Her Mistletoe Miracle

“What if it is?” Mick’s steps didn’t slow, but his jaw tightened.

Wylie hesitated, seeming to weigh his next comment. “Marlee thinks you haven’t been yourself since Pappy died. She’s worried you might do something… rash today.”

Mick pulled up short in the shadow of the bird. He scowled as he dug a pair of leather gloves out of the cockpit. “What the hell does that mean, Wylie?”

“Just that this is a ranger call. I have to know if you’re depressed enough, or personally involved enough, to get reckless with your life. If so, I’ll have to order you to stand down. If need be, I’ll handcuff you to one of the damned fence posts.”

Surprise passed through Mick’s lean frame, and then he found Wylie’s swashbuckling attempt comical. Wiping a hand across his face to dust off the snowflakes stuck to his eyelashes, he laughed. “Are you seriously suggesting that if Hana doesn’t make it, I’m gonna fly into the side of the mountain?”

“Put that way, it does sound extreme.”

“Damned right. Tell Marlee my head’s screwed on straight.”

His hip objected to the shift in weather, making it difficult for Mick to hoist himself into the cold cockpit. Neither man spoke again, but their eyes met. Blowing snow cast a muted golden halo over the camp. All sound seemed muffled except for the ropes clanking against the flagpole that marked the entrance to the ranger station. The U.S. flag, the Montana state flag, and the forestry flag, all attached below a snow-covered brass ball, flapped wildly in the stiff wind.

Wylie gave in first and raised a hand for Mick to clasp. “Fire her up. I see Bill coming with the supplies. I’ll toss extra pillows and blankets in the hatch and lock her down.” Several heartbeats passed, then he shouted to be heard over the first whir of the rotors, “Good luck, Mick.”

A lump rose in Mick’s throat, so he busied himself arranging the blankets and food Bill handed him, firmly in the copilot’s seat. Then he donned his earphones. That done, he was in control of his feelings enough to flash his brother-in-law a thumbs-up.

He felt the chopper rock as the men buttoned up the back, but waited until he saw them bend over and run clear before he lifted off.

Mick’s thoughts threatened to turn into worry for Hana. He refused to let that happen. Instead, he concentrated on the landscape fanned out below. As he climbed steadily, flying got dicier. Crosswinds alone could be wicked for rotors. Add blowing snow to the equation and bad conditions increased tenfold. The saving grace, if there was one, was that the snow was still dry. It blew off the Huey’s blades instead of weighing them down.

Below him, trudging slowly in single file down a steep ravine, were three bighorn sheep. They had grown shaggy winter coats and their brown hair was dusted white with snow. Any other time, he’d linger over the rare sight. The fact that the sheep knew to prepare for winter so soon lent an urgency to Mick’s mission. The jagged peaks he’d admired from home yesterday cast shadows across neighboring slopes—slopes he needed to see so he could land. First, though, he needed enough light to spot the stranded hikers.

Higher up into the foothills, fog drifted in in deep pockets. Yet another element against him. The snow and fog mix was beginning to hide the terrain below.

Mick turned up the heat inside the Huey, hoping to melt the flakes beginning to stick on the clear part of the bubble. Still, he had to use his glove to wipe off the condensation building up inside the plastic.

He’d been in the air forty minutes when a hole opened and he saw a red light winking atop a radio tower. The first of three point markers Wylie’s captain said he’d come across. Mick’s stomach unknotted. He hadn’t realized until then how tense he’d become.

It shouldn’t be long now before he’d see where the hiker said they’d staked tree boughs in the shape of an arrow. He wondered how far up the mountain Wylie and the other volunteers were. He knew they had radios and would try to stay in contact with the hikers. Mick cursed himself for not having asked for their frequency so he, too, could keep tabs. He fiddled with the dials, but got only static.

The arrow.

He adjusted his speed, brought the Huey lower and hovered above the marker. People came into view. One motionless body was propped against a fair size rock that was being used as a wind break. It was impossible to tell if the figure was a man or a woman, since a jacket was draped around the shoulders and another tented his or her whole head.

To the left of the rock, Mick identified three more figures lying flat around a dark gash in the hillside. The crevasse. Damn. By the look of things he’d arrived before the crew had complied with his request to have all of the injured ready to be flown off the mountain.

Although the wind didn’t seem quite so erratic now, Mick wondered whether he’d be able to lift off again once he’d landed. He quickly calculated the area, angle of descent and wind velocity. Wind, unfortunately, was unpredictable.

Where the climbers were more or less dictated that he had to perch on an incline. Would the weight of the Huey cause it to slide down the slick slope and keep sliding until it crashed into the line of trees below?

One of the figures at the crevasse hopped up and waved frantically. Mick wanted to yell at the foolish hiker and say, “Forget about me. Get those folks out of the hole.”

But as fast as his anger flared it fizzled. He knew what it was like to be in need of rescue. He felt his palms sweat as he remembered getting the hell shot out of his F/A-18. Falling. His chute jerking open. Floating down as gunfire rained around him. His heart slamming against his chest as he hauled in his chute and detached it from his hips, one of which ran red with his blood. He’d dragged himself into underbrush, scared he’d die on unfriendly soil.

But he hadn’t died. Six Black Hawks had shown up. Five fended off the enemy as one landed and rescued him.

Gritting his teeth, Mick wrestled the whirlybird onto a snowy perch. He hadn’t fully shut down before opening his door and tumbling out in a crouch. His first aid kit in hand, he ran bent over to the person slumped against the boulder.

Kari Dombroski, he discovered. She was the one who’d brought Mick the money the hikers had collected to pay for the climbing supplies Jess had ordered. Mick still had the money wadded in his jeans pocket, where he’d stuffed it yesterday.

“Kari, it’s Mick Callen.” He touched her shoulder lightly and stared into eyes filled with pain. “I’m here to fly you to a doctor. You and others who’ve been hurt.” He flipped open the metal lid of his first aid kit, still unable to make out the identity of those working feverishly to rope another climber out of the yawning crevasse.

“Can you walk?” he asked Kari.

Rousing, she shook her head. “Three of us lost our footing on snowy pine needles. We bounced off sharp rocks before we finally landed in the crevasse.”

“Has anyone checked your injuries?”

“Norm Whitman said my right arm’s broken in a couple of places. He didn’t know if he should tape it to my side or not. It’s swelling. My right leg is either broken, or I tore a ligament. I can’t bear weight on it.” Tears began sliding down her face.

Mick made a sling for her arm. She yelped when he placed her arm in it. “I have two litters in the chopper. But if I put you on one and your fellow climbers have worse injuries, I may need to leave someone behind. No matter where I put you, on a stretcher or in the copilot seat, it’s going to hurt like hell.”

“That’s okay. I’ll sit wherever you say, Mick. Please, you need to check on Hana and Jess. I’m afraid…” She broke off and her damp eyes spoke her fears more succinctly than words.

“Shh, I’ll carry you to the chopper so you’ll be out of the wind.” Mick braced himself to lift her. She wasn’t big, but his phony hip socket objected all the same.

As he stumbled toward the Huey, Kari blubbered through tears, “Jess’s feet came out from under him first. He disappeared over what I thought was a ridge. Hana and I were dragged along ’cause we were roped to him. When I stopped falling, I rolled, and called to them, but I didn’t get an answer.” She sobbed against Mick’s shoulder. “I thought we’d all die.”

He set her down gently inside the Huey and focused on splinting her leg. He tore off the tape and got up, noticing her face had been scraped. Mick carefully rubbed on an antibiotic cream.

“We shouldn’t have gone higher toward the peak,” she said, trying but failing with her one good hand to hang on to the blanket Mick draped around her. He adjusted it for her and closed the lid on his kit. Keeping an eye on the storm outside, he poured Kari a cup of black coffee and wrapped her uninjured hand around the plastic cup.

“We should’ve turned back as soon as it started snowing hard. Jess egged us on.” Tears rimmed her lower eyelids and tracked over the welts on her cheek.

“Time to sort out blame later,” Mick said gruffly. “Hang in there, Kari. I’ll go see what’s happening at the crevasse.” A knot fisted in his chest as he slid out of the chopper. He’d known what Kari was afraid to say—that Hana and Jess didn’t make noise because maybe they’d been killed in the fall.

He slogged uphill through worsening weather to where the others were just rolling a body out of the hole. Mick tried to muster anger at Jess Hargitay for being so irresponsible, but only panic filled his throat. Especially when he saw Chuck Hutton and Norm Whitman bent over a form too slender to be Hargitay.

A third man, the shortest of the three, faced the blowing snow. He wore a ball cap pulled so low Mick couldn’t tell who he was. Not that it made a difference. He just needed to marshal his jumpy nerves and make himself look at Hana.

Chuck got to his feet. “She’s alive,” he told Mick, relief clear in his voice. “She screamed when we tightened the rope to hoist her out, over the rim. Then I suppose she blacked out again. She’s gotta be hurt bad. My guess is internal. I don’t feel broken bones. But I’m afraid to touch her much.”

“And Jess?” Mick asked through clenched teeth as he knelt.

Chuck averted his eyes. “There’s been no response from him. Roger’s about to climb down to see. We were able to get Kari to disconnect her and Hana’s ropes from Jess. The lot of them lost their footing and sailed past us so fast there wasn’t time to grab their ropes, or even tell the women to hit their release clips.”

“Why were both women connected to Jess— Forget it—it doesn’t matter. I have a stretcher we’ll use for Hana. I’ll need your help carrying her to the chopper.”

“You’ll take us all, right?” Chuck shouted to be heard over the howling wind. His teeth chattered and his face was already chapped from the cold.

“Wish I could, Chuck, but no. A hiking party from the ranger station is on its way up the mountain. I’ll leave blankets, food and coffee. You can pitch a tent and wait, or you can hike down and meet the rescue team.”

“Without Jess, we’d never find the route. This snow has made getting our bearings impossible. Jess was the one with the mountain climbing experience.”

Mick didn’t want to point out they were all dumb-asses for setting out with a storm forecast. He only said, “Kari’s in a lot of pain. And I’m half afraid to move Hana.” He glanced at the Huey, then at the inert woman. “I’ll anchor litters to each side of the chopper wall for these two.”

“What about Jess?”

“I can take three wounded if one’s up to sitting in the copilot’s seat. Everything—and everyone—in the body of the craft has to be lashed down. It’s a matter of weight distribution, taking off in this wind. If anyone slid or rolled, it could throw me into a spin.”

In fact, the wind had begun to cut through Mick’s jeans. The snow had intensified, and the flakes were getting wetter. That was bad. His tracks to and from the Huey were already covered. He wore boots, but now noticed snow had soaked the bottom edges of his jeans.

Mick left Chuck and trekked back for a litter. He gathered as many blankets as he could carry and slung packs filled with sandwiches and coffee over both shoulders. Before leaving base camp, he’d taken time to line the interior walls where he’d strap the litters as best he could with blankets and pillows to make a sick bay for the most badly injured.

Kari was still crying, although more quietly.

“This stretcher is for Hana.” Mick wanted to give her added hope. “They have her out of the crevasse. She’s unconscious, but she’s alive.”

“Please just hurry. I hurt worse with every passing second.”

He promised to do his best then returned to the crevasse. Hana’s face looked as pale as the snow. Instead of insulating her from the cold, Chuck had rolled her out onto the ground. She might already have suffered frostbite. Mick curbed his frustration, recognizing that they were all working under a strain. The uninjured climbers had done the best they could in crappy circumstances.

He shoved blankets and a thermos bag at Norm Whitman. “Bundle up and drink something warm,” he ordered the man, whose fingers were turning blue.

Mick unrolled the canvas stretcher and shook out two thermal blankets. He eased Hana onto one, then moved her on her side so he could brush snow off her back.

She cried out sharply and her eyelids shot open. “Jess,” she gasped in a breathy sob. “Stop. Stop! Oh, God, help. My back’s in spasms.”

Mick’s fingers stilled instantly. He shrugged off the way she’d mistaken him for Jess, and did his best to treat her more gently as he placed her flat on her back. She let out another ragged cry as her eyes went back in her head. She’d blacked out again. He rolled two additional blankets lengthwise to stabilize her hips, then covered her from neck to toe with another. Though his own hands ached with the cold, he looped straps around her waist, hips and ankles, and buckled her firmly on the litter. Mick glanced up as the man in the ball cap, Roger, hoisted himself over the ledge of the crevasse with a lot of help from Chuck Hutton. Roger swayed unsteadily and suddenly bent at the waist and vomited all over the snow.

Rising, and ignoring the stab to his bad hip, Mick tripped over Norm as together they converged on the pair standing next to the crevasse.

Roger managed a shaky, “Jess is d…de…dead. I think he br…broke his neck in the fall.” With a cry, Roger grabbed the front of Chuck’s jacket. “I told him two hours out that we should pack it in and go home. But no, the macho asshole called me a wimp. It could’ve been you, or me, or any of us dead at the bottom of that hole!”

Mick sensed Roger was a blip on the radar away from hysteria. He’d seen it in combat with men forced to face their own mortality. Roughly, he broke Roger’s grip on Chuck, who shot Mick a grateful, ashen-faced nod.

“We’ve got to bring him up,” Mick commanded, fighting his reeling thoughts. He knew he sounded harsh and unfeeling as he called upon his military training. “I’ve got a tarp in the aircraft we can wrap him in. I’ll have to leave…uh…the body with you. The rangers are bringing a toboggan.” Mick broke off. “We’ve gotta work fast. I have two injured women needing medical attention. Norm and Chuck, help me carry Hana to the Huey. If she wakes up and asks, don’t say a word about Jess.”

The men moved like zombies. Mick reminded Chuck, “I’ll leave blankets and hot coffee. Pitch a tent and crawl inside out of the weather until the rangers arrive. Keep a light on so they can spot you in the dark. They estimated reaching here between eleven and midnight.”

“I’m not waiting with any dead body. You can fly us all out.” Roger latched on to Mick’s throat. “I’ve seen war movies. A chopper the size of yours can haul a platoon. You’re not leaving us here to freeze and die like Jess.”

Up close, Mick could see how young Roger was—eighteen or nineteen. Which didn’t make him less of a threat. In his current state of mind, the kid could easily do something stupid that would permanently ground the Huey.

Mick tried to reason with him. “Under normal circumstances the Huey could carry that kind of a payload. Mine’s been renovated to haul freight. In this weather, the extra weight puts me in danger of crashing and killing us all.”

“I’m not staying here.” Roger tightened his choke hold on Mick. Norm dropped his coffee, splashing hot liquid across the snow as he leaped forward to pull Roger off Mick. But the younger man wasn’t easily dislodged.

Mick gagged as they struggled. He tried, but was unable to gain solid footing in the slippery snow. He’d seen men go temporarily insane under fire. To Roger, this mountain was the enemy, and Mick’s helicopter represented safe passage out.

Norm hooked Roger under both arms, breaking his grip, as Chuck hauled back and decked the kid with a roundhouse punch. As quickly as he’d attacked Mick, Roger sagged to his knees, leaving Norm grappling with his dead weight.

“Jeez, Chuck, why’d you hit him so hard? He’s out cold,” Norm yelled.

Chuck began to look wild-eyed himself. “I just reacted, man.” He flexed his hands nervously.

Mick rubbed his throat. “He’ll be okay. I owe you guys. I wish I could take everyone, but I think I’ll be lucky to get the injured out.” Mick relieved Norm of the young man, and deposited Roger’s limp body on a soft pile of blankets. “He’ll be woozy for a while after he wakes up. Listen, the rangers will rescue you. And if you care at all about Hana and Kari, help me get Hana into the chopper and out of this weather. Then…I’ll lend a hand with…uh…Jess.”

As they lifted the litter Hana began to thrash about and talk nonsense. Although he hated having to leave Kari alone with her, Mick felt obligated to help with Jess.

No one wanted to go into the pit again, but because Norm was the lightest, he was chosen to be roped down. Mick and Chuck lowered him in silence. Bringing up a body wasn’t a chore any of them wanted. But it had to be done. The process took longer than Mick had judged, because he had to keep prodding Chuck to pull on his rope. Once they had the body up, Chuck and Norm were so rattled, erecting the tents fell to Mick. The other men didn’t understand why Mick demanded two of their tents, and he wasn’t about to spell out for them that Jess needed to be under cover because of wolves and other predators.

Long shadows had slipped across the eerily silent clearing by the time Mick finished and flatly declared, “Look, I’ve gotta take off.” Mick shook hands with first Norm then Chuck. As he left the site, the men dragged Roger, who had begun to stir, into the larger of the two tents. Mick knew they didn’t want him to leave, but it was now or never.

Kari was gritting her teeth in pain, and Hana looked like death waiting in the wings.

Mick hadn’t totally shut down the rotors, hoping to keep them from freezing up. Still, as he tried to lift off, the escalating wind was determined to drive him back into the hillside. He waged a battle of determination in his head while steadily increasing power to the rotors.

Sweat popped out on his brow and several drops slid down his nose as the tail rotor caught the downdraft and the main body of the aircraft bucked and pitched. He thought he was a goner.

Both women screamed, nearly bursting Mick’s eardrums. He’d outfitted them with headsets to minimize the chopper noise, and also as a means to communicate with them if they panicked. Kari had resisted being buckled on a stretcher, but she couldn’t get up to sit in the copilot’s seat, so Mick had insisted on strapping her in. Because Hana had thrashed about earlier, Mick worried she’d break her restraints now or in flight.

He recognized that this wasn’t the safest way to carry injured passengers on a two-hour flight. But he’d come this far, and Hana was alive. She’d said something the other day that stuck with Mick. Or rather, it was something she’d implied—a lot of people in Hana Egan’s life had let her down. By damn, he didn’t intend to be another person who failed her.

A giant sucking sound rent the air. The big helicopter popped loose from the stranglehold of the downdrafts and shot up and away from the side hill like a cork exploding from a champagne bottle. Mick’s lungs eased as he let out a breath.

“Mick?” Kari’s voice spoke urgently in his ear. “I felt the wall behind me rattle. What’s wrong? Are we going down?” Fear made her voice shrill.

“Relax, Kari. Everything’s fine,” he said, hoping she couldn’t see him shake out a handkerchief and mop his forehead. “How did Hana deal with liftoff?”

“Fine, I guess. God, I hurt everywhere from all the shaking.”

“Sorry. I wish I had more pillows.”

She said nothing, which was okay with Mick. He wanted to radio the ranger station and let someone there know his passengers’ names and his destination. He’d also like them to alert Wylie’s rescue party as to what they’d find at the end of their trek, but that wasn’t the way Kari and Hana should learn what happened to Jess.

Trudy Morgenthal, the regular dispatcher, picked up Mick’s call to headquarters. “Nice of you to touch base at long last, Callen. You’ve got everyone in a tizzy. And in Marlee’s condition, a tizzy’s the last thing she needs.”

“You haven’t heard from Wylie?”

“Wylie and Bill have called in a dozen times asking for updates from you.”

“Yeah, well, I had my hands full.”

Not free to say much more, Mick kept his transmission to Trudy short. He clicked off after asking her to tell Marlee he’d touch base after he reached Kalispell.

He felt a shimmer of guilt for leaving Marlee and the kids stranded. He could, he supposed, be back to ranger headquarters by 4:00 a.m. or so. All he was obligated to do was wait for an ambulance. Once the smoke jumpers were on their way to the hospital, he could return and take the Ames family home. He could. But Mick already knew he was going to tag along to the hospital.

His headset crackled. Kari asked shakily when they’d land.

“In about ninety minutes. I’ll radio ahead for an ambulance when we’re fifteen minutes out.”

“I need to phone my boyfriend,” she said.

“He wasn’t on the climb?” Mick glanced back into the dim interior.

“He’s not a smoke jumper. His name is Joe. He didn’t want me to make this climb. He said I wouldn’t get home in time to celebrate his mom’s birthday. Now I’ll definitely miss it,” she sobbed. “And I’ll probably have to ask him to come up here and drive me home.”

“Where do you live? Southern California, like Hana?”

“No,” she sniffed. “Denver. This was my last year as a smoke jumper. That’s why I wanted to make this trek with the crew.”

With Jess gone, Mick wondered who Hana would call. Did she have anyone?

“Is Hana awake?” Mick knew she could hear him if she was conscious.

He heard her ragged whisper. “I’m awake. I’m in a lot of pain, mostly in my lower back. And I can’t feel my toes.”

That didn’t sound good to Mick, who’d taken advanced first aid courses in order to fly for Angel Fleet. He figured from Hana’s torn and bloody jeans that she’d bounced over rocks before landing in the crevasse. Chuck, Norm and Roger hadn’t gone to any extra effort to support her back before pulling her out. But then, Mick had rolled her onto the stretcher. Chills swept his spine as he considered that he might have done her more harm than good in brushing snow off her back.

The last thing he wanted to do was transmit his panic to her. “I strapped you on the stretcher pretty tight. Listen, ladies, we’re coming into some turbulence. It’ll probably hurt but we should get through it quickly.”

He hit an air pocket and dropped, then shot up almost as fast. Someone cried out sharply, and then both moaned in what must have been agony. Mick hated hearing them in pain and knowing he could do nothing to help.

He’d hoped for a break in the weather before he came within radio range of the Kalispell airpark. But no such luck. This storm seemed determined to beat Montana up on all sides.

“It won’t be long until you get real medical attention,” he told them ten minutes later. “I’m going to call now to ask for an ambulance. The paramedics will come onboard and give you something for pain before they move you.”