gaped when she set eyes on the first pointy, white-topped mountains ahead.
Bill called out the names as they neared: Mount Carru, Blackcap Peak, Robinson Mountain. Maddy pressed her nose to the small window to see better. She was astonished by the amount of snow, given that this was July. Her awe grew as the snowcapped peaks became increasingly jagged, gleaming white in the sunlight. She could just make out deep cuts clothed in dark green between mountains. A long body of water had to be Ross Lake behind its dam. They flew low enough she could see the oddly opaque turquoise color of the water.
She flattened a hand on the cold window and stared in fascination. Ahead lay a range of mountains that made her think of a shark’s teeth. And yes, in the distance was Mount Baker, a conical volcano like Mount Rainier, and Glacier, another volcano. How could she have grown up as close as Seattle and never visited these wonders? Even Washington’s most famous volcano, Mount Rainier, seemed mostly unreal, floating in sight of Seattle. She’d never once taken a sunny summer day to drive up to Paradise and see the avalanche lilies in bloom.
She glanced at the marshal to see that he was watching her and smiling.
“This really is something, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” It occurred to her belatedly that he might genuinely have been trying to give her a treat.
Oh, and the skinny lake below was called Diablo, according to the pilot, formed by a dam on the Skagit River. It, too, was that startling turquoise color. Over his shoulder, the pilot told her the coloration was the result of the powder from boulders that glaciers ground down. Ultimately, the glacial “flour” washed down the many creeks into the lakes.
They went right over the top of a mountain that was impressive enough, if not jagged like the ones ahead. Those made up the Picket Range, he told her, mountains that had names like Terror, Fury and Challenger, and for a good reason, from the looks of them. The deep valleys between had precipitous drops from the heights, trees clinging to the rocky walls. It was a wilderness that looked as forbidding as the Himalayas or the dense Amazon jungle.
Trying to drink in the beauty not so far below them, Maddy heard the murmur of the two men’s voices but didn’t try to make out what they were saying. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes off those particularly daunting peaks ahead.
A sudden hard bang made the whole airplane shudder. Fear electrified her nerve endings. It felt like a huge rock had struck them, but that couldn’t be what had happened.
Clenching her seat belt and the edge of the seat, Maddy looked at the pilot, hoping to be reassured. In her oblique view, he radiated tension. But it wasn’t he who riveted her horrified gaze. No, she fixated on the propeller as its blurring speed slowed, slowed...until it quit spinning altogether.
Before that moment of sudden silence, Maddy had never actually heard the thunder of her heartbeat before.
WILL GANNON HAD reached the summit a good ten minutes before, and still he turned in a slow circle to take in the most incredible panorama he’d ever seen. The Picket Range felt close enough to touch and menacing at the same time. One ice-and glacier-crusted spire after another. Mount Baker beyond, and was that a glimpse of Mount Shuksan? Mount Challenger to the north, Eldorado and Mount Logan to the southeast. Rocky ridges, plunging chasms, a sky so blue it hurt his eyes. And quiet. Most of all, he drank in the quiet and the solitude.
He’d chosen Elephant Butte to climb not because it was the best known of North Cascade peaks, or a mountaineering challenge, but rather because most climbers bypassed it. Even on a weekend like this, he could be alone. Later in the summer he might try to find someone who’d like to join him tackling a couple of the more impressive mountains, the ones he’d be foolish to climb alone, but right now what he needed was to pull himself together. After being severely wounded in an ambush in Afghanistan, he’d been shipped back to the States. Being a stubborn bastard, he’d been able to rehab physically. The crap he felt, that was something else. But this...this was what he’d needed. Peace and quiet. The vast beauty of nature.
He shook himself and returned to his pack, where he dug out the makings for the simplest of lunches: peanuts, beef jerky and a candy bar, all washed down with treated water. As pure as the sparkling streams looked and tasted, the water wasn’t safe to drink without being purified.
He let his mind empty as the sun warmed his up-turned face. Nights when he had trouble sleeping he could remember this. Replace ugly memories of gushing blood, missing arms or legs, sharp pieces of metal thrust like knives into bellies and chests and even faces or throats.
And crap, there he went again. He discovered that he’d closed his eyes, but he opened them again, looked at the spectacular scenery, heard the shrill whistle of what he thought might be a pika, a small mammal that lived among the rocks. It was answered by another, and Will blew out a breath. He was okay. This climb had been a good idea. He’d get out in the wilderness often until snow closed it to him, unless he wanted to learn to snowshoe.
Hey, maybe.
The time had come for him to decide whether to go back the way he’d come, the standard route along Stetattle ridge, or try a different and probably more difficult route. Will leaned toward the different route out of the backcountry. He wasn’t in any hurry. He’d brought plenty of food if he ended up taking an extra day or even two, and if he hadn’t, he could fill himself with the sweet blueberries ripe on low-growing shrubs at a certain altitude.
Reluctantly, he heaved his pack onto his back and adjusted the weight. Ice ax in hand, he started to pick his way across a patch of snow that began the slow descent. Far below amid a subalpine area of stunted trees and a bright patch of blooming heather, movement caught his eye and he paused. Was he about to have company? Damn, he hoped not. He wanted this day, this mountain, to himself.
Then he identified the patch of cinnamon-brown as a black bear, probably dining on blueberries, too. Not alone. He shifted his binoculars to see her cub. Smiling, he watched for a few minutes, glad his path wouldn’t lead him too near to them. Getting between mama and her cub wouldn’t be smart.
He’d let the binoculars fall and started forward again when he heard a faint sound that had him turning his head. A growl...no, a hum? It took him a minute to spot the small plane that must have come over Ross Lake and now passed north of Sourdough Lake. In fact, it was heading pretty well directly toward him, which disturbed him on a subliminal level—made him want to sprint to take cover.
He saw the moment the bear swung her head, too, in search of the source of that alien noise. A sudden sharp bang, although muted by distance, shot adrenaline through his body. What in hell...? Will lifted his binoculars again, this time to the plane, adjusting until he could all but see the pilot’s face. Had the guy dropped some kind of load? Not the best country for retrieval, if so.
Frowning, he cocked his head and listened hard. No more irritating buzz. Oh, crap. The engine had shut down; the propeller no longer turned. The nose dropped. That plane was heading down. He watched in horror as it descended precipitously toward the steep, forested slopes beneath him.
“Start the damn engine. There’s still time. Start it!” he shouted.
Following along with his binoculars, he saw the moment the plane hit the first treetops. Cartwheeled. Tore apart.
It might not be safe or smart, but the next thing he knew, he was running.
TAT-A-TAT, TAT-A-TAT, TAT-A-TAT.
Maddy tried to understand the staccato series of rapping sounds followed by silence, then a repeat. Strangely reluctant to open her eyes, she listened hard.
A harsh call. A trilling.
Something brushed her face. She jerked, and pain racked her body.
Have to see, have to see. Somehow she knew she really didn’t