“Sorry, sorry,” the new voice said.

“At least we know he’s alive.”

They picked him up and moved him, set him down on something else. It was cold, hard, just bigger than his body. Had they put him in a coffin? He felt himself being lifted. It was warm, uncomfortably warm, and he knew they were back in the sun. The whooshing sound was even louder now, something huge and heavy cutting the sky. They set him down and he heard yelling. “Over here! Easy!” Some other things he couldn’t make out. Maybe they were trying to make him more comfortable. Then hands moving over him and sounds of things being tightened, cinched; something was holding him down.

“Pull ’er up!” someone yelled, and he felt himself leave the ground, swing in the open air. He felt but didn’t see the earth give way beneath him, he was moving up into the sky. Was he dying? Was he already dead? And going up to heaven? He didn’t know, but as he swayed in the wind, he cried out. He didn’t want to fall back to earth. He opened his eyes and saw a huge white underbelly, an umbilical cord leading up to a massive body. Nothing but sky around it. Around him. If he turned over, he would roll into the air. He did not want to be taken in, he did not want to die. But try as he might, he couldn’t move. The air, the ground, the underbelly—what did it matter anyway? He was dying or dead. Maybe the rope would snap and it would really be over. But it didn’t, and then there was no more sky, and firm hands pulled him over, and in.

“Let’s get him fluids!” a male voice shouted over the sound of the machine.

“Is he alive?” came another voice, familiar.

“Barely. He’s lost a lot of blood. And he’s fried to a crisp.”

“Rope going back down!” someone yelled.

Hands were all over him, cutting his clothes, poking him. In a few minutes the sense that whatever they were in had taken on more weight.

“There’s one more down there,” someone said. It was the same voice he’d heard on the ground.

“There’s two,” said the familiar voice. “Our other friend was behind us.”

“We’ll have to come back for them—we don’t have room. And we need to get this guy to the hospital.”

And then more words and more prodding that Oscar didn’t hear or feel. A swooping turn of the helicopter, then speed. He tried to tell himself he was headed out and home. He could let go now. And even with the noise, the movement, the voices and hands, he reached a place of quiet and still.

Chapter Twenty-One

Todd

Todd watched the helicopter disappear over the ridge. At first, it had hovered on the other side of the pass, so he hadn’t seen what happened. Then, on this side, well north of his location, he’d watched a rescue litter with a person attached let down on a rope; he’d seen the litter pulled back up with someone in it. Oscar, he guessed, since his injury was worst. He was sure it had picked up Gwen before. So now it was just Tracy and him, and then they’d be out, and this ordeal would finally be over.

He did not know what had happened, but he was fairly sure that A.J. was dead. Several hours before, after he’d crested what he’d thought was the final pass and discovered a new canyon below him, he’d heard a faint, male, unmistakable scream, someone crying out in mortal anguish. It hadn’t sounded like Oscar, and anyway, Oscar was too far gone to muster such energy. There had been no gunshot, though—had A.J. fallen? Been attacked by a mountain lion? Run into someone else from the cartel? And did that mean there was still somebody dangerous on the loose? He didn’t know, but he thought A.J. was dead. He felt it, the removal of something malevolent from the world. And with him gone, the others would have a better chance to make it. Led by Gwen, the last one he would have expected. Gwen, who had toughed it out, and who was now someplace hopefully down in the valley, safe, waiting for the rest of them.

When the copter was out of sight, he rested for a moment. The land was barren here, treeless. The lake where he’d stopped was a kind of blue he’d never seen before—teal, dramatic and beautiful. To the left he heard a disturbance of rock and saw a lone startled deer; he raised his rifle reflexively but did not shoot. He was hungry, and he’d thought of eating bugs or silver-blue mountain butterflies. But the helicopter would be back for him soon; there were still a few hours of daylight. He’d make his way to a place where he’d be easy to spot, and then he’d be flown to town, where he could eat at a table and sleep in a proper bed.

He closed his eyes for a moment. A meal, a shower, a bed—how wonderful. He would call Kelly to let her know that he was all right; he would talk to both his kids.

And yet there was something bittersweet about the thought of all that. He had been somewhere else, and it had changed him. Or maybe it had stripped away some unessential layer and he was left with who he truly was. With a twinge he imagined the moment when he could hug Joey and Brooke; they were the only things in his daily world that really mattered. He realized with a surprising clarity that right now, at this moment, he felt satisfied. Even happy. Yet on top of his relief that the end of their ordeal was near, he felt hollowed by loss. He thought of the life he was about to return to, and knew he didn’t want to go back.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gwen

Gwen struggled to wake up. Everything was heavy; it felt like there were sandbags on her body. When the room finally came into focus, a young woman she’d never seen before was sitting in the corner. She was wearing a ranger uniform, olive pants and khaki shirt. A wide-brimmed hat sat on a table behind her; a walkie-talkie and gun were attached to her belt. She had long dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail, and smooth olive skin, and she looked too young to be a ranger—especially when she saw that Gwen was awake and her face broke into a smile, which carved two perfect dimples into her cheeks.

“Well, hello,” she said, sitting up straight. She sounded young too, collegiate even.

“Where am I?” Gwen’s own voice sounded strange to her, like she was talking through cotton. Had she seen this woman before?

“You’re in Mercy Hospital, Inyo County,” the ranger answered, pulling her chair up to the side of the bed. “You’ve been asleep for about three days.”

“Three days!” Gwen looked past the woman at the beige walls, the heavy institutional door. “What day is it?”

“July 5. A Thursday.”

Gwen took this in. Thursday. They’d been gone for a week. Somehow it felt more like a year.

“You were pretty out of it in the helicopter,” the ranger said. “Unconscious by the time we got here. It was mostly heat exhaustion, dehydration, so they’ve been pumping you with fluids. And now here you are, back with us again.”

“You were in the helicopter with me?” Gwen vaguely remembered swinging through space and being pulled into the copter. She remembered this same voice, urgent and full of authority. The same too-young-looking face.

“I was there. I’m Jessica Montez, by the way. I’m a National Park Service ranger—Law Enforcement and Search and Rescue.” She held her hand out and Gwen lifted her own to shake it. Her arm felt weak, and for the first time she noticed the tube that fed into it, attached to bag of fluids at the side of the bed.