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“Hey, I made a promise, and I don’t back out of them. I will get you and your brother out of here,” she said with a mixture of gentleness and force. “Now get moving, there’s a hand grip just above your head see it? Go on up, I’m going to need it in just a minute.”
The boy nodded trustingly, and she prayed she wasn’t fooling them all. He moved up using the hole she’d suggested and then he stretched, reaching for the next so he could move out of her way. His hand made contact with the wall, but as he began to pull himself up, the rock crumbled a piece of it coming down on her as she moved slightly to shield Brent from being hit.
Greg scrambled to regain his balance, but he couldn’t hold on and fell. She reached out and grabbed his wrist tightening her hold on the wall as she braced herself for the impact of his weight. She gritted her teeth and tried to lift him back to the safety of the wall, but she couldn’t do it with one hand.
“Greg, I need you to help me here…calm down you’re not going to fall, you’re connected to my harness remember? Okay, see if you can swing your feet back towards the wall…good. Now I need you to do it again, this time see if you can find a spot where you can get a hand grip.” She took a deep breath, swung him back towards her, and then lifted enough for him to get his feet on the tiny ledge that jutted out below her.
“See, nothing to it,” she said as he let go of her hand and gripped the wall. “What do you say we get out of here?”
“I want to go home,” Brent said weakly.
“That’s where we’re headed,” she assured him, moving over where Greg had been and carefully testing the rest of the rock wall before going on up. She reached the top and pulled herself over then knelt down to pull Greg the rest of the way up. He gave her a huge hug the instant his feet hit the ground and she felt her heart constrict. There was nothing she wouldn’t give to have something like this in her life…not the danger or peril but a child who put their trust in her explicitly, someone to love her as much as she loved them.
“You okay Brent?” she asked rubbing his leg lightly.
“Uh huh,” he answered.
“Good, we’ve still got a bit of a hike, but we should be out of the worst of the danger from the water. I’ve never seen it get any higher than it is now,” she told them glancing at the still rising waters. She hoped she was right because if the entire cavern flooded the only place left for the water to go was up the pathways after them.
Chapter 12
“Miss Paige, what was that noise?” Greg asked as they neared the outside opening.
“I’d say the rain,” she stated glancing towards the pounding rain. No wonder the cavern was flooding so much. The storm was worse than anything she’d seen in years, here or anywhere. “There’s no way we’ll make it down this side safely, think you can reach the crook?”
“Yeah, I can make it,” he answered her as the sound of static came to her ears. “That wasn’t rain.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she agreed digging into the pack he was wearing and pulling out the walkie that was squawking.
“Paige…Paige are you there?” Joel’s voice sounded over it.
“Joel took you long enough,” she teased as relief hit her.
“Whose fault is that? You’re the one who left without getting one of the coms we were using.”
“Come on Joel, it took me less than five minutes to figure out you’d taken one of the old walkies into the mine. You know I wouldn’t trust one of those coms.”
“No but you could have at least waited for the rest of us. Where are you? This storm’s getting worse by the minute, and it’s expected to last late into the night.”
“We’re headed to Crooked Point. The rain’s coming down too hard to get out on the Eagle Nest side.”
“We? Paige, did you find the boys?” Jim asked with barely controlled hope.
“Oh lord…Jim, I’m so sorry,yes, the boys are with me. Greg’s fine but Brent’s got a broken ankle and I’d say a concussion judging by the goose egg on his head.”
“Thank God,” he replied, and she heard the faintest echo of cheers. “We’ll be out there as fast as we can.”
“Guys, unless you’re on this side of the creek I don’t think you’ll make it, not even in your Jeeps.”
“Paige what’s going on up there?” Sam asked.
“It’s what’s going on down there. The caverns are flooded, both of them, and the water was still rising.”
“Christ,” Joel stated taking the walkie back. “Where did you find the boys?”
“Later, right now you need to head around the back way.”
“We’ll send Moose and Rabbit,” Jesse told her. “They’d crossed the creek earlier this afternoon to expand the search. Be careful Paige this weather is insane.”
