Chapter 6 - The Frozen Ravine
The wind roared like a jet engine through the towering white pines as Leo and Marcus fought their way through knee-deep snowdrifts along the edge of the upper ravine.
The ice-covered rocks were slick and treacherous. Every step required absolute focus.
"TRENT!" Leo shouted through his storm mask, his voice swallowed instantly by the howling gale. "TRENT VANCE!"
A faint, high-pitched cry drifted up from the bottom of the sixty-foot gorge.
Marcus unclipped a heavy spotlight from his harness, sweeping the beam down into the darkness. Forty feet below, huddled against a ice-slicked granite ledge, were Trent Vance and two of his teammates. Trent was clutching his ankle, his face white with hypothermia, his clothing soaked through from slipping into the creek.
"The ledge is crumbling!" Trent screamed, his voice cracking with terror. "Please! Help us!"
Marcus assessed the drop. "The anchor trees near the top are too shallow to support a full winch system. I have to go down on a single line, but I need someone at the top who can manage the safety brake and guide the haul."
He turned to Leo, setting his hands on the boy’s shoulders.
"Leo, you’re the anchor," Marcus said, his eyes fierce and clear through the swirling snow. "You hold that rope like your life depends on it, because their lives do."
Leo planted his boots deep into the frozen dirt behind a massive oak trunk, feeding the heavy static climbing rope through his friction belay device. "Ready, Chief! Drop down!"
Marcus rappelled down the sheer ice wall in less than thirty seconds. Working with incredible speed, he wrapped the two younger, shivering students in thermal bivouac sacks and secured them to the haul line.
One by one, Leo hauled the students up the ledge, his arms burning with agony, his breathing coming in ragged gasps, his sneakers digging into the frozen earth until the white ropes were secured at the top.
Finally, only Trent remained at the bottom.
As Marcus secured Trent to the harness, a massive section of the frozen ice shelf above them cracked with a sound like a gunshot. A cascade of ice and rock rained down, striking Marcus across the helmet and knocking him unconscious into the snow bank below.
"CHIEF!" Leo screamed.
Trent was dangling halfway up the cliff, frozen with panic as the rope began to slip over the sharp granite edge.
Leo didn't hesitate. He wrapped the main line around his waist, dug his boots into the icy ledge, and pulled with every ounce of strength in his thirteen-year-old body. The raw nylon burned through his gloves, but he refused to let go.
"TRENT! CLIMB!" Leo roared through the storm. "KICK YOUR FEET AND CLIMB!"
May you like
Sobbing with fear and gratitude, Trent scrambled up the last ten feet of the cliff, flopping safely onto the snowy bank.
Leo immediately anchored the rope to the oak tree, dropped down the cliff line on a secondary harness, and reached Marcus. Using the tactical drag strap on Marcus’s vest, Leo pulled the two-hundred-pound unconscious veteran into a dry rock cave, wrapping him in emergency space blankets until the rescue helicopter's spotlight broke through the storm clouds twenty minutes later.
