“Fantastic,” she said, squatting at the lip of the cliff. Then she fell backward. She had the satisfaction of seeing the shock on Dalton’s face before he disappeared from her sight. Only momentarily, unfortunately. When she glanced up he was scowling down at her. Holding the towrope aloft.
“What’s this even for?” he shouted.
“It’s like those spinner things, only for grown men.”
She continued her descent, smoothly releasing the rope and slowing as she reached the river’s uneasy surface. As she approached the chopper, she realized the wreckage was moving, inching back as the rotor dragged along the branch anchoring it in place.
The pressure of the water splashed over the dome in front of the pilot, who turned his head to look up at her. She could see little of the man except that his headphones had fallen over his nose and there was blood, obscured from above by his dark clothing.
Her feet bumped the Plexiglas dome and she held herself in place, dancing sideways on her line to reach the door on the downriver side. It was partially submerged, but the other one took the full force of the current. She’d never be able to open it.
The pilot clutched his middle and turned to the empty seat beside him. He grabbed a red nylon cooler and laboriously moved it to his lap.
“I’m going to get you out,” said Erin, doubting that she really could.
Dalton watched in horror as his wife opened the side compartment door and gave herself enough slack to enter the ruptured compartment of the wrecked chopper.
The pilot lifted his head toward her as she perched on the passenger’s seat, now pitched at an odd angle. Her added weight had caused the chopper’s runner to farther slip along the anchoring branch. When the chopper tore loose, it would sink and she might be snagged. Cold dread constricted Dalton’s chest as he watched helplessly from above.
If he had been the one down there, he was certain the chopper would already have broken loose. She’d been right to go, though he’d still rather switch places with her. She’d been so darn quick with those ropes. Erin knew he was capable of belaying down a rope. And he could climb back up on a good day, but he didn’t know how to use the gizmos she had in that pack on her back and jangling from her harness. And today was not a good day.
Beside him, the four surviving campers lay on their bellies and knelt on the rock, all eyes fixed on the drama unfolding below.
The pilot was pushing something toward Erin; it looked like a small red bag. Erin was unbuckling his restraints and shoving the harness behind his back.
The water foaming around the wreckage drowned out their words.
Erin succeeded in getting the waist buckle of the climbing harness clipped about him and was working on tugging the nylon straps of his harness under his legs as the pilot’s head lolled back. Erin glanced up at Dalton, a frown on her lips as she exited the compartment and retrieved the towline he had thrown. She was signaling to him with the rope. Pantomiming a knot.
“She wants you to tie a climbing rope to the line,” said the older woman. “I’m Merle, by the way. I used to do a lot of rock climbing before I got pins in my ankle.”
She lifted the coiled climbing rope, expertly connected it through an anchored pulley that she tied to a tree some five feet from the edge, and then tied the larger belay line to the towline. Finally, she signaled to Erin. A moment later Erin was hauling the towline back down, dragging the connected larger rope through the pulley. She continued this until she grasped the belay rope, at which point she quickly tied a loop through which she connected the belay rope to the pilot’s harness with a carabiner. Erin removed the pilot’s headphones and fitted her own helmet to his head.
Merle lifted the other end of the line, which ran through the pulley secured to the tree trunk, and returned to the rock ledge.
“Take this a minute.” Merle offered Dalton the rope. “I know I can’t haul that guy up.” She then motioned to the others. “Brian, Alice, Richard, come take hold. We’ll act like a mule team. Walk that way when I tell you. Slowly.” She folded the rope back on itself and tied a series of loops every few feet. Then the others took hold.
Dalton dragged his hand across his throat while simultaneously shaking his head. This, of course, had no effect on his wife who offered a thumbs-up and then used her strong legs to haul the pilot toward the open side door. For a moment the pilot tried again to get Erin to take the red squarish nylon bag. When Erin rejected his attempts to make her take it from him, he gripped the seat, foiling her attempts to remove him from the compartment. Finally, Erin looped the small container over her arm using the black nylon strap. Only then did the pilot assist in his extraction.
Merle extended an arm and pointed at the struggling pair.
“It’s moving!”
Dalton shifted his attention from his wife to the helicopter runner. He watched in horror as the twisted remains of one blade slipped free from the branch. In a single heartbeat, the compartment vanished beneath the surface, leaving the pilot, in Erin’s helmet, dangling from the rope, half in and half out of the water. With his legs submerged, the pilot was dragged downriver.
Erin’s rope went taut. Dalton’s breathing stopped as he gripped his wife’s rope from the surface of the rock before him and wrapped it behind his legs. He hadn’t done this since he was in active duty. He remembered how to anchor a climber, but he had never had to anchor a climber who was below him. Dalton sat into the rope and pulled.
Merle shouted from behind him. “Pull!”
The pilot began to rise, his legs clearing the churning torrent.
Dalton ignored the pain of his healing abdominal muscles as he succeeded in inching back from the edge. How long could Erin hold her breath? What if she was snagged on something in that compartment? The rope stretched tight as if tied down at the other end. He scanned the water for some sight of her, fearing the chopper had rolled onto her line or, worse, onto Erin.
The rope vibrated. Was the fuselage settling or was that his wife moving? Dalton smelled the fear on his perspiration. If the compartment tipped to that side, she would have no escape. She’d be pinned between the compartment and the bottom. Dalton considered his chances of moving upriver and jumping into the water. He made the calculation and came back with the answer. He had zero chance of succeeding. The river would whisk him past the wreck before he could reach her.
Just then he saw movement on the line. He stepped closer to the edge and a hand submerged again as the pilot rose closer to the lip of rock where he stood.
Dalton tugged and Erin’s hand appeared again. She clutched something; it looked like a metallic gold coffee mug handle. She slid the handle up the rope and her head emerged.
“She’s using an ascender,” called Merle. “Two! Holy cow, she set that up underwater? Your wife is magnificent. If I was ten years younger I’d steal that woman.”
He saw her then, first her arms, sliding the ascenders along the taut rope. One ascender slid upward and her head cleared the water. Wet hair clung to her red face as she gasped. Her opposite hand appeared, moving upward while gripping the second ascender. The device fixed to a carabiner and then to a sling that she had somehow clipped to her harness. In other words, Erin had released her original attachment to the line and then succeeded in attaching two ascenders and slings to the free portion of the rope all while underwater.
Magnificent was an understatement.
Her torso cleared the water and he saw that the red nylon bag still hung from her shoulder, clamped between her upper arm and side.
“Keep going,” called Merle to