Page 14 of Canyon Killer
“Dalton and I can help,” Carter said.
“Bethany, you and Grace and Anna help up top with the ropes.” Sheri assigned others to be in charge of other gear, and still others were tasked with keeping the crowd away from the cliff.
“Do you know how to get to the top of the canyon?” Ryan asked her.
“There’s a dirt road that heads up that way, but you have to park and hike through the woods,” Sheri said. “We’ll take the Beast.” She opened the passenger door to the rescue vehicle. “Pile in, everybody.”
Bethany was climbing into the back of the Beast when a commotion rose up behind her. “What do you people think you’re doing?” Ian shouted.
He wasn’t addressing the rescuers but the crowd of onlookers. “You’re all trespassing,” Ian said. “The sheriff’s deputies are on their way now.”
“Our friend is up there, hurt,” one man protested.
“And he wouldn’t be hurt if he hadn’t been climbing illegally,” Ian said. “Search and rescue are here now. The rest of you need to leave.”
“He wouldn’t have been up there if you hadn’t closed off the canyon,” someone else shouted. “We have a historic right to be here.”
“You don’t have a right to anything,” Ian said. His face was flushed, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. Sunglasses hid his gaze, but Bethany could hear his anger.
The climber lunged at Ian, who fought back. Eldon and Ryan moved in to separate them.
“Everybody calm down.” Eldon said as he dragged Ian away. “Leave the crowd control to the cops.”
The climber was still shouting as Ryan and another man tried to calm him, but Ian immediately quieted. He looked over and saw Bethany but quickly looked away before she could react. The sight of him facing the crowd of angry protestors alone sent an ache through her. She wished she could go to him, to let him know he had at least one other person on his side.
“Come on—we need to go,” Grace said.
They had to travel less than a mile to reach the spot overlooking the injured climber, but it took the better part of an hour to do so. Once they reached the parking area on the narrow dirt forest road, they had to unload a mountain of gear from the vehicle. Bethany and the others staggered under the weight of ropes, pulleys, break bars, anchors, pitons, a winch, the parts for a wheeled litter and other first aid gear.
Another thirty minutes passed as they assembled a spiderweb of ropes anchored at various points along the top ledge and fed through pulleys. Caleb and Eldon worked together, talking of DCDs, tie-offs, belays and jiggers. Bethany and Grace laid out what seemed like miles of brightly colored climbing ropes and passed them to Carter and Dalton, who relayed them to Tony and Caleb.
“What’s a DCD?” Bethany asked Grace.
“Descent control device,” she said.
“Like a brake bar or certain kinds of hitches,” Caleb said.
“How do you keep track with so many ropes?” Bethany asked as lines crisscrossed at the top of the cliff.
“Every rope has a specific purpose,” he said. “If you know the purpose, you can remember how to set it up to work most effectively.”
“How did you learn to do this?” She handed him the end of a coil of climbing rope, which he fed through a brake bar.
“There’s an organization called Rigging for Rescue that teaches seminars on this stuff,” Caleb said. “Week-long hands-on practice. It’s pretty intense stuff. Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue footed part of the tuition for me to attend this spring. Ryan and Eldon went, too. And Tony has taken several advanced courses. I think Danny and Sheri have, too.” He tested his knot.
Sheri joined them, having donned a climbing harness and helmet. “How’s it going?” she asked.
“We’re ready when you are,” Caleb said.
The radio mounted to her shoulder crackled, and she keyed the mike. “Go ahead.”
“Ryan and I are with Mike,” Eldon said. “He’s in and out of consciousness. He hit his head when he fell. He says he was wearing a climbing helmet, but it must have come off. His right arm is caught in the ropes and I think it’s broken, but the head injury is the real problem. He’s not really able to assist much with the rescue. We’re going to set some anchors and rope him to those so he’s not swinging by his belay rope.”
“I’m headed down, and the litter will be right after me,” Sheri said.
“Grace and Bethany, I’m putting you on the litter,” Caleb said. “It will be light and pretty easy to lower down. Just try not to bang it into the cliff face too much.”
“What if we drop it?” Bethany asked.
