She gave him a look. “Of course. A tent, food, and I made sure they had belay and climbing equipment. Their leader, Jenny, seemed pretty capable.”
He hoped so.
She reached out and caught his parka as he got up to leave. “Find them.” Her eyes wore a haunted expression. “They can’t simply go missing on the mountain. It’s not . . .” She sighed. “Everyone needs an end to their story.”
He squeezed her hand and headed back to the tent. While Ham and Jake slept like the dead, he dreamed of Jenny huddled in her tent on Denali Pass, trying to stay warm.
“I’ll find you.”
He didn’t know why those words had lodged inside him, found a place right under his skin, but they buzzed him awake shortly after the sun peeled back the shadows over the peaks to the east. By the time Ham and Jake rose, he’d made breakfast, packed his gear, and was antsy to go.
The wind had cleared and with it the whiteout. High Camp was populated with a handful of groups waiting to bag the summit, and he wanted to push out before they got started. The last thing he wanted was to wait on a fixed line for a bunch of timid rookies to find their inner climber.
Kit was up, too, and on the radio, her black braids falling from her hat, her red hood pulled up.
He came over to her, and she gave him a sitrep. “A ranger spotted the guys an hour ago. They’re below us, clinging to a spur on West Buttress. We just sent down a ranger team, and I’m calling Clancy to see if he can fly in a basket.”
“How many survivors?”
Her mouth made a tight line. “I don’t know.”
He drew in a breath. “I need a radio. Probably two.”
“Yes. And by the way, all the women were wearing avalanche locaters.” She pulled out hers from her outside pocket. “I changed mine to receive, but . . .”
Maybe they were out of range.
“Hopefully they’re hunkered down in the Football Field above the pass,” he said as he retrieved two radios. He checked the batteries, then tucked one into his jacket. He gave Ham the other one.
Ham checked it. “We’re going to find them, Ry.”
Orion nodded and looked up the mountain. First, they’d have to climb up to Denali Pass and this time of day, the route was shadowed in dim sunlight. Worse, the pass grew steeper with each step. But Orion could trek it with his eyes closed.
No, the climb up wasn’t why his stomach was knotted, his chest tight. “Yeah, sure.”
Ham didn’t move. “Dude. I feel it in my gut. Every time I pray, it’s like God is saying he’ll help us find them.”
Orion looked at him. “And now you’re just ticking me off. God doesn’t make promises like that—and if he does that makes me even madder, so let’s just go, okay?”
Ham grabbed his shoulder as he made to push past him. “Ry. What’s going on?”
Orion stopped, blew out a breath. “I don’t know. Just . . . something about . . .”
“Jenny Calhoun?”
He looked at Ham. “No. Yes. Just . . . everything.”
Ham looked at him. “Wait—is this about your dad? The fact that no one found him?”
“They found him. Broken at the bottom of Peters Glacier. No . . . I just don’t want to hear about any of God’s promises, okay?”
But Ham’s gaze didn’t leave Orion.
“What?”
“I was thinking about your question about Jenny—if she looked familiar.”
Orion stared at him. “From two weeks ago?”
“Lots of thinking. Jenny. Calhoun. J. C.”
Orion’s breath caught. “Aw, I’m an idiot. I can’t believe—” He turned. “I knew it. I knew it.”
“She was a reporter, not a climber. And she looked different, right?”
He’d never forget those eyes. That smile.
“Maybe she didn’t recognize me. Maybe . . . do I look that much different?”
Ham lifted a shoulder. “Guess you didn’t make an impact.”
Orion stared at him.
Ham smiled.
“Let’s get up the mountain, find her, and then you can ask her.” Ham picked up his ice axe and headed toward Jake. He roped in behind Jake and left Orion to clip in ahead.
Didn’t make an impact?
Orion nearly sprinted up the Denali Pass, digging his feet in with relentless momentum, sweat beading his back. He looked back once, saw his footprints in the snow, Jake trudging behind him, the camp below. He couldn’t see West Buttress from here but hoped the rangers had found someone alive.
He refused to believe that thirty-six hours on the top of the mountain meant the worst.
“Keep moving,” Jake shouted, seeing him stop. “If I stop, I’ll never start again.”
Right. Orion kept moving up to the pass, where it turned rocky, and he waited as Jake and Ham caught up.
The shelf on the pass had given way, at least a little, because it revealed more rock than he remembered. But the snowpack on the Football Field, which led up to the final ridge climb, was crystalline white, unblemished.
His breath came hard while he tried not to let his disappointment bite at him.
“Do you see them?” Jake asked as he scrabbled up the rocky outcropping toward him.
He said nothing.
Ham joined them, and they stood a long time before Ham moved ahead of him. “Let’s keep going.”
The wind up here still buffeted him, burning his ears, but he couldn’t move. If they weren’t camped on the Football Field then . . .
He couldn’t take his gaze off the drop-off into Harper Glacier. Beyond, in the valley below, Mount Huntington and Mount Hunter rose like old friends to greet him. But between them lay the Muldrow Glacier.
The first ascent up Denali had been made across the glacier, then up Karstens Ridge, and finally Harper Glacier.
Some people still climbed the High One via the Muldrow Glacier route.
But not Kit. And not Jenny—she wouldn’t have the first clue how to descend the backside of Denali.
He couldn’t get Kit’s words out of his head. “Their leader, Jenny, seemed pretty capable.”
Orion was standing there, staring out into the ragged mountainscape, when Jake said, “What do you make of that?”
He pointed to a wisp of black smoke, rising, dissipating into the blue sky. As if someone had made a campfire. And for a second, Jacie was in his head, her voice quavering, as if unsure. What, should I send up smoke signals?
Yes. Yes, you should.
“We’re going down Harper Glacier,” Orion said.
Ham had come back, frowning. “What?”
Orion turned to him. “Listen, I don’t know why, but . . . I think they’re down there.”
“You think they fell off?” Jake said, his jaw tight.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. But . . . they’re not here, so . . .” He looked at Ham, then Jake. “We’re going down the glacier.”
“Seriously.”
“And . . . we’re glissading down.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jake said, unhooking.
Orion turned to Ham. “It’s safer. Lower center of gravity. And—”
“Fun.” Ham grinned. Okay, he hadn’t expected that, but Orion wasn’t going to argue.