Nick White

N.K. White || 1 April, 2025

The storm was almost on them.

Alex Lawson stood just below the ridgeline, eyes on the clouds moving across the sky. They didn’t scuttle. They rolled — thick, fast, low enough to brush the stone ridges of Ball Mountain.

The rain came in fat drops. Slow at first. Then sudden. Like the sky had changed its mind mid-sentence.

Behind her, Miguel Mendez zipped up his Colorado Search and Rescue jacket. “He’s overdue at the Mosquito Pass checkpoint by two hours. No visual from the drone. No response on his cell.”

Alex worked her jaw, “You double checked the number?”

“Yup, he’s either out of cell range, or he used a fake number for his race registration.”

Alex ignored Miguel’s agitated sarcasm. “Call him again,”

Tapping ‘redial’, Miguel put the phone up to his ear. One ring, two rings, then “Hi, this is Dean, I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave your-“

Miguel hung up and cinched the cowl of his hood up tight against the wind.

Alex turned back to the trail. A thousand feet down, the switchbacks curved like a cracked spine. The forest was shadowed, the slope slick. If Dean Jarvis had gone after his errant burro — or worse, was dragged by the animal — he could be anywhere.

Riley Park’s voice barely cut through the wind, sharp and tight. “Hey!”

She stood a hundred yards ahead at the edge of a collapsed scree field. Her arm pointed down into the mist.

Alex moved fast.

Dean’s racing burro, apparently named Uncle Sam, stood halfway down the slope — not moving, just standing. His lead rope- which Dean Jarvis should have been holding onto- tangled in a deadfall branch. His flank was streaked with mud. And his eyes…

His eyes, wide and flashing as they were, looked like something had broken open inside them.

Alex slowed as she approached.

“Riley, take the ridge. Miguel, loop wide.“ Alex carefully thought about her next move, then distantly added, “He can’t have gone far.“

She slid the last few feet on her boots, low and steady. The burro didn’t shy, didn’t bray. He just stood there, heaving short, hurried breaths like he’d outrun God, and he didn’t know what to do next.

Certainly! Here’s the edited version:

“It’s alright,“ Alex murmured as she approached the miniature gelding. “I see you.”

She extended her hand and ran it gently along the tack. Sam tensed, struggling against the tangled rope lead. Once the donkey settled, Alex dropped her pack and uncoiled her climbing rope. After tying it into a lasso, she knelt and cut the rope that had ensnared Uncle Sam.

The burro didn’t flinch as Alex lassoed him.

Behind her, Riley called out again.

“Down here! I see something—someone!”

Alex turned. Her breath caught. A figure lay twisted at an unnatural angle below the tree line, half-buried in broken shale.

Alex secured the burro to a large, angular boulder and hurried toward the figure’s location. The moment Riley shouted, something in her snapped tight—not panic, not quite instinct, just velocity. Her boots scraped shale, and her weight stayed low, controlled, like a soldier descending a kill zone. because that’s what this still felt like—not a rescue, not a recovery.

An extraction.

Miguel was already flanking the slope. Riley stayed up top, marking their position.

Dean Jarvis lay sprawled below a rock shelf, twisted like a dropped marionette. One trekking pole was snapped beneath him. His right foot pointed in the wrong direction. His shirt was torn and wet with blood on the shoulder. One half of his race bib fluttered in the wind, the other lost somewhere behind him.

Alex knelt beside him.

“Dean,“ she said, brushing debris from his face. “You with me?”

His eyelids fluttered. His mouth worked, cracked and dry. “…What happened?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just pressed two fingers to his carotid. Weak but there. His pulse felt like a fading echo.

“You’ll have to tell me that,“ Alex rummaged through her jump bag. “But you’re safe now.”

Dean tried to sit up, but his body folded in on itself. Alex caught his shoulder and held him steady.

“Don’t move,“ she said; her voice was stern but not unkind.

Miguel skidded in behind her. “Litter’s coming. Riley’s prepping above.”

Alex reached back into her kit after her rapid trauma assessment, knowing exactly what she needed. She worked quietly. A splint. A wrap. Irrigation syringe. She talked to Dean the whole time — not to comfort him, not really. Just to keep him here.

“Broken tibia,“ Miguel said, eyeing the leg. “Might be a fracture at the hip, too.“

“Possible concussion, but scalp bleeding is under control.” The rain thinned the blood, giving Dean’s exposed skin a pinkish sheen. “Vitals are thin.”

The runner shivered hard. The wind was biting now. Fat drops of rain pelted the back of Alex’s neck in a steady patter. The temperature had dropped fast — fifteen degrees in maybe ten minutes. A mountain’s idea of fair warning.

She remembered cold like this. The same chill that settled in the desert night, the kind that made fingers stiff enough that it was hard to manipulate scalpels and clamps. Her mind instantly went to James. The other Ranger medic in her platoon had been freezing when they found him. Shirtless. Hands zip-tied. Lip split. 

She tightened the wrap.

Miguel watched her for a beat too long.

“I’m good,“ she said, not looking at him.

Riley called from above, her voice sharp and bright, as she lowered the sled, which was tied off to a rope. “Litter coming down!”

Alex rechecked Dean’s airway. His breathing was shallow, but his airway was clear. They had a window.

Another bolt of lightning cracked across the pass, close enough to blanch the whole ridgeline white.

Then thunder. Deep. Like the ancient mountain clearing its throat.

“We need to find cover,“ Miguel said. “Storm cell’s right on top of us.”

Alex looked up. “If we wait, we risk him decomping. We’ll lose him.“ 

The litter snapped into place with a hollow click. Miguel adjusted the straps. Alex clipped her carabiner to the head rig. Riley knelt beside Uncle Sam, fitting the lead rope into a slip knot that would release if things got bad.

Within seconds, the trail turned slick. Rock gave way to wet shale, and the wind pushed sideways, stealing warmth from their cores.

Dean groaned as they shifted the litter into position. The slope wasn’t steep — yet — but it was narrow, and every step felt like testing a knife’s edge.

“Riley,“ Alex said, tightening her grip on the head of the litter, “why don’t you get Uncle Sam?”

Riley’s green eyes flashed with fear. She looked up the trail to where the burro stood, rope slack in the mud, head low.

“Me?“

“You’ve got the calmest voice out here,“ Alex said. “He’ll follow you.”

Riley hesitated — just a beat. Then nodded and broke off toward the animal.

Alex turned back to Miguel. “You take the feet. I’ve got the top.”

The descent started slow, deliberate. Each movement coordinated. Miguel called terrain. Alex adjusted their angle. Below, the shortcut she’d mentioned earlier — barely more than an old mining cut — waited like a thin thread through the trees.

Lightning split the sky, so close the air snapped with electricity. Thunder followed like an explosion, shaking the ground beneath them.

Dean stirred. “Is this… normal?“

“No,“ Miguel said. “But we’re better than normal.”

Up ahead, Riley coaxed Uncle Sam along. The burro fought her at first — pulled sideways, slipped in the mud. Riley didn’t yell. She kept talking. Low and steady.

“You’re okay, buddy. Just stay with me.”

Uncle Sam balked.

Riley turned the tension in her voice. “He’s pulling against the rope.“

“Try looping him wider,“ Miguel called out. “Don’t force him.“

“I’m not.”

Alex slowed, remembering a core tenant of Colorado’s only Indigenous sport, burro racing. You are at the beast’s whim. If you want to go but your burro doesn’t, you don’t go. If your burro wants to go, but you don’t- you damn well better hold on. 

Riley’s hands trembled on the lead. The burro was breathing fast, ears pinned back. His hooves scraped rock but wouldn’t move forward.

“I don’t think I can—“ Riley started.

Alex turned. Her voice was steady.

“Riley, at Dean’s head, I’ll get Sam.”

The younger woman flinched — not from the order but the weight behind it.

She stepped toward the animal again, slow and calm, whispering something Alex couldn’t hear.

Uncle Sam stayed frozen, ribs heaving as Riley handed the lead rope off to Alex.

“Let’s go, Sammy. Don’t you want to get out of this rain?“ 

He blinked. One hoof shifted.

“Right,“ Alex said, more to herself than the damned donkey. She called out to Miguel and Riley,  “Next ledge, and we’ll have some cover!”

The wind tore through the pine ahead. Needles lashed their faces. It took a few minutes, but everyone was, once again, making forward progress. Dean was heavier now, or maybe it was just the decline. The storm had shape and teeth now — it wasn’t something above them. It was them. Around them. Inside their boots, soaking through gloves, pounding against their backs.

“There’s a shortcut a few clicks east,“ Alex said, pointing with her chin. “Old mining rials. It’ll take us down faster.”

Miguel didn’t argue. He rarely did when her voice sounded like a plan carved into stone. Besides, Alex Lawson probably knew every trail in the Colorado high country.

They began the descent down the rail trail.

It started as a slope. Manageable. Slippery, but walkable. Then, the trail thinned, twisted, and disappeared under the debris of old runoff. Erosion stone — sharp, fractured. Every step required calculation. Every footfall could betray.

Dean moaned once in the litter. Riley stooped down. “Almost there,“ she lied.

The rain was a wall—cold, hard, relentless. It found skin, seams, necklines, and ear canals.

Uncle Sam stopped, presumably weary of the nearby ravine of erosion stone, which had torrents of water loudly barreling down it.

Alex tugged once. Sam didn’t move. 

Frustration boiled over. “Get moving, you ass!”

He began again.

They were down into trees now. Thicker cover. Less wind, more mud.

Alex and Sam took the front.

Behind her, the sound of the storm began to fade, not because it had stopped, but because they’d finally sunk deep enough into the mountain’s shadow.

Dean’s breathing steadied. Riley started humming — off-key and low.

They emerged from the trees just as the last line of the storm limped over the far ridge.

Rain still fell, but it had softened — no longer a hammer, just a hush. Steam curled from the rocks, Aspens, and, mercifully, pavement. The sky above the valley had cracked open to pale blue, smeared like a bruise across the horizon.

The search and rescue trucks were parked at the clearing below, their hazard lights flashing. The medics jogged forward the moment they saw the team and took over.

Dean was lifted from the litter. They swarmed him, checked his vitals, and asked questions he was barely awake enough to answer. His head lolled sideways as they loaded him into the back of the rig.

Alex handed Uncle Sam off to a race official who tethered the donkey to a trail post. Mud streaked his flanks. He looked worse than he was — or maybe just more honest about it.

Miguel walked up to Alex and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Could’ve been worse.”

Alex didn’t answer.

She walked to the edge of the trees and stopped, away from the trucks, away from the noise, just watching the land exhale.

Riley eventually joined her, rubbing her hands together for warmth.

“I froze up,“ she said quietly. “I’m sorry.“

“We got them down safe and sound; that’s all that matters,“ Alex replied.

They stood like that for a while.

Then Riley glanced back at the burro.

“You think they remember stuff like this?“ she asked. “Animals, I mean.”

Alex watched Uncle Sam lift his head — ears twitching at some distant sound, or maybe nothing at all.

“I think they carry what they can’t name,“ she said. “Just like we do.”

Miguel called out from the truck. “Dispatch radioed. Another call’s coming in.”

Alex turned, slow and deliberate. She took one last look at Uncle Sam.

Then she nodded once — not to anyone, really.

# # #