Page 37 of Blind Luck

The rotor blades were still turning slowly a few minutes later as the three of us stood at the edge of the canyon, peering into the depths below. Well, not Rusty. He stayed six feet back, and of course Sin noticed.

“You’re not a fan of heights?” she asked.

“Not particularly.”

“Hey, there it is.” I spotted the rabbit again, except now that we were closer, I realised it wasn’t a rabbit, it was a dog. The truth clicked at the same time as Sin said, “Damn, that’s a dog.”

“How did a dog get in there?”

“Some asshole probably dumped it. There’s a road not too far from here.” She knelt, leaning out over the edge. “I think it’s injured.”

“Poor thing. Should we report it to animal control?”

“They won’t come out here.”

“So we just leave it to suffer?”

“Of course we don’t.”

Ah. “You have a gun, right?”

At the Promised Land, veterinary care wasn’t a thing, and a handful of times, I’d closed my eyes and used a rock to ease an animal’s suffering. Better to get it over with thanwatch a rabbit or a chicken live in constant pain. More than once, I’d wished there was a rock waiting for me.

“Are you fucking kidding? I’m not going to shoot the dog.”

“But I thought your job?—”

Sin glared at me. “The dog did nothing wrong.”

“Well, if we can’t leave it like that, and you’re not going to put it out of its misery, then what do we do?”

“We rescue it.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?”

Now she switched her position to sitting and dangled her legs over the side of the canyon. When she kicked at the wall with a heel, the rock crumbled away.

“Okay, this isnotgood,” she said.

“You weren’t seriously thinking of climbing down there?”

“Of course I was thinking of climbing down.”

“The walls of this canyon are made from shale,” Rusty said. “Millions of years ago, this whole area was underwater, which is why we find sedimentary rocks here. Shale’s formed from clay and other?—”

“I don’t need a geology lesson.”

“I’m just trying to say that this rock face isn’t safe.”

“Thanks, I got that. We’ll have to take a different approach.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“We have harnesses in the helicopter. One of them will fit you. We’ll tie the rope to the nearside skid, and I’ll lower you over the edge. You can catch the dog, and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m not dangling around on the end of a rope. What if it breaks? What if I swing into the wall and give myself a concussion? What if the dog bites me? What if it’s rabid?”

And the part I couldn’t say: what if the walls closed in on me and I freaked out? Whenever I did something bad, Father used to lock me in the smallest closet, no light, no food, no water. I used to sit there and rock, my heart racing, the sound of my breathing getting louder and faster and louder and faster because what if he didn’t come back? What if?—

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