by Shawn Grady
I pursued with the poker raised, only to see Trent rising from the floor, revolver in hand.
I swerved midstride – hot metal zinging past my flank – smacked the wall, and rolled into the hallway. Wood splintered. I dove into the back bedroom, locked the door, leapt over the bed, and squatted by the wall.
My heart hammered in my chest. Hot blood dripped from my nose.
A rectangular window stood over the bed, maybe four feet by two. I smashed the glass with the poker and scraped the frame free of shards.
I crouched and listened.
Still no sound at the room door.
Forget it. There was no way I was staying in the cabin. I tossed the poker outside and pulled myself up through the window, racecar style.
At a seated position in the frame, I heard pine needles crunch.
Around the cabin’s corner, Trent leveled the revolver.
A shot fired. I dropped into the room, air singing. A bullet struck high on the bedroom wall. I scrambled low and unlocked the door. A third shot pinged. I scuffled into the hallway and shielded myself.
I counted the shots that had rung out. One in the living room. Two in the hallway. Three from outside.
If he only had Eli’s gun, he’d be out of bullets.
I sprinted down the hall, slid into the front door and kicked it shut. I flipped the lock and scooted to the side, scanning the cabin floor for the other pistol.
Nothing.
Kitchen . . . Nothing.
Beneath the couch?
The circle of a matte black muzzle pointed at me from the shadowed floor. I tapped the barrel away and slid the gun out. An insignia on the grip read P. BERETTA with three upright arrows.
I ejected the magazine. Still full of bullets. Different shaped than Eli’s. Longer. I palmed it in place and cocked the slide.
From the distance came the sound of a helicopter, blades chopping through the thin mountain air. I stood beside a window. No sight of Trent. Through the trees I saw AprisEvac, tracing over the bay like an insect.
I unlocked the front door and let it ease inward. The helicopter loudened. Moving along the outer walls, gun two-handed and angled toward the ground, I searched the perimeter of the cabin. I passed the room with the shattered window and came around the rear where the hawk had been on the tree limb. The shed stood a short ways off. A black jeep sat hidden just behind it.
I worked my way over, gun at the ready, throwing glances behind and to the sides. The Jeep was a soft top. A shovel and high-lift jack secured to the back. Fresh mud on the tires. Empty interior.
Trent had been lying in wait. But my showing up in the daylight and the injured hiker had thrown things off. Jacked up his plans.
I trekked back to the cabin and followed the opposite side back to the front door.
Had he bailed?
AprisEvac hovered over the bay. The flares lay on the porch where I’d first set them down. I scanned the trees. Tucking the Beretta in my belt, I scooped up the flares and ran to the shoreline.
A clearing of hard-packed dirt and grass beyond the trees looked suitable for touching down. I struck the flares, sulfur bursts stinging my nostrils, and marked four corners of a landing zone.
AprisEvac circled like an eagle searching for a mouse. Then it dropped altitude, splitting the distance between the shoreline and Fannette Island. At about a hundred feet, a white-helmeted flight nurse opened a side door.
Naomi.
The pilot lowered the helicopter, the water waving outwards in concentric circles. She would soon put a foot out on the landing skid and lean out to make sure the tail rotor and boom were clear of any obstructions. She kept in communication with the pilot through the microphone attached to her flight helmet. I could even make out the extendable five-point harness she wore that would allow her to shift away from her seat. Just enough to do what she needed to.
I retreated to the tree line. They hovered for a bit, as though the pilot was reevaluating the landing site. Then the helicopter rose and arced away, curving over the teahouse. It returned and took a slow pass parallel to the shore. Angling around, it approached again – this time with a steady descent. Sand and dirt took flight. Water whipped through the air. I shielded my eyes, squinting through the barrage to again see Naomi.
She stepped out on the skid.
She turned to see the tail rotor.
But something was off. She was able to lean too far.
Before I could form a word, her harness snapped and she toppled headlong from the helicopter.
She plummeted toward the bay and crashed into the surface.
CHAPTER 38
My world became a long narrow tunnel.
Naomi at one end and I fifty yards from her at the other.
I ran to the water’s edge, stripped off my shoes, and tossed them behind. I hurtled forward until the water came up and around me. My feet escaped the lake floor.
The frigid cold stung through my clothing. I paddled freestyle with my head above the surface, kicking with the sagging weight of my pants. My lungs burned. I swallowed and hacked on a mouthful of water. I shifted to a breaststroke, not taking my eyes off her.
She floated at the surface, limp like a rag doll. I was sure she would sink, her body submerging to depths beyond my reach.
A strong wind beat against me. The water grew choppy and white-capped. AprisEvac hovered low by Naomi. Water pellets stung my eyes. I locked on to her white aviator helmet. Like a bobbing orb, it seemed to keep her afloat.
I swam but felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Another flight nurse stood in the other open door of the helicopter, one foot on the skid, reaching out a hand. AprisEvac wasn’t equipped with any pulleys or rescue gear. The pilot was taking a huge risk in hovering as close to water as he was.
The beating waves hampered my progress. “Pull up!” My voice blew behind me. “Pull up!”
I ducked underwater. Dropping beneath proved effective for pulling forward. In short order I’d halved the distance between us.
At twenty feet away the water smoothed and tightened. I kept to the surface now and pushed through the fire in my lungs, ignoring the oxygen-starved lightness in my head. I made eye contact with the flight nurse. She turned to the pilot, pointed, and brought both feet onto the landing skid. She crouched downward, holding onto the doorframe behind her, though her seat harness was still intact.
Another yard to Naomi.
Her eyes were shut, unfazed by the water lapping at her face.
I reached her and wrapped my arm over her shoulder. The fabric of her flight suit felt tight and coarse under my fingertips. I didn’t feel any movement in her chest. I placed a thumb on her cheekbone and fingers behind her jaw to lift and open her airway. I rested my ear by her lips, and for a few seconds the coldness of the lake dissipated, the roaring of the helicopter faded.
I didn’t breathe.
And then, like steam from a teacup, I felt a long, warm breath.
I leaned back, tilted up her torso. The helicopter inched closer, the pilot performing a maneuver that could kill us all with the slightest error.
The landing skid neared.
Five feet.
Two.
I reached for the tubular steel. My fingers, numb and cramping, caught it and then slipped off. We lost buoyancy and dunked below. I kicked to surface and gasped.
I stretched out my hand again. I kicked, straining with everything in me.
My palm met metal.
A hand grasped my wrist and the helicopter lifted. My chest cleared the surface, the wind biting through my shirt. I propped Naomi higher with my legs. The flight nurse reached for her arm. But Naomi got heavier, as if the lake had anchored her.
She slipped downward. I let go of the skid, and we plunged to the water.
I brought my arms around Naomi’s torso and leaned back. The helicopter lowered farther, to inches above the lake.
With the skid behind me, I shouted, “You get me. I’ll get her.”
The nurse let go of the doorframe and locked her hands around my chest like a railroad coupling, her full faith resting in that five-point harness.
With her as an anchor, I worked one foot up on the skid and shifted an arm under Naomi’s legs. The helicopter lifted and tilted, giving me leverage. Gravity shifted us toward the cabin as we arced upward. The rotors overhead cut the air with blurring speed. I swung Naomi’s legs over my shoulder and toward the inside, her body bent at the waist. I pushed backward on her shoulders, supporting her chest, and slid her body over the flight nurse and inside the cabin.
The nurse stood from her squat, her hands like a vise around my chest until I grabbed the edge of the cot and the doorframe and scampered inside, rolling over Naomi, who lay crumpled on the floor.
The flight nurse climbed in and the roaring engine and beating air dampened as she slid the door shut and slammed down the latch.
CHAPTER 39
Naomi coughed and hacked and spewed water on the floor.
The nurse grabbed her shoulder. “Keep her on her side.” I made out her name from her flight suit – Echo. Gray hair tufted out from her helmet. “Disconnect the helmet strap.”
I knelt beside Naomi and supported her head and neck, detaching the clasp at her chin. Echo slid off the helmet.
Naomi blinked, her face flushed, and eyebrows angled.
“Hey.” I looked into her eyes. “It’s me. We’ve got you.”
“Where are – ” She coughed. “We’re in the helicopter?”
I nodded.
“How?” She winced, bringing a hand to her flank. “I think I cracked some ribs.” Naomi coughed again, her face contorting with the pain. “What happened?”
Echo brushed Naomi’s hair strands from her face. “What do you last remember?”
Naomi’s expression switched to fear. “I . . . I fell.”
“It’s okay.” I took her hand. “You’re all right now.”
“But, how?”
Echo shook her head. “Your seat harness tore.”
“That can’t happen.”
“I know. I know, dear. But it did.”
Tears shed to her hair. “How far?”
I glanced at Echo. “At least fifty feet.”
She nodded. “Maybe sixty. Besides your ribs, where else do you hurt?”
Naomi’s eyes flicked. “My ankle.” She tried to move it and grimaced. “It might be broken.”
Echo slid her hand behind Naomi’s neck. “Any pain here?”
Naomi swallowed. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
She looked away. “Yes.”
I glanced out the window. We hovered high above the bay. “That hiker is still trapped.”
Echo looked at me. “How bad is he?”
“Impaled leg. Pale and shocky. Can you take both?”
She positioned the helmet microphone by her mouth. “We’re okay to touch down for the original patient.” She stared at the floor and nodded. Her eyes returned to me. “The pilot wants to know if you have an estimated weight for him.”
I gritted my teeth. “He’s big.”
Echo spoke something into her microphone. The helicopter banked and descended. I held the side of a seat for balance.
We leveled, and Naomi tried to sit up. I moved behind her to help.
Echo took her arms. “Easy now. Watch her side.”
Naomi sat up, shivering, her hand in mine, with fingers white and purple.
I looked at my own, pale and trembling. “Where do you keep your extra wool blankets?”
“Outside compartment.” Echo reached back to the cot. “But we have this one.” She unfolded it and wrapped it around Naomi’s shoulders.
The pilot descended toward the flare-marked landing zone. The skids soon rocked and settled on the ground. Echo slid the door open.
I climbed over the gurney and shouted by her helmet. “Stay with Naomi. I need to cut the rod he is impaled on and stabilize it.”
“How’re you going to get him back here?”
“You and me, the pilot, and the hiker’s friend will all need to carry him out on the cot.”
“How far?”
“Couple hundred yards, maybe.”
Echo reached behind her seat and brought out a handheld radio. “Take this and our trauma bag. Let me know when you’re ready to meet up.”
“Okay.” I dropped to the ground and hunched as I strode toward the tree line. I found the shoes I’d thrown off before I swam out for Naomi and pulled them on. My wet clothes pressed to my body. The gusts from the helicopter blades intensified the biting cold.
The engines whined down as I entered the forest. I made a beeline to Eli’s shed. Two barn-style doors stood unlocked at its entrance. I pushed up an iron lever and pulled one side open. It was dank and smelled like sawdust and oil. A pegboard behind a painted workbench held an array of tools. A wood-handled hacksaw hung on the end. I snatched it and broke into a jog up the road, alternating hands with the tool so I could warm my fingers in a fist. I slowed to a stop at the spike trench and blew hot air into my hands.
The female hiker was red-faced and anxious. “Where’ve you been?”
I ignored her and went straight to James, who was nodding off. A quick pulse check confirmed my fears. I couldn’t feel anything at his wrist and only a faint tapping at his neck. His blood pressure was tanking.
“James, I need to cut this bar off beneath your leg.”
He grunted, eyelids hanging low.
“James?”
We didn’t have long. I dropped the hacksaw and unzipped the helicopter medical bag. Inside I found a one-liter IV fluid bag and spiked it with tubing. I started a large bore IV in James’s arm and ran the saline wide open.
“Here.” I handed the bag to the female hiker. “Hold this up and squeeze it.” I wound bandage dressings in an X pattern around James’s leg with extra rolls beside the spike to stabilize it once I cut it free.
I gripped the spike under his calf and set the hacksaw to work.
The metal stripped loose in shavings. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Husband.”
I nodded. “How much would you say he weighs?”
“Does it matter?”
My forearm burned. “Yes. For the helicopter.”
“Is he too heavy? After all this are they not going to take him?”
“How heavy?”
She stared at James. “I think he’s around two-eighty.”
Seventy pounds per person if we four-pointed the cot. It was going to be a painful walk back to the helicopter.
James began to slump his head forward. I enlisted his wife to support it and make sure he kept breathing.
Five minutes later I had the spike ready to sheer. I radioed for Echo and the pilot and made the final cut.
My fingers felt like they were going to fall off by the time we cleared the tree line. James’s wife proved to be a good hand, as demanding of herself to carry her own corner as she had been toward me since I first came upon them. We’d stopped five times en route and now, with the bird in clear view, pressed on to our goal.
Naomi lay on the opposite end of the crew cabin, propped by the seat with the cut harness. We leveraged James up onto the lazy Susan–mounted cot, and Echo maneuvered him into the helicopter and locked it in place. She climbed into her seat, and the wife stepped up on the skid.
Echo put out a hand. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to take you.”
The engines screamed to life, followed by a deep rocket-engine roar. The rotors began a slow turn.
“Where are you taking him?”
“Washoe County Hospital in Reno.”
The woman squeezed her husband’s hand. “I’ll be there soon, baby. I’ll be there soon.” She stepped down.
Echo grabbed the door handle. “Drive safe. Don’t rush. We’ll take good care of him.”
She slid the door shut. The rotors became a translucent disc. The chop-chop sound of the blades increased. I led
James’s wife back to the tree line. She walked sideways, forearm by her face, watching. We found shelter in the trees and watched the bird lift about fifty feet off the ground – and then stutter and hover in midair.
Something wasn’t right.
The helicopter jostled, then began a shaky descent toward the landing zone. Dirt and sand flew and it touched down. I told the wife to stay behind a tree and fought my way through the dust storm back to the helicopter. I glanced at the pilot, making sure I had the okay to approach. He gave a thumbs-up.
Echo opened her door and shouted, “We’re too heavy. We’ll need to take Naomi in and come back for James.”
Naomi rose, shaking her head. “No. He’s critical. Take him.”
“Absolutely not. I’m not going to leave you here when you could have internal injuries.”
Naomi’s eyebrows tented. “This patient is bleeding out. I’ll have Jonathan here.”
Echo pushed her lips together. “Okay.” She handed the spare trauma bag back to me. “She’s your patient. We’ll do a hot off-load at County and come back for her. Thirty minutes, tops.”
“All right. I’ve got her.” I walked around the nose of the helicopter and met up with Naomi, who already had her door open.
She held a hand around her belly and the other on the heavy blanket over her shoulders. She draped one foot toward the skid.
I extended my arms. “Here. I’ll carry you.”
She leaned toward me. I lifted, and she shrieked.
“You okay?”
Her eyes shut. “Just get me to where I can lie down.”
I kept my head bowed, tromping with heavy legs away from the bird. Pellets sprayed my neck. James’s wife came out from the trees and lent help carrying Naomi.
We set her down behind a thick tree, the helicopter blaring and rising over the bay behind us. Tear lines streaked her cheeks.
I rested my hands on my knees, breathing hard.
“What happened,” the wife said.
“Too heavy. They’ll be back for her.”
I crouched next to Naomi. Her face tightened in pain. Her lips were a shade of purple, jaw shaking with the cold. The pulse at her wrist felt strong and regular, but rapid. Her breathing was labored.
