"It's kind of a risky time of year for climbing," the female sheriff began gently, but Sylvia shookher head.
And she was right, Maggie thought. It wasn't thatbad. Sure, it rained here most of the fall, but sometimes what the weather people called a high pressure cell settled in and the skies stayed blue for amonth. All hikers knew that.
Besides, Miles washt scared of weather. He wasonly eighteen but he'd done lots of hard climbs in Washington's Olympic and Cascade ranges. He'dkeep climbing all winter, getting alpine experience in snow and storms.
Sylvia was going on, her voice getting more jerkybreathless. "Miles was…he'd had the flu aweek before and he wasn't completely over it. Buthe seemed okay, strong. It happened when we were rappelling down. He was laughing and joking andeverything…. I never thought he might be tired enough to makea mistake…." Her voice wavered turned into a ragged sob and the ranger puthis arm around her.
Something inside Maggie froze. Amistake?Miles?
She was prepared to hear aboutasudden avalanche or a piece of equipment failing. Even Sylviafalling and knocking Miles off. But Miles makinga mistake?
Maggie stared at Sylvia, and suddenly somethingin the pitiful figure bothered her.
There was something odd about that delicatelyflushed face and those tear-drenched violet eyes. Itwas all too perfect, too tragic, as if Sylvia werean Academy award-winning actress doing a famousscene-and enjoying it.
"I don't know howit happened," Sylvia was whispering. "The anchor was good. We should have hada back-up anchor, but we were in a hurry. And he must have …oh, God, there must have beensomething wrong with his harness. Maybe thebuckle wasn't fastened right, or the carabiners might have been upside down…:'
No.
Suddenly Maggie's feelings crystalized. It was asif everything came into focus at once.
That's impossible. That's wrong.
Miles was too good. Smart and strong and anamazing technical climber. Confident but careful. Maggie only hoped she'd be that good someday.
No way he'd buckle his harness wrong, or clip his ‘biners upside down. No matter how sick hewas. In fact, no way he'd go without a back-upanchor. I'mthe one who tries to do things like that,and then he yells at me that if I'm not careful I'm going to have an adventure.
Miles doesn't.