost Ark playing in their heads, they been searching for buried treasure and adventure.
When Justin had realized where they were, they’d hurried to exit the mine before he reached them and had proof of their foolishness, but Gracie hadn’t ducked far enough and the metal bolt sticking out of the safety gate had caught her just above the eye.
Doc had taken one looked at her and silently stitched her up before asking how she’d hurt herself. When a tearful Mason had tried to explain, Doc had given both of them a lecture on the dangers of closed up mines, and threatened to tell his uncle and her father if they ever did anything so stupid again.
A gust of wind forced his mind back to the present. He moved her hair back, and that’s when he saw the cut and large bump on her forehead. Blood had dripped down the other side of her forehead, but seemed to have mostly stopped now. “Sugar, what did you do to yourself?” He was stunned at the depth of feeling that pulsed through him. He wanted to gather her close to his chest and protect her from all harm. But first, he needed to figure out how she was hurt and find them some shelter.
She wasn’t responding to him, and he didn’t feel that they had time to waste. He pulled his radio from his pocket and waited until Justin came on. “Mason’s on his way to the ranger station with two of the women. The other one tried to climb down the cut wall to call for help. It looks like she fell and cracked her head pretty good.”
While speaking, Mason had been moving the leaves she’d piled up around her, pausing when he saw the angle of her extended leg. “She’s got some sort of leg injury and a small cut on her head. How about sending the chopper up here?”
“Mason, I wish I could. Visibility is awful, and they just shut down the closest airports.”
“Chopper?” Mason asked, already knowing the answer.
“Not until the visibility clears up. How far up are you?” Justin asked.
“About ten thousand feet would be my guess. It’s already dumped a few inches in the last half hour. She can’t walk down, and I can’t carry her that far. Too steep.”
“Can you get her down to one of the line shacks?”
Mason thought for a moment and then smiled, “I’d forgotten about those. Yeah, I think I can get her down that far. We should be directly above the closest one.”
> “That’s what I would do. If you can get her some place dry for the night, I’ll send someone up to get you just as soon as the storm clears.”
“Will do. I’ll check in once we reach the shack.” Mason pocketed the radio, and then stuffed her thermal blanket back into her pack. They had about a half hour of sunlight, and they needed to be close to the shack before night fell. It was time to put himself to the test. Both of their lives depended upon it.
Chapter 4
Mason made it to the line shack and kicked the door open. Gracie hadn’t stirred during their slippery walk down the side of the mountain. He was grateful for that fact, as he’d not been able to carry her through the trees without adding some bumps and bruises to her body.
He laid her down on the floor, and quickly shut the door. It appeared that this shack had been used during the summer as a fresh supply of firewood was in the carrier and someone had taken the liberty of stacking some in the hearth. A stack of old newspapers lay nearby, and he wadded some up and stuffed then beneath the logs before lighting them.
Once he was sure that the fire was going, he took a survey of their surroundings, finding several wind-up lamps and two oil ones. He lit them all, placing them around the single room shack to provide as much light as possible.
Turning back to Gracie, he could see her body shivering as it attempted to maintain her body temperature. He removed her boots, pulled her jacket from her body, and then her jeans, being careful not to disturb her injured leg any more than necessary. She had full thermal underwear on beneath, and he tried to ignore the way his body appreciated her lithe form. She was beautiful, but right now, she was out cold and Mason was growing more worried with each passing minute.
He pulled out a gallon of water from one of the shelves, and used it to wet some paper towels. He carefully wiped her hands and face off, carefully cleansing around the cut on her forehead and wishing they had the benefit of a medical exam. The purplish bruising and swelling was significant, but it was the fact that she was unconscious which worried him most.
Three Brothers Lodge - The Complete Series Box Set Page 12
