Take Me Higher by Pamela Clare

Chapter 23

With their guestssettled in the living room, Megs walked to the bedroom to retrieve Mitch’s journal, a knot in her stomach. Dean’s death was the greatest regret of her life, a subject she rarely mentioned. Now she was going to read about it in detail to Dean’s adult son and the dirtbags, who had also been Dean’s friends.

She wasn’t sure she was up for this, but they all deserved the truth.

Mitch walked in behind her, shut the bedroom door, his eyes full of concern. “You d-on’t have to … do this. Just an… answer quest… quest… questions. Or cop…copy it.”

He had more trouble speaking when he was upset.

Megs tried to explain. “I owe Dean this much. We owe him. His son should know exactly why his father wasn’t there for him when he was growing up.”

Mitch rested his hands on her shoulders. “H-hard for… you. I never …saw you so… broke… broken… as then.”

It had been one of the few times in her adult life that Megs had curled up in a fetal position and sobbed. She’d barely been able to function for weeks afterward. It was only the idea of free climbing The Nose that had gotten her back into the world. But that had been twenty-eight years ago.

“I’ll be okay.” Then it hit her that Mitch might not want to share his journal entry with anyone, that this might feel too personal. “Are you okay with my reading this aloud to everyone?”

He nodded, resignation on his face. “My job is… take care of… you.”

“I know, and I’m grateful. It didn’t kill me then. It won’t kill me now.”

She walked back to the living room, journal in hand, Mitch behind her. “Does anyone need anything to drink before we start?”

Heads shook, the room silent.

While Megs searched for the entry, she gave them all the background. “Dean and Beth were living in Ridgeway on the Western Slope. We hadn’t seen them for a while, so when he invited us to visit, we were happy to make the trip. We were still living in California at the time. We’d been at their place for three days when he proposed we climb El Diente, one of the fourteeners in the San Miguel range. It was late August, so we left the house prepared for possible rain. We had planned to be back at Dean and Beth’s place by dinnertime. But that’s not how it went.”

Megs found the right page, skimmed over it, and decided to skip straight to the three of them on El Diente’s summit. Then she steeled herself and began to read.

August 17, 1992

Mitch stoodon the summit of El Diente with Megs and Dean at a little after two in the afternoon, the three of them posing for Dean’s compact Olympus, doing their best to recreate their photo from the summit of Mt. Everest.

Dean set the delay timer on his camera. “Everyone look cold, hypoxic, and exhausted.”

Mitch and Megs laughed, Dean hurrying to join them.

Click.

They signed the summit registry, admiring the view and reminiscing about their days climbing together in Yosemite and the Himalayas.

Mitch ripped the wrapper off a granola bar. “The scenery makes me miss Scarlet Springs.”

“That’s where you grew up, right?” Dean didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve been through there. It’s beautiful country. Have you thought of settling there?”

Megs answered without hesitation. “No! Don’t give him ideas.”

Mitch laughed. “I’ve thought about it.”

Mindful of the dark clouds that heralded an approaching storm, they didn’t stay too long, taking time for hydration and a snack before they started down.

Dean went first. “Watch the loose rock.”

“This is one hell of a mountain.” Mitch followed, taking care where he placed his feet before he stepped. “It might be less than half as high as Everest, but it’s no walk-up.”

There was no clear trail to the summit, and some of the terrain was deadly, with unstable rock, cliffs, and exposed ridges. There were snowfields and stretches of ice, too. A slip or a sudden gust of wind could result in a fall of hundreds of feet. The stretch near the summit was class four scramble, reminding Mitch of the Hillary Step but without the snow, ice, or extreme altitude.

Megs went last, reaching down carefully with her feet and testing each rock before putting her full weight on it. “Does this remind either of you of the Hillary Step?”

“Yes,” Mitch and Dean answered almost in unison.

They were still up high and picking their way through boulders and talus, when the wind picked up, those storm clouds blowing closer, the temps dropping rapidly. They stopped to put on rain gear, then shouldered their packs once again and moved on.

Dean glanced up at the sky. “I think this storm is going to hit before we get back to the vehicles.”

He took a step, and the large block of talus beneath his foot flipped backward onto his shin, knocking him to the ground, making him cry out. Groaning, he pushed the rock aside and grasped his leg, a grimace on his face.

Mitch and Megs reached him as quickly as they could.

He spoke through gritted teeth. “I think… it’s broken.”

Megs slid her hands over his leg on the outside of his jeans, her gaze meeting Mitch’s. “His tibia is definitely displaced. It could be a tib-fib fracture.”

Dean was sucking in big breaths, fighting with pain. “Fuck.”

The danger wasn’t the broken bone itself. There were arteries in the leg that could be severed by displaced bone, causing a person to bleed out. A talus field at fourteen thousand feet was no place for triage. Dean needed a hospital—fast.

Mitch ripped into his backpack. “I think we’ve got Advil in the first aid kit. We can probably rig some kind of splint once we reach timberline.”

“I’ll hike ahead and come back up with something we can use.” Megs set off, moving a bit too fast for Mitch’s tastes.

“Be careful!” he shouted after her.

“Apart from the leg, how do you feel?”

“I’m okay.”

If he’d severed an artery, he would probably have collapsed by now. Instead, he seemed like himself—coherent, focused, normal respiration. If he had severed an artery up here, there was likely nothing they could have done for him anyway. It was several hours to the nearest town.

By the time Megs returned carrying two thick sticks of about the same size, a freezing rain had begun to fall. “This is the best I could do.”

Working carefully, she and Mitch rigged a splint, tying the two pieces of wood together on opposite sides of Dean’s lower leg with fabric they’d torn from a sling in the first aid kit.

“We’ll head down with you between us.” Megs looked down at the path below them. “It’s going to be a long, slow descent. We’ll take a step, and you hop on your good leg. We’ll rest when we can, but we need to get out of this weather.”

Grim-faced, Dean nodded. “Right.”

They helped him to his feet, Mitch slipping his arm beneath Dean’s, Megs wrapping hers around his waist.

“Okay, we step and you hop. Step.” She and Mitch took a step. “Hop.”

Dean hopped, the movement clearly causing him pain.

“Great.” Megs tried to encourage him. “A few thousand more times, and we’ll be at the vehicles.”

Step. Hop. Step. Hop. Step. Hop.

Rain pelted them, making the talus slick and hitting exposed skin like icy daggers.

Step. Hop. Step. Hop. Step. Hop.

Mitch could see that Dean was suffering. “You’re doing it, man. It’s not easy, but nothing you’ve done has been easy. You can do this.”

Step. Hop. Step. Hop. Step. Hop.

On and on they went, their progress slow, each step grueling for Dean.

Then the talus slope beneath their feet shifted in a mini-avalanche of stone, dropping them all to their asses and knocking the air from Mitch’s lungs.

Dean cried out, his face twisted in agony, his injured leg bent.

“Jesus, Dean!” Megs scrambled to help him.

Mitch got onto his hands and knees and crawled over to him. “Hang on, buddy.”

They got him to his feet, but an hour later, they’d gone only a couple hundred yards, rain turning to snow as they reached a more technical bit of climbing.

Mitch and Megs stopped and settled Dean under an overhang out of the wind and rain as they worked out how to get him safely down a steep and narrow stretch of class three scramble. If they’d had rope and harnesses, this would be a lot easier.

Megs climbed the chute to get a feel for it. “I’ll carry his legs down, drape them over my shoulders like backpack straps, and you support his upper body. Or we could scoot on our asses and—”

“No. Just go. Head down before it gets dark. Get help.” Dean’s face was lined with pain. He fished his keys out of his pocket, held them out for Mitch. “Just leave me some food and water, maybe the first aid kit and an emergency blanket, too.”

Megs climbed back up to him. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“I’ll go.” Mitch took off his pack, grabbed the keys. “You can stay—”

“No! Both of you should go. I mean it. Go. What happens if you get hurt, Mitch? Megs and I will be stuck here all night not knowing what happened to you, and no one will know we’re here. It’s getting slick, turning to snow. Go—both of you—before this gets more dangerous than it already is.”

In the end, Mitch and Megs decided to do it his way, leaving him with their food and most of their water, as well as the first aid kit and the emergency blanket from Mitch’s pack.

Megs hugged him. “We’ll be back as soon as we can be.”

“You’re a good friend, Megs, and one hell of a climber. You can do this. Tell Beth not to worry. Tell her I love her and the kids and that I’ll be okay.”

“Will do.”

Mitch took his hand. “Stay warm and dry and hydrated, okay?”

“Got it. You’re a good man, Mitch. You stay safe and take care of our Megs.”

“I will.”

Then Megs and Mitch set off down the mountain.

It wasdark by the time they reached the parking area near the trailhead. Up on the summit, it was snowing hard. Down here, it was raining.

They climbed into Dean’s SUV and drove to the nearest gas station, where Mitch used the payphone to call 911.

He explained what had happened. “It’s snowing hard up there, and he has a broken leg. We need to mobilize a rescue and bring him down.”

Dispatch put him on hold for several minutes.

“What’s happening?” Megs asked.

“I think she’s patching me through to the Dolores County Sheriff’s Department.”

But when he had dispatch on the line again, the woman told him they would have to wait for any rescue until morning.

“There are blizzard conditions up there now with zero visibility. No pilot is going to fly a helicopter among those peaks in this storm.”

“Then we need a team of climbers to head up there with some kind of litter.”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but we don’t have officers available. We have reports of flooding in campgrounds along the Dolores River. I’m sorry, but no one is going up the mountain in this storm at night.”

Mitch had to fight not to shout. “Our friend is in pain! His life is in danger! He’s got a wife and kids. We need—”

“Our deputies have wives and children, too. The sheriff was firm on this. No one is heading up the peak until morning after the storm clears. If you’d like to help guide them to your friend, be at the trailhead by six tomorrow morning.”

Six in the morning? That was twelve hours from now.

“They’d damned well better show up then. We’ll be waiting.” Mitch slammed down the receiver. “That got us nowhere.”

“They aren’t sending a rescue team?” Megs gaped at him in disbelief.

“I don’t think they have one. It’s just the sheriff’s deputies.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Then Mitch called Beth to tell her the news. “We’re doing everything we can. Unfortunately, they won’t mount a rescue until tomorrow morning. We left him with everything we could. He told us to tell you that he loves you and that he’ll be okay.”

Mitch hung up again. “To hell with this. Let’s buy a thermos, fill it with coffee, and head back up to him. We can ride the storm out with him.”

“Shit.” Megs walked up to the counter. “We need a fresh pot of coffee. Do you sell hand warmers?”

“In the summer, ma’am? No, we do not. I’ll thank you to watch your language.”

Megs glared at him. “Our friend is in dire straits, and you worry about profanity.”

They bought the thermos, coffee, beef jerky, cheese, crackers, and plastic garbage bags to help keep them dry, and then drove back to the trailhead. They made holes in the garbage bags for their head and arms to keep the rain from drenching them and started back up the mountain, climbing with the light of their headlamps. But after about an hour, their headlamps began to fail because of the rain, leaving them in the dark.

“Megs, we have to turn back!” Mitch shouted to be heard above the storm. “If we can’t see where we’re going, we might walk off a cliff or miss the route and end up on another part of the mountain!”

“Damn it! We should never have left him!”

Defeated and demoralized, they struggled to find their way back to the parking lot, where they once again took shelter in Dean’s vehicle, shivering and wet to the skin despite their best efforts to stay dry.

“Jesus.” Megs stared up through the windshield toward a summit that wasn’t visible from here. “He’s up there with a broken leg.”

Mitch turned on the engine, started the heater, while he and Megs stripped out of the plastic bags and their soaked parkas. “The sheriff will be here in the morning. At least we set that in motion. Have some coffee. You’re shaking.”

Megs sipped from the lid of the thermos. “Imagine how cold he is.”

Neither of them slept, the night seeming to last forever, rain falling off and on, the wind relentless. Finally, around four in the morning, the sky cleared to reveal stars. They climbed out of the vehicle at dawn, looked up at El Diente, saw that its summit was blanketed in white. As tempted as they were to head up, they were only a handful of minutes away from the sheriff’s arrival. Someone would need to lead rescuers to Dean.

The sheriff, an older man with a sun-browned face, asked a few questions as other deputies and a few volunteers rolled in. “There’s no place to land a chopper up there. We’ll need to get him down to a safer location before we can call for a bird.”

And so Mitch and Megs started up the mountain again, followed by the sheriff, a deputy who was also a paramedic, a firefighter who had volunteered to help, and a couple of EMTs, one of whom carried a folding stretcher. More than once, Mitch and Megs were forced to stop so the others could catch up.

It was almost one in the afternoon when the overhang where they’d left Dean came into view. A flash of silver from the emergency blanket. The blue of his parka.

Megs waved, called for him.

He didn’t answer.

Was he asleep?

Mitch and Megs set off at a faster pace, the talus buried in snow and treacherous. They had just reached the top of that chute where Dean had stopped them yesterday when they saw him.

Mitch’s heart hit his breast bone, his stomach seeming to drop. “Jesus.”

“No!” Megs scrambled over the snowy talus on her hands and feet. “No! Dean!”

Almost buried in snow, he was slumped over, eyes open, skin blue, snow covering his hair and lashes, the emergency blanket peeking out from behind him.

Megs dropped to her knees in front of him, tried to dig him out with her bare hands. “Help me! We need to start chest compressions! You remember CPR, right?”

Mitch caught her, drew her back against his chest, held her. “He’s gone, Megs.”

“No!” She screamed the word into Mitch’s parka, pounded him with clenched fists, fought to turn back to Dean. “Maybe they can revive him.”

The note of desperate hope in her voice crushed Mitch, left his heart broken.

“Megs, he’s dead. He’s gone.” Mitch wasn’t sure how he found the words, his brain seeming to move in slow motion. “He unzipped his parka. See? He wasn’t wrapped in the blanket. He was probably hypothermic and couldn’t feel the cold.”

Megs pulled away from Mitch, held Dean’s head against her shoulder, and broke down sobbing. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Tears stung Mitch’s eyes.

His best friend was dead. Dean was dead.

It didn’t seem real or even possible. Dean Calder, an elite climber, had survived war in Vietnam and made it to the top of the world’s highest mountains only to die on El Diente Peak, forty miles from his home.

How were they going to tell Beth and his two little kids?

The firefighter reached them first, assessed the situation at a glance and spoke into his radio. “We have a deceased climber. This is no longer a rescue. This is now a body recovery.”

Beneath the overhang, Megs was still holding Dean and sobbing.

Megs hatedcrying in front of people, but she couldn’t help the tears that spilled down her cheeks, the pain of Dean’s death as raw as it had been so long ago. Mitch came to stand behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders, offering her the only comfort he could. Gridwall had tears on his face, too.

“The coroner said he’d died of hypothermia sometime around four in the morning, around the time the storm stopped and the stars came out. God, what a lonely way to die.” She willed herself to meet Kurt’s gaze, saw the tears on his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Kurt. I’m so sorry. If we had stayed…”

Kurt stood and walked over to kneel before her, Dean’s eyes seeming to look up at her. “If you had stayed, you probably all would have died together.”

Megs sniffed. “I won’t lie. There are times I would have preferred that.”

“I’m sure. Survivor guilt is tough.” Kurt managed a sad smile. “My dad was an expert climber. He knew what he was doing. Now that I’ve heard the whole story, I believe he sent you to get help, not because he expected you to get back to him in time, but to spare your lives. He didn’t want you to die up there with him. That’s why he insisted that you both go for help. I’m sure of it. Those last words he said to you, his message to my mother and to us—they were his way of saying goodbye.”

Megs had never thought of that, and it brought a fresh rush of tears.

Megs fought for composure. “Your father was the first person who took me seriously as a climber. His approval made other climbers respect me. He was my first friend—and one of my best friends. I loved him. We all did.”

“I know. He loved you, too.” Kurt took her hands. “I don’t blame you for my father’s death, so please quit carrying that weight on your conscience. You created the Team so no one would die like that again. How many lives do you think you’ve saved through the years? Dozens?”

“Hundreds.” She didn’t want him to think she was exaggerating. “It’s in a spreadsheet somewhere.”

For some reason, that made everyone laugh.

“Because of my father’s death, you went on to form what has become the premier mountain rescue team in the country, maybe the world, and you have saved hundreds of lives. You two have given his death meaning. He couldn’t ask for a more profound legacy. You turned tragedy into a chance for life for so many.”

Megs tried to accept the absolution Kurt was offering, but after years of blaming herself, it wasn’t easy. “Thank you for saying that.”

Kurt stood and went to sit next to Jennifer, who was wiping her eyes. “I didn’t just say it. I mean it.”

“I know.”

Gridwall handed Megs a tissue. “The kid is right. You probably would have died with Dean. We all wondered how the hell this could have happened, but now that I’ve heard the details… I don’t see what else you could have done. The terrain was slick and steep, and he couldn’t walk.”

Megs wiped her eyes, still fighting to pull herself together. “Dean was only the first to go. Six months later, Baker was dead.”

He’d fallen five hundred feet while free soloing in Utah.

“The following spring, Yoder got caught in a slab avalanche on Annapurna.”

He was still up there, buried in a grave of ice and snow, the mountain as his monument.

“François died when his charter plane crashed above Telluride.” That had hit Megs hard, too.

Mitch squeezed her shoulders. “W-we … are all… th… that’s left.”

“That’s a reason for a drink, if you ask me.” Gridwall glanced around, as if searching for something.

Megs put her hand over Mitch’s. “The booze is in the kitchen.”

“Come.” Mitch motioned for Gridwall to follow him.

“Thank you for reading that.” Kurt took his wife’s hand. “I know it wasn’t easy, but it gave me closure—and a sense of peace.”

“In that case, it was worth it. We owe it to Dean to keep his story alive.”

“You’ve done that.”

A moment later, Gridwall returned, holding a bottle of their best scotch and a few glasses, Mitch behind him carrying several more glasses. Gridwall poured and handed everyone a tumbler. “Drink hearty, mates.”

He raised his glass, his voice tight when he spoke. “To the dirtbags. May they live in legend forever.”

“To the dirtbags!”

Megs tossed back her drink. As she looked at the faces around her, the weight she’d been carrying since Dean’s death seemed to lift from her shoulders.