Ladhi’s rope was strapped to the outside of her pack. I yanked it out from the strap, then went to Charles—he’d already taken the other rope out of his back. Uncoiling the first rope, I held one end and gave the other end to Charles.
“Hold this,” I said, and grabbed the second rope out of his hand.
“Polly—” he began, but I was already over the edge of the trail, on my butt and skidding toward Angelyn.
14
This probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done. The smartest thing would have been to send an emergency signal from our GPS unit. Maybe someone else was doing that. All I could think about was getting to Angelyn, because even if someone was calling, help might not get here in time.
I didn’t slide down the rock right above her—I was sending down a rain of pebbles and didn’t want to hit her. I held tight to the rope—I could tell Charles was keeping it anchored on the other end, maintaining tension.
“Hang on!” I called. Angelyn was lying still now, aware that every movement threatened her grip. She looked up at me, lips pursed, gaze pleading.
I was almost at her level and the dirt under me was slipping—I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stop. I dug in my heels, and the rope jerked in my hands. I held on and came to rest—Charles was holding on to me. With the few extra meters of rope I’d left dangling, I knotted a loop around myself, under my shoulders. As long as the knot held, and Charles didn’t drop the other end, I’d be fine, I wouldn’t fall.
“You okay?” I asked Angelyn.
“Scratched up,” she said. She was covered in dust, and several cuts on her arm were bleeding. But she was aware and talking, and that was good.
“Can you get this around you?” I slipped the second rope off my shoulders and lowered it to her. Slowly, moving a centimeter at a time, she raised an arm and reached—and slipped. The dirt under her shifted, sliding in a piece and carrying her with it on a conveyor belt of pebbles and debris. She let out a scream and lay flat, attempting to stop herself.
I lunged, skidding as I dived for her. Rocks dug into my arms, but that didn’t matter. Stretching, I hoped for a few more centimeters. The rope pinched around my chest. Her hand seemed to keep falling away from me.
And then I had it. My hand closed around her wrist, and her opposite hand swung over to grip mine, a reflexive grab for safety. We clung to each other.
“I’ve got you, it’s okay,” I gasped. She whimpered.
The rope around me pulled tight and squeezed the breath from me. I hung there, gasping against the pressure. Angelyn’s weight pulled at my arms; they felt like they were stretching, tearing out of my shoulder sockets.
But the rope held. We didn’t slide any farther.
“Can you get your pack off?” I said.
“But I’ll lose it—”
“Who cares? It’s dragging you down.”
Next to her, I could help her unlatch the straps and pull them over her shoulders and still keep hold of her. I shouldn’t have worried—she wasn’t going to let go.
Finally, after some tugging, the straps released and the pack fell away, bouncing down the slope, falling over an edge, and dropping hard into the trees below. That could have been Angelyn. She stared after it, maybe thinking the same thing.
“Don’t look down,” I said. I had to remember to follow my own advice on that one.
I still had the second rope looped around my arm, and I worked one end loose and snaked it to Angelyn. We needed an anchor, so if we lost our grips she wouldn’t fall again. Together, we worked it around her middle and tied it tight, and I tied the other end around myself, looping it with the first rope. So we were both safe. Now, we just had to climb back to the trail.
I looked up—we’d come an awful long way down. The row of faces leaning over to stare down at us seemed very small.
“Can you climb?” I gasped, catching my breath, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest. We kept hold of each other, holding hands—the ropes were just for emergency. We could help each other up.
“Don’t know,” she gasped back.
I dug my feet in, trying to get a purchase, but the dirt slid out from under me. I scrambled up a few centimeters then slid back down again. My rope was still taut, at least. We were hanging on.
“Polly!”
I craned my neck back; Ethan was shouting. “We’re going to pull you up!”
He and a couple of the others were already hanging onto the rope; they’d pulled it around the trunk of a tree to brace and give them more leverage. I didn’t see Charles. I didn’t have a hand to wave back with—one was holding on to Angelyn, the other the rope, and I found I didn’t want to let go.