Return to the Black Hills (4 page)

In the back of her mind, she hoped Remy was positioned close enough to get the best perspective. She’d watched the others practice and had been impressed. The person climbing resembled a superhero…or a very large bug.

Although her fingers were starting to cramp from a couple of the holds and her triceps burned, she ignored the discomfort and visualized hauling herself onto the very top where her dismount rope was waiting.

She heard a muffled commotion below and assumed Marsh and J.T. were faking some kind of skirmish. The pounding in her head made everything surreal. For her, climbing produced a sense of moving in slow motion, even though she was pressing hard not to lose her momentum. Finally, after what felt like minutes but was probably only seconds, she took a deep breath and power-lifted herself up as high as possible to grasp one of the corner uprights and swing herself onto the top.

The obelisk was designed to be raised and lowered by a hydraulic pistonlike contraption. When deflated, the unit could be hauled by a semitruck from venue to venue. It wasn’t meant to be straddled like a bony horse. The molded fiberglass—or whatever the thing was made of—was bumpy and irregular on the very top. And surprisingly slick.

She locked her feet under one of the steel braces as she tried to figure out how best to reach the rope—just inches outside her reach. She started by scooting closer to the corner. Hand-over-hand, she carefully inched forward then pulled her knees up to the topmost handholds.

Since the other side had an indentation in the same spot, she had to trust her balance as she pulled herself up.
Almost. Almost. I can do this.

“Yes,” she cried softly, her fingers closing around the rope.

Her heart rate began to normalize once she had the safety line in hand. She pulled her opposite leg over the top to balance on the lip of the tower a moment. After a few seconds, the noise from the crowd sank in. The applause drowned out the shouts coming from her colleagues, who were now grouped around J.T. at the base of the edifice.

Jessie waved with one hand and gave a quick bow that nearly unseated her. Silently scolding herself for showing off, she shook out the rope. As planned, it stopped six feet short of the ground. The script had called for her and Zane to make back-and-forth passes, swinging close to each other until they finally united, literally, at the end of their ropes. From that point, they’d do a tumbling dismount and take their bows to thunderous applause. They hoped.

Reaching up slightly so she could turn around and rappel backward down the climbing tower, she felt the rope slide a tiny bit. She dug her toes in and looked down, trying to make sense of the odd sensation.

Vertigo?

She checked all four guylines, worried for a moment that the twenty-five-foot edifice was going to topple over.

The tension on the outriggers appeared rock solid, but when she looked at the rope, it struck her that this was not the same one she’d use in practice. Smoother. A slightly different weight. And the surface appeared slicker.

“What the hell?”

More disgusted than panicked, she wrapped the rope around her fist then pushed off. She hung there a moment, recalling how she and Zane had joked about which of them had the better Tarzan yell. In truth, they’d both sucked.

As she bounced back toward the tower, she relaxed her knees and tried to place her feet for the best advantage of angle. Unfortunately, her shoe lost its grip at the worst possible moment, knocking her off balance. She overcorrected and the rope slipped through her fingers a good five or six inches, as if greased. Had it not been for the safety loop she’d instinctively used, she might have kept going, like a runaway train without the least bit of friction to slow her down.

What is going on?
she thought, desperately locking her legs around the part of the rope dangling below her.

So much for grace and showmanship.

She needed to get down in one piece, and at this point, that was not a sure thing.

Another thought followed.

Someone did this on purpose.

“It’s really tall, isn’t it, Dad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How far up it was I?”

He looked at her. “Too far. Now you know why I was scared.”

“What are those men fighting about?” she asked, pointing to the three men at the base of the tower. Cade couldn’t hear their words over the cheering of the crowd, but they appeared to be having a real argument, not a staged one.

“Oh, God,” a voice said from behind him. “She’s in trouble. For real. I can feel it.”

Cade turned to see Remy a few steps away, a digital camcorder in her hand. He looked from her to the tower. It took him less than a second to realize she was right. Instead of the graceful descent Jessie had been making a moment earlier, she was now floundering, her descent rope wrapped around one calf, her fingers grasping and regrasping the rope as if it were greased. She made a desperate grab for one of the knobby, molded plastic handholds and her fingers slipped from it like butter.

“Oh, shit,” he swore. “Shiloh, stay here. I mean it.

“Hey,” he said, approaching the trio of stuntmen. “Your friend is in trouble. What are you going to do about it?”

The guy who had been running beside Jessie earlier—the one who looked least like a stuntman—groaned fatalistically. He looked upward, his face showing a full gamut of emotions Cade didn’t completely understand. Fear, for certain. But something else, too. Regret? “Didn’t I tell you something was going to happen? Why wouldn’t she listen to me? She thinks she’s freakin’ invincible, but she isn’t. Tell her I’m sorry. I gotta go.”

He turned and took off running. The blond surfer dude started after him, but the other man stopped him. “Let him go, Eerik. Jessie needs us.” He looked to Cade for direction. Obviously, these guys either followed a script or waited for a director to tell them what to do.

Cade looked at Jessie. She’d grabbed the second rope and appeared to be stable for the moment. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the rustic wood building that housed the Sentinel Pass Volunteer Fire Department. There had to be someone on duty, he thought. “Go get some help. A ladder. A fire truck. Something. And call 9-1-1 while you’re at it.”

“No way,” the younger guy protested. “We can get her down safely. All we have to do is lower the tower.”

The dark-haired one looked at Cade for confirmation.

Cade threw up his hands. “So, where’s the operator? There must be a key, right?”

The young one let out a low groan coupled with a colorful string of cusswords. “I forgot. He told me he’d seen this kind of thing a hundred times and was going into Rapid with friends. He won’t be back here until three.”

“Let’s try the fire department. Come on.” The dark-haired guy took off like a sprinter.

As he surveyed the situation, Cade heard murmurs of doubt and concern coming from the audience. Were they finally starting to understand this wasn’t part of the show?

Then another sound came to him. A cry of pain—muted, but unmistakable. He stepped directly below where Jessie was hanging. The rope that had at one time been her salvation was now knotted around her ankle. She’d managed to grab on to a bright purple knob a couple of feet to her right, but he could see her fingers desperately working to maintain her grip. A second later, she lost hold and swung, pendulum-like, in the opposite direction, the back of her head connecting with at least two of the climbing knobs.

His stomach turned over. No wonder she’d been so adamant about Shiloh climbing with protective gear. This was even more dangerous than he’d imagined.

“Jessie,” he called out. “Your friends went for help. What can I do?”

The minute she stopped thrashing, her body dropped like a plumb bob on the end of a string. Her ankle, the part visible above her shoe, had turned an ugly shade of purple. He could see on her face how much pain she was in. “A knife. Somebody get me a knife.”

His hand automatically went to the small leather holster at his waist. “Could you catch it, if I tossed you one?”

With what he knew had to be a Herculean effort, she wrapped her right leg around the rope and arched her back to look down. “I’ll try.”

Cade heard others approaching. He looked around, hoping it was Jessie’s friends and half a dozen firefighters. No such luck.

“I can climb up and give her the knife, Daddy,” Shiloh said, sitting down to take off her boots.

“No,” Jessie cried. “The rope has some kind of oil or lubricant on it. That’s why I slipped. Everything I’ve touched is slick. You can’t come up here, Shiloh. Nobody can. It’s not safe.” To Cade, she reached out both hands. “Throw me your knife. I’ll catch it. Throw it now. Hurry.”

“Stand back, Shy. I need room to move.” His heart was racing and he prayed his sweaty hands didn’t screw this up. “Here it comes.”

He braced to dive for it when she missed, but somehow Jessie managed to catch his much-too-small pocketknife, midair while dangling upside down.

“She did it,” Shiloh yelled. “Oh, my gosh, she did it.”

“Now what?” Remy asked. “Jessie, you do know that if you cut the line, you’re going to fall, right?”

Jessie didn’t answer. She was already pulling herself upright. She used the other rope for leverage, but whether due to her slippery hands or something on the rope itself, each handhold required her to loop it around her fist. Cade had no idea where she found the strength and grit, given her obvious pain.

Finally, she reached an angle that would allow her to cut into the line.

Remy, he noticed, was still filming. He didn’t know whether that was a good thing—there would be an investigation, he figured—or slightly sadistic. He looked toward the fire station, relieved to see the massive door opening, and the red light above the door flashing.

He waited, expecting to see a truck to pull out. Instead, two men—the stuntmen—raced out, carrying a large yellow extension ladder. Where the hell was Mac McGannon? They’d talked at his sister’s wedding. Cade knew his old friend was one of the town’s first responders.

“Nobody was there,” the surfer said.

His pal positioned the ladder and quickly dashed upward. The rough surface made it bounce.

“Ouch. Stop.” Jessie looked up from her intent sawing. “Marsh. Don’t. You’re making me swing again. I need to stay still until I get this cut.”

“Sorry. What can I do?”

She glanced down. “I don’t suppose you have a bounce pad on you.”

He shook his head. Needlessly.

“If we can find a blanket,” Cade called out, “we could catch you.”

“Oh,” Remy cried, suddenly. “I know where one is. In Yota. I’ll be right back. Here,” she said, shoving the camera into Shiloh’s hands. “Keep rolling. She’s going to want to see this.”

Cade quickly organized the three volunteers who rushed forward, along with the two stuntmen—after they moved the ladder out of the way. They made a circle below Jessie and all looked up expectantly. He gave her credit for sheer focus and strength of will. This was no simple task and the swaying movement had to be extremely painful.

“Here it is,” Remy called, racing toward them.

The blanket wasn’t huge—twin-size, at best. The baby-blue fleece with a stylized panda design seemed more appropriate as a child’s blankie, but it would have to do.

“Everybody grab a hunk and hold on tight.”

“I’m almost through,” she called. “Are you ready below?”

Cade widened his stance and braced his shoulders. “As ready as we’re ever going to be.”

Keeping his focus completely on her, he held his breath. In an effort to land on her back, she used her free foot to push off at the very last second before the rope gave. The timing was critical. She did everything right, but, regardless, the impact knocked Cade and two of the other volunteers off their feet. His knees hit the pavement hard, but he barely felt the sensation because he was concentrating intently on keeping her from crashing to the ground.

She rolled his way. His arms scooped her up as if he were catching a grounder in the biggest game of the year. He pulled her close and then leaned sideways, colliding with another man. The surfer. The three of them landed in a heap on the street with Jessie on top.

Breathing hard, adrenaline pumping through his veins, he held on tight. Half-afraid to let go. In the chaotic seconds before reality fully sank in, a stupid thought passed through his mind.
She’s softer than she looks.
An even stupider thought followed.
I like the way she feels in my arms.