A big blue backpack fell from up above — right toward Flip and me. It hit Flip hard and knocked his feet out from under him.
I couldn’t say or do anything. I felt like someone punched me in the stomach as I watched Flip go down, hit a bump, fly up, and then skid down again.
Oh God, please help him!
I saw him look up at us and grin — so I thought maybe he’d grabbed on to something, but then he yelled as he disappeared under the curve of the rock. From where we stood, we couldn’t see if he had stayed on the path, or if he had fallen off the cliff.
Fawn screamed and came running down the cable trail.
“Move! Get out of my way!” She pushed through the people and flew — that’s what it really looked like — down through the cables and under the curve, so we couldn’t see her anymore either.
The rest of us were just frozen in place. I started to cry.
Next I heard Matt’s voice. “We need to keep moving! Whatever’s happened, we can’t fix it from up here. Let’s make sure we all get down safely, and then we’ll deal with whatever we find. Just focus on listening to me and nothing else.”
“Do what he says, Riley.” Dad said.
Matt kept yelling out directions, like “Step forward, take a breath, watch your feet,” and stuff like that.
“Almost there,” he finally said. I had no idea how long we had been climbing down, but it seemed like only seconds.
Then I heard the sobbing. Fawn’s sobbing. And I saw a large crowd looking over the side of the saddle.
Oh no. Flip’s dead!
Matt unhooked my harness from the cables and then told me, Dad, and Nate to go sit down — away from the crowd. Matt ran over and started ordering the crowd to do things. I heard him tell some of them to go get a ranger (I don’t know where from) and some to see if they had phone reception so they could call emergency services.
“You know what our job is — right?” Dad grabbed my hands and he started to pray. “Lord, we don’t know where Flip is right now, but protect him and everyone else who is trying to help him. Please, don’t let him die, Lord. Amen.”
I buried my head in my hands. I didn’t want to look anymore. Then my face got hot, so I pulled my hands away and just stared down . . . at my shoes.
Those dumb things. If it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t be here. And we’d all be okay.
“I have to throw up,” I said. I grabbed my stomach and got up to find a bush. There wasn’t one. Just rocks. No matter — I didn’t care who saw me. Dad followed and knelt down next to me to wipe my face with a damp cloth.
“I’m sorry, honey. This is my fault for allowing you to do this. I put all our lives in danger.”
Lives in danger.
I grabbed Dad’s shirt. “Where’s your phone?”
He looked surprised. “In my pack. Why?”
“You have to read Mom’s text. It said something about us being in danger. I think someone is trying to kill us!”
“What? Riley, calm down. You’re not thinking straight.”
I got up and ran to Dad’s pack.
Matt came over to meet us. “Flip’s alive. He landed right on the edge of the rock.”
“Thank God!” Dad’s eyes leaked tears and so did mine.
“He doesn’t appear to have any broken bones, but he’s unconscious and his pulse is very weak.”
I wiped my tears on my sleeve and breathed a sigh of relief. “So, what’s gonna happen now?”
“We’ve sent word to the rangers at Little Yosemite Valley, and we also sent a message up the cable trail for someone up there to call emergency services. We’re not in phone range here.”
Dad scratched his head and looked up at the sky. “How long till someone comes?”
“Hard to tell,” Matt said. “I don’t know if a helicopter can come up right now with storm clouds in the area.”
“Then we’ll just pray those clouds away,” Dad said.
“We’d all appreciate that,” Matt said as he went back to tend to Flip. I was grateful that Matt had some medical knowledge.
So we prayed again. This time, Dad took longer. I had a hard time concentrating, though, since I couldn’t stop thinking about the text from Mom.
He finally said amen, and I pushed the phone in his hands.
He scratched his head as he read it.
“What prints is she talking about?” I asked. “Who’s F&F?”
Dad thought for another moment. “Riley, you shouldn’t have looked at this.”
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to be nosey, but you have to tell me what it means!”
Dad put the phone back in his pack.
“No, I don’t. It has nothing to do with this situation.”
“Yes it does. I know it does!” I was yelling, and people started looking at us.
Dad grabbed me up in a big hug and then whispered in my ear. “Trust me, honey. We’re all going to be fine. We’ll talk more when we get home.”