"I'm good."
Something moves behind his eyes.Brief and fierce.Not professional.Not about the rescue.Then it's gone, and he's turning to Ryan, and the operational briefing continues, and I'm standing in the staging area of a mountain rescue wondering how a man can look at me like that in the middle of a crisis and expect me to function.
We deploy at three-twelve p.m.The storm is visible on the western horizon, a wall of charcoal cloud eating the afternoon light.Stephen takes the center ravine with Ranger.I take the east with Scout.We split at the junction a quarter mile up the trail, and Stephen stops.
"Radio check every ten minutes," he says."If the storm hits before you find her, you pull back to the junction.No arguments."
"I don't need you to manage my safety."
"I'm not managing your safety.I'm telling you the protocol."He takes a step closer.Close enough that I have to tilt my chin to hold his gaze."You come back.That's not a request."
The intensity in his voice goes through me like heat through glass.He doesn't touch me.He doesn't need to.The command in those sea-green eyes does all the touching his hands won't.
"Ten minutes," I say."Radio check."
He nods once and disappears into the center ravine with Ranger.
Scout and I work the east branch.
This is the part of my job that most people don't see.The quiet, methodical work of reading a dog's body in real time while navigating terrain that wants to break your ankle.Scout moves ahead of me in a wide search pattern, her nose sampling the air in rhythmic passes.I watch her breathing, her ear position, the angle of her tail, the micro-changes in her gait that tell me everything she can't say.
At twelve minutes in, her ears rotate forward.Slight change in tail carriage.She's caught something.
"Show me, Scout."
She adjusts her line and picks up speed, moving east along the ravine floor where water runoff has carved a narrow channel through loose rock.I follow, my boots finding purchase on slick stone, one hand on the GPS, one hand free for balance.
The radio crackles.
"Brooke.Check."Stephen's voice, clipped and focused.
"East branch, approximately three hundred yards in.Scout's got something.Possible scent indication."
"Copy.Keep me posted."
Scout stops.She's standing at the edge of a drop-off where the ravine cuts down sharply, maybe fifteen feet, into a rocky drainage.Her bark is sharp and rapid.Three barks.Sit.
She found her.
I belly-crawl to the edge and look down.Audrey Chen is wedged between two boulders at the bottom of the drainage, her right leg bent at an angle that makes my stomach clench.She's conscious.Her face is white and streaked with dirt, and she's clutching her emergency beacon in both hands.
"I'm here," I call down."My name's Lydia.I've got a rescue team right behind me.Can you tell me what hurts?"
"My leg."Her voice is thin.Scared."I think it's broken.I slipped on the scree."
"Okay.We're going to get you out.Stay still for me."
I key the radio."Nelson.I've got her.East branch, three hundred yards in, she's in a drainage about fifteen feet below the ravine floor.Broken right leg, conscious, responsive.I need rope and a litter."
"On my way."No hesitation.I hear the shift in his breathing as he starts running.
I stay at the edge, talking to Audrey.Keeping her calm.Keeping her focused.Scout lies beside me, her head over the edge, watching the woman below with the steady attentiveness of a dog who understands that her job right now is to be present.
Stephen arrives in under eight minutes with Ranger at his heel and a rope bag on his back.He's not even breathing hard.Fourteen years of rescue swimming and four years of mountain training, and the man moves through rough terrain like he was born in it.
He drops beside me at the edge, assesses the drainage in one sweep.
"I'll go down.You anchor the rope."
