For the next couple of days, Ali felt worse than useless. Just getting up to go to the rest room was an ordeal. Keeping food down was a joke, and having a bunch of strangers in the house didn't help at all. Only Doug, and Carol knew the nature of her migraines, and they were the only two people she saw. She desperately missed Hutch. His gesture of securing the radio for her to keep track of their position and progress, reminded her of his care and concern. He had the mother hen routine down to a fine art and seemed to truly enjoy it, although at times she chafed. Yet she also realized more and more how much she needed him. Their year together had brought along so much progress, despite the bumps. When she wasn't zonked on pain killers, she listened to the radio reports, and was surprized to be able to mentally locate the team on the rangelands in her head. Though her past memories were no longer accessible, the rest of her brain worked fine. The two Hutchinson's had ridden the territory once before, and she felt relief that she knew where her husband was located.
She made no mistake about it though, they were in dangerous country. Cougars were not uncommon, or bears, or the hundreds of ridges and gullies. One mistake could be fatal. Thankfully the weather was holding. On the second day out, nothing had been seen of Bingham, despite having found evidence of the recent passing of a horse. As the day wore on, the crew reached a location Ali recognized when Hutch described a fork in the pathway near a waterfall. That pathway split, one leading down the gully following the creek, the other going up, hugging the ridge and coming back down to meet the other path at a base camp several miles further on. Hutch knew the path. He suggested the two trackers head down the longer path while he went up the other agreeing to meet them at the camp site. Having reassured the two men it would be fine, Hutch headed on up alone, but only after agreeing to call in hourly reports.
Carefully guiding his horse along, Hutch let the animal pick his own way through the trails and paths of the mountain range. The horse had been raised for this type of work and was an excellent pathfinder. He kept a wary eye open, feeling that insistent itch that something was up. He also couldn't shake the feeling that something was definitely missing. Reins gripped loosely in his leather gloved left hand, Hutch stretched trying to get rid of the knots in his back, knowing he'd spend another night with aches. At least he didn't need to worry about being saddle sore anymore, he and Ali rode often enough to prevent that. He was approaching a section of trail where the canyon and drop to his left slowly turned into a knife edge ridge then switched to the canyon being on his right. The mountain side loomed on his left and was swallowed up by thick trees and boulders. The drop was sheer and he could no longer see the other team from his upper vantage point. From here, until the camp site a further 8 miles or so, he'd be separated from them. He keyed his mike, letting them know he'd be out of their sight until then. It was the last message they received.
He allowed the horse to set his own pace and basically sat back for the ride. The views certainly weren't bad. He'd grown to love this out of the way corner of the known universe. As he let his mind stray off track, he noticed the horse's ears suddenly swing foreword, and his sides heaved as he let out a loud nicker. It was Hutch's instant snap to alertness that saved his life. He spotted Ali's dappled grey gelding alone in the trees further ahead whickering back to his horse just as he was passing by an outcropping of rock. Out of his peripheral vision he saw sudden movement and managed to kick his feet loose from the stirrups before Ray Bingham tackled him off the horse. The horse bolted as both men crashed hard to the ground.
Stunned, Hutch rolled, scrambling to his feet, just as the bigger man tackled him again, almost succeeding in pinning Hutch's arms to his sides. Bingham looked crazed as he and Hutch grappled, neither man able to get the advantage over the other, but Hutch could feel the bigger man gaining the momentum. He tried getting his footing, knowing that if he could just get one good wrestling hold, he'd swing the balance his way. However the terrain would have other ideas. Unable to stop Bingham, Hutch felt his foot give way underneath him and before both men realized it, they were plunging over the side of the canyon.
In what seemed like an eternity in free fall, Hutch twisted like a cat and began trying desperately to grab hold of anything that he could. He could hear Ray Bingham's screaming growing fainter, as he suddenly connected hard to something resembling terra firma. He recalled rolling onto his back, sliding feet first down the mountainside, then a blinding flash of light followed by blackness.
A saving hand had been with him. As his unconscious body relaxed, he rolled instead of slid off yet another ledge, enough so that he dropped face first between a huge boulder and a deep scoop in the cliff face. If he had been scarcely a foot further out, he'd have plunged several hundred feet and joined Ray Bingham's broken body at the bottom of the canyon.
Sometime during that day, Doug Riley sneaked into the Hutchinson's bedroom and stealthily removed the radio from Ali's night stand. Completely zoned, she didn't even hear him, to his great relief. As he gently shut her door, he glanced at Carol, holding her arms worriedly, in the hallway. Outside they could hear the muffled thumping of a helicopter as the men in the kitchen scrambled at the latest news, calling out orders and requesting more assistance.
"How are we gonna tell her?" Doug hissed.
"She's gonna find out." Carol replied. "Better to tell her quickly and get her prepared."
"They've got to find him!"
"They'll find him! It's going to be keeping her in one piece that matters!"
"Easier said than done!" Doug grumbled. Carol rolled her eyes at him.
"She's not that bad! Sometimes this small town rumor mill, is enough to drive people insane!"
"Hanson saw Hutch take her down physically last night, said she was trying to take him out!" Doug responded.
"Riley!" Carol scolded. "You're just as bad as the rest! You know Ali has some brain damage. Hutch knows how to work with her about it."
"Hutch knows," Doug emphasized. "But we don't! I've read her past files what she did to Hutch's partner in LA. This situation could cause that to happen again!"
"Doug! I'll handle telling her. Just stop the rumor mongering! Ali isn't like what she was then, Ken told me so. And we have to believe that he's all right and they'll find him. If anything, she needs all the friends she can get right now!" Doug looked at Carol then sighed.
"You're right, " he replied, "Between Sandy being killed, taking in Sunny, and now Hutch missing, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions."
"Jumping to conclusions is not what that woman in there needs."
Carol pointed at the bedroom door. "It's bad enough having the kind of problem she has, on top of a missing husband, and local gossip! She's gonna need support, and by golly," she glared at him."I'll drop you like a hot rock at the next election if you don't provide it!"
Doug looked surprized at his feisty secretary, then began to chuckle at himself. "I knew there was a reason behind why I hired you!" he patted her gently on the arm. "Just keep jerking my chain Carol, you keep me in line almost as good as my wife!"
"Buddy, I do keep you in line better than your wife!" she growled back.
The sound of rain awoke Ali with a start. She winced slightly, the sudden movement sending a jab of pain though her skull. She opened her eyes trying to focus in the gloom, realizing that it was dark. She turned her head gently towards Ken's side of the bed were the digital clock sat and saw that it was shortly after 9:00pm. She had slept far longer than her pills allowed. A good thing, she decided, as it signaled the downside of the migraine, although it still reminded her of it's existence. Turning her head back, she glanced at the night stand and saw the radio was missing. She frowned.
Straining to listen, she could hear the muffled voices and crackle of radios coming from the kitchen but could make nothing out. However there seemed to be a sense of urgency, albeit restrained. Why was the radio gone?
She drew in air and forced herself to sit up, her head spinning a little as she swung her feet to the floor. She felt utterly drained, shaking with weakness from being flat nearly three days. Gathering her energy, she got up and stumbled her way into the private bathroom. After taking care of business, she was leaning heavily with one arm braced against the sink, downing the second glass of water when she heard the sounds of an approaching chopper, which sounded suspiciously like the army variety. She frowned again, it was definitely getting closer and there was more than one. A sudden apprehension spurred her out the door, as the choppers circled around the ranch.
In the great room, several men, Doug, Carol, a man in fatigues, and two others sporting ranger outfits, all spun around at the sound of the far bedroom door opening. Ali Hutchinson looked like a wraith as she stumbled barefoot down the hall way, her face nearly matching her hair colour. Her sweats were rumpled, she looking a bit gaunt, and her bangs were fussed up enough to reveal the red line of scar on one side of her forehead as she looked at the crowd with confusion written all over her face. Carol and Doug were instantly on their feet.
"Oh sh..." Doug started to say. Ali's laser blue eyes fixed on him as she leaned slightly in the hall.
"What is it?" she asked. The army man slowly stood, seeming to have exercised his authority.
"Ma'am?" he asked back, not knowing yet what was up.
"Captain, this is Mrs. Hutchinson..." Carol said, slowly making her way around Riley and moving closer to Ali. Ali's eyes grew hard.
"What is going on?" she demanded.
"It's all right Ali..." Doug began. Ali glared at him.
"The radio is gone!" she snapped. "What's happening?"
"It's your husband, Mrs. Hutchinson." The Captain said, the roar from the choppers getting louder as they prepared to land in the pastures. Ali looked sharply at Doug.
"Ken?" she gasped, Carol could see her tensing.
"He hasn't radioed in, Ali..." Doug said gently. Ali stared at him.
"Ma'am..." Captain started again. Ali cut him off.
"What do you mean he hasn't radioed in!?" she demanded her eyes glued to Doug's. He drew air, bracing himself. Ali's eyes were enough to scare anybody.
"He split up with the trackers. He was supposed to radio his reports every hour, but he didn't after the first one. The trackers set up camp and followed the path he would have come down. They found your horses, but they couldn't find Ken..." he trailed off at the look of horror growing in the depths of her eyes. "It started snowing up there four hours ago."
Ali suddenly sagged, her knees giving out. She clutched at the wall, desperately keeping herself upright as a ranger dashed to her rescue.
Carol abruptly inserted herself between him and Ali, shaking her head quickly, holding out a restraining arm.
"What ever you do don't grab her!" she hissed in his ear. The confused man looked at her weirdly, as Ali dragged her self back up right. Carol spun to face her, holding both her hands up.
"Ali," she said low and quick. "Remember what Kenny's told you? Think a minute..." She searched Ali's eyes. Ali looked at her squarely, then imperceptibly nodded. Carol nearly fainted herself in relief. Gently she took Ali's arm in hers.
"They're bringing in the fellas from SAR and the Umatilla Military Reserve, to help find Ken. I think the Captain is also requesting a group from Fairchild AFB in Spokane. We're going to find him, and bring him home safe and sound." She carefully began leading Ali back towards the master bedroom, shooting a glare at Riley.
"Sir?" The Captain asked a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he looked at Sheriff Riley.
Doug turned and looked back at him, his brown eyes narrowing. Local loyalties suddenly closed ranks against the outsiders.
"Ali Hutchinson was shot several years ago in the line of duty, Captain. She's a retired Detective Sargent, and she's one of our own. She suffers migraines caused by the surgery and two fragments located a little too close to the nerves to get at. Ken Hutchinson is the only person fully aware of her condition. We have to find him!"
"Gunshot to the head?" One of the others shuddered his voice sounding horrified.
"And she lived?" A ranger asked.
"She lived." Doug said. "With permanent memory loss besides. Hutch is her only connection to her past. They were engaged before the shooting, and he's the only person she remembers." He looked at them soberly. "That's her husband out there, fellas, and she needs him. Please, help us find the man!"
Finding him turned out to much easier said than done.
For two more days, search and rescue teams scoured the ridges, but the weather proved difficult, and any traces of where Hutch could be were obliterated by a foot of snow. Yet in a curiously providential way, Hutch was protected from the weather in the crevasse he found himself in almost 48 hours after being knocked senseless. Groaning, he tried moving his stiffened limbs, dismayed at their unresponsiveness, especially in his hands and feet. He blinked wincing at his own head pain and focused on the back wall of his shelter. A tangle of sticks, broken up twigs, tumbleweeds and grasses lay scattered all around him, the majority piled at the back. Feathers jutted out here and there and the floor was littered with small bones and 'casts'. He realized he was staring at the remains of an old eagles nest.
He swallowed thickly, working his hands in their gloves trying to regain the feeling and slowly sat up, ducking slightly from the roof. For a moment, he struggled with what had happened before remembering he'd been tackled off his horse by Ray Bingham. More alert now, Hutch dragged his useless legs to him, feeling gingerly for anything broken. About the only thing that felt broken was his skull. He rubbed at his legs trying to get the circulation going and looked around. Somehow he'd fallen into a hole. He worked at his toes, trying to get the feeling back and dragged himself to the opening, blocked mostly by the huge boulder. Heaving himself up he crouched awkwardly in the cleft and peered out.
What greeted him caused his head to spin so fast he abruptly sat down again to avoid passing out. The entire landscape was buried in white and he was several hundred feet up the side of a cliff. Some miracle had occurred to have dropped him in the old aviary. Thick grey clouds swirled around the surrounding hills and ridges, and the temperature outside of the nook had to be at freezing. Hutch sat back away from the boulder, carefully stomping his feet, flexing his fingers trying to get the blood flowing back in them.
"Now what, stupid?" he muttered. He glanced at his jacket, alarmed to see the amount of blood stains turning brown on the stark white wool of the underlining. He tugged a glove off, grateful he had worn them, and the long john's he'd packed. Between them, the jacket Ali had given him, and the wool socks, Ken Hutchinson realized he was very lucky to be alive.
Ali.
Hutch groaned. Somehow he had to get out of that cave. How on earth was she going to react? Surely some one would be looking for him. He tipped his left wrist up to glance at his watch, seeing then that the crystal had been cracked, but it still ticked, and the date was still set...for two days later. A tingle of dread worked it's way into the pit of his stomach. He hadn't been out for two days, had he? He reached up and cautiously felt the blood encrusted knot across the back of his skull. He had been out that long. Stiff and aching, he looked around him, straining his ears to listen for any sounds of rescue. Surely Doug had called in the SAR teams. He reached inside his jacket and hauled out the hard metallic lump that had left a sizable bruise across half his rib cage. The Colt Python had clung loyally to its owner. He cracked it open, relieved to see it fully loaded, and with numb fingertips extracted one of the bullets.
The first order of business was to get a fire going. There was a small amount of kindling in that nook. Needing to do something, and relieved to find himself thinking, he contemplated his moves as he drew together tinder, and kindling, some of the old bones, fur, castings, whatever he could gather together to get a fire started. Scrounging in the old nest, he found a bigger stick, and a long thin one. Thanking his father for making him attend boy scouts, he fished out his pocket knife, gouged a hole in the bigger stick then broke the lead off the top of the bullet and carefully poured the grains of gunpowder into the hole. That was to his advantage, the problem now was to get his cold, numb, hands warm enough to get the little stick spinning in the powder fast enough to cause friction to ignite it. As he worked, he kept an ear open for any sounds other than the howling wind and the dripping of water. It had been one smart bird to pick a hole in the wall like this. Better still was the luck he had falling in it. But would his luck hold out?
With the Magnum, he could fire it off to attract attention to him, but he only had five rounds left, the rest of his ammo being in his saddle pack. Hutch suddenly recalled the radio. It was nowhere to be found, and he reasoned that it must have been torn off of him in the slide down the mountain.
"Damn..." he muttered working the little stick harder, dismayed at the numbness still lingering in his feet. After a time a tiny wisp of smoke appeared followed by a sudden flash. Moving fast, but careful, he began adding twigs, and grass slowly building up the flames and before long he had a mini fire going, enough to at least get his hands and feet warm. He tugged off his boots groaning at the myriad aches and pains, then huddled up next to his casting fed fire. He knew Ali would be frantic, and his heart tore at him, longing to be back with her, but another part of him smarted for someone else. Hutch thought about Starsky. How many times and in how many different places and situations had Starsky hauled him out of trouble? Way up there on that lonely mountain, stranded in the side of a cliff, Hutch found himself missing both his wife and his best friend.
The day they called off the search due to weather, Ali had come to several conclusions. Hutch was still alive, and she knew it. The rescuers had done everything they could to find him and were drawing blanks, the military Captain was treating her like a maniac and Doug Riley was loosing hope. Only Carol seemed to believe her, but she too was getting that worried look in her eyes she had long ago learned to despise. One thin thread kept nagging at her, Ali knew her husband was still alive, and her thoughts constantly returned to his former partner.
She stared at the picture of him on the mantle from her seat on the couch. People still lingered acting like they were walking on goose eggs around her. She sucked in air, ignoring the radio broadcasts from the remaining searchers now wending their way out of the mountains.
Earlier than normal blizzard conditions had stopped the search. Doug Riley watched the ivory blonde worriedly. She kept staring at the picture on the mantle, arms folded tightly across her chest, looking for all the world like she was going to explode. Ali could be a nasty wench when she wanted to be and she had already chewed the ears off the Captain. But he knew she was scared silly and worried. Plus she was just getting over her second round with a migraine in a months time. After four days missing in nasty weather Doug realistically knew that Hutch's chances to survive were getting worse. Somehow they had to get through Ali's wall and prepare her for the worst.
Ali knew they were getting set to tell her. Something clicked inside of her. Wordlessly she rose from the couch and went back into the bedroom. Doug sighed, never realizing that Ali was changing into street clothes. She slipped noiselessly into Hutch's office, lifting the $7500.00 check in her name off the ledger book she had set it on. Folding it in half, she tucked it into the inside pocket of her waist length black leather jacket, then carefully opened the window and crawled out. Seconds later she eased the Suburban out of the parking lot still crammed with various vehicles, and drove away. It would be a few hours before anyone realized she was gone, and by then she would be halfway to Los Angeles.