Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)(9)

From there, the day took a dive off the deep end.

Jesse was patrolling Aspen Glow, one of the double-black diamond trails, when a man ran out from the cover of the trees, barefoot and buck naked, flapping his arms and making weird bird-like noises.

What the fuck?

Jesse called it in, then did his best to restrain the guy, who was at risk for hypothermia and even frostbite, but the man fought like a wildcat, seemingly impervious to the cold. By the time Jesse managed to subdue the man, he was winded, his face inches from the guy’s junk. It took him a moment to realize what he was hearing.

Cheers.

Jesse looked up to find people on the lift applauding, some even filming him or taking photos with their smartphones.

Shit.

He focused on his job. “Don’t fight me, buddy. I’m not trying to hurt you. Let’s get you warm.”

Whether the man understood him, Jesse couldn’t say, but the fight seemed to leave him. Jesse wrapped him in an emergency blanket and waited for what felt like an eternity for a rescue team to show up with a toboggan. A crowd gathered on the slope around him.

“Don’t block the slope. The show’s over, folks. Move along.”

But the show wasn’t over. When the team arrived, the man started to fight again, yapping and howling like a wounded animal. It took four men to move him to the toboggan and strap him down.

While the others gathered up the man’s clothes and gear, which lay in a pile among the trees, Jesse was given the honor of skiing down with the toboggan, its passenger yipping and whooping all the way back to the lodge and the waiting ambulance.

“Psilocybin mushrooms,” one of the EMTs said. “We see this shit a lot.”

Jesse shook his head. “Why the hell would anyone want to take a drug that makes them stupid?”

“No clue.” The EMT closed the ambulance doors. “Thanks for bringing him safely down.”

“Just doing my job.”

By the time Jesse finished his last sweep that evening and headed back to the locker room, he was bone tired. Most of the patrollers were already there, sitting around, unopened beers in hand, their parkas and boots still on. No one took off their gear or cracked open a beer until all the patrollers were safely down for the night.

“Hey, Jesse.” Ben grinned. “I heard you got into an MMA match with a naked dude on Aspen Glow.”

This made everyone laugh, except Amanda, who had apparently missed the call.

“What?” Amanda stared at him. “Seriously?”

Jesse ought to have known he’d be ribbed about this. “The guy ran at me from the trees, whooping and flapping his arms. The EMTs said he was tripping on mushrooms.”

Amanda shook her head. “Just when you think you’ve seen everything…”

“There’s a video on Facebook,” Steve held up his smartphone. “Check it out.”

Jesse went to sit near his locker, shaking his head at the sight of his fellow patrollers bending over a cell phone to watch him wrestle a naked guy.

“Full-frontal male nudity, and I missed it,” Amanda said.

Travis laughed. “I guess that’s one way to freeze your balls off.”

“Whoa!” Doug glanced over at Jesse as the video came to an end. “You trying to sixty-nine him, Moretti?”

Jesse flipped him the bird.

Then Kevin stepped inside, snow on his boots, cheeks red from the cold, his appearance initiating the pop of a half dozen beer tabs and bringing the day to an end.

Matt got to his feet. “Thanks for your work today, people. And, hey, Jesse, the parents of the kid you found yesterday called. They wanted to thank you and to let us know that it looks like he’s going to make it.”

A warm rush of satisfaction cut through Jesse’s fatigue. “That’s good news.”

Every time he helped save a life, he felt an indescribable sense of relief, as if all were right with the world—at least for a few minutes. Esri, the Team therapist, had wanted to explore this with him, but Jesse thought she was being ridiculous. Didn’t everyone who did rescue work feel that way after a good call? She was making an issue out of nothing.

Travis called over to him, shouting to be heard over so many voices and the clunking and slamming of gear and locker doors. “We’re heading to Knockers. Want to join us?”

Named after the legendary Tommyknockers that supposedly dwelled in the mines above town, Knockers was Scarlet Springs’ answer to the brewpub craze, but with a twist. It had a climbing wall—and the best damned pizza in the state.

Jesse wasn’t hungry—and he had plans. “I’ve got to get to a Team meeting.”

He packed away his gear, clocked out, and headed to his Jeep.



*

He drove down the mountain and straight to The Cave—Team headquarters—where the parking lot was filled to overflowing. This wasn’t just a meeting for primary members. Megs had also called in secondary Team members—those who provided support services—as well as provisional members who hoped to become primary members one day.

Jesse stepped inside and walked toward the operations room, the day’s tension slipping away as he crossed the large bay that held the Team’s two rescue vehicles and all of its climbing and rescue gear. As much as he enjoyed his job as a ski patroller, this was his home away from home.