Page 38 of Canyon Killer
“If you find out anything else, let us know,” Gage said. “Thanks for bringing in the ring.” He turned to Ian. “Have you had any more trouble out at your place?”
“Things have been quiet,” Ian said. “I think everyone is waiting to see what happens at the county commissioners’ meeting to discuss the operating permit for the via ferrata.”
“There’s still a lot of opposition to the project,” Aaron said.
“As the project takes shape, I think more people will see how it will be good for the community and for climbing,” Ian said. He offered a hand. “Thanks for your help with all of this.”
Aaron hesitated, then shook Ian’s hand. Ian and Gage exchanged handshakes as well.
“I think you’re winning Aaron over,” Bethany said when they were outside again.
“Maybe he’s accepting that his sister can make her own decisions.”
She took his arm. “Wouldn’t that be something?” She wanted to tell him that she had made some decisions about him—that she might be falling in love. But an uncharacteristic caution held her back. As impulsive as she was with some things, she had learned the hard way to guard her heart.
* * *
By the following Friday, the via ferrata was beginning to take shape. The contractors had set anchors and supports all along the canyon wall for walkways and platforms and begun drilling for setting iron rings and ladder rungs into other sections of the course. The sound of drilling and hammering reverberated through the canyon all day, but as the sun set the clamor ceased. Ian walked through the construction area, assessing that day’s progress and anticipating what was to come.
The construction crew didn’t work weekends. Ian rose early Saturday, planning to inspect the previous day’s progress, then maybe find somewhere to climb. Though he and Bethany had talked almost every day, he hadn’t seen her since the previous Saturday. He had been working late every day, pulling the via ferrata project together. A Friday dinner date had been canceled by a summons for search and rescue volunteers to help look for a lost child who had wandered away from a local campground. The boy had been found safe after midnight.
Today, Bethany had a climbing clinic for search and rescue in Caspar Canyon. As much as he would have liked to see her and cheer her on, he thought it best to avoid that area, especially given the animosity of some of the hard-core climbers to him and his project.
Yesterday afternoon, the construction crew had installed the supports for a catwalk two-thirds of the way up the canyon wall, to be reached via a series of iron rings embedded in the rock face. The support system consisted of short lengths of iron beams inserted in thirty-six-inch-deep holes drilled in the rock, set with concrete. The contractor had suspended scaffolding from the top of the cliff to facilitate the work, and this was still in place. The workers had used a boom truck to lift them up to the scaffolding, but Ian settled for free-climbing, finding easy hand- and footholds in the rough rock.
There were seven supports for the ten feet of walkway. Ian stepped onto the first one, testing its sturdiness before stepping fully onto it. He grinned. These things weren’t going anywhere.
Movement down below caught his eye. He looked down to see a figure moving around in front of the trailer. “Hey!” he shouted.
The figure started and looked up at him. From here, it looked like a kid. “What are you doing here?” Ian called.
“I just wanted to look around!”
“You need to leave.”
The kid didn’t answer but turned and ran back toward the gate. Ian waited to make sure he had left, then moved forward to the next support. He could extend one arm to touch the rock wall to steady himself, but he didn’t need to. He moved to the next support and looked down. It was a long way to the bottom, but he had never been afraid of heights, and he had certainly been in more precarious positions with much farther to fall.
He stepped onto the fourth support, and fear gripped him as it wobbled. As it gave way beneath him, he leaped to the fifth support, only to find himself falling, his screams echoing through the canyon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Saturday found Bethany at Caspar Canyon with search and rescue, contemplating a spiderweb of ropes and miscellaneous hardware arrayed at the top of the cliff. “We’re going to run a couple of scenarios today to teach you more about working with rigging for rescue work,” Tony told the gathered volunteers. “You’ll learn some terminology and safety rules and get a feel for the kind of scenarios you might encounter—situations some of you have already encountered. We’ll have a volunteer play the role of injured climber, and Ryan and Eldon will be in charge of the rigging.”
Carter stepped forward. “I volunteer to be the injured climber.”
“Thanks,” Tony said. “But Grace is going to fulfill that role.” He gestured to the equipment laid out in front of them. “Bethany, can you hand me a DCD?”
She scanned the array of tools and selected the descent control device and handed it to him.
“Good job,” he said. “You’ve been studying the list of terms we gave you.”
Bethany nodded. She didn’t want to be the person who made the wrong choice in a real emergency or the one who couldn’t find what a fellow volunteer needed at a critical moment.
“Grace is going to climb down and pretend to be injured,” Tony explained. “Then it will be up to us to set the proper rigging in order to send someone down to rescue her.”
Grace, in harness and helmet, began her descent. Halfway down the face of the cliff, she stopped. “What do I do now?” she called up.
“Call for help,” Ryan said.
