Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 12

  He sat up and turned to face the water. He hadn’t drifted as far downstream as it had felt at the time and was barely passed the house. He tugged on the rope tied to the ladder. He watched as John lowered the head of the ladder into the water and held it.

  “Are you ready?”

  Ben hadn’t found his voice yet without the need to cough, so he just nodded. He knew he needed to pull fast or risk the ladder getting broken up on the rocks.

  Hand over hand, he reeled the ladder to him. It bumped and banged it’s way across the rapids and around the porous rock outcroppings.

  While he was in the water, he hadn’t noticed how cold it was, but he was dripping wet, and the wind chilled him to the bone. Ben could feel the frigid air leeching the warmth from his body. He needed to be up and stay moving, or within minutes he would be useless due to hypothermia.

  He jumped to his feet and slapped his arms against his body to get his circulation going and grabbed the ladder. It had taken a few hard bumps, but was still intact. He dragged it back to the rock face beside the house, and propped it up. It didn’t reach to the wall and he had to extend it. Finally, he had enough added length, it rested against the structure and he began to climb. He could feel the broken building shake with every step up. As he got to the top of the rungs, he was able to see what held the house in place. Somehow a massive pine tree had lodged itself through the wall extending into and through the interior room. From his vantage point, he saw there was part of a hallway and possibly two rooms left of the structure. The tree had pierced the wall between them. He suspected the roots were all that held the building from crashing down to the rocks below.

  From under the tree trunk, a face appeared. It was unidentifiable as to gender, but big brown eyes looked out at him. The face was covered in an assortment of cuts and bruises. Some old and some still leaking fresh blood.

  “Mister Barber?”

  “I’m here. We can’t move right now. Can you get my children out? I’ve sent Maggie over to you.”

  “We’re going to get all of you out. I’ll take them one at a time. Just sit tight.”

  Ben waved Maggie toward him. “Come on honey. I’m going to take you down the ladder. Can you do that?”

  She nodded, but didn’t speak. When she crawled under the tree trunk, the floor shifted, and she froze, her eyes wide with panic. Ben could see the fright all over her face.

  “Nope. Come to me. I’m going to get you down.” He watched as she scurried on hands and knees to him the whole building shaking with her movement. Ben managed to get his hands on her and pulled her through the open window. The building rocked, threatening to slide out from under the ladder. Ben braced himself with Maggie in his arms until the tree settled down.

  Carefully Ben descended the ladder one step at a time. At the bottom, he sent Maggie downstream away from the house just in case. When she had done as he asked and was sitting on a pile of rock a safe distance Ben climbed back up.

  “Okay. Your daughter is safe.”

  “I’m sending my son. Watch his arm if you can, there’s something wrong with it.”

  A face appeared the same place the girl had come from. Tears streaked the dirt on his face, and his lip and cheek were swollen, making it look lopsided, but the same brown eyes looked at Ben.

  “Go really slow, but come to me.”

  The little boy panicked when the tree began to shake and threw himself at Ben. Ben grabbed him and pulled him through the window clutching the boy in one arm. He had to grab the window frame one-handed when the ladder began to slip sideways as the room slipped further down the trunk. He didn’t know what stopped it from sliding further but was grateful when it didn’t.

  Only one side of the ladder was now leaning against the wall. “Stay real still. We don’t want to shake it anymore.” Ben felt the little boy nod his head against his chin. One arm and both legs were wrapped in a death grip around Bens' chest.

  He heard the boy groan when Ben bumped his shoulder. “Does it hurt bad?”

  He felt the boys head bump against his chin. “Well, I think you are a brave boy. Hang on, and we’ll be down in a minute or two. What’s your name?”

  “Junior,” his voice was so quiet that Ben had a hard time hearing him over the beating of his own heart. He realized with soaking wet clothes, his heart was beating overtime to warm his body. He prayed he had enough strength to get the boy safely down to the ground.

  Ben crowded close to the side of the ladder that still touched the building and knew if the wall slid any further down, the ladder would send itself and them hurtling to the rocky ground below. One rung at a time, with seconds between each move, Ben climbed down.

  When he set the boy on the rocks and pointed him toward his sister, he dragged in a cleansing breath. His hands and body shook, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or fear. Looking up at the wall, he realized how dangerous it would be getting the two adults out. If the children's weight moved the room as far as it had, he could imagine what the weight of the adults would do.

  Ben repositioned the ladder and looked across the water. He saw someone had taken his advice and built a huge fire. John, Andy and both boys stood in identical postures, hands on their hips watching him. Ben waved, and they waved back. He was glad they hadn’t asked how things were going or made comments about the rescue attempt so far. He knew it was easy to give advice when you saw something from a different perspective. Right then, he wanted to rely on what he saw and what he had to do to make the rescue happen.

  What Ben knew was he had to get back up the ladder and bring two more people down to the safety of the ground.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Ben climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he could see that with the last slip, going under the tree trunk was no longer an option.

  “You okay in there?”

  “I’m sending Janice out, but we have a problem. The opening under the tree is gone.”

  “I see that. Stay as close to the uphill wall as you can, and she’s going to have to go over the top. Don’t make any sudden moves and we should be able to pull this off.”

  Ben heard her before he saw her. Finally, a face, with the same brown eyes as both children appeared over the barrel of the tree. The wall shook as she moved. Ben’s ladder was positioned only two feet from the outside wall of the room and leaning to the side, he could see the base of the tree and the roots now hanging against the rock face. The center tap root was all that was still connected to the hillside. It looked to him like two separate rock faces had the root pinched between them and he wondered how long they had before the root was pinched completely in two.

  The woman somehow crawled up on top of the trunk, and he saw her problem. If she dropped to the floor, the whole house could shift and continue its slide down the rock face, probably killing all of them. The look of fear in her eyes calmed him. There were no branches to hold on to nor anything close enough for her to step on. The wall around where the tree intruded was broken in, and he wondered about the weight of her collapsing it completely. He didn’t see any other way.

  “Lay on your stomach and try to slide down a little at a time. There’s a piece of two-by-six sticking out right by your foot.”

  He watched her as she slid and groaned out loud, she couldn’t lie on her stomach, but rested on her side, her pregnant belly forcing her over. As she slid down, her sweatshirt slid up exposing her skin to the rough bark of the tree.

  “Okay, you’re doing good, just a little bit farther to your right. There, that’s it. It’s only a bit farther to the floor. Okay, good. Now, slowly turn to me, and it’s only one more big step, and I’ve got you,” Ben instructed her. He was shaking again, but so was the house. It slipped as she moved. She froze, “To me. Come to me.” He had to yell at her to make her move. He understood why she couldn’t move, but she had to.

  “Dammit, you move. Now!” Ben commanded, and the woman did. Ben got his arm around her and knew they were running out of time. He pull
ed her backward through the window and scrambled down the ladder, feeling it move under him with every rung. They were only a few feet from the bottom when the ladder careened off sideways. Ben threw himself and the woman toward the rock face.

  He landed hard, and the air blasted from his lungs. He still gripped the woman in his arms, and he rolled onto his side, releasing the woman. Ben felt like every bone in his back was broken and it hurt to breathe. It was all he could do to pull one breath in and force the next one out. He was forced to hold his breath briefly between them.

  The woman moaned, and he knew what he had to do. He had to make sure she was okay. Before forcing himself to move he checked his arms and legs to make sure they still functioned. As bad as he felt he wouldn’t have been surprised to find out he was paralyzed. Then he realized that if he were paralyzed, he wouldn’t hurt so much. With a groan, Ben rolled to see the woman. She was on her side facing away from him, but he could see she was breathing.

  He tipped his head to the side and saw the shambles of the house breaking up in the current. The tree had come loose taking what was left of the house with it. Ben let his head sag back to the ground. He had failed to get the man out.

  “Hey! Up here!” Startled, Ben opened his eyes. Twenty feet above him, a man clung to some roots hanging out of the rock face. His toes, balanced on an impossibly small ledge of granite. He was looking down at Ben with a huge grin.

  “No fucking way,” Ben exhaled. The man was hanging from a root, and other than stranded seemed to be okay. How is that possible, he wondered. The guy's shirt had been ripped from him, and blood had begun to well up across his back, but he was alive.

  It took several seconds for Ben to completely process what he was seeing, and his thoughts were going crazy. He heard someone yelling at him, but couldn’t make himself move. His own pain held him fast to the rocks he was lying on.

  *****

  No one had been more surprised than Journey when Lucas and Matt had come running down the slope screaming for a ladder and rope. John hadn’t asked why they needed it, he pointed them to the side shed.

  “There’s one on the flat trailer. I’ll find some rope.”

  When the boys brought the ladder up to the front of the hay barn, Matt explained, his words coming in short bursts, “They’re stranded on the other side of the river. I mean their house is just hanging there.”

  John, coiled up the lengths of rope and from under a cupboard, pulled out three yellow four-inch tow straps. On one end was a large snap affair with the other having a triangle shaped metal ring. He looped them over his shoulder and took off at a run up the slope. Over his shoulder, he yelled, “You boys bring the ladder and don’t dawdle.”

  Journey couldn’t imagine what was going on from the little the boys had said. John had said less, and she wondered if she should stay or go.

  She waited until her curiosity got the best of her and then followed John and the boys to the river. When she had climbed the rise, she could see both Matt and Lucas as they reached the men with the ladder. She saw Andy and Ben disappear over the bank. Then she saw the what looked to her like half of a house suspended by a single tree pushing through the middle of it. As she got closer, she saw what the ladder was for. She could only imagine why they would want to cross the water and go up in the house. Then Journey saw the hand waving from an east sided window.

  She stopped moving and considered what she would need. Her medical pack was back at the trailer, and she realized that she was going to have to go and get it. She turned and ran. She saved time by not going back to the hay barn first, but cutting across to where the hill had collapsed, Journey slid down it, arms wheeling trying to keep her balance and her feet under her. She arrived at the bottom, breathless and hollered for Lucy.

  Lucy appeared from inside the goat shed, “Slow down. I can’t understand what you need.”

  Journey took a moment to collect herself and jogged to Lucy. “I need you to grab me a horse. They have an emergency up at the river. I need, my medical pack, some blankets or something for warmth and whatever else you can think of.”

  “What happened? Is everyone alright?”

  “It’s not our people. There’s someone trapped inside of a house over there. I don’t have time to explain, just get me a horse and I’ll get the rest.”

  Mary came out of the trailer drying her hands on a towel. She had heard Journey’s explanation and hurried back inside. She came out with one of the sleeping bags already rolled up, a couple of blankets she’d rolled and tied with twine and another brown nylon bag.

  As soon as Lucy was done putting a saddle on Joe, Mary tied the bag and bedding behind the saddle. Lucy came from the tent carrying her small blue medical bag.

  She hung the strap around the horn and climbed on. Without a word, she turned Joe straight up the hill. When she realized he was going to give the climb his all, lunging and jumping over every rock and boulder, Journey took his reins and slowed him down. Five extra minutes wasn’t going to make any difference in her arrival time. By the time they reached the top, Joe was lathered and blowing. She continued at a fast walk, allowing him time to catch his breath. Journey had always wondered why Lucy and Gina had picked out such large animals for themselves, especially Lucy who was so tiny. Now she understood, there was no way Bess could have done that same climb and come through it unscathed.

  As she rode close, she heard when the house let go, and urged Joe into a canter. She didn’t know if anyone had been hurt with the falling house or what, but she thought someone must need medical care. If there were people in the house, she would be needed. Seeing the splintered mass of wood, drywall, and siding, she hoped no one was inside because she was sure they could not have survived the fall. Off of Joe, and looking down the bank, she could see everything. Two children and a very pregnant woman knelt beside someone on the rocks.

  The tree that had pinioned the house now straddled the river and was long enough that she saw John and Andy wade out to it and climb on the trunk.

  “Who is it?” She asked Matt.

  Whitefaced, Matt turned and said, “Ben. He saved the woman when it fell. Look up there.” Matt pointed to the rock wall across the river.

  A man clung to the rocks, his position made all the more frightening, by the lack of handholds. He seemed to be clinging to a few roots, and he had to keep digging his feet into the rock for toeholds.

  John and Andy reached Ben’s side and waved back at them maybe to assure them he was alive. The kids crowded around the woman who was on her knees, but bent at the middle, her arms wrapped around her stomach.

  “You boys, build up that fire, and one of you run back to the barn and try to find something to put water in.”

  They didn’t argue at all, “I’ll go to the barn. You build a fire,” Matt told Lucas and took off running.

  Andy and John had extended the ladder as much as they could and propped it up under the man. With John holding the legs to steady the ladder, Andy began the climb.

  The man could have reached over and climbed on it himself, but obviously one of the men had told him not to. When Andy reached the man, Journey saw the problem. The way the man was suspended, he couldn’t see where to place his feet. Andy reached for and grabbed the guy’s ankle and guided it to the closest rung. With his back to her, Journey could see a film of red covering his back and was relieved she had brought her medical bag.

  She walked to where the bank had been trampled into a trail by the guy's feet and went down to the water.

  “Should I come over there?” She yelled to be heard over the running water. The house was still breaking up as it bounced off boulders making a racket of its own.

  “No. Stay there. We need something to carry Ben over on and maybe the woman.”

  John helped the man hobble over to the woman and saw the man was barefoot and having trouble walking on the lava rock. Other than the cuts on his back, which didn’t seem to slow him down any, he looked okay. At least he was mobile.


  “A blanket!” She realized that Mary had included blankets and they were still tied on Joe’s saddle. She turned and ran back up the bank to where Lucas was throwing pieces of wood on the fire. He had removed Joe’s saddle, and it was standing on the end beside the fire. The blanket bundle and sleeping bag along with the bag Mary had included, were sitting beside it.

  Without unrolling them, Journey grabbed the blankets and ran back to the river and slid down the embankment to the water.

  John had just crossed using the tree trunk as a bridge.

  “John, how bad is it?”

  John shook his head, “Ben fell on his back from the ladder. The woman landed on top of him. He can move all of his parts, but isn’t making much sense.” He heaved out a heavy sigh, “To top it all off, the woman seems to be in labor. We need to get them across the river.”

  “What about the guy from on the rock?”

  “He scraped the shit out of himself when he jumped out the broken window.”

  Journey handed him the blanket. “Can you and Andy manage this or do I need to come over?”

  “You stay here and help the kids. I’ll send them first and then the woman.”

  The kids scrambled across the tree into Journey’s arms, keeping them from getting in the water. The man followed, but kept looking back at John and Andy, who were carrying the woman between them. From the pain on her face, Journey knew the woman was indeed in labor, but had no way of knowing how far along the process she was. She didn’t appear to have anything broken, so Journey sent them up to the fire.

  She watched Ben for any sign of movement. The tree shifted scaring her into not crossing it. Journey knew if Lucy were here, she would already be on the other side tending Ben whether she knew what she was doing or not.

  Journey stepped down into the water and almost jumped back out when she realized how warm it was. Using branches to steady herself, she made her way across and jumped down off the trunk.