Part 8: The God Rise Up, Damn My Soul

Mathias took a deep breath and tugged at the bottom of his shirt standing outside of the Red Pony. He had thought about Echo all day and finally talked himself into coming back to the bar to see if he could see her again. Running his hands through his hair, he took a deep breath and walked in. Echo wasn't sitting in her normal place, so he scanned the bar to see if she was anywhere at all but found nothing.

He walked over and took a seat beside Echo's stool and raised his hand towards Henry. Henry nodded his head and carried over a beer and placed it in front of Mathias. "How are you today, Mathias?" Mathias just gave him a funny look so Henry continued. "She has not yet arrived this evening, but she does always come. Be patient."

Mathias grunted at him and Henry chuckled as he walked off.

About an hour had gone by since Mathias had arrived when the phone rang, Henry walked over and answered "It's a beautiful day at the Red Pony and continual soiree. Well hello Vic, wait slow down, no she is not here. What's going on?" Mathias ears perked up and his adrenaline started rushing as Walt came busting into the bar.

"Is Echo here, has she been here today?" Henry hung up the phone and Mathias stood up.

"No Walt, I have not seen her at all today. What is going on?"

Walt started rubbing his hands over his face, "She took a call today and no one has seen or heard from her since. Her phone goes straight to voicemail, we can't get ahold of her on her radio, she isn't at her house, and now she's not here."

Mathias spoke up at this point, "What are you trying to say, Longmire? Where did she take this call?"

That's when Walt looked at them with a painful look on his face, "It means she's still on the mountain."

"IN ALL THIS SNOW?! WHY DID SHE GO UP ON THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SNOW?!" Mathias yelled throwing his hands up in the air.

"Let's take this in my office." Henry offered to the them, but Walt shook his head.

"No, I need to get back to the office and figure out how to find her. If you want to help, you can come with me, but I won't have you yelling at me."

Henry yelled over to one of his other bartenders and told them they were in charge while he grabbed his jacket. "Henry, you don't have to do this."

"You will not be leaving me behind, I'm going to help find our girl." With that they all headed out to their cars and headed to town to join with Vic and Ferg at the office.

Ruby was beside herself at the office, Walt kept telling her to go on home, but she refused. Ferg was full of guilt and blaming himself for not taking the call, and Vic was standing at the window looking out, staying silent.

"There's no way up the mountain tonight, the snow is too deep. It has stopped, but the snow plows can't get up there until morning."

"So we just leave her up there for the night? What if she's hurt, and even if she's not, she could freeze to death." Mathias said while pacing the floor.

Walt was standing over a map stretched across his desk, studying every piece of it. He looked up from it to Mathias, "I know, I've called for snow mobiles, but they won't be here until morning either."

"Then what about horses?" Mathias snapped back.

"Horses could do it, but not safely. We could end up in the same position as her, stuck on the mountain AND if she's injured, that would do none of us any good."

"I will walk at this point, Longmire. If we don't get to her tonight, we may not get her back at all."

"Mathias, Walt is right. Even if we went up on foot, there is not a way we could get her back safely. We need to wait until morning, it's our best chance at finding her and bringing her back safely."

Mathias looked between Henry and Longmire, he was full of rage and worry at this point. He leaned over and grabbed his jacket from the chair and headed out of the office and down the stairs.

"Mathias!" He ignored them and kept heading for his car. "Mathias, wait!" Henry came running up beside of him, "Don't be stupid, I can see it on your face. We must listen to Walt and wait."

Mathias finally turned to face Henry and rubbed his hand down his face, "I can't sit here and let her die, Standing Bear. I have to do something."

Henry stood there for a moment, "Here, these are the keys to my shed beside of the Red Pony. There should be some supplies in there, but I don't know what. When you find her, keep her safe until morning. We'll get to you both." he gave Mathias the set of keys and turned to head back into the Sheriffs Office.

Mathias rushed to his car, it was getting colder, and she may not have a lot of time.

It was dark when Echo came to, her whole body hurt and at the same time she was so cold she couldn't feel anything. She was laying face down in the snow, her body wrapped around a tree. Her shoulder was definitely out of socket, her leg was possibly broken, maybe even a couple ribs, she wasn't sure. It took her a couple tries, but she eventually was able to sit up, her head spinning. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the tree and took a couple deep breaths. When it passed she finally looked around, they had fallen off the side of the road and down the cliff. She craned her head up to see if she was able to climb back up, but it was so high up and as hurt as she was, she knew she'd never make it up, and honestly she was surprised she was still alive in the first place.

Checking out her surroundings and looking for her attacker she realized that hitting the tree kept her from going into the river, but her assailant must not have been so lucky. No body anywhere in sight, and there was no way he had been able to make it back up the cliff himself. She knew she had to do something other than sit there and freeze, she was shaking so bad that it was hurting everything that was already hurt.

She could see a small cave off to her right, it wouldn't do much, but at least it would give her shelter from the elements until daylight. Tucking her hurt arm into the front of her jacket as a sling, she pushed herself off the ground and took a couple steps towards the cave, but she stumbled and fell. Catching herself before falling into the river, she pulled herself up again. Using a tree to keep her balance, she tried again to limp towards the cave, slipping once again, but this time couldn't catch herself and tumbled back into the ice cold water. The water cut through her skin and down to the bone, she screamed as she crawled her way back onto the land.

Echo flopped over onto her back and stared at the sky, the snow had stopped falling and the clouds had left. A bright moon and stars lit up the sky, it was absolutely beautiful. Here she had survived 12 years being shot at, blown up, tortured in a desert, and now she's going to freeze to death in the mountains of Wyoming laying in snow. She started laughing, couldn't stop it, this deep manical laughter that came from deep down in her body fought its way out of her frozen mouth.

It wasn't helping that one star looked like it was getting closer and closer to her, like it was falling out of the sky and coming right to her. It wasn't until she started blacking out that she noticed the star had a voice, and it was talking to her. Which just made her start laughing even harder, and then she passed out.

Mathias had just found Echos truck when he heard her scream, he ran to the edge of the road and looked down. The moon was so bright he could see her body laying beside the river and his heart sank. He immediately started scrambling down the cliff, finding footholes where he could and holding onto the trees, the last thing he needed to do was fall and break his neck trying to get to her.

The closer he got to her, he could swear she was laughing, but it was the weirdest laugh he'd ever heard. It was almost like she knew this was her last laugh, and his need to get to her became more urgent, she was giving up, she was dying. Finally he made it to the bottom of the cliff and was running to her, she was looking right at him, this big smile across her face, then her eyes closed.

"No no no no no, wake up Echo, you hear me? I'm here and I need you to wake up." he had fallen down beside of her and started shaking her. Her clothes were soaking wet and she was so cold, her hair had started freezing. Mathias looked around and saw the same cave that she had, reaching under her he pulled her into his arms and carried her into the shelter. He laid her down gently and began gathering supplies to make a fire, grabbing the lighter from the backpack he got to work. Once he had it going he went over and pulled her shoes from her feet, knowing he needed to get the wet clothes off of her.

As he was pulling the clothes from her and throwing them to the side, he grabbed the warm clothes he'd brought and started redressing her as fast as he could without causing anymore damage to her body. He studied the injuries, but still wasn't sure how bad she was hurt until she would wake up. Once he had her redressed, he wrapped her up into the sleeping bag he brought and then laid her head in his lap. "C'mon girl, I need you to wake up ok? You can't leave me yet." He was running his hand through her hair, he had moved her closer to the fire and her hair had begun to dry.

"Echo, you are strong, you are a warrior, come back to me." he leaned down and pressed his lips to her cold forehead and closed his eyes.

"You smell like sunshine."

Mathias jerked his head back to find her bright green eyes staring up at him, he was so happy he just started laughing and took her head between both his hands and kissed her forehead again. "What does the sun smell like?"

"Warmth." she said and chuckled too.

"How bad are you hurt?"

"My shoulder is out of socket, broken ribs, maybe my leg, I'm not sure. If you'll help me sit up, we can at least pop it back in." Mathias moved to help her sit up and propped her against the cave.

"This is going to hurt, I'll count to three ok?" Echo just nodded her head "Ok, one..two" Echo screamed as he popped it back in. "Are you ok?"

Echo just laughed and her teeth started chattering again so hard that Mathias was afraid her teeth were going to break. "Get back in the sleeping bag, I need to get you warm."

She couldn't even answer him, she just scooted back down into the sleeping bag like he said. Mathias crawled over and got into the sleeping bag as well, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tight to his chest. She was shivering so hard it felt like she was having a seizure, so he just pulled her closer.

They laid there for what felt like hours before her shivering started to slow, Mathias thought that she had fallen asleep but then she spoke up.

"Why did you come for me?"

Mathias pulled his head back to look down at her, "You would've come for me."

She tugged up the corner of her mouth, "Just a bunch of idiots aren't we?"

Mathias laughed, "Yeah I guess we are, but we're both alive because of the other one. So at least alive idiots. Echo, how did you fall off the side of a mountain?"

"Oh, right. It was a man, tackled me and then we rolled off the side."

Mathias sat up real quick, "Someone did this to you?! Where are they?" Echo could tell he was going to jump out of the sleeping bag to go search for this man, but she reached up and grabbed his shirt to get his attention.

"I don't know, I think he ended up in the river and got carried off. I didn't see him when I woke up, but if he was still out there, theres no way he's still alive."

Mathias really thought about it then got situated back into the sleeping bag and pulled him to her again. "We just got to make it until morning, they'll come find us or I'll get you out of here. Get some rest, Red."

Echo didn't need to be told twice, she was exhausted. She pressed her face into his chest and breathed in his scent and dozed off.