Page 74 of True Valor
“I don’t need any help,” she spat and headeddown.She’d been up here a bazillion times, even when it was slick.Her dad had called her a mountain goat.She’d called Jenn achicken.
She found the spot she needed.It brought herdown on the other side of the rock outcropping, the side away fromthe pond.She stepped over Raines’ broken body and ran aroundfront.
By the time she made it around the rocks,Gabe was to the hole.He was reaching into the water.The othersgathered around the edge of the pond, as much willing Nic up as shewas.The lieutenant stood behind the kid holding the rope.Bothmen’s eyes riveted to the drama on the ice.
“Got him.”Gabe had only spoken but the quietamplified his words.
Cruz stepped up behind her.
“Julie.Go stoke up the fire.Get all theblankets you can find.”
At her hesitation, he turned her.
“Just do it, Julie.Now.”
Julie paused on the porch to look back.
The rope crew hauled Nic’s limp form, hookeddirectly to Gabe’s rope, across the ice.
She raced to do what she could.
If she’d expected shouting and chaos whenthey got inside, she’d been wrong.They were quiet.They laid Nic,dripping wet, on the floor, as if he might break.
Someone asked for towels.
Nic’s eyes were open.He looked aroundslowly, dazed.
Will left the cabin and came back shortlywith a ruck sack which he laid on the kitchen table.He beganpulling things out, a stethoscope and B/P cuff, hot packs.
The others stripped Nic and dried him withthe same gentle touch.By the time they moved him to the bed, Nicwas mumbling through teeth gritted with shivering.
The kid, the one she hadn’t met, came tostand beside her.
“He’s shivering.That’s a good sign.”
“It is?”
“Yes.”
Nic was soon bundled to the chin.They’d puthot packs under his arms and on his pelvis.Each of the men hadpulled an IV bag from somewhere under their parkas, warmed andready to start the drip.
Someone made tea.Julie hadn’t noticed who.When Will set a cup in front of her at the table, she pulled hereyes from the bed.Across the table Gabe sat, wrapped in a blankethimself, hovering over his own steaming mug.He, too, shivered.Buta smile lit up his face when he caught her eye.
“He’s tough,”--Gabe winked--“even though hedoesn’t look it.Besides, look at all his mothers.”
Julie nodded and tried to smile back.Her liptrembled though.Chris Gabriel was the most genuinely carefreeperson she’d ever met.Not in the devil-may-care way Cruz was.Nonetheless, he’d forever be her angel.
“I saw the Wizard,” Nic’s voice.Just awhisper.
Was he hallucinating?
Gabe laughed out loud.Then, he turned backto Julie.
“The Wonderful Wizard of Wig.When wedrown-proof in training, the Wiz is the guy you see right beforeyou pass out.Not to worry.”
Before she could make sense of what he’dsaid, Nic croaked her name.
The crowd parted for her when she approached.His dark eyes were now clear, his face more relaxed.He stillshivered but not violently.
