CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

 

 

While Nathan and Zaluski kept firing at the thin metal bar keeping Micah and Frank’s gondola cabin in the air, Micah scrambled to think of what to do next.

The gondola suddenly stopped moving, inertia making the cabin sway back and forth. There had to be cops at the bottom who had pulled the plug. Maybe Gavin had taken care of Everett and he’d stopped the gondola.

Either way, it likely meant the law was inbound. How long would it take police to get up here? Would they come up on snowmobiles?

If Micah and Frank could hold out a little longer, this problem might solve itself. Assuming the glass didn’t crack and a bullet didn’t ricochet into Micah’s head as they hid on the floor of the gondola car.

And then, the shooting stopped. He poked his head up, found the two attackers standing there.

“What the hell happened?” Frank said, on the floor between the two benches.

“I think they ran out of ammo,” Micah said.

“Perfect. Now we can shoot back.” Frank scrambled to get to his feet, then he punched the emergency door release to open it. As he leaned out, Micah grabbed Frank’s arm.

“Wait, Frank. Look down.”

Micah pointed at a group of four hikers who were standing, fascinated, almost directly below them. Goggling like clueless children.

“Move out of the damn way!” Frank shouted. “Get out of here!”

The hikers looked up, waved. Maybe they hadn’t seen the guns. Thought the shots were fireworks or something.

“Let’s wait,” Micah said. “Cops have to be on their way.”

When Micah looked back up at Nathan’s cabin, his mouth dropped open. Zaluski was climbing out of their open gondola door, then he lifted himself on top of it. He stripped off his jacket and spun his arms to coil the jacket around itself. He knelt and placed it on top of the cable, letting the jacket fold over so it hung down, half on each side, like a towel on a drying rack. Then he grabbed two handfuls of jacket and dropped off the gondola, holding on like some kind of zipline hitch.

He was going to slide down the cable to collide with their cabin.

“Oh, shit,” Frank said.

Hikers be damned. Micah leaned out of the open door and fired off three shots. All three missed as Zaluski was now a blur of motion.

He slid down the cable. He’d be at their car in less than five seconds. Micah held out a moment longer for Zaluski to get closer, then he squeezed the trigger three more times, emptying his revolver.

Again, all three missed. The gondola was swaying, Zaluski was moving. Too hard to aim.

“Any more ammo for my .38?” Micah said.

Frank shook his head.

“This is bad.”

Zaluski slammed into the side of their gondola cabin, and wrapped his arms around it. He removed a machete hanging from a scabbard on his belt and started to pulled himself up.

Frank lifted his pistol, but before he could get off a clean shot, Zaluski scrambled up to the top of the cabin.

Out of view.

Micah then heard a clanging above them. “What the hell?”

It wasn’t just clanging. Zaluski was hitting something with his machete. Micah could feel the vibrations coming through the roof.

Zaluski was trying to unhinge their cabin from the cable track. “He’s trying to cut us loose.”

“Is he bat-shit insane?” Frank said. “If we crash, he does too.”

Micah peered out of the edge of the gondola. They were probably forty feet above the side of the mountain. In the gondola or out of it, this was a bad place to fall. The wind rushed by again, making the cabin sway side to side, and also bob up and down on the line.

The clanging persisted. “We have to do something,” Micah said.

Frank held up a hand to protest, but Micah ignored him. He climbed out the open door and scrambled up the side of the gondola. Cold, biting wind slashed at his exposed head and neck as he climbed.

When he could see up to the top, he understood why Zaluski wasn’t afraid. He had a rope tied around his waist, which was attached to a carabiner hooked onto the main cable.

And he was using a machete to dislodge the gondola wheels from the cable. There were three wheels that ran along the cable like a track. Zaluski had the machete between the cable and the wheels, working at separating them.

He managed to dislodge one, and the cable twanged like flicking a taut rubber band. The gondola cabin gave a painful creak and tilted toward the ground.

Zaluski briefly lost his balance, so Micah pulled himself on top of the gondola while his adversary was distracted.

Zaluski stopped what he was doing and sneered at Micah. “You broke my nose, asshole.”

“You stole my Nuggets cap. It evens out.”

Zaluski lunged, and Micah didn’t have anywhere to flee on the six by six metal roof. Tethered to the cable by a carabiner, Zaluski could make any move he wanted without worrying. If Micah moved his feet, he might slip and tumble to his death.

So he did the only thing he could: as Zaluski slashed with the machete blade, Micah raised his hands and attempted to swat it away. He managed to smack it with the back of his hand, and a searing pain sliced across his flesh. The blade had cut through his glove. He felt the coolness of the air meet the blood gathering in the cut.

Micah’s deflection had pushed Zaluski’s hands down, left his head exposed. Micah popped him in that broken nose.

Zaluski wailed, and Micah saw his chance. He tried to snatch the machete away, but instead, he only managed to knock it from Zaluski’s hands. Good enough. It clanged onto the metal roof of the gondola and then disappeared off the edge.

Pain exploded across Micah’s jaw as Zaluski cracked him with a right hook. He expected a left jab as a follow-up, so he pulled his head back a few inches and thrust his hands out to push Zaluski away.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something slither out of Nathan’s gondola cabin, toward the ground. A length of rope. Then, Nathan climbing down that rope, scurrying toward the ground.

“Frank!” Micah said.

“I see it,” Frank called back up. “There’s a rope under one of these benches. We have one too. I’m going after him.”

Micah didn’t have time to worry about Frank now. He’d disarmed Zaluski, but the European still had the upper hand. Micah was running out of room to evade the attacks. If Zaluski was smart, he’d go for Micah’s legs. Micah knew it would be too risky to jump to dodge a leg sweep. Zaluski would also figure that out soon enough.

“You killed Alec,” Zaluski said. “He was a good person and a good friend.”

“You need better friends.”

“I’m going to enjoy taking your life.”

Then, as he dodged another right hook from Zaluski, Micah saw how he could win. Zaluski had clipped his carabiner to the downhill side of the gondola wheels. That had been a careless mistake.

Micah took a step to the right, making Zaluski counter, so that his back was facing downhill. Micah had a flash of thought that he was about to do the most stupid thing he’d ever attempted in his entire life, and it would probably fail and he would tumble to the mountain where death would await him.

Then he told his brain to shut up and he lunged, wrapping his arms around Zaluski’s waist and pushing him off the edge of the gondola. They sailed through the air, Zaluski’s carabiner screeching along the cable as they hurtled toward the next gondola cabin, a hundred feet below them.

Zaluski flailed, punched at Micah’s head, but Micah took the hits and wouldn’t let go. He hugged Zaluski’s midsection with every ounce of strength he had in him. Instinct and adrenaline had taken over and Micah felt only the whiff of freezing wind on his face.

In another half a second, they slammed into the gondola cabin below them. With Zaluski involuntarily leading the downhill charge, his back took the brunt of the impact. He made no sound. Micah reached up to grab the metal frame of the cabin, and he noted that Zaluski’s head had lolled forward. Dead, or unconscious.

Micah didn’t care.

He transferred his weight onto the gondola and pressed the lever to open the door from the outside. Swung his body onto the floor. He’d only been airborne for about two seconds, but he felt much better with something solid under his feet.

Rope under the benches.

He lifted the bench lid and found a collection of equipment inside. Flare gun, granola bars, screwdriver set. And a long piece of brightly-colored rope knotted around a carabiner at one end.

Micah snatched the rope and hooked the carabiner to the hinge of the open door. He dropped the rope, and it barely ran long enough to reach the ground.

For the first time in fifteen or twenty seconds, he checked in on Frank. He and Nathan were facing off, standing on the angled side of the mountain.

Nathan was half Frank’s age and probably had fifty pounds on him. Micah had to get to him, fast. Frank might have been a star athlete back in his day, but he was way past that now. He might not last five seconds in an even fight with Nathan.

Frank raised his pistol but Nathan ducked and tackled Frank’s legs. When they’d both staggered back to their feet, the gun was a few feet away, a black dot in the snow.

Climbing down the rope would take too long. Micah cinched his gloves tightly and wrapped them around the rope. It would burn his hands, but the gloves would take most of the friction. At least, he hoped they would.

A gun blast sounded.

Frank and Nathan were struggling to get control of the pistol.

The last thing Micah glimpsed before he plunged down the rope line was Nathan stealing Frank’s gun away from him.