Spin Out (7 page)
Made me snort as I turned around to prop my butt against the rail of my porch. “I ain’t fallen that low yet.” Actually, eased me a bit to get part of it out to someone who weren’t all caught up in the drama. “I still follow the Word of Wisdom.” The scripture served me well enough all my life, no sense me throwing it out…like the church had thrown me out.
“Well that means I get a free pass out of buying you a round.” He chuckled a little, although it weren’t anything I’d count as real amused. “Look, seriously, Joe, we’re going to have to unwind you somehow.” After another dry snort, Dev added, “I’d be eying a bridge about now with all that shit going on.”
“I’m not going to take myself out, Dev.” I shoved my right hand down deep in my jacket pocket. It’d gotten freeze-your-nuts-off-cold while I was out there. “You know me better than that.”
“I wouldn’t either, but don’t mean it wouldn’t cross my mind.” The weight of everything we talked about deadened the line for a bit. Then, typical Dev, he came back balls-a-blazing. “Holy crap, you got a hot piece of ass over there and I’m letting you bend my ear. Hang the hell up and go do the
Wild-Thang
.” He brayed out a laugh. “If that don’t relax you, nothing will.”
“Been there, done that.” I shot back and when he snorted, I added, “Okay, I get it, you don’t love me no more.”
Dev snapped back with, “Yeah, right, like I ever did.”
“I’m getting,” Properly chastised I conceded that the conversation had run its course. “Send me the info and we’ll all get together.”
Dev’s voice went all sly on that. “Trust me to meet him?” Man was a fox out raiding most times.
I wouldn’t leave him ‘round my hen house unguarded. “I’ll bring my piece and make sure you behave.”
Caught the call of my dispatcher that a big rig reported a car went off the edge of Highway 143 between Dickerson Hill and White Rocks. Even though they’d called the State Troopers, I weren’t too far away, patrolling just up the highway on Little Valley Road. I radioed Noreen and told her to give everyone the heads up that I was en route. If the troopers had it covered, they’d call me off. Law enforcement, ‘round here, well it’s spread thinner than a poor man’s paycheck. On my way up, Noreen let me know that Panguitch Fire had rolled too.
When I came up on the scene, I pulled alongside the state trooper’s vehicle. She looked up from the trunk of her vehicle as she pulled out flares. I rolled down my window, “Need a hand?”
“Yeah.” Gesturing with one gloved hand off where the railing was broke through, she added, “We need to figure out how to get down there. Why don’t you park and we’ll see what we can do.”
Put my vehicle in reverse, backed it up and then pulled in to park behind the trooper. Both of us left room for the fire-rescue truck near where skid marks showed the car went over. I got out and tugged on my gloves. As I walked over, I could see the car resting between two trees down a fairly steep slope. “I can get down there, I think.” Not a vertical face, but definitely steep enough to require gear. “You alright with that?”
“Yeah, if you can do it,” she yelled back at me. Already she’d headed a few hundred paces upstream from our vehicles. “I radioed for a tow truck.” She added a grunt as she pulled the flare across the striking surface in the cap. The smell of spent gunpowder drifted back at me. “But I don’t think they’ll be able to get it.”
“Ways down for sure.” I probably had enough gear with me to manage this face. I always carried at least some ropes and such in my vehicle. They came in handy for more than just climbing. “Occupants?”
“I can see the driver.” She’d gone down further still, lit the second flare and set it on the road. “Didn’t see anyone else, but it’s hard to tell from up here.”
Figured she’d got that part handled, so I headed around and popped the rear of the Explorer. ‘Bout that time I caught the wail of the fire truck. Panguitch Volunteer FDP rolled up in their smaller engine—looked like a dump truck had mated with a pumper and spit out something that weren’t quite either. An EMS unit roared in hot on their heels. I counted six more sets of hands to help out. The three regulars off the volunteer department, I knew ‘em and knew they wouldn’t be no help; although one of the two EMTs had some climbing experience, he didn’t do search and rescue much. That left the odd man out…Kabe, who swung outta the cab of the big truck.
Took a deep breath, shouldered a set of rope and sauntered over to give ‘em all a quick rundown of the scene. We all agreed I had to go down first. Once I’d set some rope guides, picked out the safest route down, the EMTs could manage well enough following me. Took us all of about a minute to get it straight.
When they all split off to do what parts they needed to get done, I turned towards Kabe. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, last I heard I’m still on the local rescue squad and I’m riding with Panguitch Fire.” The borrowed turnout gear he wore over sweaters and long-johns almost hid the shrug. “
You
should remember, after all you set it up.” He started walking to where the mangled guard rail showed where the car went over. “How are we getting down?”
“We?” I moved on after him. “You’re not snow-ice certified.” He’d done a few winter climbs so far, but not enough to use him on a first responder situation.
He stared over the lip and sized up the face, kinda like I’d done a moment ago. “True.” Then looked over at me. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a hand now and then.” His grin hit me kinda sideways…I got the sense he threw a joke in on top of the serious part of his words.
“I guess.” I started sorting my rope, making sure it weren’t tangled none. “Maybe I should call up Jessup and Rodrigo.” Both of them had the right qualifications to be lead on this.
A snort let me know what he thought of that plan. “You want to wait while that driver goes further into death-by-exposure territory, fine by me.” Kabe’s glare told me he knew I wouldn’t wait for them to get their butts out here if I didn’t have to. “I may not be
legal
to go down myself, but I’ve been doing the drills with the crew.” He reminded me. “So you can wait, or you can let me help.”
He was right, I was being a little too uptight about it all. I huffed out a cloud of mist. “What you got in the truck?” Weren’t like we was talking about taking on Pfeifferhorn, the hairiest winter peak in the Wasatch Range.
“Some snow ropes, carabineers and crap.” Something off his tone told me Kabe’d done an inventory and weren’t all that impressed. “We have a litter and some heavier gear in case we need it.”
“Alright.” Between them and me, I figured we could manage with the equipment on hand.
Kabe and I started digging out gear from one of the compartments on the fire truck. Stuff was old, needed to be aired out some, but didn’t see any rust or rot in the webbing. I threw a couple sliders and a belt over my shoulder. As I tucked some carabineers into my thigh pocket, Kabe asked. “What’s your flash?”
“I’d say it’s probably between forty-five and sixty degrees on slope.” I pointed off to the side of the debris path from the car’s trip down. “The bowling alley seems clear but I don’t trust the run out at the end there.” The narrow rock sluice might look easy, but who knew exactly what lay under the snow. Plus, there were a couple drop-offs. “Liable to send myself shooting towards a drop off with one wrong step.”
Kabe’d prowled around along the lip while I moved over to dump the collection of gear by the front tire of my Explorer. “There’s not a lot of anchors up here.” Instinctively, neither of us trusted the railing’s stability…even what wasn’t busted out might have been compromised by the impact.
I popped the bowed out mass of metal struts and bars on the front end of my vehicle. “We can use the bull-bars.” Then I walked around to the back to pull out the rest of what we might need from the stash of stuff I kept.
“Okay.” Kabe opened up the Explorer’s door and pushed down the parking break with his hand. “I’ll do belay.”
Came back and dropped the new gear with the rest. “Know how to manage a sitting hip belay station?”
“Yeah, theory as far as the setup, I’ve always done active belay on faces.” He shrugged as he began pooling the rope so it wouldn’t twist up as he fed it out. “But, I can belay someone in my sleep…no matter how we arrange it.”
“Alright.” I pointed to the ground right at the edge of the pavement. “You’re going to sit here and we’ll tie you into the bull-bar.” Began the quick and dirty process of getting the light rescue harness around his middle.
He started and stared down at my hands. “Seriously?” His tone told me he didn’t think this part were all that necessary. “I mean, come on, everyone’s out here…and you’re going to do bondage?”
I ignored the sexual jibe in his last few words. “Kinda have to.” Got a grunt offa him as I snugged it up. Locked a couple of webbing loops by wrapping ‘em around different struts of the bull-bars and sliding them through themselves. Then I hooked Kabe to the other ends with a carabineer. “Look, this ain’t funning. If I slip I’m gonna go fast and it’s slicker than snot on a doorknob up here. Don’t want to have you come tumbling on after me.”
“Oh, me landing on top.” He teased. “Might be fun for a change.”
I didn’t even answer that dig. We’d practiced this a few times with the volunteer rescue squad, but Kabe’d never had a chance to train in anything other than a controlled environment. “Remember, the rope’s pooled here.” I flipped the line against his pants leg. “It’s gonna run up and around your left thigh.” Showed him where on my own body. “Use your left hand to keep tension, that’s the brake hand, never let it off the rope. Your body is the cam that the rope runs around and your right hand, the feeding hand, is gonna feed the rope to me.” I drew my teeth across my bottom lip. “Got it?”
He popped my shoulder with his fist. “Joe, trust me.”
I swallowed. “What?” Held myself up on the side of the Explorer as I pulled the rubber and chain set of MICROspikes over my boots…they wouldn’t serve as well as full on crampons for ice climbing but they fit in a little corner of space and went on a heck of a lot quicker.
“Dude, trust me.” His face was all earnest. “I won’t let you fall, you know that.”
Took a deep breath and then another. Finally, I answered. “I trust you. I do.”
“Sometimes I wonder.” Kabe snorted. “Getting me subpoenaed and all.”
“Look, Kabe, I’m bad at the whole boyfriend thing.” I started working the belay rope around me. Threaded it through my right, strong hand, and wrapped it under my forearm and over my bicep. “We’ll talk that out later. But I know, down here,” put my fist right up against my sternum, “you’d never let me fall…if you could help it.” And that were the honest truth. I trusted Kabe, sometimes, more than I trusted myself. I’d let him belay me into hell itself if I needed it. This weren’t quite that.
For a steep but not vertical slope—and when I was wearing thermal undershirt, uniform shirt and thick, departmental issued jacket—an arm rappel technique would serve well. The rest of the rope went ‘round my back and then I reversed the twist on my off, down-slope, arm. “We got to work all the rest out.” I reminded him. “But I would hang on a frog’s hair as long as you held it.”
“I’m right here.” Kabe smiled before he sat down and twisted the ropes around his legs and torso like I told him. “I won’t let you fall.” I got the sense those words meant worlds beyond the syllables. “No matter how pissed at you I am that you get me served and then bail on round two to take phone calls.” Then he laughed, looking up at me with those big eyes of his. “I even let you get my butt all sloppy and wet.” I caught the double meaning…it weren’t all about him sitting in roadside slush.
We didn’t have time to hash things out right then. Had to pull through the work and come back to the rest of my life later. “On belay?” I barked the question to him as I stepped to the edge of the drop off.
Sure and confident, the standard answer came back to me, “Belay on!”
After one deep breath, I went over the lip. Like I figured, it weren’t a full rappel situation, more of a steep slope covered in rime. Even with spikes hitched to my boots, I smeared my feet relative to the grade to gain as much friction as possible on my descent. The more those little metal teeth had to grab into the better my chances of not having to utilize
plan B
…in this case Kabe saving me from a dynamic, free-fall exit out of this walking rappel. The hill meant slow going. I couldn’t rush, a mix of snow/ice and a few patches of verglas—the rock visible through the sheaf of ice and spindrift snow—coated the surface and made it treacherous.
Slipped a couple of times. Managed to arrest my slides before they became falls with Kabe hard on the belay rope, a little bruising as the line tightened around my arms and not too much wounding of my pride. I finally made it down to the car: an older model, little Japanese made thing with two doors and a backseat. The car’d come to rest on all four tires, facing down-slope and with the front part of the passenger side smashed against a tree. I tied the rope off at about chest high on a tree away from where the car came to rest.
Quick scan told me the only occupant appeared to be the driver. She was conscious, moaning some, but her eyes were open and she tracked my movements as I came up along the side. I tried the door but it wouldn’t budge. “You all right there?” The driver’s door sported some damage, heck the whole car did. Looked like she’d been playing bumper cars with rocks and trees on the way down. Luckily she hadn’t rolled over. Figured the door might be jammed, but maybe it was just locked. “Can you unlock the door for me?” She hit the electronic switch, but nothing happened. Then she tried the handle and that wouldn’t budge either.
I fished my Houdini Pro out of the left thigh pocket on my uniform pants. “Look it, I’m gonna break your window here. I need you to cover your face.” While she put her hands over her face, I wrapped the tool in my fist and set the button tip right in the center of the passenger’s side window. “It’s gonna jar some and maybe hurt a little, you hang in there though, okay? I gotta check you out.” Then I started to push…could feel that plastic sheath pushed back to the lock and I tensed as I sensed the punch drive released. Snapped my spine straight at the sound of the window shattering.
