“Yes, but without compromising safety.” That was always the trick.
He showed her some of the other innovations he’d made, explaining what was different and how they worked—a self-belaying device that might help arrest a fall, a brake plate that accommodated several ropes, enabling one person to belay an entire vertical evac team, the original wheel lock mechanism for the rescue litters.
“You really are a genius.” She set the wheel lock down. “Have you ever thought of leaving your job and just making climbing gear?”
“I have thought about that.” He’d thought about it a lot. “I’m not sure I could make a living at it, and I’m afraid that turning something I enjoy into a job would take all the fun out of it. This is where I come to relax—when I’m not climbing.”
“Have you patented any of your designs?”
He shook his head. “I want other rescue teams to be able to use these and to improve on them. Remember when I said that part of life is finding out what your gift is and sharing it? This and the Team is how I share it. No patents.”
She reached up, put her palm against his chest. “You have a big heart, Chaska Belcourt.”
He bent down to kiss her, when his pager went off, making her jump. He drew it out of his back jeans pocket, scrolled through the message.
MAN SET TO JUMP OFF 1st FLATIRON. HAS A FIREARM.
Shit.
“A rescue?” Naomi asked.
“Yeah. Looks like some poor person has lost it.”
Naomi followed him out of the workshop. “I’ll come with you.”
“Not this time.” He locked the door, explained. “The guy is threatening to jump off the First Flatiron—and he has a firearm.”
“What are you supposed to do—climb up to him and get shot?”
“I have no idea.” Chaska hurried toward the house, Naomi following as fast as she could on crutches. “We’ve never been toned out on something like this before. Usually, we get called about suicides after the fact. Body recovery.”
“How terrible.”
He opened the back door for her. “You can stay in the ops room at The Cave and listen on the radio. Or maybe you’d be happier staying home or spending the afternoon with Win at the clinic. Regardless, you need to decide now.”
“He’s standing on the edge with a pistol in his mouth now.”
Naomi sat in the ops room beside Megs, barely able to breathe, listening to a tactical channel on the radio as a man’s life fell completely apart, the drama punctuated by bursts of static and long stretches of silence.
“Flatiron Command, have we made contact?”
“Negative. We’re still waiting for that bullhorn. I’m not putting anyone in the line of fire here.”
Megs had explained to Naomi what was going on. Naomi wouldn’t have been able to understand most of it otherwise. Right now, Chaska and the other Team members were in a staging area, out of range of the man’s pistol, wearing their gear plus body armor, and waiting for the green light to move in and bring the man down. But first, the man had to put down his weapon and agree to be saved.
“What happens if he jumps?”
Megs pulled up an image of the First Flatiron on her computer screen. It was a massive slab of red rock that jutted out of the mountainside. “If he jumps, we’ll pick up the pieces. It’s a thousand feet down, and he’d be bouncing on rock the entire way.”
The thought made Naomi’s stomach knot.
Long minutes ticked by, until, finally, the bullhorn arrived.
“Flatiron Command, he says his name is Lucas Graham. He says he’ll shoot anyone who comes near him.”
Naomi’s stomach knotted. She knew that Chaska and the other Team members had been issued body armor, but that didn’t cover their entire bodies, did it?
Then the radio fell silent while the hostage negotiator began speaking with the man. Every once in a while, someone gave an update over the radio, keeping everyone in the staging area informed.
“I’ve spent my life around men, especially young men—climbers, like Chaska. I’ve watched dozens upon dozens, maybe hundreds, of guys try to hook up with women, go from one girlfriend to the next. I’ve watched all the mating ritual bullshit. You name it, I’ve seen it, been the target of it. But I’ve never seen Belcourt with any woman—until you. He’s one of the good ones. Hold onto him.”
Naomi stared at her, touched that Megs, who seemed so flippant most of the time, had shared this with her. “I’ll do my best.”
A burst of static. “Flatiron Command, we ran that name, break.”
“Go ahead.”
“The suspect is a thirty-nine-year-old male. He’s a combat veteran. He was recently arrested for disorderly conduct at the Denver VA. Charges were dropped.”
The information was conveyed to the hostage negotiator, while the sheriff’s department went back to digging, trying to find the pieces of this man’s identity, the broken fragments of his soul, so that the negotiator could reach him.
Naomi waited for a break in the radio traffic to ask Megs another question. “If he puts down the gun and agrees to come down, will the Team go up at that point and bring him down?”
Megs shook her head. “If he puts the gun down, he can always pick it up. I don’t want my people going in until that weapon is beyond his reach.”
“Flatiron Command, we have more information for you. Break.”
“Go ahead.”
“The suspect’s wife recently filed for divorce. He has three kids—two boys and a girl—all under age ten. His wife told us he has PTSD and was at the VA trying to get treatment when he was arrested. Apparently, he was waitlisted. The wife’s name is Kaylee. The children’s names are Pike, Flynn, and Harper.”
Naomi’s heart broke for him.
The deputy went on to spell the children’s names phonetically and give them their ages, trying to arm the hostage negotiator, a woman, with information she could use.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.
Another burst of static. “He’s sitting down now. He is sitting down, and he has dropped the weapon.”
“Flatiron Command, is that confirmed?”
“Affirmative. He has dropped the weapon over the back. Sixteen-ninety-four has retrieved it.”
Naomi let out a relieved breath.
“That’s Moretti.” Megs got to her feet. “You hungry?”
Naomi shook her head. She couldn’t eat now.
Megs disappeared into the kitchen.
“Sixteen-ninety-four. I’d like to leave my position to speak with the negotiator.”
“Sixteen-ninety-four, go ahead.”
“I’m a combat veteran. I’ve walked in his shoes. I think I can help.”
Megs reappeared with a granola bar and an apple. “I hope Moretti knows what he’s doing.”
For the next hour, Moretti talked with the man, first via bullhorn, and then via cell phone after the man gave Moretti his number.
“Flatiron Command, he says he’ll let us bring him down if we guarantee that he gets to see a doctor.”
It struck Naomi as tragic that a man with PTSD, a man who’d served his country, had to threaten to kill himself and others to get immediate attention. Now, all of these people—sheriff’s deputies, rangers, and the Team—were scrambling to try to save him.
Megs picked up the mike. “Flatiron Command, this is Team Ops.”
“Team Ops, go ahead.”
“No member of the Team is to approach the suspect without first being on belay. They should set up the anchor before anyone goes near him.” Megs set down the mic, turned to Naomi. “I don’t want him changing his mind and dragging one of my people over the edge with him.”
Dear God! Neither did Naomi.
“Team Ops, copy that.”
Time dragged by.
“Flatiron Command, the Team is in position. The anchor is ready.”
“That would be Belcourt,” Megs said. “That’s his specialty.”
Another burst of st
atic. “Sixteen-ninety-four has reached the suspect. He’s getting the climbing harness on him now.”
Finally, the news they’d all been waiting for.
“They’re bringing him down. They’re on the way down the back rappel now. Sixteen-ninety-four has him with Sixteen-seventy-two on belay.”
“That’s Moretti and Chaska.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” Naomi took a deep breath.
It was over.
When Chaska backed Rescue One into its bay, Naomi was waiting for him. By the time he’d opened the door and stepped out, she was there, a beautiful smile on her face. He drew her into his arms, kissed her. “Were you able to listen in?”
“I listened to the whole thing. I was so scared for all of you—and for him, too. But you all got him down.”
Hawke walked up behind them. “Moretti got him down. Where is that bastard?”
Chaska glanced toward the parking lot. “He’s just pulling in.”
They welcomed him with cheers and high fives.
“Way to go, Moretti.”
“It’s a good thing you did, man.”
“That took guts, bro.”
Moretti wasn’t having it. “Okay, all right. Everyone shut up.”
Then Megs stepped out of the ops room, walked over to him, and gave him a hug. “I don’t know whether to kick your ass or buy you a drink. Way to go.”
She stepped back. “Let’s do a sort and reload on the gear and do a quick debriefing. Moretti, I think I will buy you a drink.”
Moretti shook his head. “I promised him I would look in on his wife and kids, explain to his wife what had happened, ask her maybe to wait on the divorce.”
Megs gave him a motherly pat on the arm. “You are a brave man.”
Chaska helped unload the rope bags and carry them to the large sinks where they’d be washed by hand and then sat through a quick debriefing with the others who had participated in this rescue. The idea was to talk about what they’d done right and what they ought to have done better. Everyone agreed that their part of this operation had gone off without a hitch.
“I’ve got a suggestion,” Chaska said.
Megs looked up from the clipboard where she was making notes. “Out with it.”
“We ought to buy two bullhorns, one for each rescue vehicle.”
Moretti nodded. “Great idea.”
“Yeah. Right on.”
Chaska explained. “The county brought its hostage negotiating team, but they didn’t have a bullhorn. We waited for more than an hour with this guy threatening to jump or shoot himself or shoot us while they had some deputy drive a bullhorn from halfway across the county. If we’d been able to get in contact with the victim sooner, things might not have escalated to the degree that they did. Who’s to say we won’t be in need of one ourselves one day?”
Megs nodded. “If the rest of you agree, I’ll look into it.”
There was general assent, and so the meeting was over.
Chaska took Naomi’s hand. “Everyone’s heading to Knockers. Would you like to go with them, or would you rather—”
His cell phone buzzed.
He drew it out of his pocket, saw that it was Tina. “This is Belcourt.”
“Are you someplace where you can talk?”
“Hang on a second.” He turned to Naomi. “I need to take this. It won’t be long.”
There was wariness in her eyes. “Is it your grandfather?”
“It’s Tina.” He walked out of the ops room and out the bay doors. “Go ahead.”
“I’m standing here with Maggie Otter Tail’s youngest grandson, Doug, and he has a few questions for you about the medicine wheel and this woman who wears it.”
“Okay. Put him on.”
As it turned out, Doug had more than a few questions, and Chaska did his best to answer them. No, he didn’t know Naomi’s date of birth. He only knew that she was twenty-seven. Yes, she’d been found in Martin, close to dying, with the medicine wheel tucked in her blanket. No, police had never found her mother. No, she hadn’t been raised among the Lakota. Would she agree to a paternity test?
Chaska had no idea how Naomi would feel about taking a paternity test, and he wasn’t about to ask her without knowing what was going on first. “Why do you ask? What is this about?”
“That medicine wheel used to belong to me.”
Chapter 19
The moment Chaska stepped into the ops room again, Naomi could see that something had happened. There were lines of tension on his face, his brow bent. His gaze warmed when he saw her. “Let’s go home. I’ll make dinner.”
“Aren’t we going to Knockers with the others?”
“Not tonight. That was Tina calling with news. We need to talk.”
Naomi’s heart beat against her breastbone, voices drowned out by the thrum of her own pulse. “Did they find her?”
“No.” Chaska walked with her to his truck. “But they might have found him.”
Him? Her father?
“You mean my father?”
He opened the door for her. “Let’s talk at home.”
He climbed into the truck, sent a text message to someone, and then drove the short distance to the house, the wait grating on Naomi’s nerves.
She managed to contain herself until they were inside the front door. “What did Tina say? Who is he? How do they know he’s my father?”
“No one knows anything for sure at this point.” Chaska walked with her back to the kitchen, poured them each a glass of lemonade, and sat beside her at the table. “I don’t have all the details, but Maggie’s younger grandson, Doug Otter Tail, told my grandfather and Tina that the medicine wheel belonged to him. Tina said he recognized it right away and wanted to know how she’d gotten a photo of it.”
Naomi had to know. “Did he leave me in that alley?”
She’d always thought it must have been her mother, given that she’d been a newborn, her umbilical cord uncut and still attached to the placenta.
Chaska shook his head. “I don’t think so. Doug says he gave the medicine wheel to a wasicu girl he met twenty-eight years ago at a summer youth camp. He said they had sex a couple of times. He lost touch with her after that. He was fifteen. She was sixteen.”
“How do we know he’s telling the truth?”
He gave Naomi’s hand a squeeze. “I guess we don’t, but Tina says he’s a good man. She says the people think well of him. Also, he wants to pay for a paternity test.”
A paternity test?
Winona stepped through the back door. “I came as soon as I could. What’s going on? Naomi, what is it?”
While Chaska told Winona about Tina’s phone call, Naomi’s mind reeled. A man in South Dakota whose name was Doug Otter Tail said that her medicine wheel had once belonged to him and that he’d given it to a teenage girl he’d hooked up with twenty-eight years ago at a summer youth camp.
Summer.
Naomi did a little quick math. “I was conceived in June.”
Chaska and Winona stopped talking and looked over at her.
She explained. “They found me on March 12, and they say I was just a few hours old, so I’ve always thought that must be my birthday, though Peter never let us celebrate birthdays because that’s a pagan tradition. If I was born in early March, I must have been conceived in June. That doesn’t prove or disprove anything, but it fits his story.”
You’re babbling.
Winona got herself a glass of lemonade and joined them at the table. “Do we know what Doug looks like? Does he look like Naomi?”
Chaska drew out his cell phone, tapped it a few times, turned it so Naomi could see. “What do you think?”
Blood rushed into Naomi’s head. She found herself looking at the face of a handsome man in his early forties, a man whose nose and lips and cheeks were familiar because she saw them every day in the mirror. No, she had to be imagining it.
She looked up at Chaska and Winona. “Do you think we look alike?”
/> Chaska handed the phone to Winona, who glanced down, then stared at Naomi through wide eyes. “You do look like him.”
“There’s more.” Chaska took Naomi’s hand again. “He and Old Man are on their way here. They’re staying with some of Grandfather’s powwow buddies in Cheyenne tonight, but they’ll be here tomorrow. Tina found a lab in Denver that does legal paternity tests with a twenty-four-hour turnaround, and Doug wants to get the tests done there.”
This was all happening too fast. Ten minutes ago, she’d learned for the first time that she might have found her real father, and now he was coming to meet her?
She shook her head. “I don’t know about this. What if he’s lying? What if he’s not my father? What if…”
Okay, so she’d run out of questions for the moment.
Chaska pressed her fingers to his lips. “I know this must be overwhelming, Naomi, but there’s only one way to find the answers.”
Chaska couldn’t imagine being in Naomi’s shoes right now, wondering whether a man who was a total stranger would turn out to be her biological father. He’d told Old Man that he’d thought it was a bad idea for the two of them to drive down now, that they should do the paternity test first and wait for the results, but Doug had been dead set on meeting Naomi as soon as possible, certain that she was his daughter.
Chaska made lasagna, the fanciest meal in his limited arsenal, he and Winona doing their best to support Naomi through a difficult evening. She barely ate, all of their attempts to distract her failing until Chaska began telling her about the massacre at Wounded Knee and the later occupation of that same site. This led to a conversation about famous Oglala people.
“Crazy Horse was Oglala.”
“He was?”
His quick biography of Crazy Horse led to Winona giving Naomi a history lesson about Pine Ridge and the Oglala Lakota people. “We’ve had two women presidents, which I think is pretty cool.”
“That is cool.” Naomi got a faraway look on her face. “Wouldn’t it be strange if this is my history, too?”
Winona reached over and took Naomi’s hand. “I think it would be wonderful.”
Naomi helped Chaska with the spirit plate and then the dishes, while Winona went out to feed Shota and give him some attention. Then the three of them settled in front of the television to watch a movie.