The Challenge(20)

“Oh God, what else? Thanks for the heads-up about the Wylie boy. I’ll get the medevac team alerted. How is Bob doing, by the way?”

“He’s not. He’s in the homestretch,” Pitt said. “Hospice is with him. This is all Marlene needs on top of everything else.”

“She’s a wonderful woman. She doesn’t deserve this.” They both agreed. “We’ll get the kids home tomorrow. I want to get them off that mountain, before the fires move any closer. This is a worry none of us needs. See you tomorrow morning,” he confirmed. Pitt called Tom Marshall as soon as he hung up from Harvey. Harvey always had a way of making you feel as though everything would be all right, even if you didn’t see how it could be. He found a way, and pulled a rabbit out of the hat more often than Pitt would ever have thought possible. Pitt was counting on him to do it again this time. He took a sharp breath when Tom answered immediately. This was one call he didn’t want to have to make, to tell him that his fourteen-year-old daughter was MIA somewhere on Granite Peak. But no human bodies had been found as the river rushed downstream, Harvey had assured Pitt of that. The kids were up there somewhere, the question was where and how soon they could find them. Pitt was hoping the helicopter pilots could do their job and get all seven kids off the mountain safely. They had done some remarkable rescue missions before, in worse weather. He just hoped that none of the kids were at the bottom of a ravine, or severely injured. He was praying that his son was alive, that they all were.

“Tom?” Pitt said when Tom answered. “We have some mixed news here. The kids are still on the mountain somewhere. They didn’t come home. We think they may have crossed a dry riverbed before there was a flash flood, and then they couldn’t get back. We found the horses, but not the kids, so we know where they were, and they couldn’t get too far on foot, especially with a six-year-old with them. The chief ranger wants us all at my place at six in the morning for a meeting, after that they’re sending out the rescue helicopters and a medevac team to look for them. If you know what Juliet was wearing, it will help a little.”

“Oh my God, how did that happen?” Tom was shocked. He hadn’t expected to hear that they hadn’t come back.

“I don’t know. Seven kids exploring on a mountain, with no concept of how dangerous that can be, is how it happened. We can give them hell when they get home, but let’s get them off the damn mountain first. I’m sorry this happened. I’m going to ground my son until his thirtieth birthday.” Pitt sounded serious.

“I’m sure with seven of them, they all contributed some foolhardy ideas,” Tom commented. “I’d better call Juliet’s mother. She’ll give me hell for not calling her sooner, and not keeping an eye on Juliet well enough before this. I was hoping you’d call me to tell me they turned up at your place.”

“I wish I had. The chief ranger is a good man. He’ll find them. I just hope none of them are hurt.” Tom fell silent as he thought about it and felt sick, and a moment later they hung up. Pitt met Anne in the kitchen. She had just hung up with Marlene.

“I don’t know how much more that poor woman can take. Her husband is dying, and now her two sons are missing on Granite Peak. If she loses them, I don’t think she’ll survive it.”

“Neither will we if something happens to Peter,” he said with tears in his eyes as he held his wife, and they clung to each other. Neither of them could imagine sleeping that night. The morning couldn’t come soon enough. They wanted the helicopters out there to find the children.



* * *



—

Marlene sat watching Bob breathe heavily in a deeply drugged sleep, as she prayed for him and her children. Almost as though he could hear her thoughts, he opened his eyes and looked at her, suddenly awake.

“Are the boys okay?” He looked agitated.

“They’re fine. They’re at the Pollocks’,” she lied to him. He nodded as though he believed her and looked at her again.

“You wouldn’t lie to me if something was wrong, would you?”

“Of course not,” she said, trying to make him believe her.

He closed his eyes, and drifted back to sleep, as she sat next to him, praying he wouldn’t die, and her boys would come home safe. She kept trying to calculate how much insulin Noel had in his pump, and hoping he had brought a spare with him. Sometimes he did. If he didn’t, they were racing against the clock for Noel’s life. Justin knew it too, as he sat next to his sleeping brother under a tree on Granite Peak. His father was dying, and his little brother might die too. It was more than he could bear, and he was sorry he hadn’t stopped them from coming up here. He should have, and he blamed himself, but it was too late now for that. All he knew was that if Noel died, he would never forgive himself, and he was sure his parents wouldn’t either.



* * *



—

Tom waited until it was five a.m. in Montana to call Beth. It was seven a.m. in New York, a respectable enough hour to call her, without terrifying her more than he had to. He told her as quickly and as simply as he could.

“Juliet went up a mountain with a bunch of local kids here yesterday,” since it was the next day for her in New York. “They’re all good, wholesome kids. They rode up to a waterfall where they went swimming, and they didn’t come back last night. They found the horses tied to some trees, and we think the kids went hiking, and got stuck somehow. There is no evidence that they got hurt. They’re sending out rescue helicopters to search for them in a few hours, and a medevac team. That’s all I know, Beth, and I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. I think she’s going to be okay.” He had no grounds for saying that, but it was all he had hoped for since Pitt called him. Beth said everything he thought she would.