Authors: Belinda Pollard
They stood still as statues while Adam carefully retraced his steps, and began probing the undergrowth where the bird had risen. And there they were. Three beautiful, mottled eggs. There would be protein for dinner tonight.
***
Callie wanted to cry or throw up as she absorbed the report from their scouts, but she tried to look calm instead.
Adam and Kain had looked for a mountain pass to lead them eastwards, from this valley to the next one.
There was no pass. Not for people of their ability.
Adam was limping badly from a fall down part of the rock face, and negativity radiated from both men.
Adam addressed the group. “We have to decide what to do today with the daylight we’ve got left. And that probably depends on what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
Kain said, “If everyone is determined to stick together, I think we should either try to find Bryan’s route home, or set up a decent camp and wait to be rescued. These mountains are crazy. They’re going to kill us.”
Callie realized with a start that what she was seeing on Kain’s face was fear. For the first time, he was transparently rattled.
Why now? Why not yesterday or the day before? What happened up there?
“Maybe it would be better if we stayed in one place,” Erica said hesitantly. “I didn’t think it was such a good idea last night, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be to find a way.”
Jack said, “We’re a million miles from anywhere, we’re hard to see from the air, and Bryan would have made sure that if they do look for us, it will be in the wrong place. It could take weeks for them to find us, and Rachel has only a few days’ worth of her medical supplies left.”
“Yes, but we shouldn’t risk everyone else’s life for the sake of mine.” Rachel’s voice broke a little, but she pulled herself together. “We should do what’s best for everyone.”
“To hell with that!” Callie said. She didn’t feel like crying anymore; she felt like punching someone. “Everyone includes you. Even if no one else wants to help you, I’m going to do whatever I can to get you out of here in time to save your life.”
“Settle down, Callie,” Adam said. “No one wants anyone to die.”
Jack sighed in a way Callie recognized as a warning: bluntness was coming. “Look, no one ever likes the way I put it, but it’s time to start saying the hard things. We absolutely must see what we’re choosing. If we try to go back the way we came, Rachel will die, because even if we can find our tracks, it will take too long. If we make camp and live like castaways, Rachel will still almost certainly die, because it’ll take them too long to find us.”
Kain said, “No disrespect to Rachel, but there’s risks for everyone else too.”
“I agree,” Jack said. “There are plenty of risks in trying to hike out, especially now we don’t have Bryan to help us recognize danger. For most of us it might be less risky to stay put, although we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it’s ‘safe’. This isn’t Gilligan’s Island. There’s all sorts of hazards, even when we’re just looking for food—don’t forget yesterday’s avalanche.”
Adam said, “So what are you suggesting?”
“I volunteer to help Callie try to get Rachel home alive. Most likely, we’d head south in the morning and look for another valley going east, although that’s open for discussion. Everyone else must make up their own mind. I’d rather we stick together, because there’s more of us to help each other when things go wrong. But I can see the case that Kain is making, too. If we do split the group I think we should keep the sub-groups as big as possible. Erica and Sharon might be better off to go back to Poison Bay and camp near the ocean, but they’re not that strong and both injured, so they need at least one man with them to do the heavy lifting.”
The silence that followed swirled with uncertainty, but Callie was glad to see Jack and Kain making an effort to work together for once.
“What about this for an idea?” she said. “There’s not much light left, so we make camp now, and rest, and decide in the morning when we’re fresh.” Jack made eye contact with her, and nodded. She felt a tiny surge of joy at the reconnection.
“Yeah, and don’t forget we’ve got eggs for dinner.” Adam attempted a smile.
But the thrill of the eggs as a triumph of survival had worn off. They now looked more like a condemned man’s last meal.
15
Ellen didn’t get a call from Rachel. At 2.00 p.m. she didn’t call. At 3.00 p.m. she didn’t call. At 4.00 p.m. she didn’t call. At 5.00 p.m. she didn’t call.
At 6.00 p.m., Ellen called her local police station.
The constable who answered was pleasant and sympathetic, but Ellen could tell that not much would be done yet. There would be a protocol to follow. People went missing every day, and most of them turned up.
How could she persuade them that Rachel would have found some way to get a message home? That she wouldn’t leave her mother waiting and wondering all this time, not after the hellish year they’d had since Roger’s death.
But then again, maybe the stress and loneliness of the past year had driven her nuts. Maybe Rachel was actually coming on tomorrow’s flight. Maybe Rachel was at this minute laughing with her friends, unaware of her mother’s fear. Maybe.
At 2.00 a.m., Ellen went online and bought a ticket on the morning flight direct to Queenstown.
***
Ellen stared down at snowy peaks from her window seat, 66G, back near the toilets. She and Roger had been to these very mountains long ago, before they were married. Such a chaste holiday, by modern standards. They had slept in separate dorms at the youth hostel, hiked around the impressive lake holding hands, smiled shyly at one another, and declared these to be the most astonishing mountains in the world.
Today they just looked cruel.
She knew, geologically speaking, that they had been thrust upwards through the earth’s crust. But from the air, they looked as if they’d been clawed from the earth by the fingernails of a giant hand.
Three hours to go
, she thought, counting down to the time she could reasonably expect to present herself at the front counter of the Te Anau police station. The tiny town where Bryan Smithton lived was the closest center of population to the wilderness Rachel had hiked into. Surely the police would find it harder to stick to cold protocol with her standing right in front of them?
As her flight descended, a metallic glint caught her eye. Could it be a search plane?
Patience Ellen. Not yet, but soon
.
***
Sergeant Peter Hubble willed himself to relax his white knuckles, to allow his lungs to inflate with air, and then expel it, in and out, in and out. The plane lurched as a thermal updraft caught it, and he grabbed the door handle, even though it was such a stupid thing to do. As if a flimsy metal door handle would save him from becoming a smear on a mountain. More likely he’d accidentally open it.
In his line of work, he knew only too well how many light planes crashed in these crazy-beautiful mountains. He looked with envy at the huge airliner descending into Queenstown. This little thing was smaller than the old Mini Minor he’d driven in his student days, and rattled even more loudly. At least a big plane offered safety in numbers. You could all go down together, singing Kumbaya.
His long legs were folded awkwardly into the cramped footwell, and the narrow seatbelt cut into his beer belly, but he wouldn’t have minded making it tighter.
At least this meant I could be at Tahlia’s birthday party
.
It’s worth a couple of hours of near-death experience to spend time with my little girl. My little girl who just became an adult, and barely knows I’m alive.
Ted the pilot turned his way and grinned. “We could fly over the Fiordland mountains too. Great day for thermals. Nice bit of rock’n’roll.”
“When we get home I’m going to find some pretense to arrest you. A night in a cell would be just the thing.”
Ted chuckled and shook his head. “That’s a very dangerous thing to say while you’re still in the air.”
Peter closed his eyes and groaned.
16
Tuesday, Three Days Lost
The first snowflakes drifted out of a lowering sky, landing soft and cold on Jack’s face as they struggled out beyond the tree line.
He was at the back of the line again, with six people ahead of him. This morning’s decision had ended up being unanimous. They would stick together.
And then they’d discovered this shy little valley, with what looked to be a fairly civilized mountain pass at its head. Everyone’s spirits lifted as they made good progress, hopeful of crossing to the next valley before nightfall.
Until the weather closed in.
Now, the temperature was dropping fast and Jack watched Sharon with concern. Every inch of progress over the uneven ground was more of a stumble than a step, and the twisting action on her ankles and knees had to be agonizing, but she just kept moving, seemingly oblivious.
Jack grabbed a strap dangling from Callie’s rucksack, just ahead of him, and tugged on it. She turned and looked at him with tired eyes, her breathing audible with the exertion of the steep incline. He nodded in Sharon’s direction. Callie turned just in time to see Sharon fall sideways against a large boulder. She slid to the ground and crumpled, defeated.
Callie shouted, “Erica!”
Further up, Erica turned around, took in Sharon’s situation at a glance, and began to clamber back down those hard-won meters of mountain. “Sharon!” she called, but there was no response.
Progress stopped. There was now something more urgent than getting over that mountain pass.
***
Jack watched Callie and Rachel huddle close to Sharon, wrapping their arms around the foil first-aid blanket that enveloped her, willing her to warm up. She showed little sign of life other than the staccato shivers that shook her body in waves. Erica and the men discussed the prognosis as though Sharon wasn’t there, and in a way, she wasn’t.
Erica said, “I’m pretty sure it’s hypothermia, plus probably shock. It’s serious stuff. We’ve got to get her warm. Those damp jeans of hers aren’t helping.”
“She shouldn’t be up here at all,” Kain said, with a venomous look at Jack.
Adam said, “It wasn’t Jack’s decision.”
“Oh really?” Kain said. “Are you quite sure we’d be here right now if he hadn’t said all that stuff about
me
when we were back at Poison Bay? And now we all die because Sharon can’t keep going.”
“Stop it, Kain!” Erica hissed. “What’s
wrong
with you? She’s sitting right there!”
Adam said, “Let’s figure out an answer that helps us all survive. Will she be warmer if she moves, or does she need to rest?”
“I’m not really sure,” Erica said. “I’m no paramedic. In a hospital ward we’d give her warmth and fuel, preferably IV glucose.”
Rachel cut in. “What about my glucose tablets? We could give her some of those.”
They all turned and stared. Rachel’s meager remaining supply could be the difference between life and death for herself.
The group focus shifted to Erica, reluctant team medic. “Maybe if we just gave her one, that might help,” she hedged.
Adam said, “And we need to try and get over this mountain. How about I carry her? I’ll give her a piggy-back, if she can hang on. If one of you guys takes my pack, and the other takes Sharon’s, we can at least keep moving.”
Kain said, “It’s too dangerous scouting a route in this weather with two packs on. We have to get over that pass. Hurry!” He turned and started back up the mountain, leaving the load-sharing problem behind him.
Jack stared at his retreating back.
Callie said, “It’s okay. He’s probably right about a scout needing mobility. I can carry Sharon’s pack, clipped to the front of mine. Jack, can you manage Adam’s as well as your own?”
“I’ll give it a go,” he replied. “Kain’s definitely right about one thing—we need to get over this pass before the snow gets any worse.”
***
Another hour, and the wind had risen, and the top of the pass seemed as far away as ever—what little they could see of it. The snow swirled into their faces, stinging their skin. Jack’s eyelashes were working overtime to keep the snow out of his eyes, and he knew they would soon freeze into hard spikes. He longed for his snow goggles, lying in the back of a cupboard at home, souvenir of an ill-judged ski trip seven years ago.
His heart pounded with the effort of supporting the extra dragging weight of Adam’s rucksack as well as his own. Attached to his front, it banged forcefully on his knees each time he tried to reach a foot up to the next rock. He’d tried it on his back, but it pulled his center of gravity too far backwards, and threatened to send him tumbling down the mountainside to a messy death.
Ahead of him, Callie labored with Sharon’s pack. She’d always complained about how she’d like to be petite, but her strong frame was a godsend today.
A little further up, Adam kept making determined, laborious progress up the mountain with Sharon strapped to his back. He had begun with his arms hooked under her knees, as though piggy-backing a child, but she had been too weak to grip his shoulders effectively, and he’d also had no hands available to steady himself in a stumble on the uneven ground. Rachel had been the one to suggest they use a rope and a small tarp like a large papoose to strap Sharon on, and it was a much better solution.
They hiked close together now, not strung out over a hundred meters or so, as they had done. They needed to be close to each other, and not just for emotional reasons. As the visibility dropped, it became all too easy to lose someone in the whiteout.
17
“Peter!” Amber exclaimed, as he walked in the front door of his tiny police station. He’d been home for a quick shower to wash the anxiety of the flight away, and now he wanted to take the pulse of his station and his team.