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ChapterThirty-Six
Luke stripped down to his base layer, wishing he had a wet suit for this, but at least the compression shirt and long johns were skintight and wouldn’t drag him down. He waded into the pool of mud. Cold, thick, and sometimes viscous. It was a rude, icy awakening for a body that hadn’t expected to swim in mud today.
The cold was good for his hip, though, which had been burning from the long hike with endless elevation changes that crossed through lowland and montane forests before ending in temperate rainforest.
He used his arms to propel himself forward as he waded through the mud toward Rivera, who had given up on swimming and now desperately gripped a floating log with one arm thirty feet away.
There was a cracking sound from the hillside, and Luke held his breath. If the hillside hadn’t finished collapsing, he was fucked.
The rope tied to his harness went taut, Jae ready to reel him in at the first sign.
On the far side of the slide, a tree tumbled down the slope and landed in the pool.
He waited, and there was no further earth movement. Thank you, Gaia.
He moved farther into the mud, fully swimming now as the pool deepened. Stroke by cautious stroke, he drew closer to Rivera, still a bit in awe that the man was alive and alert enough to cling to the log.
He would become a legend in the SEAL community. The guy who surfed a mudslide.
He reached the Laird Hamilton of mud and saw why the man held on to the log with only one arm. His left arm hung slack, dislocated.
Damn. Fucking legend.
“You still breathing, Rivera?”
The man’s mud-coated eyes opened a slit. “Barely.” He wheezed out the word.
“I’m going to hook this rope to you. You’re going to need to let go of the log so Jae can pull you in.”
“Can’t…can’t move my arm. Doubt I’ll be able to keep my head up.”
The guy probably sported a few broken bones too.
“That’s okay. I’ll be your float. But you’ll have to let go of the log for me to get into position. Just like BUD/S.”
Rivera nodded.
None of his military or even NOAA water rescue and survival trainings had ever offered a landslide mud rescue challenge, but this was a basic lifeguarding technique, upgraded for degree of danger and difficulty with the thick, frigid mud pool and ever-present threat of another slide.
BUD/S and SERE had nothing on this.
He quickly snapped a roped carabiner to Rivera’s tactical vest, tethering them together, then gave the order for the man to let go of his float, allowing Luke to move into position behind him.
The log bobbled when released, and Rivera’s head went under, but Luke caught him and managed to wedge his chest under Rivera’s right side, unable to have the man lie flat against Luke’s chest because he still wore his bulky backpack.
“Pull!” he yelled, and the rope went taut as the ranger reeled them in.
Luke kicked and used one arm to ease the load for Jae as much as possible.
It was slow going with Jae hauling in at least four hundred pounds of men and gear through thick mud that resisted their movement while dodging logs that floated into their path. But finally, they reached the shallow edge of the slide zone, and Luke got to his feet and dragged Rivera out of the frigid muck.
They couldn’t pause to rest, as another slide could happen at any moment, so he dragged Rivera as far as he could in sock-covered feet, then stopped to don his boots and slip on his pack after cramming his discarded clothing inside.
Together, he and Jae carried Rivera upslope and away from the slide zone, finally stopping when they couldn’t see the wrecked hillside through the thick trees. They should be safe from additional slides here.
Luke flopped down on the mossy ground next to where they’d placed Rivera and caught his breath. “Damn, and I thought the water in the strait was cold.”
Rivera let out a wheezing sound. “Everything about this place is cold and wet and gray. How do you tolerate living here?”
