Page 103 of When the Stars Rise

Carey jumps and his chute opens just as a strong gust of wind fills the canopy and pushes him back. Fuck, his lines are all twisted. He gets slammed against the steel supports of the underbelly. Briggs and I release a breath of relief when his canopy gets caught on the bridge.

“Holy shit,” Briggs mutters.

“Jesus. Dude got lucky.”

“For now,” Briggs says, squinting up at Carey. “His lines are all twisted, and that wind is blowing him around like a fucking piñata.”

I grab my phone and zoom in on him as much as I can, trying to get a better handle on the situation. Carey’s suspended five hundred feet above Snake River, twisting in the wind, and the only thing holding him up are the ropes of his parachute.

“Looks like he got knocked unconscious,” I say. His head is lolling to the side or at least that’s how it looks from here. “There’s a catwalk just above him. We might be able to get to him from there.”

“Looks like it’s a good twenty feet above him, though. We wouldn’t be able to reach him from there.”

I could. If I had enough backup, I know I could get to him.

We stop talking and spur into action, climbing the fifteen-foot wall to the top of the bridge and running along the pedestrian path to the exit point. Traffic has stopped and people are congregating by the railing.

“Search and rescue are about an hour out,” a guy from the sheriff’s department tells us when Briggs asks for an update. “They’ve been called in to rescue two climbers trapped in the canyon.”

“Oh God.” A girl with auburn hair wrings her hands—Carey’s fiancée, Alex.

Her eyes fill with tears and her lower lip is trembling. “What if the lines don’t hold? What if he falls?”

They just got engaged last month. Sold everything they owned, ditched the corporate world, and now they’re traveling around the US living out of a van. It’s a cool way to live until something like this happens.

Alex reminds me of Hayley a bit, so I want to reassure her and put a positive spin on the situation. “Hey. Don’t think like that. The lines will hold. Everything is going to be okay,” I assure her before turning to Briggs and lowering my voice. “I can get to him faster than that. I brought my climbing gear. I’ve got my ropes and a harness. I just need to get down to him from the catwalk, clip his harness to mine—”

“That’s over three hundred pounds of weight,” a blond bearded guy interjects.

I give him a look. “My ropes can handle that.”

“So we’d need to pull you both up,” Briggs says, eyes narrowed in thought.

I nod, rubbing my hand over my jaw as I formulate the plan and play it out in my head. As long as we have enough people pulling the ropes, I know it will work. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” the bearded guy says. “Sounds too risky.”

Can’t remember asking you.But I bite my tongue. He’s built like a lumberjack, easily six four and brawny, so I’d rather have him on our side than against us.

“I’m willing to bet that’s what the emergency services would do in this situation.” I lean over the railing and look down to see if there’s another way, but there isn’t. A pontoon is headed up the river toward the bridge but there’s too big of a drop so that wouldn’t help either. “You can’t get to him by helicopter, and he’s too high up to lower him into a boat. So someone would have to be lowered down to him by ropes.”

“But search and rescue are trained to do that,” the skeptic says, looking me up and down. “Not sure I’d want some random guy clipping me to his harness and cutting the damn ropes.”

I give him a long look. “I know what I’m doing,”

Briggs claps me on the shoulder. “He’s Noah Fucking McCallister,” he booms loud enough for everyone to hear.

“We don’t need to broadcast that,” I mutter.

“I knew I recognized you! I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” Alex says. “Do you really think this will work?” she asks, eyes filled with hope.

I nod. “It’ll work,” I say firmly.

Alex exhales in relief while I pray like hell that I’m right.

This isn’t the time to hesitate or falter though. Confidence is king, so I clap my hands together and focus on the group that’s gathered. I can only do this if I have enough people behind me, so I lay out the plan and explain what I’d need from anyone who volunteers. I look around the group. “Who’s with me?”

“I’ll help,” a burly guy in a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt volunteers. I like him already. My uncle Ridge played for Dallas for the last few years of his NFL career up until he retired last season. He was one of the best wide receivers in the NFL and now he’s a sportscaster with his own podcast.