Free The Journey Prize Stories 28 by Kate Cayley Page B

chute below. A fifteen-pound sledge is sitting near the hole. Somebodymust have been working on the grizzly with the hammer to break up the big muck so it could fall down the chute.
    â€œHello?” she calls. “Hello?”
    Nobody answers.
    Whoever’s been working on the grizzly must still be there because of the Kubota.
Maybe he’s broken down too
, she thinks.
Maybe I’ll meet whoever it is on my way to the Femco
. As she starts to walk on, she sees a glint of blue-silver reflecting on the bottom of the drift. A safety lanyard, lying in a puddle that mirrors her shady self back up at her when her lamp light glints off its surface.
But why wouldn’t he drive the Kubota to the Femco?
she wonders.
    Roxane sweeps her lamplight across the ground, checking to see if someone’s fallen; then she squats down and checks under the Kubota. But there’s nobody. She follows the lanyard, walking slow at first, then quicker. The line cuts off suddenly, disappearing into darkness underneath the grizzly. It’s hanging down into the chute.
    The chute is dark and still and quiet but she can feel, or she imagines she feels, stirring in the air. She climbs up onto the grizzly and shines her light down.
    There’s a body dangling ten feet below. It’s attached to the lanyard, twisting slightly against the chute like a fly on a spider’s strand. Otherwise, unmoving.
    â€œShit,” Roxane says, “shit shit
shit.”
    It’s Wycliffe Nichols. His head is lolling downward, lipless mouth hanging open under his wide, blunt nose. He looks dead.
    â€œShit,” Roxane says again. Wycliffe jerks.
    Roxane leaps back, boot tread catching on the rail so she feels the darkness below her teeter and then ascend, reaching up to grab her like a widespread palm.
    Wycliffe’s voice sounds up through the chute like he’s yelling from the bottom of a well, so loud in the quiet.
    â€œHelp me! God, help me. Jesus, help me!”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Roxane calls, trying for a steady voice. “It’s going to be okay.”
    â€œJesus, help me. Jesus, help me.”
    He’s looking up at her, eyes wide with naked fear.
    â€œI don’t have a radio,” she calls. “I’ll go find a Femco. I’ll be right back—”
    â€œDon’t leave! I can’t get down. You need to cut me down.”
    It’s a hundred feet down to the next level. If Roxane cuts him down, he’ll fall to his death. There’s something funny about the way he’s talking, and his eyes are too big and too black. He might be concussed. He might be in shock. His back might be broken. That’s why he’s jerking like a worm on a hook in the gaping maw of the chute.
    â€œI’ll get help—”
    â€œHe’s coming back!” Wycliffe says, his voice taking on a different kind of panic. “Don’t leave me. Dear God, don’t leave me alone down here with him!”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œHe did this to me. It was
him.”
    As far as Roxane could tell nobody had done anything to Wycliffe. It looked like he was working the fifteen-pound sledge on top of the grizzly and he forgot to unclip his safety lanyard before driving away in the Kubota. When he ran out of line he got pulled out of the Kubota and down the drift and then he fell down the chute. He should be dead.
    â€œHe’s there!” Wycliffe says again. “Behind you!”
    Roxane resists the urge to whirl around; she knows nobody’sout on the rail with her. But even as she thinks it, a whisper of wind stirs the loose strands of hair that have fallen from her braid, prickling the hairs on the nape of her neck.
    She digs in the pocket of her coveralls and finds her spare light, sets the flashlight on the grizzly rail so it shines over the top of the chute. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll be back in one minute.”
    â€œDon’t