Her weak smile and sigh confirmed that she was in pain and very scared. I tilted her face to look squarely in her eyes, “Lydie,” I started, sounding more confident than I was, “God has your back. We’re here now, and we’re going to do all we can to get back to Mom and Dad.”
With that, a lone tear rolled down her cheek, which made my heart ache. Marshall winced, as if he had just now thought of our parents. As he dug deeper, I heard him gasp. Cautiously looking into the hole he was making, my throat felt like it caved in when I saw Lydie’s left leg. Her boot was at knee level, and her lower leg was twisted away from her body.
That explains her pathetic, “Yeeowwww!!” when I first tried heaving her out of the avalanche, I thought. It made me hurt just looking at her disfigured ankle.
Marshall sharply sucked in a breath, and I was afraid he would go back into panic mode. Suddenly I thought I heard Ellie’s voice, but it sounded distant, and Marshall and Lydie did not appear to have heard.
“Maybe,” I said as the thought occurred to me, “now that Lydie can breathe, we should look for Sawyer and Ellie. Lydie’s stable, but if the other two are still under the snow, we need to get them out ASAP.”
Lydie faintly nodded. “Marlee’s right, Marsh. You got me to air, so we can worry about my leg once we know Ellie and Sawyer are safe.”
Marshall did not hesitate to jump up, and though I realized I should help him find the others, it was very hard to pull myself away from my injured little sister. “Do you have any idea where they are?” I asked her.
“Ellie was holding my right arm. Sawyer–”
But she was cut off by a voice shouting, “OVER HERE!” Marshall stopped walking, and loudly said, “Where are you?”
Then, like a dream, Sawyer jogged over to us, with Ellie a few strides behind. Like they were out for a midnight run. How did they look so normal? Since they obviously weren’t buried, they must have made it to the side of the ridge before the avalanche hit. Sawyer was limping, but Ellie looked fine. I mean, scared out of her wits, but physically fine.
“Ellie! We’re here! Everybody’s accounted for now,” I informed her. “Are you okay?”
Ellie and I fiercely hugged each other, and I suddenly felt much more confident with my seventeen-year-old sister here. And she still had her backpack. The backpack with the remaining first aid kit. Phew. Marshall gave his brother a manly-type slap on the shoulder and sighed, “Boy, is it good to see you.”
“You too, Brother,” Sawyer breathed, his hands on his knees. “Wow, our first avalanche.” Was he hoping to experience more avalanches?! And my friend Braelynn Gunderson had told me I was a little weird. After a moment of taking big breaths, Sawyer stood up straight, and smiled at Marshall and me. His brow abruptly wrinkled and he leaned his head towards mine and carefully pushed my helmet up an inch or so to look at my forehead. “This looks sore, Marlee. Are you okay?”
I had forgotten about my forehead until now. I gently patted the spot with my gloved hand. “I’m not sure, but we need to help Lydie.”
“Where is Lydie?” he looked around worriedly.
“Lyd’s over there, able to breathe, but her leg looks, uh,” Marshall looked at his feet, “hurt.”
Sawyer looked way more concerned when Marshall mentioned Lydie’s undiagnosed injury, so we rushed back to her location. I barely noticed the snow melting off of my helmet and running down my neck. As I worked to help scoop around Lydie’s legs, the chilly drops helped cool me as I sweated from the hard work. I was gaining a new appreciation for those construction guys who shoveled cement all last summer in our town. No wonder they were ripped.
When Ellie reached Lydie’s cove, she screamed with joy and threw her arms around Lydie’s shoulders. “Ellie!” Lydie said,
“I was so worried when you let go of my arm.”
Ellie’s face wrinkled in grief at the memory. “I held on with all my strength, Lydie. I tried to pull you to the ridge, but you were literally swept away from me.” A small sob escaped.
I patted her back and whispered, “You did great to stay with her so long.” Ellie nodded and brushed away a tear. Even though Ellie can drive us bonkers, I’ve never questioned that she completely loves Lydie and me. Seeing one of us tumble tragically down a mountainside would be as much Ellie’s nightmare as ours.
“But look at your leg, Lyd,” Ellie cracked and was now all-out crying. I put my arm around her shoulders and held her for a moment while Sawyer and Marshall continued digging around Lydie’s legs.
Lydie whimpered in pain, which only made Ellie cry harder seeing that our baby sister was hurting. Marshall and Sawyer exchanged a concerned look with each other before Marshall suggested, “Maybe two of us should go for help. I mean, it looks like Lydie needs a doctor, so maybe we should set out to try to reach the ranger station. A search and rescue team will know how to safely move her.”
Everyone stopped and looked at Marshall. While what he said made perfect sense, nobody was thrilled at the idea of splitting up so soon after being reunited. And, as much as I wanted to stay with my sisters, it was plain to see that Sawyer was the leader of our group, and kind of the father figure, so I thought it would be beneficial to keep him and Ellie with Lydie. Also, I was not a fan of the idea of three girls alone in the wilderness. I would feel much better if each group had a guy, for strength and protection. “I’m feeling pretty strong,” I started, nodding toward Sawyer’s favored leg, “I could hike out with Marshall.”
Sawyer nodded thoughtfully before Ellie asked him about his leg. “It hurts, but I think it’s very minor compared to Lydie’s,” he acknowledged. Ellie nodded, concern in her eyes.
“Hey, what about the satellite messenger?” Ellie asked suddenly, reminding us all of our form of emergency communication. Cell phones aren’t reliable in the backcountry. Maybe from the peak we could get service, but not below the ridge. So that left the satellite messenger to send out basic messages.
Marshall looked down with a disgusted expression and muttered, “It was in my pack. And my pack is lost in the snow. Along with one of the first aid kits.”
“But we still have gorp,” I added cheerily, pointing to my pack. Raisins and peanuts can be pretty boring, especially by the third or fourth day of a trek, but hey, food is food.
“And we still have a first aid kit in my pack,” Ellie noted.
Sawyer’s face as he digested the news that our satellite messenger was gone conveyed feelings of sheer alarm. Not like I wasn’t alarmed too, but I tried to swallow my fear again. Tried.
Without saying, we all knew what that meant. The satellite messenger had a button that would immediately alert the local authorities that we needed help and it would provide our exact location. Bringing it along, we had planned that if an emergency happened, we could alert rescuers, who would quickly find us and send word to our parents.
And everything would have been just fine. So now what?
Ellie quietly checked her phone, but shook her head slowly and resealed the phone in a plastic pouch and zipped it back in her jacket pocket.
Without the satellite messenger, we had no form of communication with anyone besides each other. And God.
“We should pray,” I proposed. The group nodded in unison, and I was going to start the prayer, but was suddenly so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t speak.
Lydie, who had mostly been silent all along, spoke up and prayed a beautiful, heartfelt prayer. She thanked God for our protection through the avalanche and asked for His divine help out of the situation. She even remembered to ask God to comfort and calm our parents as they woke up to our absence. Lydie’s prayer was so passionate that I suddenly realized she was growing into a fine young lady. Little Lydie was no longer a little girl. The realization that my baby sister was maturing into a young woman hit me almost as hard as the avalanche.
At the conclusion of Lydie’s prayer, the expressions worn by everyone else revealed that we all must have had the same thought regarding Lydie. She smiled, a bit more energetically this time, and then said, “Well, I’ll keep an eye on Ellie and Sawyer while you two go for help.”
Ahh, Lydie’s comic relief was perfectly timed, and we all let out a nervous laugh.
2
Just a few hours ago I had been soundly asleep in my sleeping bag nestled next to Lydie. Since she was the youngest, we put her in the middle, between Ellie and me. Dad and Mom had a tent to themselves. Every summer, our family took a backpacking trip with the Miles family. Dad and Caleb Miles had worked together, guiding backpacking treks before they married our moms. Once their wives and children came along, they found year-round employment elsewhere, but the mountains are still their home-away-from-home – where they come alive.
