Ten.
Jesse slowed, checked the display.
According to the transceiver, the victim should be right …there.
He reached for his mic. “I’ve located the source of the signal.”
“Copy. The rest of the Team is headed your way.”
Down at the base of the slope, Conrad, Ahearn, Taylor, Hawke, and Kenzie were already on their way up the mountainside, a golden ball of fur bounding through the snow ahead of them.
The victim’s friends saw that Jesse had stopped. They must have guessed that he had picked up the signal. They headed straight for him.
Jesse pulled his shovel out of his backpack, extended the telescoping handle, and started to dig, chopping at the hard-packed snow and pushing it downhill.
“Did you find him?” one of the young men shouted.
“Stop!” Jesse held up a hand. “Don’t compact the snow on top of him. Get downhill from me, and start digging.”
They looked guiltily at each other.
“We don’t have shovels.”
You’re fucking kidding me!
Jesse didn’t waste breath telling them they were idiots but kept digging.
From somewhere nearby, he heard a bark.
Charlie, the golden retriever, had picked up the scent and was running his way. In the time it took Jesse to move another shovelful of snow, Charlie was there, digging, his claws as effective as steel.
Jesse helped the dog, moving the snow, digging with him.
Conrad’s booming voice came from behind him. He shouted at the victim’s buddies. “If you’re not going to help, get the hell out of the way!”
Then Conrad was digging, too.
Charlie barked again.
A glimpse of blue.
Now Hawke, Taylor, and Ahearn were there, all of them shifting snow as fast as they could.
A leg.
Movement.
Jesus!
He was alive.
* * *
Jesse walkedinto Knockers with Herrera, craving pizza and beer, the sound of bluegrass rising above the hum of voices. They’d held a debriefing at The Cave for the Team members who had participated in the rescue, and now everyone was starving.
Rain, who’d worked at Knockers for as long as Jesse had lived in Scarlet Springs, met them just inside the door, a smile on her face, her long blond hair piled on top of her head. “I heard you brought down an avalanche victim alive today, Moretti. Way to go.”
Jesse couldn’t help but grin, still on a post-rescue high. “I didn’t do it alone.”