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Todos os capítulos de They Called Me a Coward, Then the Mountain Came Down: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

10 Capítulos

1

My map was in shreds, and my backup radio had been stomped to pieces by the VP they had parachuted in.He drew his foot back and brushed off his Arc'teryx shell, as if none of it mattered."What's the fun in a paved trail? We take the undeveloped Wildman Gorge. That's how you show real killer instinct!"He turned to face the crowd of sales staff behind him."To keep anyone from cheating with GPS or calling home crying the first time things get hard, everyone hands over their communication devices."A few people from admin came forward with black trash bags and motioned for everyone to drop their phones in.I pointed at the storm clouds boiling up fast on the horizon and spoke up one last time."Mr. Shaw, the backcountry is not a game."Wildman Gorge is shaped like a funnel. One hard rain and you get flash floods and mudslides."Taking everyone's phones now means that the moment something goes wrong, you have sent them all in there to die."Shaw let out a sneer and jabbed a finger in my

2

I sat in the supply shed and poured myself a cup of hot water.My phone screen was lit up, and the company group chat was scrolling by faster than I could read.That was because they had not been gone long enough to get deep into Wildman Gorge.The one phone nobody had collected, the one in Shaw's hand, still had a signal.He was sending a steady stream of photos and short videos to the chat.In one video, Greg and Tessa were posing in victory with their trekking poles on a dry riverbed.Shaw narrated at full volume."Take a look, everybody. This is the dangerous area Nora was talking about. There isn't a drop of water in it!"This is what killer instinct looks like in our sales department. If you've got the guts, there's no obstacle you can't get over!"Coworkers from the other departments piled in with rows of thumbs-up and applause stickers.Gerald Pike, the owner of the company, who never posted in the chat, finally spoke up."Mr. Shaw is leading that group the right way. This is t

3

By two in the afternoon the sky had gone as dark as dusk.Wind tore around outside the shed, dragging dead branches and leaves across the ground.The company group chat had been silent for a full half hour.The last thing Shaw posted was a short video.You could hear wind howling in the background, and the trees around him were bending in every direction.Greg and a few of the women had gone pale in the video, but Shaw was still holding the phone up and shouting."We have officially reached the heart of Wildman Gorge!"We are going to finish an extreme crossing through this wilderness and make a final push for that $30,000!"Let the cowards sitting back at camp with their tea see what real fighting strength looks like!"At the end of the video, Shaw made a point of turning the camera on the black trash bag stuffed with everyone's phones, then pulled the top of it tight and knotted it.Pike posted three thumbs-up in a row underneath."When you come back in triumph, the company is bookin

4

The rain came down in sheets, until the whole world seemed to be nothing but the roar of water.The water outside the shed was already over my ankles, and muddy runoff was pouring down the slope.I sat in the folding chair with a cup of hot tea Walt had just made.On the table, a tablet was playing the emergency bulletin the local station had cut to.My phone started buzzing again. It was Pike again.I hit speaker, and his furious voice filled the whole shed."Nora! You actually hung up on me? You really think this company won't fire you?"I am ordering you to go into Wildman Gorge and find Greg. Now. Immediately. This second!"This is a work assignment! Refusing it is gross misconduct!"I looked at the news on the tablet screen, where a red alert had just been issued."Sir, are you sure this is a work assignment? Are you sure you want to order an employee into a closed, undeveloped area under a red alert?""Cut the crap! Mr. Shaw took a group in there, so why can't you? Don't hide beh

5

The line went completely quiet.I looked at the officer and shook my head."We can't reach them, and there's a reason for that."Our team leader, Mr. Shaw, confiscated everyone's phones before they set out to show off the team's killer instinct."And in front of all of us, he smashed the radio I had brought."The officer froze and stared at me like I was insane."Say that again. How many people are in there?""Eighteen."I looked at Pike's name on my screen and went on."Eighteen salespeople with no communication devices and no wilderness experience."There was a clatter on the other end, as if Pike had dropped his phone on the floor.Outside the shed, ambulance and fire sirens started rising toward us out of the distance.Shaw had used his authority and a $30,000 prize to push me around, and none of it counted for anything against eighteen lives.The bill for all that stupidity was coming due."Hello? Sir? Are you still there?"The screen showed the call was still connected.But there

6

By early the next morning the rain had finally stopped.The entrance to Wildman Gorge was completely blocked with mud and huge broken trees.Several large excavators worked without a break to clear the silt, and rescue teams had already forced their way in on foot along the ridges on both sides.Pike arrived at the temporary command post covered in mud, with the company's chief counsel behind him.He spotted me standing at the edge of the crowd and came at me like he had caught his scapegoat.The lawyer took a document out of his briefcase and held it out to me."Nora, the company is in serious trouble, and we need you to think about the bigger picture."Pike stared at me and dropped his voice."Sign this. It says you were the actual guide for the race."According to the statement, the accident happened because you failed to issue a timely weather warning and then abandoned the group halfway through."Sign it, and the company will pay you $150,000 and make sure you don't go to prison."

7

Around noon, the radio at the command post finally carried a voice from the search team at the front."Command, we've found a survivor at the river bend downstream!"He has fractures and he's not fully conscious. We're getting a stretcher and pulling back!"Half an hour later they carried Greg into the temporary medical tent, coated in mud and screaming.One of his legs bent at an impossible angle, and his face was wet with terrified tears.Pike came barreling into the tent and threw himself down beside the stretcher."Greg! Greg, are you all right? Tell the police it was a sudden natural disaster and it had nothing to do with the company!"You all went up there because you wanted to, right?"Greg had been moaning in pain, but the moment he heard that, he started thrashing like a madman.He grabbed Pike by the collar and screamed in his face."The hell we did! Nobody went up there because they wanted to!"It was Shaw! That son of a bitch insisted we take the riverbed!"Outside the tent

8

With Greg rescued, the search at the front moved noticeably faster.By three in the afternoon the search team found the rest of them, a few at a time.By sheer luck, they had been moving slowly, so when the mudslide hit they had not yet reached the most dangerous part of the canyon.But every one of them had spent an entire night soaking in freezing mud. Most had fractures and serious injuries, and they were all on the edge of a breakdown.When they carried Tessa down, she did not have the strength left to cry, and she was still gripping a broken branch.Pike sat hunched in a corner under police watch, with a black eye.He was still making one last desperate push."Officers, you heard it yourselves. Shaw acted alone when he shoved people aside and forced his way to safety!"That is purely Shaw's personal moral failure. It has nothing to do with our corporate culture or our management!"The company is a victim here too. We're willing to advance the medical costs on humanitarian grounds.

9

Toward evening the rescue team finally brought out the last missing person.It was Shaw, the VP.Because he had climbed the tallest tree first, he had a few scrapes and nothing else. He turned out to be the least injured person in the whole group.He jumped down off the rescue truck, filthy but still trying to project the authority of a leader.When he saw that Pike and the police were both there, he put on a look of deep grief and walked over."Sir, officers, I did everything I could! I left the group to go find help, I swear!"He caught sight of me, his eyes darted, and he pointed at me and started shouting."It's her! Nora tried to kill us!"The map she gave me yesterday was wrong! She led us into the danger zone on purpose!"She didn't get to lead the race, so she wanted to get back at all of us!"The site went silent for three seconds.My coworkers lying on the stretchers heard it and turned to stare at him like they were looking at a dead man.Shaw thought he had them cowed, and

10

Two officers moved in at once, one on each side, and pinned Shaw by the shoulders.Cold handcuffs closed around his wrists with a click."Derek Shaw, you are suspected of endangering public safety and of criminal negligence in a major accident. You are being taken into custody under the law."Shaw's legs went out from under him and he dropped to his knees in the mud, with nothing left of the swagger of the VP they had parachuted in.Pike did not get away either. Another team of officers walked him to a squad car.The police had already applied to freeze the company's accounts.What waited for him now were massive damages claims from more than a dozen employees and a long criminal prosecution.A sales company built on squeezing its employees and glorifying a twisted culture of killer instinct collapsed in a single day.As for the $30,000 prize, it became a check that would never be cashed.The coworkers who had sneered at me over that money were all in hospital beds now, facing long rec

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