to sort out blame later,” Mick said gruffly. “Hang in there, Kari. I’ll go see what’s happening at the crevasse.” A knot fisted in his chest as he slid out of the chopper. He’d known what Kari was afraid to say—that Hana and Jess didn’t make noise because maybe they’d been killed in the fall.
He slogged uphill through worsening weather to where the others were just rolling a body out of the hole. Mick tried to muster anger at Jess Hargitay for being so irresponsible, but only panic filled his throat. Especially when he saw Chuck Hutton and Norm Whitman bent over a form too slender to be Hargitay.
A third man, the shortest of the three, faced the blowing snow. He wore a ball cap pulled so low Mick couldn’t tell who he was. Not that it made a difference. He just needed to marshal his jumpy nerves and make himself look at Hana.
Chuck got to his feet. “She’s alive,” he told Mick, relief clear in his voice. “She screamed when we tightened the rope to hoist her out, over the rim. Then I suppose she blacked out again. She’s gotta be hurt bad. My guess is internal. I don’t feel broken bones. But I’m afraid to touch her much.”
“And Jess?” Mick asked through clenched teeth as he knelt.
Chuck averted his eyes. “There’s been no response from him. Roger’s about to climb down to see. We were able to get Kari to disconnect her and Hana’s ropes from Jess. The lot of them lost their footing and sailed past us so fast there wasn’t time to grab their ropes, or even tell the women to hit their release clips.”
“Why were both women connected to Jess— Forget it—it doesn’t matter. I have a stretcher we’ll use for Hana. I’ll need your help carrying her to the chopper.”
“You’ll take us all, right?” Chuck shouted to be heard over the howling wind. His teeth chattered and his face was already chapped from the cold.
“Wish I could, Chuck, but no. A hiking party from the ranger station is on its way up the mountain. I’ll leave blankets, food and coffee. You can pitch a tent and wait, or you can hike down and meet the rescue team.”
“Without Jess, we’d never find the route. This snow has made getting our bearings impossible. Jess was the one with the mountain climbing experience.”
Mick didn’t want to point out they were all dumb-asses for setting out with a storm forecast. He only said, “Kari’s in a lot of pain. And I’m half afraid to move Hana.” He glanced at the Huey, then at the inert woman. “I’ll anchor litters to each side of the chopper wall for these two.”
“What about Jess?”
“I can take three wounded if one’s up to sitting in the copilot’s seat. Everything—and everyone—in the body of the craft has to be lashed down. It’s a matter of weight distribution, taking off in this wind. If anyone slid or rolled, it could throw me into a spin.”
In fact, the wind had begun to cut through Mick’s jeans. The snow had intensified, and the flakes were getting wetter. That was bad. His tracks to and from the Huey were already covered. He wore boots, but now noticed snow had soaked the bottom edges of his jeans.
Mick left Chuck and trekked back for a litter. He gathered as many blankets as he could carry and slung packs filled with sandwiches and coffee over both shoulders. Before leaving base camp, he’d taken time to line the interior walls where he’d strap the litters as best he could with blankets and pillows to make a sick bay for the most badly injured.
Kari was still crying, although more quietly.
“This stretcher is for Hana.” Mick wanted to give her added hope. “They have her out of the crevasse. She’s unconscious, but she’s alive.”
“Please just hurry. I hurt worse with every passing second.”
He promised to do his best then returned to the crevasse. Hana’s face looked as pale as the snow. Instead of insulating her from the cold, Chuck had rolled her out onto the ground. She might already have suffered frostbite. Mick curbed his frustration, recognizing that they were all working under a strain. The uninjured climbers had done the best they could in crappy circumstances.
He shoved blankets and a thermos bag at Norm Whitman. “Bundle up and drink something warm,” he ordered the man, whose fingers were turning blue.
Mick unrolled the canvas stretcher and shook out two thermal blankets. He eased Hana onto one, then moved her on her side so he could brush snow off her back.
She cried out sharply and her eyelids shot open. “Jess,” she gasped in a breathy sob. “Stop. Stop! Oh, God, help. My back’s in spasms.”
Mick’s fingers stilled instantly. He shrugged off the way she’d mistaken him for Jess, and did his best to treat her more gently as he placed her flat on her back. She let out another ragged cry as her eyes went back in her head. She’d blacked out again. He rolled two additional blankets lengthwise to stabilize her hips, then covered her from neck to toe with another. Though his own hands ached with the cold, he looped straps around her waist, hips and ankles, and buckled her firmly on the litter. Mick glanced up as the man in the ball cap, Roger, hoisted himself over the ledge of the crevasse with a lot of help from Chuck Hutton. Roger swayed unsteadily and suddenly bent at the waist and vomited all over the snow.
Rising, and ignoring the stab to his bad hip, Mick tripped over Norm as together they converged on the pair standing next to the crevasse.
Roger managed a shaky, “Jess is d…de…dead. I think he br…broke his neck in the fall.” With a cry, Roger grabbed the front of Chuck’s jacket. “I told him two hours out that we should pack it in and go home. But no, the macho asshole called me a wimp. It could’ve been you, or me, or any of us dead at the bottom of that hole!”
Mick sensed Roger was a blip on the radar away from hysteria. He’d seen it in combat with men forced to face their own mortality. Roughly, he broke Roger’s grip on Chuck, who shot Mick a grateful, ashen-faced nod.
“We’ve got to bring him up,” Mick commanded, fighting his reeling thoughts. He knew he sounded harsh and unfeeling as he called upon his military training. “I’ve got a tarp in the aircraft we can wrap him in. I’ll have to leave…uh…the body with you. The rangers are bringing a toboggan.” Mick broke off. “We’ve gotta work fast. I have two injured women needing medical attention. Norm and Chuck, help me carry Hana to the Huey. If she wakes up and asks, don’t say a word about Jess.”
The men moved like zombies. Mick reminded Chuck, “I’ll leave blankets and hot coffee. Pitch a tent and crawl inside out of the weather until the rangers arrive. Keep a light on so they can spot you in the dark. They estimated reaching here between eleven and midnight.”
“I’m not waiting with any dead body. You can fly us all out.” Roger latched on to Mick’s throat. “I’ve seen war movies. A chopper the size of yours can haul a platoon. You’re not leaving us here to freeze and die like Jess.”
Up close, Mick could see how young Roger was—eighteen or nineteen. Which didn’t make him less of a threat. In his current state of mind, the kid could easily do something stupid that would permanently ground the Huey.
Mick tried to reason with him. “Under normal circumstances the Huey could carry that kind of a payload. Mine’s been renovated to haul freight. In this weather, the extra weight puts me in danger of crashing and killing us all.”
“I’m not staying
