“Help! Help, please!”
“Nina?” Olivia called.
“I’m stuck! Please help me!”
“We’re coming!” Zack shouted, and started in the direction of the voice.
Nina had slid off the trail and fallen down a steep slope. They shined all their lights down to see where she was.
“Thank you! Thank you!” They heard her but couldn’t see her.
“Where are you? Nina?”
“My leg is stuck. I fell into this hole. I can’t get out. Please help me.”
“I have rope,” Miranda said, and opened her pack. “We can’t go down this way. We’ll fall down the slope as well.”
The sharp drop-off was obvious in the light, but Nina wouldn’t have been able to see it running in the dark. She was stuck in a crevice. Looking carefully, Olivia saw her head poking out.
“We’re going to lower down a rope,” Miranda called to the girl. “There’s a loop on one end. Pull it over your head and tighten it under your arms. Then hold on to it.”
“But my leg. I can’t move it.”
“I’ll go down and free her leg,” Zack said.
“You’re too big,” Quinn said. “I’m thinner.”
“You’re both too big,” Olivia said. “Look at that crevice. It’s too narrow for either of you. I’m going.”
“Olivia,” Miranda began, then stopped and nodded. “I agree. But we have to find another way down.”
They told Nina to stay put and someone would come down to help her. Olivia walked with Miranda several hundred feet down the trail until they found a safe place to rappel down the slope. “This is what we’ll do,” she told Olivia. “You free her leg and we’ll pull her up. Then, I’ll send the rope back for you. You cinch it under your arms, just like I told Nina, and we’ll pull you up.”
“Why can’t I just come back this way? It’s not as steep.”
“This ground isn’t stable. That crevice-I don’t trust it. I think it’s deeper than it looks from here. You need to step carefully. The earth could give way anywhere and you’ll be in the middle of a rock slide. The entire Cascade Mountain range isn’t stable. Remember, Mount St. Helens is part of it.”
“You’re not saying we’re sitting on a volcano.” Olivia tried to make light of it, but saw Miranda was serious.
“If you mean is the mountain going to explode tonight, no. But there’s continual seismic activity that’s too sensitive for us to feel. The constant minute shifts underground loosen the rocks and earth, making the ground itself dangerous in steep areas like this. The crevice Nina is stuck in is actually a split in the mountain caused by repeated earth movements.”
“Miranda, I have a Ph.D. and I barely understand you.”
“Okay, more than you wanted to know. But you have to be careful. As soon as I saw the terrain I knew we had a problem, but I didn’t want to scare Nina, and I doubt Quinn or Zack would allow you to do this. Seriously, Liv, their weight wouldn’t have held. You’re light enough; I think you’ll be okay. But please, please, be careful. Especially until you get that rope around you.”
“I promise.”
Miranda explained to Olivia the best way to navigate the slope and approach the crevice. The ground was much rockier here, and Olivia lost her foothold several times, sliding partway down until she flattened her body enough to scoot down like a crab. Finally, she reached the rocky crevice and slowly made her way back up the narrow opening to Nina.
Miranda was right. The space was deep. Olivia couldn’t touch the bottom, and had to use the sides of the crevice to balance and move forward.
“Thank you thank you thank you!” Nina cried when she saw Olivia. “I was so scared. First of him, then-I thought I’d die stuck here, no one would find me.”
Olivia hugged her, as much to soothe herself as the girl. “I am so proud of you, Nina. You beat him.”
“You got him, right? I saw his truck crash. He wasn’t moving, but I didn’t go back there.”
“You did the right thing.”
“Is he-is he dead?”
Olivia wouldn’t lie to her. “He’s not in the truck.”
Nina shook his head. “No. No! I saw the crash. I-ohmygod, he’s going to come after me!”
“No, I won’t-”
Nina started to flail and pull at her leg. Rocks started falling from farther up the slope.
“Nina, stop moving,” Olivia commanded.
“What’s going on down there?” Zack called from above.
“It’s okay!” Olivia yelled. To Nina, she said, “There are dozens of cops all over this mountain. He’s not going to get you. I promise. You have to remain still and let me get your leg free. This ground is not stable. We have to be careful.”
Nina nodded, her entire body shaking not only from the cold, but from fright.
Olivia knelt in the crevice, bracing herself against the sides, feeling cool air rise up from underneath her. Vertigo overwhelmed her and she paused, taking deep breaths to gather her bearings.
She felt around for Nina’s foot. Her ankle was wedged in between rocks. Using her fingers, Olivia tried to scrape away dirt and loosen one of the rocks, but it was stuck. She started wiggling Nina’s ankle back and forth, back and forth until she could move it to the side and up, out of the hole. Nina whimpered, but she kept her cries silent.
“It hurts,” she finally said when Olivia stood.
“It could be broken, or sprained.” Olivia held Nina’s cheeks. “Are you ready? Hold on to the rope tightly, but let them pull you up. Stay as still as possible. It’ll be slow work, but you can do it. Okay?”
“Okay. I can do it.”
“I know you can.” Olivia called up. “She’s ready!”
There was a lot more noise up the slope, car doors slamming. More deputies must have arrived. Flashing red lights cut through the growth. An ambulance, most likely. They’d had one ready at the lodge in case they needed it.
Olivia braced herself in the crevice and awaited her turn.
Zack didn’t like Olivia going down the slope herself, but Miranda was right-she had the best build for the job, considering the terrain. He was antsy and knew he wouldn’t be at ease until Olivia was back up the mountain. Safe.
He and Quinn took brisk orders from Miranda as they prepared to bring Nina up. “We’re going to use this tree as a pulley of sorts,” she said as she wrapped the rope around it. “Put those gloves on, Quinn. That rope will leave some nasty burns if it gets away from you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can it, Peterson,” she said.
Though the banter seemed light, Miranda’s face showed strain and worry.
“What’s wrong?” Zack asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “We’re just trying to get two people up a steep slope at one o’clock in the morning with a killer wandering loose in the woods. What could be wrong?”
“Miranda,” Quinn said, “you’re not telling us something. Is Olivia okay?”
“She’s fine,” Miranda snapped.
“What she’s not telling you,” Doug Cohn interjected, “is that this slope is unstable. That’s why we had that little rock slide a few minutes ago.”
“Unstable? How?”
Doug explained how this side of the mountain experienced regular rock slides, and that the continuing seismic activity made any treks off established trails dangerous.
“Why’d we let her go down there in the first place?” Zack demanded. “We should have waited until we had a team in place.”
“Because a ten-year-old girl was trapped in that crevice,” Miranda said, “and neither you nor I nor Olivia would have wanted her to wait hours for rescue after what she’s been through.”
Zack sighed. “You’re right.”
“Do we have lights yet?” Quinn asked. The sheriff’s department had hauled a high-wattage construction light to the scene.
“Just about,” someone called. A few minutes later, the bright light not only lit up the side of the mountain, but provided warmth as well.