Storm (5 page)

“I’m not sure I can do this climb—not without two arms to hold onto rocks and things. What do you think?”

“I think we should tell her we’ll go get help,” Holly suggested.

They squinted back up to where the girl was, and just as they did, they were horrified to see her suddenly lose her footing and begin to tumble and slide down the side of the cliff.

A woman’s voice came out of nowhere, echoing over them in a shriek of terror.

“No time for that, now!” Bethany exclaimed as she quickly scrambled in the direction of the girl’s fall.

If there was ever a time when Bethany felt that she might have made a wrong decision, she figured it was the moment she threw all caution to the wind and began her climb up the side of the cliff to the spot where the girl was now clinging to an exposed root she had latched onto on her way down.

The muscles in her right arm were screaming from overexertion as she tried to grab onto rocks and stumps that would help pull her up. She knew Holly was coaching her along from the valley below, but all she could hear for the moment were her own ragged gasps.

Just a little farther.

Bethany suddenly felt her right foot slip. She started to slide down, but she grabbed onto a clump of brush and leaned into it, trying to ease the strain on her arm.
I’m not going to make it,
she thought as fear mixed in with her sweat and slid like a cold chill down her back. She looked up and saw the girl’s face swimming out of focus just a
short distance above her, and she wished she had the strength to tell the girl that she was sorry.

Please, God! I can’t do this!
she thought, feeling herself begin to fall backward — just like her dream, but it wasn’t a dream this time. This was for real.

“Bethany!” Holly yelled.

Bethany’s arm pinwheeled like crazy as she tried to get her balance back. She felt nauseous and light-headed, like she was going to black out.

I’m done for …

“You can do it!” the girl suddenly called out, tears running down her face as she held onto the root for dear life. “I
prayed
that God would send help. I don’t know that much about God, but I don’t think he’d let you fail … if he sent you.”

“God, please help me!” Bethany gasped. Bethany bent her knees and leaned forward. Suddenly she wasn’t falling anymore. She felt her grip strengthen on a wad of branches.

“When we are weak, he is strong,” Holly yelled from below. “Remember what Sarah told us! God will give you strength when you need it!”

Bethany took a deep, ragged breath and reached up. She felt the rocky ledge scrape against the bottom of her hand and she gasped. Not out of pain … but surprise.

It was just like her dream! She grabbed ahold of the ledge with one hand, and as she did, she remembered the words, “I AM the rock!”

God is my shelter from the storm. He is the rock that gives me refuge from the waves. He is my strength. Why didn’t I understand that before?!

Bethany felt tears spring to her eyes as she pulled herself another foot closer to the girl. “Please help me,” she prayed out loud. “I can’t do this without you!”

Amazingly, she felt a surge of energy and confidence, and she was able to keep going.

A few more feet and Bethany had finally drawn close enough to see the girl’s face. She was battered and bruised, but still pretty enough to recognize. It was the same girl from the limousine! Bethany dug her feet into the rocky hillside, finally finding a foothold on a ledge that was strong enough to hold the weight of both of them. She leaned into the girl so she could slowly slide down into position to stand with Bethany on the ledge.

Standing together for the first time, they looked at each other and smiled. Then the girl started to cry, and soon Bethany was crying too.

Through her tears, Bethany barely heard Holly yelling up to the woman above them that she was going for help. Bethany wanted to say something to Holly, but all she could do for the moment was hang on to the girl and thank God over and over for what he had done.

“My name is Andrea,” the girl said when she was finally able to speak. “And
you
are the answer to my very first prayer.”

“Wow,” Bethany said softly, trying to swallow past the lump in her throat. “Most people just call me Bethany.”

There was a short pause, then Bethany asked, “So, where are you from?”

“Colorado.”

“Huh. How did you end up getting stuck all the way out here?”

God has a sense of humor,
Holly thought as she ran back down the steep, winding trail.
He really has a sense of humor!
Not only was Bethany the last person that should be sent scrambling up the side of a cliff, but she, Holly Silva, was the
very
last person that should be sent on a downhill death run!

“Please let me make it. Please let them be all right,” Holly prayed over and over in beat with her run as she continued to wind her way down the mountain, running as fast as her legs would carry her.

The path tilted even steeper and Holly pushed herself harder. Her lungs were burning, but she ignored the pain and continued to run.

The path turned muddy again. For a moment it twisted up and then pitched down again, going around a sharp corner. Holly would have preferred to lie down somewhere and pass out from fear and exhaustion. Instead, she kept going.

“Please let me make it. Please let them be all right …”

Hitting a particularly slick spot at full stride, Holly suddenly felt the traction in both shoes give way, and before she knew what had happened, she was sliding off of the trail. Then her backside smashed up against a huge boulder, stopping her fall, but not the destruction of the cell phone in her back pocket.

She got up, even more determined than before, and began to run again, changing her prayer only slightly: “Please let me make it. Please let them be all right. Please send someone with a cell phone!”

The steep downhill drop turned into a city of boulders. Holly surprised herself and bounded over the boulders like a billy goat. She ran out over a tangle of roots and past the trailhead sign. Finally! She was at the bottom, sore and out of breath.

Gasping for air, she glanced around, trying to find someone with a cell phone.

Suddenly she noticed a couple coming from the parking lot. They were loaded down with huge and very expensive-looking backpacks. The man had thick, dark dreadlocks. He was wearing beads around his neck and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. The woman with him wore loose peasant clothes and had small tattoos tracked around her wrist and upper arm.

Trustafarians! God, you really outdid yourself this time! This is just who I needed!

“Excuse me, you wouldn’t have a cell phone I could borrow?” Holly asked as she tried to rub the mud and grime off of her face. “It’s an emergency.”

It wasn’t long before Bethany and Andrea heard the heavy thwack of the first helicopter as it moved slowly around the ridge. The bright red helicopter suddenly popped into view. The words County Rescue Helicopter were emblazoned on its side.

“Woohoo!” Bethany yelled, and Andrea laughed a tired kind of laugh, leaning against the cliff and hugging Bethany tightly as a blast of wind from the helicopter blew over them. They watched the pilot maneuver into position and then lower the first rescue person to the area where Andrea’s mom was.

Soon her mom was swinging out into the air with her rescuer, and then they were both sucked upwards towards the chopper.

The next rescue was a little trickier. Because of the girls’ position against the cliff, the rescuers had to drop into the valley and climb up, much like Bethany had done—except they each had mountain-climbing gear.

And two arms.

That detail wasn’t lost on them as the first rescuer finally reached Bethany and Andrea’s small perch.

“How in the world did
you
make it up here?” he asked in wide-eyed amazement. Bethany
looked at Andrea and smiled, then turned back to the rescuer.

“God,” she answered simply. The man smiled and shook his head as he quickly strapped her in with him. Then the second rescuer arrived, and the question was asked again as he strapped Andrea in with him.

“A whole lot of prayer,” Andrea added.

“Stick to surfing next time, okay?” the second man, a Hawaiian, said with a grin. Bethany looked at her rescuer again and then recognized him as a regular in one of the local surf spots.

“No problem! Scout’s honor and all that!” she said emphatically.

Her rescuer gave the chopper above them the “thumbs-up” sign, and suddenly they were wrenched out from the face of the cliff and immediately swung out over the precipice.

By the time Bethany mustered the courage to look down again, Andrea and her rescuer looked like ants under the other helicopter. She gazed past them, then straight down to see ocean waves crashing against the vertical face of Na Pali a thousand feet below her. The view nearly took her breath away—would’ve taken her breath away if it weren’t for the two scruffy, mud-caked shoes dangling in her line of vision.

I gotta get some new shoes,
Bethany thought with a tired sigh.

Andrea had never seen her dad or her brother look so happy as they did when she and her mom stepped out of the helicopter. He and Mark ran toward them at breakneck speed.

“What were you trying to do, give me a heart attack?” Mark said breathlessly as he hugged his sister tightly. He turned away to swipe his tears with the back of his hand. Andrea’s tears flowed freely as she turned to hug her dad.

“Oh, thank God!” Her dad exclaimed, as he opened his arms to include them all in a bear hug.

“That’s exactly who we should thank, Dad,” Andrea said tiredly. “I prayed that God would help us get down safely from there,” she said as they all headed toward the rental car.

“I guess we were both doing quite a bit of praying up there, Darryl,” Andrea’s mom admitted, shocking them all into momentary silence. She bit her lip as she looked at her family, hesitated, and then plunged ahead. “I made a deal with God up there, a promise that I hope you all will help me keep.”

Andrea’s dad drew back to look at her mom, a look of puzzlement on his face.

“Can you do that? Can you make a deal with God?”

Her mom laughed—a tired kind of laugh, but it sounded so good to Andrea.

“Don’t look at me like that! I’m not going to become a nun or run off and join some commune.”
She took a deep breath. “I had a lot of time to think up there. I couldn’t help thinking about Mike, thinking how fortunate I am to have you, Andrea, and Mark … and how quickly that could all go away.

“I promised God that if he got us off that cliff safely, I would start going to church — to find out more about him. And I was hoping you and the kids would go with me.”

“I’m so there,” Andrea said as she jumped in the car. Her brother took his turn at looking puzzled. She didn’t care. Something good was happening, and she didn’t want to lose it.

“Dad, you and Mark should have seen it! We had been out on that cliff all night. We were so tired and feeling hopeless. Nobody could hear us or see us, and I was praying like crazy. And all of a sudden I heard these girls singing — like angels, but singing Christian rock. But that’s how I found them — how they found me! Then the one girl saw me slipping and started climbing to help me. She only had one arm! I was so scared for her, but then she started asking God to help her. I knew she was the answer to
my
prayer!”

Andrea glanced at her brother who was listening intently, his iPod still in his hands.

“Did you get their names?” Her dad asked suddenly. When he turned to look at her, she was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “I would really like to thank the both of them.”

“The girl with one arm is named Bethany,” Andrea said and then frowned, trying to remember. “I think she called the other girl Holly.”

“Well, it would be nice if we could find them before we leave,” her dad said casually, but his eyes said something more. He looked like a man on a mission.

Morning at the Hamilton household was in full swing by the time Bethany staggered stiffly out of her bedroom and headed into the kitchen. She was starting to feel the aftereffects of the day before. The cuts had stopped bleeding, but she knew from the dull pain on her upper leg that she would have a nasty bruise to deal with. Her dog, Ginger, appeared, her tail wagging like crazy as she nudged Bethany to be petted.

“I am soooooo sore.” Bethany winced and then caught her brothers smirking at each other across the kitchen table. She narrowed her eyes at them. Definitely no sympathy from the peanut gallery.

“Hey, Bethany, I’m thinking about taking a hike into Hanakapiai this morning. Wanna come?” Noah asked, trying to sound innocent.

“We even found some shoes for you to wear.” Tim grinned and held up her old battered shoes— the same shoes she’d dumped in the trash as soon as she’d made it home the night before—between
two fingers and waved them in the air. Bethany grimaced.

“I don’t care if I
never
take that hike again,” she declared, trying not to laugh at Tim as he wiggled his eyebrows at her. “I hiked it enough in one day to last the rest of my life!”

“Dad, you should’ve seen how Bethany and Holly fell asleep in the van last night,” Tim said with a grin. “Bethany’s got her muddy face pressed against the window—out like a light—and Holly’s in the backseat, leaning back with her mouth wide open. I would’ve given my right arm to have had my camera with me!”

“Very funny, Tim!”

“Well, your mom and I are really proud of what you did,” her dad said, coming up behind her. Bethany ducked her head shyly.

“Besides,” her dad said with a smile, “knowing you, within a week or so you’ll have forgotten all about it and be raring to go again.”

“No way!” Bethany said and then laughed. “Well, I’m
pretty
sure it’s ‘no way.’ Swimming there might not be too bad.”

Her dad groaned.

“She’s just like you, Tom,” her mom said as she flipped the eggs over in the pan. “Don’t forget that everyone called you Dolphin Man because you would swim like a crazy person at all the beaches around the island.”