by Ann Mcintosh
“There are no breaks in the roof here.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but Rohan thought there was a slight tremor in her voice. “I’ll have to get in through that gap you noticed. Luckily, it looks like there’s the least amount of snow there, but we’ll have to be extremely careful. This side of the roof is leaning on the snowpack at the front.”
He nodded but found he was doing so to her back, as she’d already walked away. By the time he rejoined the others, she was saying, “Jan, call Tom and tell him I’m going in, and ask about an ETA for the team. You, and you—” she pointed to Rohan and Nathan “—come and help me dig.”
“Hey, what about me?” Trevor growled but got a bland glance in return.
“You need to stand back and watch what’s left of the roofline. If you see it start to shift or any snow sliding off, even a little, you shout so we can stop. This pile of snow is holding up the rest of the roof.”
Under her direction, they widened the crack a little at a time, inch by inch, creating a tunnel.
“Don’t go any wider,” Elise directed, when Nathan started digging around the edges, probably to make it easier to go deeper. “I can get the litter through at that width, but we have to maintain the integrity of the pack.”
Rohan lay on his belly and worked his way forward. The sun was coming up, and he thought the snow at the end of the crack looked lighter, almost ethereal, and realized he was right when a chunk fell off ahead of him, and he could see straight into what was left of the barn.
“I’m through,” he called.
“Then back out,” came the reply. “Quickly.”
He did as she demanded and wasn’t even on his feet when she was on her stomach and going forward. She’d tied a rope to her waist, and at the end was the litter holding her bags, but she waited until she was through the tunnel to pull it in behind her.
Rohan knelt to help feed it through, and before it began to move, he could hear her breath sawing in and out of her throat, as though she’d run a mile, rather than crawled three meters.
“Tom says they can’t get here for at least another twenty minutes,” Jan called so Elise could hear. “The copter is grounded until the fog lifts.”
There was no answer except for a skitter of sound, and he couldn’t stop himself from bending low to try to see what was happening.
He caught a flash of light as she picked her way through the rubble, then it disappeared.
Rohan’s heart was pounding, and it seemed he wasn’t the only one concerned, as her dog came and sat beside him, bending to look into the tunnel, too. Baxter whined so softly the sound hardly reached Rohan’s ears. Reaching out, he ruffled the hair on the dog’s chest.
“It’ll be okay, boy,” he said, hoping he was telling the truth.
CHAPTER TWO
THE INSIDE OF the barn was a jumble of broken boards and heaps of snow festooning an old tractor and sundry boxes and bags. Shining her light around, Elise picked her way over and around the wreckage, looking for Ben. She’d left the litter behind and was just carrying her medical kit. If she needed the litter, she’d have to find a way to maneuver it through the rubble, and it wouldn’t be an easy task.
Getting Ben back to the tunnel in the snow on it would be even harder.
Through the gloom she heard a low growl and followed the sound. Ducking under a partially fallen roof truss, she found them on the other side, the dog standing beside Ben as though on guard. Even from a distance, Elise could see a small pool of blood beneath the young man’s head, and there was a beam across his lower abdomen.
She pulled off her thermal gloves and stuffed them into one pocket, then reached into the other to get the package of surgical gloves she’d put in there for convenience. The need to get to Ben to properly determine his injuries was even more urgent, but when she stepped closer, the dog growled again.
“It’s okay,” Elise said soothingly. “I’m here to help.”
“Do you see anything?” Janice’s frantic shout made the dog’s head turn slightly, but it didn’t budge from its position.
“I found Ben, but one of the dogs is guarding him and won’t let me near,” she called, as loud as she could without shouting. She neither wanted to scare the dog nor cause any vibrations. “Jan, call and tell them we need a medical evacuation by air, right away.”
Just the fact Ben had been unconscious for as long as he had was a worry, and the longer it took to get him the medical attention he needed, the worse his prognosis would be. Gathering her courage, she took another small step forward, but the dog growled again. Louder this time.
Elise did the only thing she could think of, and called, “Bax, come.”
She heard the scrabble of claws on ice immediately, as the golden made his way through the tunnel. It was as though he’d just been waiting for the command. If anything could calm the frightened husky, it would be Baxter. After they’d retired from the SAR team, she’d trained him to be an emotional support animal, and he was as excellent at it as he’d been in his previous position.
He was trained to work with humans, but with any luck, he’d allay the husky’s fears and allow her to see to Ben.
It sounded as though Baxter was having a hard time navigating the rubble to approach her, if the sounds behind her were any indication. When he appeared by her side and the sounds continued, she risked taking her gaze off the husky for a quick glance behind her.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded, as the man—whose name she didn’t know and had refused, for some reason, to ask for—ducked under the truss and came toward her.
“It sounded like you needed help with the dog. She’s one of a group I brought up from Calgary and they’re all just shy of feral, since they were rescued from a hoarding situation. She knows me. Don’t you, sweetheart?”
He walked by, his shoulder brushing hers, and Elise shivered, both from the contact and the low crooning tone of his voice he used to speak to the dog.
“It’s not safe for you to be in here,” she said, struggling to keep her voice low, but sounding furious anyway.
He didn’t even spare her a glance.
“Oh, it’s not safe for any of us, is it?” he said, stooping down near the dog and seemingly addressing the words to it. “Which is why it’s important we get Ben stabilized and out of here as quickly as possible.”
She wanted to rail at him and tell him to leave, but she bit back the words on seeing the husky slowly start to relax, ears coming up, hackles subsiding. Bax moved in closer to the other dog, and between the man and the retriever, they managed to form a barrier shielding the husky from Ben.
“I think you can go to him,” the man said softly as the husky sniffed at his outstretched hand. “She was scared, but she’s doing a bit better now.”
Elise held herself back from rushing, moving slowly so as not to upset the husky again. Kneeling beside Ben, she put the flashlight upright on the ground for illumination, then tore open the packet of gloves and quickly pulled them on.
Visual examination showed he wasn’t dressed properly for the weather, with his coat unzipped and just a T-shirt beneath it. His skin was unnaturally pale, almost gray, and when she put her fingers to his neck, she found his skin was chilled.
But she could also see the slight rise and fall of his chest, with each slow breath.
Pulse weak and thready.
Pupils—thankfully—responsive, although the left was sluggish.
Taking the C-collar from her kit, she quickly fitted it around Ben’s neck. It needed to be stabilized before she checked his head wound.
“How is he doing?”
The low words had her glancing up, and she shook her head. “Not too well.”
Reaching under his head, she found the laceration, felt the give of the skull beneath.
“Depressed head fracture and hypothermia, at the very least,” she said, runni
ng her hands over his chest, then his arms.
She thought his shirt would be caught under the beam lying over his abdomen, but when she tugged at it, it came loose easily. Lifting it, she examined his chest for bruises, gave a silent sigh of relief when there were none visible.
Bending lower, she looked along his body and realized the beam wasn’t pinning him down but had caught on the old tractor tire alongside where he was lying.
“Thank goodness, I don’t think he’s trapped under here. Once I get the backboard on, I should be able to pull him free. I’ll have to take a chance on exacerbating any injuries he may have to his legs, but we need to get him out of here ASAP.”
“I’ll get the litter,” came the calm reply.
“Be careful,” she instructed. “Try not to bump anything.”
By the time he returned, she’d fitted the backboard and pulled Ben free of the beam. There was a definite compound fracture to his left femur, which made it even more imperative that they move as quickly as possible.
The man cleared a path below the truss and slid the litter through.
“I’ll help you get him on,” he said, ducking under the wood.
“I’m putting a pressure cuff on his leg, and then he’ll be ready for transport.”
“Okay,” he said, stepping past where Elise was working, going deeper into the barn.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sharp.
He didn’t pause. “There’s another dog in here, probably traumatized, if not injured, and I need to find it.”
There was no give in his tone, which told her trying to make him stop would be futile, and she felt a spurt of anger.
“Be quick about it,” she snapped. “And try not to bring the entire building down on us.”
You insufferable man...
* * *
As if he were inclined to linger in a place that creaked and groaned and seemed set to come down around his ears!
But although her tone had him clenching his teeth, he couldn’t blame her for being so testy. The situation was anything but cozy, and should he put a foot wrong or move something he shouldn’t, he could cost them all their lives.
There was a slight noise behind him, and he turned to see Baxter and the female husky sniffing around. They were both going toward the undamaged part of the barn, picking their way through the snow and debris in their way. On a hunch, he followed.
Unerringly direct, they led Rohan past an old car at the back of the barn, to the second husky.
“I found him,” he called, on seeing the trembling animal hiding beneath a low shelf. After a closer look, he added, “He’s injured. There’s blood on his side, although I can’t see where it’s coming from.”
“Can you carry him out?”
“I’ll need to muzzle him,” he replied as the dog bared his teeth and gave a throaty warning. “Do you have a roll of gauze?”
“In my medical kit. But hurry. It sounds like the wind is picking up, and hopefully the helicopter will be here soon.”
He knew what she meant. Although definitely not gale force, the wind was increasing the rattling of loose shutters and boards, the squeal of wood under unusual stresses. Picking his way back to her seemed to take forever, although it was less than a minute.
After he took off his thick gloves, it didn’t take him long to grab the gauze and cut a length. Once back, he carefully approached the injured animal. The other dogs had stayed with the husky, and Rohan hoped the female wouldn’t get upset if the male started struggling.
Thank goodness they were in the back of the building, away from the danger of hitting the wrong thing and shaking something loose.
Like the rest of the roof.
He put the flashlight down, where it would give him the most illumination. Making a loop with an overhand knot in the gauze, Rohan got close to the snarling animal and, with a flick of his wrist, slipped the loop over the animal’s muzzle, then pulled it tight.
The husky tried to pull away and then, realizing that wouldn’t work, brought both front paws up to its face, trying to scrape the gauze off. The motion seemed to cause it pain; it yelped and dropped its paws again.
“No, you don’t,” Rohan said, leaning in to tie the gauze in a knot behind the struggling dog’s ears, holding the makeshift muzzle in place. “You’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you, and you know that.”
The dog gave him a wide-eyed glare, the whites showing all around his irises, as a few rage-filled bubbles frothed from its mouth.
As Rohan gave the dog a quick examination, there was a clatter from where Elise was.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, a little breathless. “Just getting Ben onto the litter. Are you ready to get out of here?”
“Yes,” he replied. There was a laceration on the dog’s side, and perhaps a broken rib, although it was hard to tell in the cramped quarters, and with no real time to spend. When it had railed back from the muzzle it also held its back leg up, so there could be some damage there, too.
“Sorry, fellow,” he said to the dog, knowing he was going to cause him pain.
Rohan put back on his gloves before lifting the injured dog, careful to support him with an arm under his chest and the other just behind the hind legs. But it took some doing to pick up his flashlight from where he’d put it on the ground, and he had to carefully navigate back to Elise, since the light waved crazily about.
Elise had the litter facing out when he got back to their original position, Ben covered with an emergency blanket and strapped down, but neither she nor her light was there. The sun was up, and the room was a bit lighter, but not by much. The only light coming in was through the damaged roof, and with the sun low on the horizon at this time of year, the first rays didn’t penetrate far.
Rohan felt a spurt of annoyance, caused by rising trepidation. She’d been hurrying him along, and now she had disappeared.
When he saw her light coming back, and she ducked under the truss, his relief was instantaneous and intense.
“I’ve cleared a path as best as I could back to the tunnel, but there are a couple of spots we’ll have to carry him over,” she said, putting the narrow piece of plywood she was carrying on the ground.
When she pulled another blanket from her kit and spread it on the wood, he was puzzled.
“What’s that for?”
“For the dog,” she said. “There’s no way to carry him out, so we’ll have to slide him.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“You’re right, of course. But take the wood to the tunnel. I’ll carry him that far, then come back to help you with the litter.”
Rohan followed her light along the path she’d cleared, and they deposited the dog in a small space next to their exit point.
As they headed back, a particularly strong gust of breeze had them both looking up at the roof leaning above them and made them move even faster.
Getting the litter across the floor was a chore, and Rohan knew he couldn’t relax even when they finally made it back to the gap in the snow.
“You push the litter through,” he suggested, wanting her out first. “And I’ll bring up the rear with the dog.”
“No,” she argued. “You go first with the litter, and I’ll manage the dog. It’ll be quicker, and frankly, you shouldn’t have been in here to begin with, so I want you out ASAP.”
He hesitated, but then came the unmistakable sound of approaching rotors, and he reluctantly nodded.
Getting Ben Sullivan onto the helicopter had to be their first priority.
Yet the thought of leaving her behind left a sour taste in the back of his throat.
She’d bent to pull something from her bag at the foot of the litter, and when she straightened, their gazes collided.
Gray. Her eyes were gray, not blue as
he’d thought before. And something in their serious, gleaming depths made his heart clench and then start to race.
Then she frowned and waved a hand at him, impatience written all over her expression.
“Get a move on. The copter’s coming in for a landing.”
They maneuvered the litter into the gap, carefully pushing it together, until Rohan had to lie on his belly to keep it moving forward, digging the toes of his boots into the slippery ground to get traction.
“I see it,” yelled one of the men on the other side. “Just a little more, and I can get a hand to it.”
“Go easy,” Elise called back. “If it gets hung up on the sides, it could collapse the tunnel.”
It slid through fairly smoothly, and Rohan levered to his feet once he was back on the other side of the snowpack, as Janice and Nathan took charge of the litter. They took Elise’s bags off, just as Baxter and the female husky came trotting out of the tunnel, linked by a makeshift leash of gauze tied to the husky’s collar. Baxter had the other end in his mouth and led the compliant female out behind him.
Rohan knelt down and heard the board scraping across the ground. Elise had the piece of plywood with the dog lying on it, and she was pushing it along through the tunnel. Thank goodness the male husky wasn’t struggling; he was most likely in pain and too afraid to move. Rohan watched it shuffle forward, time seeming to slow, so it moved only inches at a time.
The helicopter circled above, and the wind gusts increased, upping his stress levels, as the barn groaned like a dying beast.
Suddenly the wood’s forward momentum in the tunnel ceased.
“Elise, are you okay?”
“It’s stuck.” Her words were calm, but Rohan thought there was a slight tremor in her voice. “I can’t get it to move.”
Without hesitation, he plunged back into the tunnel, crawling forward until he felt the edge of the board.
“It’s stuck on some ice,” he said, panting, scrabbling to get fingers under the board to lift it. Unlike the litter, which had runners on the bottom, the board wasn’t faring so well on the rough terrain. “I’ve got the front lifted. Push.”
