Abe checked his watch, then shook it. Only twenty-five minutes had elapsed since
their arrival. Surely hours had passed. He couldn't fathom what was unfolding all
around him. They hoisted the litter like a coffin, three men to a side, one standing
back and feeding out a safety rope in case they slipped.
The wind sucked at Abe's face, then slapped him. The first snowflakes rattled
against the shell of his new white windjacket. The storm was cracking wide open.
Their little motions and hopes could do nothing to hold the sky together any longer.
The rescue was over, at least for the woman inside this mountain. Abe lay down by
the hole to tell her so.
'Hello?' Abe called down.
There was no reply. Abe could feel the blackness down there surrounding that
solitary light.
'We have to carry Daniel down,' he called into the hole. 'We're shorthanded, so all of
us have to go. But we'll come back.' He added, 'I promise.' Immediately Abe wished
the words away. They had already broken one promise. They had come to save the
survivors or carry bodies out, and they were only doing half the job. More promises
could only mean more betrayal to this trapped woman.
There was still no answer, and Abe started to push away from the crevasse. Then
Diana spoke.
'You're not leaving me?'
Abe shook his head no, but the word wouldn't come.
'You promised,' she screamed. Then, quickly, as if chiding herself, she said, 'no,' and
again, more firmly, 'no.'
'They're shorthanded...' Abe started again.
'It was my fault,' she said. Her words came to Abe low and awkward with the
cadence of a last testament. In her weariness or delirium, Abe heard something far
worse than acceptance. It was a tone of surrender similar to what her rescuers were
using. 'Tell Daniel that. Can you hear me, Abe?'
Abe lowered his head deeper into the hole. 'Yes.'
Now her voice gained strength. 'It was me that fell and pulled us down. It was me.
Tell him. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what happened to him. I'm sorry for what happened
to me. I know Daniel and he'll take this on. Tell him not to.'
Abe wanted to protest that the fall had been bad luck and was not a matter for
contrition. But maybe that was how Diana had decided to make her peace with it.
'Okay,' Abe said. 'I'll tell him that.'
'Now I want you to tell me something, Abe.'
'Yes.'
'How old are you?'
'Eighteen.' For some reason, Abe felt compelled to add the full truth of it. 'Almost.'
She took a long minute. 'I thought something like that,' she said. And now Abe saw
how they'd used him with this woman. They'd used him to buffer the horror to
interrogate her. And they'd used him for this death sentence.
'Well, Abe,' she started, then fell silent. After a moment, she finished. 'There's no
blame on you either. Remember that.'
Abe's throat clenched at that. She was forgiving him, too. He searched for something
to say. At last he thought to ask her age.
'Twenty,'she said.'Almost.'
'You know, I can wait some more,' Abe offered. 'I don't mind.' Until he spoke it out
loud, the thought hadn't occurred to him. He could spend an hour here, then race
down to catch the others who would be moving slow with the bulky litter. And if he
could spend an hour, why not two?
Diana didn't give him a chance. 'Is that wind bringing a storm?' she asked.
'The storm's here,' Abe said.
'Then get out of here.' There was courage in her voice, but hysteria, too. Then she
screamed his name. She invoked it. 'Abe,' she cried.
She needed him to stay. At least until they freed her, this woman wanted Abe with
her whole heart. That was more than he'd ever known with a woman.
'I'm here,' he replied. 'I'm not leaving.'
By staying Abe would make himself hostage to his own promise. By staying he
would force the rescue team to return and acknowledge the life in this pit of ice. Elated
by his decision, Abe clambered to his feet. He caught up with the leader as the litter
team trudged downslope.
'I'm staying with her,' Abe announced.
The leader wasted no words. His broad face darkened. He took one step closer and
shoved Abe hard in the chest, knocking him to the snow. 'You damn cowboy,' he said.
'I don't take threats.'
Abe wasn't hurt by the blow, only surprised.
'It's no threat,' Abe said. But it was, clearly. And now he saw that he threatened
their tranquility. They had already reconciled themselves to their forsaking the
woman. The rescuers were good and decent men, that went without saying. But by
staying, Abe seemed to expose them as something less or different or just more
complicated.
'Get your pack. Or leave it, I don't care. But get your ass down this mountain. I don't
want you on this mountain. I don't want you on this team,' the leader yelled over the
wind. 'You don't know anything.'
Without that last insult, Abe might have obeyed.
One of the rescuers, an older man with bad knees, came gimping up to see what the
disturbance was about. 'The cherry think he's staying,' the leader said to the older
man. 'He thinks he's going to save the day.'
Now Abe was angry. 'You didn't leave her food or water. You didn't even talk to her.'
'That's because she's already dead.'
'But she's not.'
The older man took a minute to study Abe's earnest face. There was no friendliness
in his look, but no hostility either. He was measuring Abe the way he would a
mountainside or an approaching storm or any other obstacle. 'Leave that poor girl
alone,' he counseled Abe. 'There's not a thing we can do now except let her go. Have
some mercy.'
Abe heard the logic there, but he had decided. 'No, sir,' he said.
'Listen to me. All you'll do is torment her. With food and water, she could drag on for
days. Don't do that to her.'
'That's not the point,' Abe said. 'If it was me...'
'If it was you, you'd pray to God I had a gun to finish you quick.'
Abe shrugged. He was afraid to argue because he knew they were probably right.
But he was staying.
'I admire your chivalry,' the older man said, and Abe blushed because the man was
talking about naivete'. 'Just the same, you'll put everybody at risk all over again, and
all to rescue you. Not her. She's gone. Now come on with us.'
'No sir.'
'Damn it,' the leader blew. 'You see?'
