Chapter 33: Mountain Rescue

"Okay, what's the sitch?" Ron asked Kim. Their ride had just picked him up at his house. As instructed, he had packed his arctic and mountain climbing gear. Wade had arranged for additional gear to be waiting for them at the rescue site.

"A mountain slash arctic type rescue," she replied, while pulling up a map on her laptop. "There has been a series of avalanches, in the High Rockies, near these resorts. Fortunately, there haven't been any casualties but there are a lot of people stranded. Weather has moved in so no helicopters can get into the area. All rescue efforts are going to be ground based. The Search and Rescue crews have the major resorts covered but we have an unprepared couple, in an isolated cabin that needs to be pulled out. They've run out of food and they don't have any skis or snowshoes. The girls 'rents called in a half hour ago to see if we can get them out."

Ron considered this. "I'm willing to bet that we can't get in with snowmobiles, otherwise someone would have just drove in and picked them up."

Kim nodded her head and indicated the map. "The only vehicle access to the cabin is up this valley. There's no road, only a trail. You can take an ATV in the summer or a snowmobile in the winter. The problem is that avalanches have fallen into the valley in at least three places. That's blocked all travel up the valley. The snow is too high and unstable to risk trying to cross it." She shared a look with Ron. "It's all footwork, partner."

Ron faked a sigh. "I guess we don't have to feel guilty about missing our cardiovascular workout tomorrow." Kim snorted and Ron studied the map. After a few minutes he pointed to a road. "Is this highway still open?"

"Yes, but the lowest slide just missed it."

Ron continued while pointing at the map. "So, we get dropped off here, scale this cliff and set up a winch at the top. Then we snowshoe up the valley, keeping near the top of this ridge. It should be above any avalanche piles and the prevailing winds should have kept the snow accumulations down. We follow the ridge until we're just above the cabin then drop down, pick up the couple, and guide them back. Once at the cliff, we connect them to the winch and lower them to the highway."

Kim smiled at him. "Just what I was thinking, except I had a little more information. Wade is arranging for some food, good winter gear clothing, extra snowshoes, and a sleigh to carry it all. They aren't equipped so we're going to have to bring in gear for them. We'll feed them before putting them out in the cold."

Ron agreed. "It's cold enough right now and it'll be colder when we get to them. They'll need something in their stomachs before going outside. By the way, who are they?" Kim told him. "Her!?"

Kim favored him with an expression somewhere between a smile and a scowl. "Yep, she and her latest boy-toy decided to grab a little privacy from all of the celebrity press and wound up stranded."

"Kim, I don't mean to criticize but this isn't our usual mission. I mean, that family is wealthy enough to hire some help on their own. Why are we taking this one on?"

"Three reasons, partner. First of all, all of the professional help is either all tied up in the resort rescues or is at least two full days away. Secondly, this will be the first mission since your hip has healed. It isn't a life-or-death struggle, but some climbing and a whole lot of tough hiking will tell us if you're back at full capacity. Thirdly, we don't have any other requests at this time, so we will do what we can."

Ron nodded his acceptance. "If nothing else, she's so small that we can probably carry her out if we have to. I don't know about her latest boy-toy, but she seems to like them big and buff, so he should be able to keep up with us."

The two teens settled back and napped for the rest of the ride. They reached the resort town just before dawn on Saturday. Their ride took them to a bus depot where they picked up the additional gear Wade had sent, then took them out to their drop off point. From there, they executed the plan they had discussed earlier. Three more hours of hard activity saw them high on the ridge, looking down at the cabin.

They were about twenty minutes out, so they called the girl's parents and had them warn the couple that rescue was about to arrive. Like Ron said, the couple might just be 'staying warm' and showing up then might be embarrassing, educational, but embarrassing. It turns out that they didn't need to worry. The couple, who had only met two weeks earlier, was hungry, scared, and blaming each other for being trapped. The only reason that they weren't yelling at each other when Kim and Ron arrived was that they had already yelled each other out. Much to Kim's shock, Ron took charge of the situation and started to relieve the tension.

Ron lugged the spare gear into the small cabin and 'asked' Kim to unload the winter gear and help the couple try it on. While she was doing this, he busied himself with the food they had brought and the cabin's propane stove. Soon, the smells of a good meal filled the cabin. The two teens then fitted the couple with snowshoes and had them practice walking around the cabin while Ron finished the meal. The quasi-celebrities were much calmer after they had eaten. It was time to hike out.

Unfortunately for the teen team, the couple still wasn't talking to each other and they both felt like talking. Ron escaped the worst of it since the couple thought that he was some form of rescue-chef. Kim, however, had a very long hike out. The heiress deluged Kim with invitations to parties and events, saying that the teen was 'hot' and should make herself more visible. The boy-toy kept hitting on her, saying that the two of them could be headlining all the gossip shows. Not only was Kim not interested in the offers, she quickly became tired of the conversation. With a surreptitious wink to Ron, she picked up the pace.

This move had the desired effect of stopping the conversation by forcing the couple to gasp for air rather than talk. However, Ron paid the price this time. The heiress couldn't keep up the pace and collapsed from exhaustion. They had no choice but to load her in the sleigh so that Ron could haul her behind him. Ron was definitely feeling the strain by the time they reached the cliff, but he took some consolation in the fact that the buff boy-toy was struggling to keep up with him.

Once at the cliff, the teens realized that the heiress had called her publicist while riding the sleigh. The road below was filled with photographers. The teens shrugged their shoulders and lashed the boy-toy into a lowering seat and connected him to the winch. Ron prepared to descend and guide the man while Kim operated the winch. The man leered at Kim and said that he would rather have her clinging to him on the way down. After Kim gave him the choice of a conscious or unconscious descent, he chose conscious with Ron guiding him. Once he got the boy-toy down, Ron climbed back up and repeated the process for the heiress.

From the top of the cliff, he could see the boy-toy, surrounded my media, obviously relishing the spotlight. That same media pack ignored him the moment the heiress appeared at the top of the cliff. Ron saw a sea of camera lenses pointing in his direction as he started down, guiding the heiress's descent. He quickly flashed Kim a miserable look and swore she giggled at him. The heiress was scared, so Ron kept up a steady chatter with her, letting her know what was happening and telling her of the progress they had made. When they reached the ground, he was surprised that she followed his request to walk to the other side of the highway. The media followed her, which allowed Kim to lower the gear to Ron without worrying about anybody getting in the way.

By the time Kim had lowered the winch to Ron, both the heiress and her boy-toy had left, with most of the media following them. The few that remained got some great pictures of Kim performing an Australian rappel. With Kim on the ground, Ron gratefully faded into the background and packed their gear while Kim spoke to the remaining reporters. After a few questions almost all of the remaining media left. One last reporter, from a local station, gave the teens a ride back to the bus depot. Kim and Ron answered a few more questions on the way.

Their ride back to Middleton was two hours away from picking them up, so the teens had a chance to clean and stow their gear, then finish most of their homework. Finally, they were in the back of a drafty service van on the way back to Middleton. Ron did a quick calculation and estimated that they would arrive home at about 3:00 AM the following morning. Thank goodness today was Saturday.

Kim and Ron decided that finishing their homework in the cold van just wouldn't work, so they unbundled their sleeping bags and tried to get some sleep. Crawling into the bags while trying to stay on the single bench seat was awkward at best, so they unzipped the bags to make blankets and crawled under them. Ron fell asleep immediately but Kim stayed awake for awhile, thinking.

Before Kim had driven her into exhaustion, the heiress had talked a lot about the various men that had passed through her life. She talked about the actors, the rich boys, the models, and the athletes. She had then asked Kim about the men in her life. Kim had admitted, honestly, that she had only ever had one real boyfriend and that it had been a little awkward. She had then pointed out that between her hero-work and her student activities, she really didn't have much time to devote to the boyfriend thing. The heiress had immediately said that she was silly and that a girl as recognizable and as hot as her should have several gorgeous hunks lined up.

Kim shook her head. While she had no intention of ever going through relationships at that rate, she did have to admit that she felt a little lonely when she saw the teen couples in high school. She also felt lonely when the other girls on the squad talked about their boyfriends. She sighed, she didn't consider herself boy-crazy by any means, she just thought it would be nice to have a guy to do things with. She snorted a quiet laugh while thinking of the power couple they had just rescued. She did not want a relationship like that. A day trapped together and they were at each other's throats. If not for her and Ron…

Ron.

She looked at him, sleeping next to her. Talk about a guy to do things with, they did everything together! She giggled as she thought about the other girls talking about where they went and what they did with their boyfriends. She couldn't remember any of their stories involving scuba diving, paragliding, skydiving or freak fighting. They had been on the cheerleading squad together, did homework together, went to see movies together and hung out on weekends with each other. He was one of the reasons that she and Josh had broken up and she was one of the reasons for him and Sue splitting. Apparently neither Josh nor Sue could come to grips with the friendship they shared.

Back when they were freshmen and sophomores, he had embarrassed her. He seemed to have the same old Middle School attitude towards life and it hadn't adapted to High School. Even at the beginning of this year he had seemed childish most of the time. Sure, when she needed him on the missions he always stepped up but he seemed so lazy and needy the rest of the time. That had changed when he had returned from Japan. Oh, he still liked to be silly when he could but he had really become responsible with his life. He must have experienced some major revelations during that week at Yamanouchi.

That thought brought a frown to her face and a name to her mind, Yori. It bothered her that he had shared some upsetting incident with Yori, but not with her. It bothered her when Yori showed up and Ron had immediately leapt to her assistance. It had really bothered her when she had kissed him. Why should she be concerned about a pretty girl kissing Ron on the cheek?

Come to think of it, Monique was right and it had really bothered her when she saw him with Sue. She had admitted that she was jealous of the time he had spent with Sue but was that as far as it had gone? Was she jealous that Sue was another girl? Why was she threatened that Yori, thousands of miles away, was so clearly fond of him?

Did that make him her crush?

She surprised herself by not laughing at the idea. She studied him a little more. He had really changed since the beginning of the school year. The 'never be normal' outcast had changed into a friendly, respectable student. Oh, he still wasn't big on normalcy but he was more funny than weird. She now realized that for the first two years of high school, she had stayed friends with him due to their long history. Now, he was definitely good friend material.

Maybe good boyfriend material?

She snorted. That would take some getting used to. After over a dozen years of friendship, she wasn't going to be able to look at him like that overnight. Even if she wanted to, which she wasn't sure that she did. She remembered both Tara and Yori. Both girls had obvious crushes on him and he had flat out missed it both times. But then again, with over a dozen years of friendship behind them, she had plenty of time to make up her mind, and act on it if she chose to.

He had taken off his parka and snow pants before covering himself with his sleeping bag, leaning up against the side of the van and drifting off. She had done the same and was feeling just a little too chilly to sleep. Impulsively, she threw her sleeping bag over his and wormed her way under the two, with him. She noticed that it was much warmer even as she rested her head on his shoulder. Sure, she had slept under the same blankets with him, even resting her head on his shoulder like this, before. But never while thinking of him like this.

I could get used to this, she thought as her eyelids got heavier.

Both teens slept peacefully for the rest of their ride.