“It’s a crevice, Matthew. Not a bear cave. So that’s good.” No brown bear would be ambling in, looking for a place to sleep. She moved inch by inch around the entire interior, her hands feeling the slick rock walls. No exit.

She crawled back onto the saucer rock and looked up at Matthew. “So. The only way out is up.”

Blood dripped down his leg, plopped onto the rock beside her.

She stood up.

“You’re blocking the only way out. So I need to get you unstuck. The pack is the problem.” The added width had him pinned. “If I can get the pack off you, you’ll fall.”

Fall. That didn’t sound like a great plan, but she couldn’t think of anything better.

Okay.

How?

She moved gingerly, wedged her numb hand into the waistband of her pants. She slid/fell off the saucer-shaped rock, splashed into the squishy mud. A sharp pain jabbed her in the chest, made her gasp. She dug through her bug-out bag and found her knife. Biting down on it, she crawled to a place directly below Matthew’s feet.

Now all she had to do was get to him and cut him free.

How? She couldn’t reach his feet.

Climb. How? She had one good arm and the stone wall was slick and wet.

On rocks.

She found some large flat rocks and dragged them to the wall and stacked them as best she could. It took forever; she was pretty sure that twice she passed out and awoke and started again.

When she had built a stack that was about a foot and a half high, she took a deep breath and stepped on top of it.

At her weight, one of the rocks slid out from under her.

She fell hard, cracked her bad arm on something, and screamed.

She tried four more times, falling each time. It wasn’t going to work. The rocks were too slippery and they were unstable when stacked.

“Okay.” So she couldn’t climb layered rocks. Maybe that should have been obvious.

She slogged to the wall, reached out to touch its cold, clammy surface. She used her good hand to trace the wet stone, feeling for every bump and ridge and indentation. A little light bled down on either side of Matthew. She burrowed through her pack, found a headlamp, put it on. With light, she saw differences in the slab—ledges, holes, footholds.

She felt upward, sideways, out, found a small lip of stone for her foot, and stepped up onto it. She steadied herself, then felt for another.

She fell hard, lay there stunned, breathing hard, staring up at him. “Okay. Try again.”