“Try not to think about it,” she said. Someone handed her a flashlight, then Tom gave her a drill and a plastic case holding bits. She stuffed her backpack. It was heavy. She hefted it, then put it on.

“Maggie, no,” Cal said.

She completely ignored him and grabbed one of Tom’s nylon climbing ropes, starting to wrap it around her waist. “I don’t have rappelling shoes and the pack is too heavy.”

“Let me go,” Tom said. “You can tell me what to do.”

“That’s not going to work. Get me down there. There isn’t time to talk about it.”

One of the other search-and-rescue members pulled the rope out of her hands and took over, making sure it was securely and safely tied around her waist. He fashioned a loop she could slip a hand through to hold on. Someone else handed her a helmet, which was just dumb luck—they didn’t typically wear helmets on the trails.

“Thanks. Let’s do this. I’m going down on a drop,” she said. “Way over here, the shortest distance to the ledge and the farthest from that weak spot that crumbled. I don’t have the right equipment to rappel and I don’t want to disturb any more rock and have it fall on him. You have to lower me. Take me down very slowly.”

She knew he probably had broken bones. She could tourniquet with a heavy length of double gauze or rope if necessary. She wasn’t wearing a belt but she had shoelaces and she could even take off her bra and use it as a tourniquet if necessary. He probably had a head injury; she could confirm or rule out. If there was an intracranial hemorrhage, he would die if it wasn’t relieved quickly. He could have a fractured skull, but if there wasn’t gray matter leaking, he had a chance.

She stood at the edge and sat down. “Tom! Get airlift support.”

“Done!” he said.

She turned, kneeling at the edge, facing the cliff. She edged backward and noted three men held the rope and slowly, let it out. It was the longest, most terrible twenty-five feet of her life and she didn’t remove that rope from around her waist when she felt her feet touch. She yelled up to them. “Hang on to the rope. In case...”

She squeezed into the very small area between Jackson and the ledge and removed her backpack. Remarkably, his legs seemed to be intact at first glance. Possible internal injuries. He was breathing; his respirations were good, his pulse stable. She wanted to know more about his spinal column and head. Right now she’d sell her soul for a real neck brace, but she thought she could improvise. She doubled a strip of blanket, slid it slowly and cautiously under his neck, over his shoulder to his chest. Then she did it again on the other side of his chest. She took a third strip, stabilizing his neck so she could carefully turn him. Then she reinforced that makeshift brace with the duct tape. He moaned. “Jackson, Jackson, don’t move, honey.”

Flashlight in hand, she looked into his eyes. She swore. The left pupil was huge; blown pupil. “Jackson, oh, Jackson,” she said.

His other eye opened, looking at her blankly.

She heard the sound of moving trucks, a helicopter in the distance. She dug in the backpack for gauze, alcohol, drill.

She prayed. God, I will trade anything for this kid’s life. Please, this once, make my mind clear and my hand steady.

“Gotta do this,” she said. She poured alcohol over his head on the same side as the affected pupil—that’s where the pressure would be. If she worked that drill bit too hard she could drive it right into his brain.

Trucks were moving, doors were slamming, rotor blades were spinning. She shut down her ears. She could only hear one thing, the inside of her head. She carefully turned him, lifting his shoulder and upper torso and holding him there, immobile. She fit a bit into the drill. The bit was bigger than she liked but she’d had patients in surgery with bullet holes in their head and pulled them through.