Page 36 of Valley Girls
Rilla stupidly held it up, before realizing she needed to put it on. Slowly, she pulled it over her sweatshirt. It was too tight to zip and her arms and shoulders strained in Adeena’s tiny jacket, but she clutched it across her chest with numb fingertips.
This was totally how people died. Even with Petra’s and Adeena’s experience she could see how the altitude numbed you and slowed you enough to make mistakes you wouldn’t normally make.
Another group was ahead of them. Not climbers, but hikers who had made the climb to the top of dome using the thick wire cables lying flat on the rock. Petra stood at the edge, watching their progress as they disappeared over the swell.
“Hey,” someone hollered across the wind.
In unison, the girls looked up and behind them. A man came toward them from the summit, waving and running over the snow and rocks.
“He’s going to slip,” Adeena said, before yelling back to him. “Slow down.”
He didn’t slow. The strings on his hat bounced off his shoulders as he ran up to them. “My partner is ...” He looked at the three of them wildly. The panic in his eyes made Rilla’s chest tighten. “Something’s wrong,” he said.
Adeena and Petra bolted off after him, snow flying into the wind. Rilla pushed up to follow, holding the jacket tight across her chest. Her pulse pounded hard even though she’d just been resting. She ran as fast as she dared up the slope, back to the summit, where a man leaned against a rock.
“It’s like altitude sickness, but this altitude should be fine. He’s diabetic, but he’s got a pump. I don’t know ...” the guy said, looking down at his buddy. “Rob. How’re you feeling? You awake?”
He looked pale and sweaty. He shrugged.
“He has a pump?” Petra asked. “So, it shouldn’t be his insulin, right?”
“Sometimes altitude fucks you up when it didn’t before. Can he get down?” Adeena asked.
“No. I mean, yes he has a pump. No, it shouldn’t. I don’t think I can get him down though. Maybe with your help. You guys were the climbers ahead of us, right?” He didn’t look up from his partner.
“But we can’t hike him out,” Petra said. “Can he walk?”
“Barely.”
Rilla sank down to a rock, her stomach tight and the nausea heavy. It felt like she could see the curve of the earth on the horizon and it made her almost feel the sensation of spinning through the cosmos. The sick man sat across from her, looking like she felt. The voices of the more experienced climbers blurred together, muffled by the wind. “Shit, if we can’t get him to walk ... could we contact someone?”
He must be terrified. She’d be terrified. His mouth was open a little. Brown eyes glazed. As if he too felt the world spinning in space and couldn’t stand upright against those forces. Rilla’s granny had been a diabetic. No pumps—just shots, so many shots. One day, when Rilla was nine and helping in the garden, Granny had sat down, unable to move anywhere else. Looking pale and sick, just like this man. She’d swatted at Rilla’s hand. “I’m fine, girl. Just this heat.” She’d fanned herself and the air had smelled like the warm, sharp scent of tomatoes. It hadn’t been the heat.
“It’s his diabetes,” Rilla heard herself say. She crawled forward, feeling like she might puke. Her head throbbed, but she wasn’t sick like he was.
“He has a pump, but that’s to keep his blood sugar from going too high. But it’s probably too low, because he’s working hard. Does he have one of those of blood sugar stick things?”
Adeena looked to the other man. Petra looked to Adeena.
“I don’t know ...” The guy who’d ran to get them whirled around and started digging through what Rilla assumed was his partner’s bag.
“It’s okay. We’re going to figure this out,” she said, surprised how calm and relaxed she sounded. Her heart raced.
The other man looked up from the shambles of a backpack. “This?” He held up a little thing that looked like a step meter.
“That’s it.” Rilla grabbed it and stuck it into Rob’s limp finger. In seconds the readout showed it was too low.
“Does he have glucose tabs? Petra, do you have those gummy bears? We have to give him a little at a time.”
The guy looked confused. “I can get it.” His words came out raspy and dry. He tried to reach out for it.
Rilla stopped him. “I’ll bring the bag to you,” she said.
Someone shoved the bag to her. Opening it wide, she looked at the sick climber—Rob. He nodded. In a few seconds, she’d found the little packet of glucose tablets in an interior pocket. She kneeled on the rock and took a deep breath, breaking one out of the package and closing it into his mouth.
He shut his eyes in relief.
Petra handed him a bag of gummy bears.
