Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [129]
Elliott understood their position but wanted to leave the issue open so that he might call back with some higher authority. He thanked the rangers for considering his request and hung up, debating whether to have the Aspen police call the Talkeetma station. First, though, he wanted to check in with Brion. Time was slipping by, but in the hour since they’d spoken, Brion had hit pay dirt. “Don’t worry about searching anymore. I found Aron’s folder in his locker, where I should have looked in the first place. Anyway, I’ve got their information.” On the printouts of e-mails to my teammates, he had found the addresses he needed. At twelve minutes before eleven, Brion had sent an e-mail to Team Green Chili Winds, alerting them to my absence and asking for information.
From: Brion After
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 10:48 A.M.
To: Janet Lightburn, Bill Geist, Jason Halladay, David Shaw
Subject: Looking for Aron Ralston
Hello,
I am Aron’s manager at the Ute Mountaineer in Aspen Co., and surprisingly he has not arrived to work in the last 2 days. We are getting very concerned about his well being, and I am wondering if any of you would know where he may be, or can give me any information on his most recent trip. None of his friends/roommates are sure where he went, but we do think he went to Utah on April 24th or 25th. Possibly to meet some of you for Denali training. If you have any information on Aron, please Email me back at this address. Or you can call me at the Ute. We have contacted the Police, and his family, as Aron is usually very diligent on arriving on time and keeping in touch with us and his friends.
Best regards,
Brion After
At that point, although he had done some excellent sleuthing, Brion was getting ready to leave for Australia for a few weeks’ holiday and was a little behind in wrapping up business at the shop. He needed to pass the baton to someone who would be around, so he circuitously asked Elliott for backup: “What are you doing today?”
Sensing the loaded question, Elliott said, “Uhh, I was cleaning out Leona’s room, getting ready to start moving my stuff in, unpacking, like that. You need me to do something else? I’m glad to help.”
“Well, yeah. I’m starting to get e-mails back, and I’m getting swamped. I’m supposed to be leaving tomorrow for two weeks. Would you be able to come in to the shop and make some calls and watch for e-mails?”
“Sure thing. I was going to come in anyway and bug you some more about giving me a job. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
A few minutes before eleven-thirty A.M., Brion was on the phone calling my mom. His call interrupted my mom and Michelle’s efforts to crack my password protection. My mom was happy to hear back about the progress Brion had made with the police and the e-mail to my Denali teammates. She spoke with him about the additional data the police needed while she continued to hack away. Brion asked if my mom had my license-plate information. She went downstairs to the drawer where she had tucked half a sheet of white paper on which she’d written the make, model, year, and license number of my pickup truck. She had asked me for the vehicle description when I was home at Christmas in 2000, prior to a winter solo fourteener climb, in case she needed it in an emergency. I had hastily told her the vehicle information from memory, so she unknowingly passed along to Brion an error I’d made.
As my mom finished confirming the truck description and license, she hit enter on the most recent attempt to guess the answer to my “secret question” and gave a gasp when the computer screen changed for the first time in a half hour. Michelle and my mom shouted in unison, “We got it! We got it!” and hugged each other.
“What’s going on?