The Challenge(19)
“Should I call Harvey?” Anne asked him as he hurried through the front door and put his hat on. He thought about it for a minute and shook his head.
“Not yet. Let me take a look first. Bill and I know those trails as well as Harvey does. And we can’t have lost seven of them. They’re out there somewhere, probably cold, wet, and scared to death. Maybe one of them is hurt. Or some of the horses.”
Harvey Mack was the chief ranger for the area. He and Pitt were old friends and had known each other for years, since Pitt was a boy. Pitt didn’t want to call Harvey this late unless there was a problem. He didn’t want to drag him out for nothing. And if there were fires starting on the other side of the mountain, Harvey would have his hands full trying to get that under control. He didn’t need to have seven kids lost in a rainstorm to worry about too. Pitt was sure that he and Bill could handle it, and if not, they’d call Harvey when they got back. The kids were probably under a tree somewhere waiting to be found.
He ran to the stables. It was raining hard again. The stable hands had his horse ready, and gave him a leg up. He and two ranch hands left at a fast trot, careful not to give the horses their heads, with the ground slippery. Bill and three of his men were waiting at the entrance to the main trail to Granite Peak, and all seven men took off on the trail to the waterfall. It took them twice as long as usual to get there. And the river was a rushing torrent overflowing its banks when they did.
“I was up here a few days ago,” one of Bill’s men shouted in the wind. “The bed was dry. There was a flash flood today.”
“I’ll bet the damn fool kids crossed over when it was dry, the flood came, and they couldn’t get back,” Pitt guessed and Bill nodded. They had both done things like that when they were kids, but they had never gotten lost on Granite Peak and spent the night.
Pitt’s stable hands had brought high beam searchlights with them. They shone them on the water and the opposite bank, into the trees. Bill had a bullhorn, and he shouted the boys’ names and Juliet’s, then listened for a response. There was none.
“They either walked up or down the trail, if they did cross over. They wouldn’t have just sat there waiting for us to show up. They’re on foot now, so God knows which direction they went.” They found all seven horses tethered to the trees where they’d been left. The stable hands tied three of them together to lead them back, and Bill’s men took the four others. They’d have to be careful that they didn’t slip and fall into a ravine, just as the kids might have, especially now if they were on foot.
Pitt took the searchlight himself and shone it slowly on the opposite shore, and then he stopped and gave a shout for Bill. There was a small scrap of red fabric flapping in the breeze on a bush at the water’s edge. He squinted as he looked at it. It was a bright red plaid. “Peter has a shirt like that. I’m right. They crossed over and couldn’t get back. God knows which direction they went. Hopefully, they didn’t try to swim back.” He said it in a hoarse voice with tears stinging his eyes in the rain. If they had tried to swim across, they would never have survived. That would have been the surest course to disaster, but they knew better. “Harvey has to get his boys out here at first light. The terrain is too rough and the brush too thick to find them now in the dark. It’s a hell of a lesson for them.” He didn’t add, “if they survive.”
* * *
—
Pitt and Bill rode back in silence as quickly as they could, with their stable hands leading the horses, careful to avoid the slippery places. Twice they nearly slid over the edge into a ravine, but stopped in time. It took them an hour and a half to get back, even longer than it took to get there. Bill went home with Pitt. It was one in the morning by then. As soon as Anne saw their faces, she assumed the worst, but Pitt was quick to reassure her, as best he could.
“We don’t know where they are, but I think they crossed the river and couldn’t get back. We found the horses. The kids are probably huddled under a tree somewhere along the trail, miserable and scared.”
“Or fighting off a bear,” Anne said, clutching Pitt. “Oh my God, Pitt, what if something happens to them?”
“We’ll find them tomorrow. I’m going to call Harvey right now. You call Marlene and June. I’ll call Tom Marshall as soon as I get hold of Harvey.” Pitt had the chief ranger’s private cell number, and he answered immediately in a deep gruff voice, but he didn’t sound as though he’d been asleep. He told Harvey what had happened, as much as he knew, and what he could guess.
“We had a bad flash flood up there today,” Harvey told him. “And it’s raining at the midline tonight. But on the backside of the mountain, they didn’t get a drop of rain, and we’ve got a hell of a fire growing and coming around to the south side. I want to meet with all the parents at your place at six o’clock in the morning. We can’t do anything until then. I’ll get my boys out in the choppers after that. And Pitt, I’m sorry. We’ll bring them home. Don’t worry. That mountain is nothing to mess with. I imagine they’ve figured that out by now.” And they knew it from the stories they’d heard all their lives about climbers who’d run into trouble and gotten lost. Granite Peak could be merciless.
“We’ve got some extenuating circumstances on our hands too. Noel Wylie is a fourteen-year-old diabetic. He’s Bob Wylie’s boy. Bill Brown’s six-year-old son is with them. And we have a fourteen-year-old female in the group.”