Page 31 of Sweet Courage

“Open it. I’m going up.” Hanson cut him off. Just as quickly, he spun to face Kat. “Get a hold of the first aid station. Tell them we have a cardiac emergency trapped at the top of the wheel. I need an AED, oxygen, a Stokes basket, and a medic ready on the ground in case the doctor isn’t here soon.”

“But…” Her gaze drifted up to the gondola. “You can’t…”

“I’ve got this. Clint needs help sooner than later. Go.”

It took a moment but nibbling on her lower lip, Kat nodded, then inched forward, lightly kissed his cheek and softly muttered, “Stay safe.”

Two years ago, even a year ago, he would have laughed off her concern, but right now, he wished he had time to write up a whole lot of index cards.

Watching Hanson scale the iron wheel in front of them, Kat was sure of two things. She didn’t pray often enough, and she was definitely making up for it now.

The Sweet family had closed around her the way they closed around everything that mattered—without discussion, without assignment, just there, shoulder to shoulder, every face tipped upward. Rachel’s hand found hers on the left. Sarah Sue on the right. Nobody spoke. The fair noise continued somewhere behind them—the tinny music, the children, the smell of funnel cake—and none of it touched the circle of people standing at the base of the Ferris wheel watching the man in a thick canvas safety harness over jeans, with heavy carabiners clipped to the steel lattice of the ride scramble up to the sky. He moved with a brutal, mechanical efficiency, navigating the steep angle of the support beams as if he were a kid on the school yard monkey bars with little risk of more than a broken bone if he fell off.

Her mind processed what she’d seen as Hanson took control of the situation. Harness. Straps. Buckles. He’d shaken the webbing out once, stepped into it, pulled it up, tightened, checked, tugged. His hands knew where to go. Clip. Pull. Test. Adjust. No wasted motion. No hesitation. The teenage operator stood white-faced beside him, holding a helmet as if he’d forgotten what hands were for. Now like the rest of them the kid stood silent, staring, no doubt praying.

Already Hanson was at least two or three stories high. Squeezing her eyes shut for an instant, she said another prayer then dared to keep watching. The double lanyard caught the afternoon light every time he reached for the next anchor point—one clipped, one moving, never both unattached, never a single second without something holding him to the structure. As he’d secured the harness, he’d explained the procedure to her in quick but concise detail. This was supposed to keep him safe. Lord, she hoped that was the case.

Carson leaned toward Preston. “Not sure even Kade could do that. Amazing.”

Preston nodded. Neither of them looked away from the wheel.

The wheel was massive, the steel painted a cheerful, mocking bright red. From where she stood, Hanson looked terrifyingly small. A gust of wind caught the gondolas, making them sway and creak. Kat’s fingers clamped down hard on Sarah Sue’s. From the ground Kat could make out the pale blur of Alice’s face at the bar. The woman remained still, focused on the man approaching and the man beside her. Her husband’s silhouette had the particular quality of a man trying very hard not to show how badly he needed help, which meant he needed it badly.

Not willing to take her eyes off the man she loved, Kat stared in near horror when Hanson stopped. Didn’t move up, didn’t move down, he just… stopped. Looked to his left, then up. He’d forgotten what he was doing. Maybe. She couldn’t think that way. Another second and he moved a clip, only the clip missed the mark. The watching crowd below gasped when the ring failed to latch onto steel and slipped past, dragging his arm and weight to a sideways position. Her mouth went bone dry. The only thing she could hear was the rapid pounding of her own heart. “Please God,” she muttered to herself.

Another beat passed and his arm flung upward again, attaching the clip, moving again and again.

The Stokes basket waited at the base of the frame, strapped to a rope that ran up through a pulley the medical team had rigged to the frame’s lower crossbar while Hanson continued climbing toward the endless sky. Two medics held the rope, their eyes also upward, their hands ready. The AED sat open on a folding table ten feet away. Oxygen beside it. Doc Conroy’s car had skidded into the fairground entrance three minutes ago and he now stood at the medical table. Waiting like everyone else for a miracle.

Hanson reached the highest car. Even from the ground, Kat could see Alice leaning over Clint, her hands pressing his shoulders. Hanson braced his boots against the outer railing, clipped his safety tether to the main bar, and swung himself into the suspended carriage. At least he would be safe—for now. No matter how hard she craned her neck, it was impossible to see what was happening inside the metal bucket. That high up, a giraffe couldn’t have made out what was going on. Ropes dropped over the side, snaking down to the dirt where the fire rescue crew grabbed the ends. The medics stood ready with the Stokes basket they had rigged to Hanson’s line.

“He’s got him.” Preston’s voice was a low, rough scrape of sound.

Slowly, the bright orange rescue basket breached the side of the gondola. Hanson leaned halfway out over open air, his arms straining against the heavy guide ropes.

“Lowering!” one of the firemen shouted from the ground.

The basket descended. Inch by inch. The rope groaning under the tension, the wind fighting the weight. Kat didn’t blink. She kept her eyes locked on the orange plastic until the basket finally hovered within arm’s reach above the dirt.

The medics grabbed the rails and guided it gently to the ground.

“Dad!” Sarah Sue broke from the huddle. Together they began working on Clint. Oxygen mask on, BP cuff, the doc shouting orders at the EMTs that sounded like an episode of a medical drama, but it was the show on the wheel above that kept Kat’s attention. With Clint receiving medical attention, it was up to Hanson to fix whatever had broken and get these people down. Which meant, what goes up, must come down. Swallowing hard, she watched one, then the other leg swing out from the gondola and onto the metal supports. Heaving a deep sigh, she softly muttered, “Here we go again.”

Chapter Fourteen

Kat could barely hear her own thoughts. Maybe that was for the best.

Hanson’s right boot found the metal support outside the gondola. Then his left. For half a second, he stood there with one hand on the frame and one hand on the edge of the car, his body suspended between Alice above and the ground below, the orange rescue basket no longer blocking the view.

Above, one hand gripping the side of the gondola, the other pressed against her chest, Alice watched the medics below close around her husband. Even from the ground, Kat could read the terrible pull of it. Alice wanted to be with Clint. Every line of her body leaned toward the earth, toward the man being worked on beside the medical table.

But the Ferris wheel was still locked. The gondola still hung near the top. And Hanson was the only thing moving.

Carson stood with one arm around Jess, his gaze pulled in two directions at once—toward the man on the ground who had recently become family and his mother still trapped in the sky. Preston had one hand locked on the fence rail, the other curled so tightly at his side the knuckles had gone white. Garret stood beside him, breathing hard, jaw clenched. Nobody knew where to look. Kat did. She couldn’t look anywhere else.

Hanson clipped his safety line to the main frame, checked it with one hard tug, then shifted sideways along the steel toward the hub. He was lower than he had been during the rescue, but not low enough for her to consider him safe. There was no version of that height that could be called safe.

A siren sounded somewhere behind her and she glanced back. The ambulance doors slammed shut and within moments, the vehicle blew out of the field and down the road. Her gaze turned to Sarah Sue who had moved next to Preston. “He’s stable. Dad’s going to follow the ambulance. He’s very optimistic.”