Chapter 1

MONICA’S FINGERS SHOOK AS THE FRIGID WATERS CRASHED beneath her. Hanging from a wire suspended over the raging river, Monica reached for the winch securing her to the cable, shoved it forward, and covered the last half-dozen feet to the shore. Her trembling hands fumbled with the catch connecting the cable to her harness and swung it loose. She dropped a few inches onto dry land, teetered a moment, then stood on two trembling legs, her feet sinking into the thick mud.

Monica Greene caught her breath and glanced heavenward. “Thank you,” she whispered.

She turned and faced the chasm she had just crossed. The Little River lay at the center of a beautiful gorge through Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Normally it was a serene paradise; after several days of tropical rains, it was a swollen chute of powerful floodwater.

“I’m on the ground,” she said into the radio clipped to her uniformed shoulder.

It crackled in response with a female voice. “How’d the wire hold up?”

“Not bad,” she answered.

Across the gap, her fellow ranger and friend Allison Blaze wore a typical yellow search and rescue helmet, but her red hair spilled out the borders of the headgear. She flashed a thumbs up.

A vicious crack! ripped through the valley. The trees upstream writhed back and forth, their trunks groaning under the windy strain. Monica’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. Blaze swung her head upstream at the sound.

“Any trees coming down?” she said.

Monica studied the forest as it continued its dance, but none of the trees seemed to be succumbing to gravity yet.

“We’re good for now,” Monica said.

Blaze stood and gestured toward the river. “I can come over there if you think it’ll help.”

“No,” Monica waved. “Stay put. I don’t want any of us exposed out there.”

“Okay,” Blaze answered, “but hurry. These kids are crying for their mom.”

Monica exhaled at the reassurance that Blaze would not cross the river and put herself in serious peril. In the short time Monica had been a Great Smoky Mountains ranger, she had really bonded with only one person, and that was Blaze.

Monica turned back to her side where a final victim was in need of rescue. A few yards up the trail, a female hiker huddled on the ground, shivering from the cold. The ranger jogged up to her and knelt.

“I’m Monica,” she said. “I’m here to help you. What’s your name?”

The woman’s lips quivered, already thick and purple. “Puh-Puh-Patricia,” she said, teeth chattering.

Monica smiled. “Hey, Patricia. I’m going to help you get back to your family.”

Patricia’s eyes took a look at the foaming waters, then she fiercely shook her head.

“I know you’re scared,” Monica said. “I am, too. We’ll go together, one step at a time.”

Patricia buried her face in her arms and didn’t move.

Monica wasn’t phased. This kind of fear was normal. Heck, she felt it herself.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” Monica continued. “You’ll be completely safe.”

She held up a black and yellow harness like the one she was wearing. “You don’t have to go into the river at all. We’ll pull you over on a cable.” Then she unclipped a spare helmet from her belt and set it before Patricia. “You can wear one of these. It’s essential that we protect our heads out here.”

Patricia lifted her eyes, exposing cheeks streaked with tears. She was a middle-aged woman, her long, braided black hair was draped over her shoulder, and her skin worn with exhaustion. While her eyes were battered with weariness and fear, they seemed to alight with hope of safely crossing the deluge and holding her kids again—

Another crack! split the air and Patricia hugged herself more tightly, retreating into her own personal cocoon.

Monica bit her lip and glanced across the river as it spewed and raged, throwing white plumes into the air while the forest shook with fury. Blaze waved at her.

“Give me a minute,” Monica said.

“We don’t have a minute!” Blaze answered, the radio crackling.

Monica laid a hand on Patricia’s knee.

“It’s okay to be scared,” she said, “but we have to go now. If we could helicopter you out, we would. But we can’t: there’s too much wind. This is the only way.”

Without waiting for permission, Monica took the harness and began threading it around one of Patricia’s mud-caked boots.

“I need you to put this on,” Monica said. “Come on—”

Another loud burst filled their ears and Patricia nearly leapt in the air.

“It’s okay,” Monia continued, her chest about to explode as adrenaline shot through her arteries. “We’re perfectly safe, I promise.”

Patricia lifted her legs just enough to let Monica shimmy the straps the rest of the way.

“Okay, let’s get you up,” Monica said.

Monica grasped Patricia’s hands and pulled, bringing the woman staggering to her feet. Monica yanked the harness up and arranged it around Patricia’s hips and clicked the two plastic ends together.

“Look at you,” Monica said, smiling. “Ready to go!”

Patricia’s eyes were wide, her skin white as milk. “A–almost.”

“Just one more thing,” Monica said. She held out the helmet again, the inside thick with gray foam.

For an agonizing moment, Patricia remained frozen in fear. But something within the terrified woman seemed to discover courage, and she slowly extended her hands to accept the helmet like a gift.

“You’re so brave,” Monica said as Patricia raised the helmet and placed it on her thick hair. Monica snapped the chinstrap under the woman’s jaw, then gently pulled it tight.

“Okay,” Monica said. “This way.”

She took Patricia’s hand and led her to the safety cable. The radio squawked with Blaze’s voice: “You ready?”

“Yes, we are,” Monica said boldly. She turned to Patricia. The woman was staring at the river, her mouth hanging open. Monica’s heart dropped into her guts.

She’s not going to budge.

“Just a few steps more, sweetheart,” Monica said, taking the harness strap in hand.

“No,” Patricia said, shaking her head.

“I know it’s not easy,” Monica said. “I promise you’ll be safe.”

“No, no!”

“We’re almost there. I just need you to step this way—”

“No!”

At that, Patricia fell backward and the harness strap slipped from Monica’s fingers.

“Patricia, please!” Monica said. “We’re all waiting for you!”

“I can’t!” the woman cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, but I can’t!”

As hot blood flooded her ears, Monica knew she had to do something. It was never wise to force someone to cross a river like this, but there wasn’t time to delay. Monica leaned over, grabbed the harness, and hauled Patricia back up. Monica suddenly felt fiery pain burning over her arms.

Patricia was clawing at her!

Monica let go and the woman flopped to the ground like wet spaghetti, then lay panting and coughing.

The radio burst to life. “Monica!”

She whirled and gasped; Blaze had attached herself to the rescue line.

“No, stay there!” Monica cried.

“I’m coming over to help you,” Blaze insisted.

“Allison, I’m fine—”

“Don’t try to move her yet. Just wait for me.”

Her friend kicked off from the shore and began sliding over the water. When her momentum stopped, Blaze began pulling herself hand over hand as the white waves boiled below.

Monica spun back to the poor, terrified individual on the ground. “Patricia,” Monica said, “I’m sorry for grabbing you, but we have to get you back to your family.”

“Don’t touch me,” the woman whimpered. “Please don’t….”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Monica said, the words flying from her quivering lips. “How about this? You tell me something about yourself and I’ll get you across this river. It’ll be easy.”

The woman shook her head.

“It’s going to be okay,” Monica said. “Where is your family from?”

But Patricia shook her head, protesting every bit of it. “I don’t want to, I don’t want to!”

As if on cue, another crack! cut through the forest like a gunshot. Monica turned just in time to see a mighty tulip poplar tree begin a slow dive into the creek.

“Blaze!” Monica cried.

The enormous trunk slammed into the waters with a thundering boom, launching geysers high in the air. The dislodged water hovered a moment, spattered a few thousand leaves, then rained down. Monica shielded her eyes from the torrent and watched as the trunk slid along the path of the river, inching toward Blaze dangling on the safety line.

“Get out of there!” she screamed.

Blaze took a quick look at the oncoming threat with enormous eyes then began hauling herself across, her thick arms flying over her head. The tree teetered on a lip of rock and rolled with a series of deep thuds, then jammed into a clump of debris that was choking a narrow passage. It no longer moved.

“Allison, go back now!” Monica said into her radio.

Blaze shook her head, and hastily pointed toward the cowering hiker.

Monica cast a suspicious glance at the tree, water bubbling under and over it where it had stopped.

“Hurry, then,” she muttered, then crouched beside Patricia once more. “You can do this. Just tell me where you and your family are visiting from.”

“L–London,” Patricia stammered.

“You came all this way?” she said to Patricia. “Is this your first time in the Smokies?”

Patricia nodded, her breath heaving as she continued to stare at the river. Monica glanced at it and Blaze was still moving, her body swinging back and forth as the cable swayed under her effort.

“Well,” Monica said, “you’ve definitely been on quite the adventure.”

Patricia sniffed loudly and began wagging her head back and forth. “I’m not going,” she moaned. “I’m not going, I’m not….”

“Hey,” Monica said, laying a hand on Patricia’s arm. “We’ll be with you all the way. I promise.”

Patricia shook her head. “I’m a terrible mother,” she whimpered, her voice barely audible below the roar of the water.

Monica swallowed. “That’s not true. I’m sure you’re a great mother.”

“I left my children,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes. “And now I’m too scared to go to them!”

“You did what was best,” Monica said, squeezing her arm with a gentle grasp. “You made sure they were safe first.”

“I shouldn’t have even brought them here,” Patricia wailed. And then she fell into a bout of loud weeping.

Monica began to speak but stopped herself. Patricia wasn’t wrong. She shouldn’t have brought her family here. For nearly a week the region had been under threat of a tropical storm. Dozens had ignored the advice and sojourned into the backcountry anyway; and when the rains came and the waters rose, they were cut off.

Monica swallowed and turned her attention back to Blaze.

She wasn’t moving.

Instead, the ranger hung from the wire, rubbing vigorously at her face.

“What’s wrong?” Monica radioed.

Blaze shook her head, then pointed furiously at her eye. She groped at the radio on her uniform until her broken, static-ridden words broke through: “My eye—damned rock or something—hurts like a—”

The transmission cut to silence, and for a moment Monica watched her friend jam a finger into her eye socket.

Then the forest erupted again. Snapping branches popped all around her like the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun. The colossal tulip poplar trunk broke through the wall of debris and spun over the water, a rolling pin of bark and branches. It jammed on another precipice under the surface, then slid onward with an earth-shaking crash, moving right toward Blaze.

“Allison!” Monica screamed.

Blaze blinked as the toppled tree rolled and bobbed down the river, speeding toward her. She looked to the far shore and back toward Monica, as if in a cry for help. Then she reached for her harness and began working furiously at the catch.

The wall of wood raced toward her.

“Blaze!” Monica shouted. “Move!”

The fallen tree barreled forward, accelerating until it slammed like a battering ram into a protruding stone. A calamitous boom! stung every ear deaf as the two forces collided. The giant poplar wobbled over the stone, surged upward in the current, and thudded over with an earth-shaking splash.

Then Blaze disappeared.

Monica blinked as the tree tumbled under the safety cable down the mountain. Only a thin metal wire remained where Blaze had been.

Her friend was gone.