© 2010 by James L. Lund

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Originally published in 2010 under the title Danger Calling

Abridged ebook edition created 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-4076-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked Message is taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Published in association with William K. Jensen Literary Agency, 119 Bampton Court, Eugene, Oregon 97404.

To my longtime friend Tim Hansel and the gang at Summit Expedition, who fired me up in countless ways, especially in reference to mountains and great effort.

Peb

To Betty Jean (Leonard) Lund, who encouraged me to pursue my calling wherever it led. Thanks, Mom, for everything.

Jim

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

1. Fear and Friendship at the Top of the World

2. Death and Birth in Blue John Canyon

3. Back on Board

4. Not Without a Fight

5. Terror in Tanzania

6. End of the Rope

Resources

Acknowledgments

Back Ads

Back Cover

1

Fear and Friendship at the Top of the World

The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Psalm 121:8

Eric Alexander pauses on a near-vertical slope to kick ice off his crampons and gulp another mouthful of oxygen-depleted air. He’s thrilled to be here—twenty-two thousand feet above sea level, ascending the western flank of Lhotse that leads to the peak of Mount Everest. But he’s also concerned. The Lhotse face is difficult under any circumstances, but this season, as the ice and snow melt, it’s raining down a frightening amount of debris.

And Eric has more than his own neck to worry about. The thirty-two-year-old is part of a team that hopes to guide his friend and fellow climber, Erik Weihenmayer, to Everest’s summit. Weihenmayer is attempting to become the first blind person to reach the top of the world.

Eric has led his friend most of the morning. He has a bell attached to his pack so Weihenmayer can follow the sound, and he calls out instructions such as “Deep crevasse here—you gotta jump all the way across” and “Chunky ice here—you need to raise your right leg high.” Now, however, he’s about two hundred feet above Weihenmayer and his teammates.

Suddenly, something dark, about the size of a softball, hurtles past Eric.

“Rock!” he yells, a warning to those below. To his horror, he sees the missile is headed straight for Weihenmayer.

Even if he could see it coming, Weihenmayer would have no time to dodge. He freezes. The rock slams into the snow at his feet and bounces down the slope.

Whoa, that was close, Eric thinks. Thank goodness it didn’t hit him. Let’s move!

The team has nearly reached camp 3 at 23,500 feet when Eric stops to check his heart rate. After the stress of hauling a big load to camp 2 the day before, it was high all night. Now he finds it’s still high: over 180 beats a minute. Reluctantly, Eric decides he’s pushed himself too hard; he needs to reduce altitude. After a conversation with Weihenmayer, he turns around and begins retracing his path on the icy Lhotse face back to camp 2. Five minutes later, as he picks his way down an especially steep slope, he’s satisfied he’s made the hard but right decision.

His thoughts are interrupted by a strange thumping sound from above. He looks up. A boulder the size of a truck tire is hurtling straight at him. It’s less than one hundred feet away.

Eric’s reaction is instinctive. He tucks his head and makes two quick hops to his left.

Is it enough?

The boulder flies past, missing Eric by inches. If he’d stayed in position, he’d very likely be dead.

Eric draws one long, deep breath. Then he drops to one knee on the slope.

Lord, please keep me safe the rest of the way down.

He continues his descent at a much quicker pace.

The manager of a mountaineering shop in Vail, Colorado, and a devoted climber, Eric met Weihenmayer through his roommate in late 1997 and found they had similar interests in climbing. Soon they were joining forces on increasingly difficult ice climbs in Colorado. Weihenmayer’s lack of vision barely slowed him down. Eric realized it was more inconvenience than obstacle.

On another climb with Weihenmayer, one question changed Eric’s future. “I’ve got this idea to climb Everest,” Weihenmayer said. “I’m putting some friends together, and I think you’d be a good addition to the team. What do you think?”

For Eric, it was the opportunity to achieve a lifelong dream, one he never expected to fulfill. There was just one qualification—a successful “practice run” on the 22,500-foot Ama Dablam, seven miles south of Everest.

That’s how Eric found himself in the Himalayas in April 2000, pinned in a tent with Weihenmayer for six days, waiting for a storm to pass. The deteriorating weather finally forced the team to abandon its summit hopes.

Eric descended Ama Dablam with three teammates and two Sherpas. After enduring a long session of down climbing and rappels through freezing wind and snow, Eric was exhausted and ready to crawl into his sleeping bag in his tent at camp 1. With the tents in sight, he unclipped from the end of the fixed rope and started the short but still dangerous descent down the narrow, steep path to camp. Below the path was a nearly vertical drop of more than six hundred feet.

All it took was one wrong step. The three-foot rock beneath his boot began to slide. Eric’s feet went out from under him. He fell on the rock and felt himself and the rock slipping. He grabbed for the edge of the path, but his heavy gloves found no traction.

He was going down.

He bounced off the slope and was airborne for a few feet, and then he slammed against the mountain again, his helmeted head cracking against rock, before being flung once more into space.

His thoughts distilled to single-word sentences: Help! Stop!

And then he wasn’t falling. His feet slid against a protrusion on the mountain and held there. With his stomach against the face, Eric slowly turned his head and looked down.

He was amazed by what he saw. He was “standing” on a ledge about three feet long and extending two feet out of the slope. It was the only barrier on the face. Below it was another sheer drop of nearly five hundred feet.

Eric did a quick self-check. His elbow hurt and his climbing outfit was shredded, but he hadn’t broken any bones. It was as if God had said, “No, Eric, not today.”

His teammates lowered a rope, and Eric climbed back to camp. His ordeal wasn’t over, however. That night, because of the shock of the fall, he developed high-altitude pulmonary edema. His lungs filled with fluid. His oxygen saturation rate—a normal level is 97 to 99 percent—dropped to 45 percent. The expedition doctor told Eric they needed to get him off the mountain quickly. He didn’t mention that with that much fluid in his lungs, Eric should already be dead.

A snowstorm, the altitude, and the steep slope made a helicopter rescue impossible. Eric was forced to rappel from camp 1 and then walk with the doctor to base camp, where a helicopter flew him to a hospital.

It was a trying time. As he attempted to recover, Eric caught pneumonia. The Everest expedition was only eight months away. He found himself praying for signs that he should stay home.

Eric realized he was afraid.

There was justification for his fear. People who develop high-altitude pulmonary edema once are more likely to suffer from it again. Eric wondered if his teammates would see him as bad luck or someone who had to be watched. He didn’t want to put his family through more trauma after they’d just recovered from his fall on Ama Dablam.

He also considered warnings emerging from the climbing community. Some felt that Weihenmayer was putting his life, as well as the lives of his teammates, at unwarranted risk. If Weihenmayer didn’t reach the summit or if anything went wrong, people would see the expedition as a failure. Eric didn’t want to let his friend down.

As Eric weighed his decision, he was rocked by a heartbreaking loss. His prayer partner, climbing buddy, and best friend, a free spirit named Joseph, went snowboarding alone into backcountry near Vail. When he didn’t show up for work the next day, Eric and a team of ski patrol friends mounted a search. They found Joseph at the bottom of a cliff, upside down in the snow. He’d suffocated.

Eric knew Joseph wanted him to go to Everest. I can’t just quit, he thought. He’d be so mad at me if I did.

A Boulder doctor cleared Eric to go. His teammates encouraged him to come back. The final hurdle was Weihenmayer himself. Eric asked what he thought he should do.

“People have always made judgments on what I can and can’t do,” Weihenmayer said. “I’m not about to do the same thing to you. You’ve got to decide for yourself.”

As Eric thought about it, he realized that the Everest expedition was about more than his own struggle. It had the potential to open new horizons for the blind and anyone held back by what seemed an insurmountable obstacle. He wanted to be part of that. He also sensed the Lord’s direction through Bible verses such as Joshua 1:9: “Be strong and courageous . . . for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

“I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to get you to the top or get myself to the top,” he told Weihenmayer a few days later, “but I know I’m strong enough to help you get there.”

On Everest in March and April 2001, Eric has plenty of opportunities to wonder if he’s made the right decision. Weihenmayer’s first trip through the treacherous Himalayan glacier known as the Khumbu Icefall takes thirteen intense hours instead of the scheduled seven, putting the goal of a summit in serious doubt. Then there is the issue with Eric’s heart rate, followed by the rock-dodging adventure on the Lhotse face.

But Weihenmayer and Eric both persevere. As the climbers acclimatize to the altitude, repeatedly moving up and down the mountain, Weihenmayer gradually improves his speed through the icefall to a much quicker five hours. Eric’s health problems disappear, and he rejoins the rest of the team.

Finally, on May 24, after two years of preparation and weeks of climbing and waiting for the right weather on the mountain, Eric, Weihenmayer, and the rest of the team are at camp 4, ready for the summit push.

The mood is a combination of excitement, nervous anticipation, and bald fear. Even while sitting in a tent at twenty-six thousand feet, every breath is labored, and simple decisions require intense concentration. The climbers are in the Death Zone, a place where no human can expect to live for long. They’re well aware that the day before, an Austrian climber clipped into the wrong rope at the Hillary Step and fell. It was a fatal mistake.

By radio, the team gets word that a Spanish climber is missing somewhere on the slopes above them. Some begin preparing to aid in the search. Eric is asked to pray. He does, silently, and encourages the others to do the same. Minutes later, the team receives the good news that the missing climber is found and everyone’s okay.

At 9 p.m. that night, wearing a green down suit, backpack, oxygen tank, and goggles, Eric steps out of his tent onto the South Col. He’s greeted by subzero temperatures and a punishing wind. Everest is in the jet stream, where the air can easily fly faster than one hundred miles per hour. It’s time to move.

Every step is a struggle, but the climbers push forward. Eric is just behind Weihenmayer, focused on making sure his friend stays on route. When they reach the Southeast Ridge at 27,500 feet, they trudge into a storm marked by lightning and snow. It appears they’ll have to turn around, until base camp radios a forecast: the storm will pass. Coated in two inches of snow, they decide to continue up.

At 8:30 in the morning, the climbers reach the South Summit, three hundred vertical feet from the peak but still two hours of climbing away. They must negotiate a knife-edge ridge more than six hundred feet long. On the left side is a seven-thousand-foot drop into Nepal. On the right is a ten-thousand-foot drop into Tibet.

Eric looks at the precarious ridge and shakes his head. How are we going to get across this? But Weihenmayer is already on his way. Eric isn’t going to leave his friend now.

The weather is clearing when they attack the Hillary Step, the thirty-nine-foot rock face named after the first man to ascend the world’s tallest peak. Eric is just behind Weihenmayer when his friend takes hold of a rope, one of several that stretch down from the top of the face. Some are new and secure; some have been here for multiple climbing seasons.

Eric remembers the fate of the Austrian. He tells Weihenmayer, “Hey, Erik, there are a bunch of ropes here. Don’t grab just one. Grab ’em all.”

Finally, far above the clouds and beneath a brilliant blue sky, Eric, Weihenmayer, and the rest of the team make the final steps up to the small platform that marks the roof of the world.

“Wooo!” Eric shouts.

“Erik, you did it, man! You showed ’em!” yells another teammate.

“I can’t believe it,” says Weihenmayer.

It’s a joyful moment marked by backslaps and hugs. But Eric has one private duty to perform. He’s been carrying a picture of Joseph against his chest throughout the summit push. Now he takes it out, intending to secure it under a rock at the summit.

The wind has other ideas. The photo is ripped from Eric’s hands. It begins a flight into the seemingly endless airspace over Tibet, the birth of a new adventure. Startled at first, Eric quickly realizes that his friend would probably prefer it this way.

The team doesn’t linger—they know how unforgiving this mountain can be to those who underestimate its power. Eric attaches the bell to his pack and prepares to lead Weihenmayer back into the world of mortals. He pauses one last time to speak to the Source of even greater power.

Thank you, Lord, for Joseph’s and Erik’s friendship, and for allowing us to make it this far. Please help us to get down safely.

Feeling stronger than ever, Eric steps off the summit and toward his next challenge.

2

Death and Birth in Blue John Canyon

When we find inspiration, we need to take action . . . even if it means making a hard choice or cutting out something and leaving it in your past.

Aron Ralston

SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 2003, 2:51 P.M.

BLUE JOHN CANYON, UTAH

Twenty-seven-year-old Aron Ralston stands in a slot canyon and weighs the dilemma before him. To continue down the canyon, he must go over a boulder the size of a bus tire that’s wedged between the walls at his feet, then drop twelve feet to the canyon floor. Beyond the boulder, the walls rise sixty feet to the canyon rim and taper to just three feet wide. It’s a narrow, open-roofed tunnel carved in stone.

Aron kicks at the boulder; it seems secure enough to hang from. He squats, puts his weight onto the boulder, turns to face the direction he just came from, and slides over the boulder so he’s dangling, arms extended, from its front.

Unexpectedly, the boulder shifts.

Aron knows this is bad news. He lets go and drops to the rocks below.

He looks up. The boulder is falling on top of him. He throws his hands up to protect himself. The boulder bashes Aron’s left hand against the south wall, then ricochets and smashes down on his right hand, ripping it down the wall for a foot before coming to rest between both walls, pinning Aron’s right hand against the north wall.

The pain is excruciating. Aron pulls hard three times at his arm. He pushes with all his might on the boulder.

Nothing happens.

He’s alone, hidden in a remote canyon in southeast Utah, and he’s stuck.

6 P.M.

Aron scratches at the boulder, first with the file end and then with the knife blade of his multiuse tool. His progress is pitifully slow. The boulder has the same appearance as the dark material that formed the canyon lip. His blade is rapidly losing its sharpness. This chock stone, Aron thinks, is the hardest thing here.

Aron is an experienced outdoorsman. He’s trained in search and rescue. He’s just spent the winter climbing some of Colorado’s highest and toughest peaks. He knows how to work out problems under pressure. He’s a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, for heaven’s sake. But none of his training and experiences has prepared him for what he faces now.

He’d planned only for a bike ride and day hike through the canyons. The bike is hidden far back on the trail behind some bushes. His resources now are a CD player, a video camera, a headlamp, a rock-climbing harness and rappelling gear, two small burritos, and twenty-two ounces of water. Those and his brain are all he’s got.

What makes matters worse is that Aron has committed a cardinal sin for outdoor adventurers. Because he wanted to keep his options open, he left no detailed description of his plans. The only hint he gave his roommates in Aspen, Colorado, was a single word: Utah.

Unless he finds a way to get out of here, he’ll miss the party at his home on Monday night. He’ll miss the first day he’s due back at his job at Ute Mountaineering on Tuesday. Eventually, people will begin searching. But it will be too late. With so little water, Aron figures he’ll last until Monday or Tuesday morning at best.

“You’re gonna have to cut your arm off,” Aron says out loud.

“But I don’t wanna cut my arm off!” He’s arguing with himself.

“Aron, you’re gonna have to cut your arm off.”

Yet he knows he can’t saw through his arm bones with his small, dull knife.

He scratches at the boulder some more.

SUNDAY, 1 P.M.

With his climbing gear, Aron’s rigged a pulley system around the boulder in an attempt to move it. But the system is too weak. No matter how hard he tries, the boulder won’t budge. It must weigh two hundred pounds, maybe more.

Suddenly, Aron hears the echo of voices in the canyon.

Could it be? It’s the right time of day—a group would get to this part and be able to return out to the West Fork or to Horseshoe Trailhead in daylight.

“Help!” he shouts. “Helllp!”

Aron’s heart pounds, but there is no other sound. Then he hears the echo again. This time, Aron recognizes what it really is—a kangaroo rat scratching in its nest above the boulder.

With few other options, Aron again considers amputation. He can fashion a tourniquet from materials at hand. He wonders, assuming he figures out a way to cut through his bones, if he has the courage to go through with it.

Aron presses the knife blade of his multitool against his arm near the wrist. He can see tendons and veins beneath the skin. He feels nauseous.

What are you doing, Aron? Get that knife away from your wrist! What are you trying to do, kill yourself? That’s suicide! I don’t care how good a tourniquet you have, you’ve got too many arteries in your arm to stop them all. You’ll bleed out.

The idea of slashing his wrists to end the ordeal flashes through Aron’s mind.

“I . . . hate . . . this!”

SUNDAY EVENING

Aron rests his left hand on the boulder and closes his eyes.

“God, I am praying to you for guidance,” he says. “I’m trapped here in Blue John Canyon—you probably know that—and I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I need some new ideas. Or if I need to try something again—lifting the boulder, amputating my arm—please show me a sign.”

Aron waits. There’s no discernible answer.

MONDAY, 3 P.M.

Aron pulls out his video camera. He’s already recorded an explanation of the accident. Now it’s time to leave more thoughts.

“One of the things I’m learning here is that I didn’t enjoy the people’s company that I was with enough, or as much as I should have,” he says. “A lot of really good people have spent a lot of time with me. Very often I would tend to ignore or diminish their presence in seeking the essence of the experience. All that’s to say, I’m figuring some things out . . .

“I’m doing what I can, but this sucks. It’s really bad. This is one of the worst ways to go. Knowing what’s going to happen, but it still being three or four days out.”

He pauses.

“I did want to say, on the logistical side of things, I have some American Express insurance that should cover costs of the recovery operation when that does happen . . .”

TUESDAY MORNING

Aron is recording again.

“This next part may not be for all viewers at home,” he says to the camera. “It’s a little after eight. At precisely eight o’clock I took my last sip of clean water . . . and . . . hide your eyes, Mom . . .”

He swivels the camera and reveals a bloody wound in his right forearm.

“I made an attempt—a short career in surgery, as it turned out. Those knives are just not anywhere close to the task. I’ve got about an inch-wide gash in my arm that goes about a half-inch deep. I cut down through the skin and the fatty tissue, and through some of the muscle. I think I cut a tendon, but I’m not sure. I tried, anyway. It really just didn’t go well. The tourniquet is relaxed at this point. Which actually is a little bothersome, considering I’m not bleeding that bad, barely at all. It’s so weird. You’d expect to definitely see more pulsing and bleeding, but oh well.”

Aron stops the tape. He can’t move the chock stone. He can’t cut through his arm bones. Now he’s really depressed. He wonders which threat will actually be the one to finish him off—dehydration, hypothermia, a flash flood, toxins from his dying hand, or infection from the new wound in his arm.

1:30 P.M.

Aron is out of options. He’s waiting for death.

He decides it’s time for another prayer.

“God, it’s Aron again. I still need your help. It’s getting bad here. I’m out of water and food. I know I’m going to die soon, but I want to go naturally. I’ve decided that regardless of what I might go through, I don’t want to take my own life. It occurred to me that I could, but that’s not the way I want to go. As it is, I don’t figure I’ll live another day—it’s been three days already—I don’t figure I’ll see Wednesday noon. But please, God, grant me the steadfastness not to do anything against my being.”

He’s resolved to hang on until the bitter end.

WEDNESDAY, 4 A.M.

Aron has rigged a kind of chair from his climbing gear, but if he sits in it for more than a few minutes it cuts off the circulation in his legs. Otherwise, he stands. He can’t sleep. He’s been awake since Friday night.

He does, however, enter into a series of trances. In front of the boulder, he sees a man in a white robe motion for him to follow. Aron presses on the sandstone wall, and it swings open like a gate. He steps into a living room filled with friends at a dinner party. He can see them, and they can see him, but they can’t interact physically.

What’s going on? he thinks. What’s happening to me here? Am I inside my head? Am I dreaming? How can that be, if I’m not sleeping? But how is this possible if it’s not a dream?

Aron is racked by spasms of cold. He’s back in the canyon, his hand still trapped by the boulder. The night grinds on. In each new vision, he’s no longer aware of cold or pain or hunger or thirst. But each trance ends with convulsions and the reality of the canyon.

11 P.M.

Aron is freezing. Even the slightest breeze leaves him shivering uncontrollably.

He begins carving on the sandstone wall above his left shoulder. When he’s done, the rock reveals his final message to the world: ARON. OCT 75. APR 03. RIP.

THURSDAY, 10:30 A.M.

Inexplicably, Aron is still alive, though barely. He’s been drinking his own urine, and it’s eroding the inside of his mouth. His lips are horribly chapped. He’s still wearing his contact lenses; every blink hurts. He weighed about 175 pounds on Saturday. Who knows what he weighs now?

He’s beyond exhaustion, beyond everything. Waiting for the inevitable is the worst part of all.

Yesterday, he picked up a rock and pounded at the boulder, with small effect. He reaches again for the rock. His left hand is already raw from yesterday’s effort. Now each blow brings on new agony.

Finally, Aron stops and puts the rock down. Dirt and bits of sandstone cover his right arm. With his multitool knife, he brushes some off. He accidentally nicks himself, exposing a section of decomposed flesh. He understands that his right hand is already dead.

Curious explorer to the end, he punctures the skin on his right thumb. It hisses; a stench rises to his nose.

Suddenly, Aron has had it. This dying appendage is no longer part of him. It’s poison. It’s garbage. He hates it.

Throw it away, Aron. Be rid of it.

The amazing cool he’s maintained so carefully for the last five days is finally used up. He’s enraged. He’s screaming. He yanks again and again with his right arm, smashing his fading body against the walls of his familiar trap. His contortions force his right arm to bend at a strange angle.

Aron stops. His fury has provided an epiphany. If he applies enough force, he can bend his arm so far that the bones will break.

That’s it!

There is no analysis or reflection. Aron immediately crouches as low as he can beneath the boulder, putting tension on his forearm, pushing, pushing harder still.

A popping sound from his arm echoes up the canyon walls.

Seconds later, Aron repeats his violent dance with the boulder and produces a second popping noise. He’s successfully broken the radius and ulna bones in his forearm. He’s excited and sweating hard. He’s also in pain, but he’s not thinking about that. After days of forced immobility, he’s focused only on action.

Clutching his multitool, Aron tackles his next grisly task—separating his body from his decaying wrist and hand. After nearly an hour of twisting and cutting, with a break to apply his makeshift tourniquet, he makes the final slice.

Aron is overwhelmed by an ecstasy he’s never known. It is a second birth.

I AM FREE!

3:00 P.M.

Despite the tourniquet and layers of clothes wrapped to make a bandage, blood is dripping steadily from Aron’s right arm. He’s rappelled down six stories to a waterhole in Blue John Canyon and hiked six miles through punishing heat to this point in Horseshoe Canyon. He has only two miles to go to reach the trailhead where he parked his truck five days ago, but the hike includes a steep rise at the end, and his energy is nearly gone. The outcome of his ordeal is still very much in doubt.

Aron follows a left turn on the trail. Seventy yards ahead is a sight so unbelievable that he wonders if it’s real. Three people, two adults and a child, are on the trail. They are walking away.

Twice, Aron tries to shout, but he can’t get any words out of his parched throat. Then comes a feeble sound, followed by a stronger one: “Help! HELP!”

The trio stops and turns around. Then they start running in his direction.

Aron nearly begins to cry. He’s no longer alone.

He’s going to live.

3

Back on Board

Be strong and courageous . . . for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31:6

A blustery wind and the sound of waves crashing onto the sand greet blonde-haired, thirteen-year-old Bethany Hamilton as she gets out of the van. A short walk down the trail and a quick inspection of the beach confirm everyone’s hopes—it’s a great spot for surfing.

Originally, Bethany had planned only to watch. She was going to just sit in the sand while her friends rode their boards. But the water, the waves, and the perfect conditions are too tempting. After all, her dream has been to become a professional surfer. She’s already been successful as an amateur on the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) circuit and even has a sponsor. She has to try it.

She has to know, after everything that’s happened, if she can still surf.

It was just a month ago that Bethany’s life changed forever. On Halloween morning 2003, Bethany was doing what she loved most, what she’d been doing every chance she had since she’d first tried surfing at the age of seven. She and her best friend, Alana Blanchard, along with Alana’s brother, Byron, and dad, Holt, were surfing at Tunnels, a beach on the north shore of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The waves weren’t spectacular, but that didn’t matter. Bethany didn’t want to be anywhere else.

After about half an hour in the water, Holt and Byron were on their boards and farthest from the beach. Alana trailed behind them in the water, and Bethany was about fifteen feet behind her friend, a quarter mile from shore. Bethany was lying on her stomach on her red, white, and blue surfboard, looking out to sea. Her right arm rested on the nose of her board. Her left arm, the one with a shiny, light blue watch, dangled in the crystal clear water.

I hope the surf picks up soon, Bethany thought.

There was no warning, no sound or change in the pattern of the calm water. Just a sudden, unexpected presence at her left—something large and gray.

At the same instant Bethany registered the presence, she felt pressure on her arm, a jiggling, and a tug.

By the time she could fully turn her head to look at the blur of movement, the shape was gone. The water was turning bright red. There was a huge crescent-shaped hole in the surfboard. And all that remained of what should have been Bethany’s left arm was a three- or four-inch stub.

Bethany’s voice was loud yet surprisingly under control: “I just got attacked by a shark!” She began paddling toward shore.

Get to the beach, she thought. Get to the beach.

A minute later, Holt and Byron appeared at Bethany’s side. “I can’t believe that this happened,” Bethany said.

Holt’s face was white, his eyes wide, as he took in the sight of Bethany’s bleeding stump and shredded board. “Oh my gosh!” he said. He began pushing the tail of Bethany’s board to move her faster.

Please, God, help me, she prayed. God, let me get to the beach.

Fear began to enter Bethany’s mind. I could die. She pushed the negative thoughts aside. I’m in God’s hands.

At a shallow point, Holt stood up, took off his gray rash guard, and wrapped it tight around the stub of Bethany’s arm. It was a makeshift tourniquet.

Fifteen minutes after the attack, Bethany, Holt, and Alana reached shore. Byron had already paddled ahead to call 911.

Holt lifted Bethany off her board and onto the sand. Bethany blacked out for a time. Alana ran for help and located a vacationing paramedic named Paul Wheeler. When someone produced a first-aid kit, Wheeler slipped on gloves and explored Bethany’s wound with his fingers. Then he took her pulse.

Wheeler shook his head. “She’s lost a lot of blood,” he said in a low voice.

An ambulance finally arrived. As they pulled out of the parking lot with Bethany inside, a paramedic whispered in her ear, “God will never leave you or forsake you.”

At that moment, at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, Bethany’s father was on an operating table preparing for knee surgery. An emergency room nurse interrupted before the procedure could start. “Just a heads-up, Dr. Rovinsky,” she said. “There’s a thirteen-year-old girl coming—a shark attack victim. We are going to need this room right away.”

Something in Tom Hamilton’s heart told him the girl was either Alana or his daughter. The doctor left to investigate and returned a few minutes later. There were tears in his eyes.

“Tom, it’s Bethany,” he said. “She’s in stable condition. That’s all I know, I don’t have any other information. Tom, I’m going to have to roll you out. Bethany’s coming in here.”

Not long after, Bethany lay in the same room while the doctor prepared for the unexpected surgery on a different member of the Hamilton family. “Do you want anything?” a nurse asked Bethany.

“Just to go to sleep,” she said.

“Okay, Bethany,” the nurse said. “Close your eyes and sleep.”

Later that day, after the surgery and after the anesthesia had worn off, an exhausted young teen began dealing with the new reality of her life. Bethany told her dad, “I want to be the best surf photographer in the world.” It was her way of saying that she understood her surfing dreams had ended.

By the next day, however, Bethany was already starting to feel a trickle of hope. So many people were saying positive things, cheering her up. Her doctor said that the list of things she could no longer do would be short. Was it possible her dream could stay off that list—that she could still surf competitively?

When she thought about going back into the ocean, Bethany didn’t feel any deep fear of another shark attack. She was more scared of having to let go of her passion.

Now, just a few weeks after the attack, Bethany is standing on a beach at Kilauea, ready to face her fears and discover her future. She’s selected her nine-foot board, which is easier to catch and maneuver than shorter ones. “You can do it,” she says to herself on the beach. “You can paddle and get up with one arm.”

A voice inside her head yells a rebuttal: Forget it. You’re going to fail.

Bethany tries to ignore the voice and steps into the water.

She’s far from alone at this critical moment. Her brother Noah is swimming out with Bethany, holding a video camera. Her dad is there too, taking time off work, shouting, “Go, girl!” Alana and many other friends are also on the beach.

As they have so many times before, Bethany and Alana walk deeper into the refreshing Hawaiian surf. Bethany revels in the warmth of the water and the taste of salt on her lips. It’s like being home again.

She decides to begin by riding some “soup” (rolling white water). It’s different paddling with just one arm; Bethany feels like a beginner. When the wave starts to pick her up, Bethany places her right hand in the middle of the board and tries to get on her feet.

It doesn’t work.

A minute later, she tries a second time. Again, no luck.

Bethany’s getting discouraged. She thought it would be easier than this. She can’t even stand up.

“Bethany, try it one more time,” Tom Hamilton shouts from the water. “This one will be it!”

Another wave tumbles in. Bethany positions her hand on her board and pushes up. She finds her balance. She’s standing! She’s surfing!

Joy and a sense of gratitude well up inside Bethany. With that one wave, all the doubts vanish. Tears begin running down her face, mixing with the ocean water. Everyone in the water and on the beach cheers.

Now Bethany believes anything is possible.

That first day back in the water marks the beginning of an impressive return to competitive surfing for Bethany. She finds ways to compensate for the loss of her arm and refines her technique. The next year, she is presented with a special courage award at the Teen Choice Awards sponsored by FOX and wins a Best Comeback ESPY award from ESPN. More important to Bethany, in 2005 she wins an NSSA amateur national championship.

Three years later, Bethany starts competing full-time on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Qualifying Series. She’s achieved her dream—she is a professional, at this writing just one step away from qualifying for the pinnacle of the sport, the ASP World Tour. In Bethany’s first competition against many of the world’s best surfers, she finishes third.

At five feet ten inches, Bethany has turned into a statuesque, even imposing, figure on a surfboard. She also appears fearless in the water.

“She’s really aggressive,” says one competitor. “Bethany catches really big waves. Like, gnarly waves.”

She’s not always as fearless as she seems. She admits that sometimes her heart pounds when she’s in the ocean and sees a shadow in the water.

Bethany sometimes asks herself why the shark attack happened at all. There was no record of a shark ever attacking a human on Kauai’s north coast. But when Bethany asks, “Why me?” it isn’t usually a negative question. She’s not asking, “Why did this horrible thing have to happen to me?” For Bethany, it’s more about wondering, “Why did God choose me and what does he have in mind for me?”

Some of that question may have already been answered for Bethany. On the day of the attack, a family friend said that God had given her a message from the Bible for the Hamilton family: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’ ” (Jer. 29:11).

Despite her natural shyness, Bethany has taken advantage of her unplanned celebrity to tell her story to the world through interviews, a book, and a documentary, lifting the spirits of millions through her courage. She’s also used the opportunity to explain her faith in Jesus Christ. She has written, “I don’t really want people looking to me for inspiration. I just want to be a sign along the way that points toward heaven.”

For Bethany, the sign pointing to her future is as bright as a Hawaiian sunrise and as inviting as her beloved Pacific surf.

4

Not Without a Fight

Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

Marian Wright Edelman

For seventeen-year-old Jacque Marris, a cheerleader at Highland High School in Palmdale, California, the last day of July 2002 begins as just another carefree summer evening. She has no inkling it will mark the most terrifying experience of her life.

It is a Wednesday night. Jacque and a friend, nineteen-year-old Frank Melero, have driven in Melero’s truck to Quartz Hill, a teen hangout overlooking Antelope Valley, about an hour north of Los Angeles. They haven’t seen each other in a while and want to catch up. On the way up the hill, they passed a white Ford Bronco and a Saturn parked next to it. Now, at the top, they are alone, listening to music, enjoying the view, and realizing it is nearly time to go—it’s after midnight, almost to Jacque’s curfew.

Suddenly, on Melero’s side of the truck, a man appears out of the darkness. He’s holding a gun.

“None of you look at me,” the man says through the open window. “Both of you turn away.”

Jacque’s heart begins to pound. She and Melero turn. The man presses the gun against the side of Melero’s head.

“Give me your money,” the man says in a raspy voice. Melero hands over his wallet. The man also takes the keys to the truck.

He asks if Melero has rope or tape in the truck. Melero says no.

“Either you give me rope or tape or I’m going to hurt you both,” the man says.

Melero remembers he has a nylon tie-down strap in the bed of the truck. The man uses it to tie Melero’s arms to the steering wheel. Jacque, petrified, sits slumped over next to Melero, waiting and hoping the man will just go away.

Just as he finishes securing Melero, they all hear the sound of a vehicle approaching. It’s a state water and power employee. The worker gets out of his truck, apparently to check on a gate.

“Don’t move,” the gunman whispers to Jacque and Melero, “or I’ll kill you.”

The state worker either doesn’t see Melero’s truck or doesn’t notice what’s happening. After a few minutes, he gets back into his own truck and drives away.

The gunman tries to bind Jacque next to Melero with the same nylon strap. Jacque feels for Melero’s hands, tied to the steering wheel. “I’m really scared,” she whispers.

“It’s going to be all right,” Melero answers. “God is with us.”

The gunman can’t get the strap to work. It isn’t long enough. He curses and mumbles to himself. He makes Jacque get out of the truck and forces her to walk down the hill, leaving Melero and the truck behind.

Now she’s terrified.

They reach the Bronco. The gunman finds duct tape in the back and uses it to tape Jacque’s mouth and arms. They go back to check on Melero one more time, then return to the Bronco. Jacque is forced into the back. She’s horrified to see someone’s legs. She thinks it’s a dead body.

The owner of the legs, however, is very much alive. She is sixteen-year-old Tamara Brooks, an honor student at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster. The SUV they are in belongs to Tamara’s friend Eric Brown. Just over an hour earlier, the gunman had bound Eric and Tamara with duct tape, then led Eric away.

The man turns on the Bronco’s ignition and starts driving down the hill.

The girls are being kidnapped.

Jacque always sings when she’s angry or in trouble. Now, fearing for both their lives, Jacque begins stroking Tamara’s arms and legs and humming softly. Tamara later says it was like her mom was singing a lullaby to her.

The serenity is broken several minutes later. The man parks the Bronco in a remote area, climbs into the back, and sexually assaults both teens. Jacque can smell the alcohol on the man’s breath. She can’t believe this horrible nightmare is really happening.

The girls’ kidnapper is thirty-seven-year-old Roy Dean Ratliff. He’s been convicted of burglary and drug charges and is currently wanted for rape. He has two guns and ammunition.

After the assaults, Ratliff begins driving again. At one point, Jacque feels the vehicle roll to a stop on the highway shoulder. She sees and hears cars passing by, but she can’t yell for help with the duct tape over her mouth.

Ratliff crawls into the passenger seat and then out the door, leaving it open a crack. This is Jacque’s chance. Her arms and legs are tied, but only loosely. She figures she can jump out and flag someone down before the man catches her or drives off again.

There’s just one problem with Jacque’s plan—the girl tied up next to her.

I don’t know what he’ll do to her, if he’ll hurt her more, Jacque thinks. I can’t leave her behind.

A minute later, the kidnapper returns, slams the door, and revs the engine. The opportunity for escape is gone.

With the Bronco moving again, Jacque grabs Tamara’s hand and traces letters into her palm: “Need a plan.”

Tamara traces back a single word: “Knife.” She knows her friend Eric keeps a bowie knife somewhere in the SUV. Moving silently, they search the back until they find the knife and a bottle that can also be used as a weapon.

Just past dawn, Ratliff drives onto a remote dirt road in the Mojave Desert. They are 130 miles from Quartz Hill. The kidnapper steps out of the Bronco and fires from both of his guns into the empty canyon.

He’s going to kill us, Jacque thinks.

But before Ratliff can do anything else, his drinking apparently catches up with him. He sits down in the front seat, leaving the door slightly ajar, and falls asleep.

Jacque and Tamara work quickly to free themselves. They figure there is no way to get out of the Bronco without waking their kidnapper. He’d shoot them before they could run twenty yards.

Instead, they mouth the words to a different strategy: Jacque will stab Ratliff with the knife and Tamara will hit him with the bottle.

I’m so scared, Jacque thinks. What if he wakes up? What if this doesn’t work? Is God ever going to forgive us for this?

Jacque grips the knife and hesitates. She isn’t sure she can actually stab someone.

Then Ratliff’s eyes flicker. He’s waking up.

Jacque slashes at Ratliff’s neck. Tamara smashes the bottle on his head.

Ratliff rolls to his left and falls partway out the still-open door. Together, Jacque and Tamara kick him the rest of the way out. They throw the knife and bottle at him, yank the door shut, and lock it.

That’s when they realize their mistake. Ratliff still has the car key—and the guns.

“Open the door!” Ratliff yells. “Open the door or I’ll kill you!”

“Don’t you believe in Jesus?” Jacque yells back. “Isn’t there going to be anyone who will be upset if you die?”

“No one cares about me!” Ratliff answers. He raises a pistol and fires a shot over the roof. The girls have no choice. They have to open the door.

Ratliff doesn’t retaliate, at least not yet. Instead, his neck bleeding, he starts driving again and turns onto Highway 178. What he doesn’t know is that Frank Melero has freed himself and used a cell phone to call his mother, who dialed 911. Authorities issue California’s first AMBER Alert, a nationwide system designed to help recover abducted children. The AMBER program, which stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, was formed as a legacy for Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old who was kidnapped while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas, and then brutally murdered. When a child is abducted, the news is quickly broadcast via television, radio, highway signs, the internet, and other resources.

On that summer morning in 2002, Milton Walters, a county employee, hears the reports about Jacque’s and Tamara’s kidnapping, which include a description of the stolen SUV. At about 11 a.m., while working on Highway 178, he’s shocked to see a white Ford Bronco heading his way on the usually deserted highway. Walters stares at the driver, who gives him a strange smile and nod as he drives by.

Walters reaches for his cell phone.

In the Bronco, Jacque feels the SUV turn. The ride becomes bumpy. They’re off the highway.

Jacque shudders. He’s going to kill us and dump our bodies in the brush.

Suddenly, Jacque hears the whirring blades of a helicopter overhead. It gives her hope, but also a new surge of fear—Ratliff has promised to kill them if the police show up.

The Bronco begins moving faster. A few minutes later, it curves around a rock outcropping. Parked directly ahead is a Kern County patrol car.

Ratliff slams on the brakes. The Kern County deputy, already out of the car, draws his gun.

“Get your hands where I can see ’em!” the deputy yells.

“No . . . way!” Ratliff yells back. He whips the wheel and sends the Bronco to the left, where it sails over a small ridge into a dry creek bed. It lands hard on top of a large rock, nearly flipping over.

Ratliff guns the engine, but the Bronco doesn’t move. He jumps into the backseat next to Jacque, his head on her shoulder, the pistol inches from her head.

He’s gonna kill me right now, Jacque thinks.

“I have the girls!” Ratliff shouts. “You better not shoot or else they’re gonna die!”

Jacque can see two deputies, both on foot with guns drawn, approaching the Bronco on the driver’s side. In seconds, they’re only six feet away.

Ratliff raises his gun toward one of the deputies.

The other deputy fires.

The air fills with the sounds of gunfire, exploding glass, and teenagers’ screams. A few seconds later—after seventeen shots fired by the deputies and one by Ratliff—it’s over. Ratliff is dead.

Crying and nearly hysterical, Jacque and Tamara scramble out of the Bronco. They embrace and then hug the deputies. Jacque is overcome with relief. After twelve hours on the brink of death, she has her life back.

Today, Jacque says she has no regrets about staying with Tamara when she had the chance to escape. “I didn’t know what he was gonna do to Tamara, if he would hurt her more than he already had,” she says.

Jacque also believes she made the right choice to fight back against her abductor. “There was no way I wasn’t going down without a fight because that would have been stupid of me,” she says. “How can you not fight for your life?”

Because of the decisions Jacque Marris and Tamara Brooks made during those frightening hours in a Ford Bronco, both young women have a lifetime to answer that question.

5

Terror in Tanzania

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble.

Psalm 32:7

The brochure for Tanzania Adventures Inc. begins like this: “Africa . . . If you love wild places, even the name sends shivers of excitement up your spine. It is a place of mystery, ancient traditions, legends, and dreams.”

For thirty-seven-year-old Melissa Neugebauer and her family—her husband, parents, and two young boys—her seventeen days in Tanzania have been all of that. From the time she was ten, Melissa was getting up before sunrise to join her dad in hunts on their north Texas ranch. She’s hunted all her life. This safari, however, is beyond anything she’s experienced before. She has camped in the African wild, mingled with the native Masai tribesmen, and of course stalked the plentiful big game in this exotic land on the continent’s eastern shore. Today, August 13, 2008, she seeks one of the most formidable creatures on the planet: the mighty Cape buffalo.

For Leon Lamprecht, thirty-nine, the past two and a half weeks have been enjoyable routine. He has patiently stalked game with Melissa’s boys and led hunts with Melissa, her husband, and her father. The son of a South African game warden, Leon qualified as a professional hunter at the age of twenty-one and is licensed in three African nations. He’s also served as a platoon commander in the South African Infantry Corps. Leon has seen just about everything during his years in the wild. Yet neither he nor Melissa can anticipate what awaits them this day.

After a breakfast of yogurt, fruit, bacon, and eggs at their Rungwa Ikili camp, Melissa and Leon, along with two trackers and a game warden, climb into a Toyota Land Cruiser and drive north. The weather is perfect: seventy-five degrees and sunny. At 9:45, they find fresh buffalo tracks crossing the road. For over an hour, they stalk a small herd across several miles of rough terrain. Finally, the herd comes into view. One is a handsome bull with deeply curved horns. He must weigh at least fifteen hundred pounds. But to the disappointment of the trackers, Melissa decides to let him go. Though mature, he’s still young. She’ll let him share his amazing genes a while longer. Besides, she has a feeling there is something else in store for her this day.

At about 3:30 in the afternoon, one of the trackers glimpses a large, lone Cape buffalo heading past a ten-foot-tall termite mound into the miombo (Swahili for a dry wooded area). Leon parks the vehicle downwind, and the group backtracks, looking for signs of the buffalo. They can’t find a trace, so they walk to the termite mound and begin tracking into the miombo, this time with the wind at their backs. It puts the hunters at a disadvantage; the buffalo may catch their scent before they spot him.

Slowly, the group proceeds. The trackers are in front, followed by Leon, then Melissa, then the game warden. They are spread out, each a few feet apart from the closest companion. Leon carries his weapon—a Krieghoff double rifle—casually, against his shoulder. He’s crouched, studying the ground, more intent on finding signs of the buffalo than preparing to shoot it. Most of the grass has been burned away by a fire, but much of the ground is still covered by fallen leaves. Ring-necked turtle doves call in the distance; otherwise, in the heat of the afternoon, all is quiet.

Suddenly, there is a rustling and the sound of feet pounding through the leaves. Leon looks up. The two trackers are crashing through the brush, heading right. Behind them, only twenty paces away, something black and deadly bears down on Leon. It’s the buffalo, five feet tall and probably sixteen hundred pounds, his nose in the air, charging at full speed.

It all happens so quickly. Leon stands. There is movement behind him—Melissa. The buffalo is attracted to the motion and veers in that direction.

Leon has the rifle in his hands now, but there’s no time to raise it to his shoulder. The buffalo is already on top of him. Leon is overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. The buffalo is thundering right next to him. Leon can hear, from behind, the game warden shouting, “Piga! Piga!” (“Shoot! Shoot!”). With the rifle at his hip, Leon points at the bull’s shoulder and fires.

And then the buffalo is past, still charging.

At the sound of commotion, Melissa had looked up and seen the scattering trackers. In the next instant, she realized the buffalo was charging.

Shoot! was her first thought. But her rifle is on a strap on her shoulder. Tree! entered her mind next. But the bull is less than ten yards away.

Melissa turns, hears the bellow of Leon’s Krieghoff, sees that there are no climbable trees. She runs three or four steps, then grabs the thin branch of a sapling as if to protect herself.

Too late. She feels a blow against her hip. She is being thrust into the air.

Leon is amazed and horrified to see Melissa’s body flip up on top of the bull. Her stomach is pressed against the boss of his horns, her head above his neck, legs clad in khaki cargo pants dangling over his eyes and nose. On any other buffalo, she might have been gored by the sharp tips of the horns. But this bull’s horns have an unusual shape. Instead of dropping down from the boss and curling back into dangerous points, they extend almost straight out, then curve in on themselves. Because of that extra curl, Melissa is safe from the pointed tips while atop the buffalo’s head, but she’s pinned between the curves of his horns.

The bull doesn’t like any of this. He runs into the brush for several yards, shaking his head violently the entire time.

Leon runs after him. He isn’t really thinking; he’s acting on autopilot. He knows that somehow he’s got to help Melissa before it’s too late.

The buffalo stops and lowers his head. Melissa tumbles from atop the bull onto the ground, where she rolls to a stop.

Melissa is on her belly. She presses her face into the dirt, covers her head with her hands, and kicks her legs out straight. She’s trying to be as small and narrow as possible. She knows it’s not going to do any good.

Oh my gosh, she thinks. This is about to hurt.

The enraged buffalo steps over Melissa. The earth trembles when his feet pound the ground on both sides of her body. She feels the wind of his breath against her back and smells a thick, potent animal odor.

The bull stomps past, then returns, slamming his head into the ground next to Melissa. He’s trying to squash her with the boss on top of his head, but the curved horns strike the ground first, preventing him from landing a blow.

The buffalo lunges again.

Leon doesn’t want to somehow shoot Melissa by accident, so he moves closer, standing just a few feet away from the buffalo. He aims his rifle at the bull’s neck, hoping to break its spine. He pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens.

The buffalo turns. He comes at Leon. Quickly, the hunter targets the buffalo’s head and fires.

Again, nothing.

What Leon doesn’t realize is that during the chaos of the buffalo’s first charge, he’d pulled the rear trigger of his Krieghoff instead of the front trigger. Now, believing he’s already shot from the front trigger barrel, he’s still attempting to fire the empty second chamber.

It no longer matters; the bull is charging. Leon raises his rifle in front of him, feeling like a matador with a cape. Just before impact, he sees the buffalo’s eyes roll back, the eye sockets turning milky white, in sharp contrast against the blackness of the beast’s face.

The bull hits the rifle first and shakes his head. Leon’s left hand is briefly caught between the rifle and a horn. His thumb splits open; he can feel pain in his hand and wrist. The Krieghoff flies into the air to the right. Leon is tossed to the left, but he keeps his feet.

The buffalo has run past. Now he stops and turns in the direction of the rifle. Leon moves with him, the improvising matador, trying to stay behind the bull. If only he can reach his rifle.

Melissa is thinking about her own rifle. She raises her head and sees Leon dancing with the bull. She sees her weapon lying about five feet away in the dirt.

I need to grab my gun and shoot it, she thinks. It’s right there.

She starts to lift herself off the ground.

“No, Melissa!” Leon yells. He puts his arm out as if to hold her there. “Lay still! Don’t move!”

Melissa drops back down and again covers her head.

As he circles behind the buffalo, Leon scoops up his rifle. He realizes both his hands are mangled and bloody; his right thumb was injured during the first shot from the hip at the bull. Even so, he is able to reload while on the move.

The buffalo, perhaps sensing that his time is up, suddenly runs in Melissa’s direction. But he doesn’t stop to crush her prone figure. He roars past toward the Tanzanian bush.

Leon fires his rifle, this time getting off a shot. But the volley is high. The game warden, who had run for cover initially, is back on the scene. He also fires, but the buffalo does not slow down. Soon the bull is out of sight.

Leon, feeling a flood of relief as well as frustration at not being able to prevent the attack, helps Melissa to her feet. Incredibly, though she is badly scraped in places, she has no major injuries. The buffalo neither stabbed her nor stepped on her.

Just then, Melissa’s father and another hunter drive up in another Land Cruiser. Leon is sure he hit the buffalo with his first shot, so Leon and the hunter go after the supposedly wounded buffalo. They never find him.

Melissa is evacuated on a medical plane and taken to a Nairobi hospital. She is bruised and scratched, but she has no broken bones or internal injuries. There’s no room for Leon on the flight, so he’s treated in camp and driven to a hospital the next day. His right thumb is dislocated, and his left hand has a few small broken bones—a small price to pay for a faceoff with a Cape buffalo.

The circumstances that allowed Melissa and Leon to escape serious injury still amaze them both. Melissa is a petite five feet two inches, 105 pounds. If she’d been any other size, she would not have fit exactly within the unusual curves of the Cape buffalo’s horns. Any larger or smaller and she could easily have slid off and been trampled. The fact that the buffalo’s hooves repeatedly stomped over and around Melissa without actually landing on her is equally improbable. And it was only the unique shape of the bull’s horns that prevented him from goring or squashing Melissa. Leon, meanwhile, took the brunt of the buffalo’s charge and suffered only the damage to his left hand.

And then there is the fanny pack. On the day before the hunt, Melissa’s son Noah, eight years old, handed her his fanny pack, saying, “Here Mommy, you keep this. You might need it.” It was filled with tissue paper, sanitary wipes, crackers, and a compass. Melissa decided to wear it for the hunt. When the buffalo struck her on the hip, he hit the one spot where Melissa had a bit of padding—the fanny pack.

To Melissa and Leon, both people of faith, the only explanation for so many coincidences is providence.

“I’m sure the Lord has protected me a thousand times throughout my life in ways I never even knew about, but that day he made his protection quite evident,” Melissa says. “I will live the rest of the days he gives me thanking him for every breath.”

6

End of the Rope

You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

On a sunny afternoon in June 1985, two men clad in heavy winter gear stand together at the summit cornice of Siula Grande, a forbidding, twenty-one-thousand-foot peak in the Peruvian Andes. After three days of hard climbing, they’ve achieved the first ascent of the mountain’s sheer west face and celebrated with photos and chocolate. Now comes the hard part—getting down.

The two Brits have been climbing together since meeting in the French Alps the year before. Twenty-one-year-old Simon Yates is tall and strong, with blond hair and blue eyes. He has a degree in biochemistry, but his passion is adventure in the mountains. His partner, twenty-four-year-old Joe Simpson, is shorter and powerful as well, with dark brown hair and a square jaw. He shares Yates’s passion for climbing.

Yates has been checking out their expected line of descent along the north ridge. He’s also watching the weather. “Looks like we are in for another storm,” he says.

Simpson turns to look as well. Clouds are rising from the east face and expanding to the west.

“It looks hairy,” Simpson says.

“Yeah. Better get our skates on. If we move quickly, we can traverse under that summit and then rejoin the ridge farther down. In fact, I don’t think we’ll even have an hour.”

Yates is right. Forty minutes later, it’s snowing hard. The climbers are descending in the midst of a whiteout. It’s slow and dangerous work. When darkness falls, Simpson digs a snow cave, and they rest for the night. It’s bitterly cold, at least twenty degrees below zero. Two of Yates’s fingers are developing frostbite.

At 7:30 the next morning, the climbers begin descending again. By midmorning they are down to only twenty thousand feet, but they keep at it. Simpson leads and keeps falling into crevasses up to his eyes, each slip punctuated by a series of shouts and curses. Despite their risky position, Yates can’t help grinning as he watches his partner’s comical struggles.

A short time later, Simpson is hidden behind a rise in the ridge when Yates feels a violent yank on the rope between them. He’s dragged forward several feet until he halts the motion by thrusting his ice axes into the snow. He knows Simpson has fallen. Ten minutes later, the rope goes slack.

Yates climbs over the rise, wondering what went wrong. He peers down and sees Simpson with his left foot dug into the slope, his face hidden by the snow.

“What happened?” Yates says. “Are you okay?”

Simpson is startled. He looks up. “I fell. The edge gave way.” He adds in a controlled, flat voice, “I’ve broken my leg.”

Yates immediately recognizes the significance of Simpson’s words. He also understands the look of doom on his partner’s face. They both know there’s no way down this massif with a bum leg.

“Are you sure it’s broken?”

“Yes.”

Yates’s first thoughts are coldly rational and inescapable. You’re dead . . . no two ways about it.

Yates climbs down. He sees the frightening twist of Simpson’s right knee and gives him a few pain pills. He can’t think of anything to say, so he stays silent.

Their ropes are jammed, so Yates must climb the crest of the ridge to free them. It’s the hardest climbing he has ever done. Nearly everything he touches collapses and disappears down the west face. When he finally reaches the top, Yates is shaking from fear and fatigue.

He looks down and is amazed to see Simpson traversing slowly to the west. Below him are thousands of feet of open air. It’s a pitiful sight. Simpson buries his axes in the snow, then makes a tiny hop on his good leg.

He’ll probably fall, Yates thinks. In a way, I hope he does. I can’t leave him while he’s still fighting for it, but I have no idea how to help him. If I try to get him down, I might die with him. It seems a waste.

Yates moves down to Simpson’s position, then traverses ahead of him. From here he can see the col, followed by the long, steep west face that leads to the glacier and their base camp six miles beyond. It’s about six hundred feet to the col.

Simpson eventually catches up. Yates puts a hand on his shoulder. “How’re you doing?”

“It’s better. Painful, but . . . I’ve had it, Simon. I can’t see myself getting down at this rate.”

Yates says nothing and begins untying the rope from its harness.

Then Simpson gets an idea. “Do you think you can hold my weight in this snow?” he asks. They’re out of snow stakes. If Yates attempts lowering Simpson down the slope, he’ll do so with no anchors to secure his own position.

“If we dig a bucket seat, I should be able to hold you,” Yates says. “If it starts to collapse, I can always shout and you can take your weight off.”

The agreement is made. Their ropes are tied into a single, three-hundred-foot line. Yates will lower Simpson on the rope and use a belay plate to control the speed of the descent. Each time they reach the knot between the two ropes, Simpson will need to stand up on the slope, taking his weight off the rope so Yates can move the knot to the other side of the belay plate.

Yates digs a deep hole in the snow and sits in it, facing away from the slope. He takes hold of the rope and braces his legs against the fresh snow barrier. It’s the only thing that will keep them both from tumbling off the mountain.

“Okay,” Yates says. “You ready?”

“Yes. Now take it steady. If anything slips, yell.”

“Don’t worry, I will. If you can’t hear me when the knot comes up, I’ll tug the rope three times.”

“Right.”

Yates nods and grins, and they’re off. The system works. After two lowerings, they are able to traverse to the col. The three-thousand-foot descent down the treacherous west face remains, however. It’s four o’clock, and the clouds are massing again. The pair briefly considers spending the night where they are.

“I think we should keep going,” Yates finally says. “Will you be all right?”

“Yes. Let’s go. I’m freezing.”

They continue, working efficiently, as if they’ve always descended this way. Speed is essential, so Yates drops Simpson quickly, though he knows each bounce against the slope shoots indescribable pain through Simpson’s leg. There is the pause to change the knot, then Yates climbs down when they reach the end of the rope. At first, Simpson is able to finish digging a bucket seat for Yates by the time he arrives after a lowering. Because of the increasing cold and their fatigue, however, Simpson accomplishes less and less of the seat each time.

Yates’s own fingers are getting worse. The last time he looked, four fingertips and one thumb were black.

It quickly grows dark, and small avalanches pour over the climbers. Yates encourages Simpson as he settles into yet another hole in the snow.

“Two lowers to go at the most, I reckon,” he says. “This will be the eighth, plus the two abseils, so we’ve covered two thousand seven hundred feet, or thereabouts. It can’t be more than three thousand, so this might even be the last one.”

Simpson nods and half grins, half grimaces as he goes over the edge once again. Yates can hear faint cries of pain as Simpson slams against the face. Unfortunate, he thinks, but necessary.

From above, another blast of snow showers over Yates. He hunkers lower into his makeshift seat.

Suddenly, the rope jerks forward, and Yates is nearly yanked off the mountain. He throws himself backward and brakes with his legs. The harness digs into his hips, the rope taut between his legs.

They’re too far apart and there’s too much wind to hear each other. Yates waits thirty minutes, holding Simpson’s weight, but there’s no change, no tugging on the rope to indicate he’s trying to climb up. The bucket seat has crumbled to half its original size. Yates doesn’t have the leverage or the strength to haul Simpson back up. He has no choice but to lower him farther and hope he’ll find solid footing.

Yates releases the rope again. The knot appears twenty feet below. There’s still no change in the rope’s tension.

What am I lowering him over?

Yates stamps his feet, trying to get better purchase in his snow hole. Another small avalanche hits him from behind, filling in the space behind him, pushing him closer to the edge.

Could he hold the rope with one hand and move the knot above the plate with the other? Yates lifts one hand off the rope. His tortured fingers can’t even make a fist. No good.

Nearly an hour after they began the lower, Yates is frozen and shaking. His hold on the rope keeps slipping a few inches at a time, until the knot is tight against his right fist. Yates is losing strength.

I can’t hold it. I can’t stop it.

More of the seat beneath him collapses. His body slides forward a few inches. Soon, Simpson’s weight will pull them both off the mountain.

I have to do something!

The thought strikes him suddenly.

The knife! Of course, the knife. Be quick, come on, get it.

Nearly panicked, Yates uses one hand to carefully slide off one strap, then the other, of the rucksack on his back. He reaches in, feeling for the knife, as more of the snow seat crumbles. He discovers something smooth and pulls it out. Yates drops the knife in his lap and pulls off a glove with his teeth.

He’s already decided. He has no choice.

He holds the knife in one hand and opens the blade with his teeth. The cold metal sticks to his lips.

Yates reaches toward the rope with his knife, then stops.

The slack rope! Clear the loose rope twisted round my foot! If it tangled, it would rip me down with it.

Yates moves the rope and checks with his eyes to make sure everything is clear. Again, he stretches the knife toward the taut rope. He touches the blade against it.

The rope explodes.

With the tension suddenly released, Yates slams back against the snow behind him. He’s shaking and breathing fast, his heart pounding. Snow falls over him and down his neck.

Have I killed him?

He feels no guilt or sorrow, only emptiness.

He’s alone in the cold on the steep slope of a killer mountain. There is nothing else to be done except build a snow cave.

During the night, Yates is tormented by questions. He finds himself wondering about his motives, or at least thinking he ought to question them.

I’m satisfied with myself, he thought. I’m actually pleased I was strong enough to cut the rope. There was nothing else left for me, so I went ahead with it. I did it, and did it well. That takes some doing! A lot of people would die before getting it together to do that! I’m still alive because I held everything together right up to the last moment . . .

But what of Joe?

In the morning, Yates is filled with dread. He knows Simpson is dead. He expects to die on the descent as well. He’s calm and grim when he reaches the point where Simpson would have been hanging on the rope. He’s shocked to see a towering ice cliff, fifty feet at least. It all feels cruel and sickening.

Yates descends to a crevasse in the glacier beneath the face. The closer he gets, the more he realizes its depth. No one could survive a fall into that.

“Joe!”

The only response is the echo of his voice.

Yates turns away. There’s no point in looking closer. He has to face the truth. Head down, he trudges on toward base camp and their friend Richard, far below. On the long walk, he argues with himself.

Why tell them you cut the rope? They’ll never know otherwise, so what difference does it make! Just say he fell down a crevasse when we were coming down the glacier. Yeah! Tell them we were unroped.

When Yates runs into Richard on the path to camp, however, he doesn’t lie. He can’t say Simpson carelessly fell into a crevasse, not after all his struggle. It would be an injustice. He tells the whole story.

Yates, physically and emotionally exhausted, spends the next day recovering. On the following day, Richard is ready to break camp and return to Lima. But Yates doesn’t feel ready to leave. At first, he tells Richard to go on ahead, that he’ll catch up in a few days. Finally, however, they agree to depart together in the morning.

It’s snowing and nearly 1 a.m. when Yates, in the tent, hears the ghostly howl.

“Siiimmmooonnn.”

Not possible.

A few moments later, the voice calls out again: “Help meeeee!”

Yates, eyes wide, grabs a flashlight and stumbles into the snow, Richard behind him.

“Joe! Is that you? JOE!” Yates’s voice cracks with emotion. He hears sobbing, heads for the sound.

The flashlight beam reveals a thin body, its clothes tattered. It’s Simpson. He’s alive.

Hours later, after being filled with hot tea, an exhausted Simpson describes falling 150 feet onto a snow bridge in the crevasse, lowering himself deeper into the crevasse until he found a new way to climb out, and then the desperate, six-mile hop and crawl, part of it through a blizzard, down the glacier to base camp. It took three and a half days.

Simpson, alone with Yates in the tent, has one more thing to add before falling into a blessed sleep.

“You saved my life, you know. It must have been terrible for you that night. I don’t blame you. You had no choice. I understand that, and I understand why you thought I was dead. You did all that you could have done. Thanks for getting me down.”

Once again, Yates has no words. But the tears on his cheeks say all that needs to be said.

Resources

Chapter 1: Fear and Friendship at the Top of the World

Alexander, Eric. Interview by James Lund. September 16, 2009.

Farther Than the Eye Can See. DVD. Serac Adventure Films and Outside Television, 2003.

Greenfeld, Karl Taro. “Blind to Failure.” TIME, June 18, 2001. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1000120,00.html.

Stoneman, Tonya. “Higher Summits.” In Touch, June 2003.

Weihenmayer, Erik. “Tenacious E.” Outside, December 2001.

Widdifield, Janna. “Journey to the Top of the World.” University of Denver Magazine, Fall 2002, 17–21.

Eric Alexander’s website, www.highersummits.com.

Chapter 2: Death and Birth in Blue John Canyon

Brick, Michael. “Climber Still Seeks Larger Meaning in His Epic Escape.” New York Times, March 31, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/sports/othersports/01ralston.html?_r=3&ref=sports.

“Being Aron Ralston,” video, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/sports/othersports/01ralston.html?_r=3&ref=sports.

Ralston, Aron. Between a Rock and a Hard Place. New York: Atria Books, 2004.

Survivor: The Aron Ralston Story (documentary). NBC News, 2006.

Chapter 3: Back on Board

Association of Surfing Professionals website, http://www.aspworldtour.com/2009/index.asp.

Bethany Hamilton’s personal website, www.bethanyhamilton.com.

Hamilton, Bethany. Soul Surfer. New York: Pocket Books, 2004.

John, Emma. “Riding the Storm.” The Observer, June 28, 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jun/28/bethany-hamilton-surfing.

Chapter 4: Not Without a Fight

Amazing Stories of Survival. From the editors of People magazine. New York: People Books, 2006.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Speech, www.TamaraBrooks.org, http://iinspire.org/websites/tamarabrooks/pages/presentations.php.

Melero, Frank. Interview on Larry King Live, August 9, 2002. CNN.com transcripts, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/09/lkl.00.html.

“To Hell and Back.” 48 Hours Investigates, August 27, 2003. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/31/48hours/main538761.shtml.

Chapter 5: Terror in Tanzania

Lamprecht, Leon. Interview by James Lund. June 9, 2009.

Neugebauer, Melissa. Interview by James Lund. March 11, 2009.

Tanzania Adventures website, www.tanzaniaquest.com.

Chapter 6: End of the Rope

Amazing Stories of Survival. From the editors of People magazine. New York: People Books, 2006.

Morley, Patrick. The Man in the Mirror. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989, 1992, 1997.

Simpson, Joe. Touching the Void. New York: HarperCollins, 1988, 2004.

———. Interview by Andrew Denton. Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, ABC, June 9, 2003. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s879148.htm.

Touching the Void (documentary). DVD. Darlow Smithson Productions, 2003.

Yates, Simon. The Flame of Adventure. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2001.

Acknowledgments

Most of my pursuits of adventure and opportunities in the wild were inspired by friends and by books. I vividly recall leafing through a coffee table book, The Earth and Great Weather. I found a picture of a canyon with steep walls above the Arctic Circle that mesmerized me—a dramatic vista indeed. I said, “I am going there someday.” Ten years later, I was tromping through that exact canyon in the Brooks Range in Alaska. All of my expectations were exceeded. That scenario has been repeated many times over the past decades and I am sure will be duplicated in years to come.

A bookmark that my friend Scott McOwen and I had made for Guttenberg’s, a bookstore we built, had as its tagline, “A man can’t have too many books or too many friends.” I have been powerfully motivated, inspired, and blessed by an abundance of both.

I want to acknowledge my partner in this venture, Jim Lund, and the indefatigable nature of this guy’s disciplined conscientiousness in his writing. What a gift he has been to me in the re-creation and telling of these marvelous stories. Thank you, Jim.

To my wife, Sharon, who still flinches when I talk about ice climbing or any such pursuits, but at least has not attached a tether to my ankle . . . yet. But in reality she is my consistent, joyful partner, adventuring through this life.

Peb

Some people are called not only to dangerous adventures in life and faith but also to generously share their time, stories, and insights with pesky writers. This book would not have been possible without the help and patience of, among others, Eric Alexander, Leon Lamprecht, Melissa Neugebauer, and my partner in publishing, the incomparable Peb Jackson. My deep thanks to each of you.

Thanks also go to our agent, Bill Jensen, the man with a million great ideas; to our editor, Andrea Doering, who patiently steered us home; and to everyone at Baker/Revell who played a part in enabling us to present these stories.

To Jon Coulter and the Young Life study group, thanks for the “test run.” To Gil McCormick for your insights and encouragement and to Jodi Carroll for all that you do. I appreciate it.

Last and certainly not least, I thank my family for their encouragement and support: my wife, Angela; my daughter, Sonja, and brother, Dave, who also contributed research and writing help; my dangerous boys Erik and Peter; and Mom and Dad, who have always encouraged and supported me. Mom, you didn’t get to see this final version, but I know you would have been pleased.

Jim

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

1. Fear and Friendship at the Top of the World

2. Death and Birth in Blue John Canyon

3. Back on Board

4. Not Without a Fight

5. Terror in Tanzania

6. End of the Rope

Resources

Acknowledgments

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Back Cover