Dana Mentink - Betrayal in the Badlands

“Isabel?”

“I’m here.” The relief in her tone was palpable.

“Are you hurt?”

“I banged up my ankle. It’s caught between some rocks and I can’t get free.”

“I’m coming down. Hold tight.” He told the dog to stay as he fastened a rope around a sturdy spruce and looped it through the carabiner on his belt. Shouldering the backpack, he began the backward descent into the ravine. Each step was precarious, causing the rock to move and shift. He paused often, fearing his progress would shower more debris on her.

Sweat poured down his face in spite of the cool. He shouted to her frequently, keeping her talking, warding off shock, or so he hoped, and giving him a direction.

Finally his feet touched bottom and he unfastened himself from the ropes. He switched on a flashlight and made his way quickly to her.

Her face was pale in the dim light, coated with grime. From what he could see, her pupils were even and reactive when he flicked the light across her field of vision. He knelt next to her and felt her wrist. “Hey there. This is a crazy way to explore the property.”

She didn’t smile. “I was after Big Blue, and someone pushed me.”

He could feel the pulse in her wrist begin to race. It was not the time to get into that. “Let’s focus on getting you out of here. I’m going to give you a quick check, with your permission.”

She nodded, lying still as he ran his hands along her arms and legs. He gently slid his fingers along the back of her neck. “Any pain? Numbness? Tingling?”

“No. Are you a doctor?”

“I’m a little of everything.” He pulled out a pry bar from his backpack and circled around behind the rock. “When you feel the rock move, pull your ankle free. Can you do that?”

“To get out of here I could do anything.”

He chuckled and leaned his weight on the pry bar. It shifted, but not enough. He added more force behind it until his muscles screamed at the effort. Finally the rock slid just enough that Isabel pulled clear.

He scrambled around the rock and found her crouched over her ankle, fighting against the pain.

“One obstacle down. How about we see to that ankle now?” It was swollen and bruised, but not misshapen. A good sign. “Could be you got out of this with a bad sprain.” He wrapped the joint as gently as he could with a bandage and activated a chemical cold pack to sandwich between the layers of bandages.

She was sitting up now, eyeing him with an expression he couldn’t decipher. “Logan, did you…hear singing up there?”

He shot her a look, checking to see if she was slipping into shock. “No, ma’am. Must have been the wind.”

“I guess so. I got really mixed up when I fell. I don’t even know how long I’ve been down here.” She watched him finish the bandaging. “You seem like you do this kind of thing every day.”

He felt the dull twinge of pain. “I used to. You ready to get out of here?”

She nodded and he helped her to stand on her good ankle. Then he refastened himself to the rope. “Can you carry the backpack?”

When she nodded, Logan slid the straps onto her shoulders and began to fasten a webbed belt around her waist before he pulled her tight to his back. He felt her stiffen when her chest touched his shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

Her breath was warm on his neck. “I’m getting us out of here. I’ll do the climbing, and you hold on. Deal?” Without waiting for an answer he began hauling them up out of the ravine, Isabel holding him around the waist, her head pressed to his shoulder.

She didn’t make a whimper of complaint as they climbed, even when he could not avoid banging into the jagged rocks. Her repaired ankle throbbed, and her dead weight on his back made the going rough.

It didn’t matter.

It could have been two hundred feet or two hundred miles.

He would finish the mission.

Gritting his teeth he pulled them along, hand over hand, until they reached the top of the ravine. With a whine of joy, Tank grabbed hold of Logan’s sleeve and yanked for all he was worth.

Logan hauled them both over the top, unstrapped Isabel from his back and helped her to sit. Tank darted from Logan to Isabel, licking them both.

“This is Tank.”

She smiled and rubbed him under the chin. “Good name.”

“Good dog.”

The sky had lightened from black to gray to pearl as the sun pushed its way toward the horizon. They sat in silence for a while, Logan trying to catch his breath and Isabel staring at him.

He gave himself a few more moments to recover and then got to his feet. “We need to get you inside. How about another piggyback ride?”

She shook her head. “I can walk.”

“You’ll damage your ankle further.”

Her eyes shifted and she chewed her lower lip. “I can’t let you carry me anymore. You’ve got to be exhausted after that climb. I’ll hop on one foot, if you can steady me.”

He put on the backpack and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She clung to him to keep from falling. As they struggled for balance, Logan glanced down at the wet earth near the edge of the crevice they had just emerged from.

Isabel followed his gaze. “What is it?”

He shrugged and moved them in the direction of the cabin. “Later.”

With Tank at their heels, they set off.

It was only a half mile back, but it took them almost a half hour to hobble along. Finally they pushed through the door, and Logan deposited Isabel on the small couch in the front room, where Tank promptly curled up in an untidy pile at her feet.

Logan fetched some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a dish towel and laid it on her ankle.

“I’ll drive you to town for an X-ray.”

“No. It’s just a sprain. I don’t need an X-ray.”

“Yes, you do.”

She pressed her lips together. “No.”

He sighed. “Are you always this stubborn?”

There was a glimmer of a smile on her face. “I’m afraid so.” She fiddled with the edge of the blanket he’d draped over her shoulders. “I—I want to thank you. You don’t even know me, but you came over here in the middle of the night and hauled me out of that hole. I still can’t believe it happened.”

He looked directly into her ink-dark eyes. “I can.”

She blinked. “You believe me? That I was pushed? Why?”

He chose his words carefully. “Because there was a set of footprints in the mud at the edge of the ravine, someone wearing cowboy boots.”

“Could they be your prints?”

He shook his head and pointed to his feet. “I’m in mountain climbers. Whoever made those prints stood right at the edge, and watched you fall.”

Isabel stroked the dog as she drank the instant coffee Logan prepared for them both, trying to calm herself. It was almost 7:00 a.m. by now. She wasn’t sure what to say to the man who had gone to such trouble and physical torture on her account. She could tell by the far-off look in his eyes that he was trying to make sense of the past few hours, too. She felt a familiar trembling and tried to get up.

Logan laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Stay put. Whatever you need, I’ll get it.”

“I—I need something with sugar.”

He eyed her closely. “Diabetes?”

“Hypoglycemia. I haven’t eaten regularly since I came.”

He went to the kitchen and returned with a handful of Oreos for her and one for himself. “So what made you come to the ranch?”

“Cassie loved her horses. I wanted to make sure things were taken care of, until the property can be sold.”

His eyes bored into hers. “You don’t want to live here?”

She shrugged. “It isn’t my property. I figure Cassie probably left it to my uncle, and I don’t really have fond memories of South Dakota anyway.”