Mase_9780553807288_4p_all_r1.qxp
11/11/08
12:12 PM
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BLOOD AND ICE
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to use that swell to massage the shoulder back. He approached it gingerly, trying to gauge the best way to use it, but he also knew that he had to move fast. Kristin was still swinging at the end of a rope, above a thousand-foot fall to the pine trees below. He braced himself against the rock, laid his shoulder on it, and pressed hard—then harder; he could hear the popping and grinding of the joint, as the parts sought to regain their proper places, and though the pain was excruciating, he kept thinking only of Kristin, and pressed up, then down, then sideways. With each motion, he felt the parts realigning, until, like the pieces of a puzzle all of a sudden falling into place, he heard the shoulder click back to where it belonged. He gasped several times, and waited, terrified, to see if it would hold . . . but it did. His entire body was drenched in sweat. He took a swig of water from the bottle in his backpack, then began the laborious process, a few inches at a time, of hauling Kristin up to the ledge. He had tried calling to her again and again, but ominously there had been no answer. He prayed that she had only been knocked unconscious and would come to her senses soon. But when her head appeared above the rim, and he saw that even the yellow safety helmet had been pulverized as if by a giant mallet, he knew that things were bad. Very bad indeed. Once he had her body all the way up, he unfastened her harness and removed her backpack, which had ripped open in the fall; everything, including their cell phone, had spilled somewhere far below. He checked her heartbeat and her breathing, then unfurled his sleeping bag and laid it over her. He felt his own body going into a kind of delayed shock, and he stopped to take four Tylenol from their first-aid kit, then tried to eat another protein bar to keep his energy levels up. But his mouth was so dry he could barely chew, and he wound up just breaking it into pieces and washing them down with sips of water. He debated trying to give Kristin some water, but he was afraid of making her choke. Instead, he simply elevated her head on a mound of dirt and gravel he’d gathered, and waited. The last rays of the sun were tingeing the Western Cascades a pale pink, and Big Lake, far below, was as black as obsidian. He remembered thinking that it was a beautiful sight, and that Kristin should really sit up and enjoy it. She loved sunsets, especially when