Angels of Light

by Jeff Long

  "It stinks," he said.

  "Airplane fuel," said John. He looked down inside the submerged plane. Black water floated inside the cavity like clotted blood. The chain saw roared louder and a cry of admiration swelled. John walked through the slush to a crowd of people, most with empty hands, several bearing tools. The double-bitted Park Service axes in two climbers' hands dwarfed the frail-looking ice axes several others had thought to bring in. In the center of the ring Kresinski gunned the chain saw again, playing to the collective shout from his followers.

  "Bitchen," yelled a girl with red cheeks, and her boyfriend in L.L. Bean boots didn't yell any words at all. He simply opened his mouth and generated noise. The babel was contagious. John could feel his pulse racing. Kresinski was all muscle and Ray file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (75

  of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52

  Jeff Long - Angels of Light

  Bans as he held the chain saw up with one hand and then gripped the handle and lowered the spinning blade into the ice between his feet. It passed like a hot knife through Crisco, spitting ice in a white spume. With fifteen inches of the blade down and in, he made contact with the lake underneath. An abrupt rooster tail of clear blue water shot out of the rear guard. Kresinski gunned the engine and pulled the blade out for a new probe. This time the rooster tail showered out a riot of dark red buds and chopped foliage. Strike. He'd hit a bale. He opened a small nylon hip pack circling his waist and took out a can of spray paint. A moment later the cut in the ice lay in the center of a bright orange X.

  "The weed's waterproofed in two layers of plastic underneath burlap." From out of nowhere, Bullseye was by his shoulder explaining things. It was typical that he seemed to have marshaled Page 64

  all the pertinent data. "When the plane hit, some bales got blown out onto the shoreline. That's what Liz and the other rangers and feds must have confiscated. The rest of the bales stayed afloat until the lake froze over. That's what we're confiscating. There's bales frozen to the bottom of the ice"—he gestured in a wide circle—"everywhere." The chain saw sputtered and almost kicked off, but

  Kresinski accelerated and withdrew the blade in time. Instantly five people converged on the site to begin butchering the ice. Imperiously, even for him, he handed off the chain saw and walked away, and people shouted his name, demanding his cyborg touch. But he ignored them. "He's goin' down," approved

  Bullseye. Usually he had only bad to say about Kresinski. John looked at his eyes.

  Stoned. Lucid as a statesman, but wasted.

  "Down where?"

  "Under the ice. He got Sammy to bring in some diving gear. He's gonna investigate the cargo area and cockpit for real goodies."

  "Kreski knows how to dive?"

  "Renaissance Californian, man. He knows a little about a lot." Now that sounded more like Bullseye. If there was one thing he disdained, it was poetasting and "life-experience" dabbling. "Come on over here, Johnny. Come see Old Glory." Bullseye knelt by a hole chopped thirty feet from the plane's erect tail. He set his hands on the slick rim and hung his long neck down trying to find whatever it was underwater.

  "Take a look."

  John stepped up, lowered one knee to the slush, and peered through Bullseye's window into the hard, sapphire water. Tilted slightly off the vertical, nose embedded in lake mud, hung the plane's wingless hull. It was pretty much as he'd imagined except for its colors. Striping it from nose to midbay was more red, white, and blue than a Shriner's parade. From a distance, the stars-and-bars job looked so real you could see it waving in the currents.

  "Real patriots," said Bullseye.

  John grinned. "Points for style, though."

  file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (76

  of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52

  Jeff Long - Angels of Light

  "Tell me these guys didn't have stainless steel balls."

  "You know," pondered Tucker, "I thought it was illegal to use the American flag like that."

  John kept his eyes firmly on the poor man's Air Force One. Bullseye grunted. He grunted again, struggling to believe his ears. The Kid was a genius on rock, a full-fledged Einstein with his ability to take what wasn't there and conceptualize it into being right where he needed it when he needed it. But God he was dumb. "Guess so,"

  he finally said.

  "Those guys still in the plane?"

  "Everybody's talking ghosts and zombies and shit."

  "We heard."

  "There's no way I'd go down there," said Tucker.

  "You and me both," said Bullseye. "I hate dead men. Let Kreski fuck with them."

  "So you think they're down there," John said.

  "I don't know how many are still in the plane. But I can tell you there's one guy that's not."

  "How do you know?"

  "Up there." And he pointed at a spot on top of the stone ringing the lake. "There's a parachute up there. Nobody's gone up to check it out. But when the wind blows, the parachute lifts up and moves around and you can see it. What I heard is, last night it freaked out half the brave Page 65

  banditos. They thought a whole gaggle of ghosts was coming for them."

  "I'd hate that," said Tucker.

  "What?" No idea what he was talking about.

  "For the animals to get me."

  "Don't sweat it, Tuck," said Bullseye. "We'll keep an eye on ya."

  "I'm going up," Tucker said.

  "What?" cried Bullseye. "Look. Look here." He pointed at the plane. "That there is a Lodestar. And this here." He fished a handful of pot from the rim of the hole. It looked like spinach. "Lightning. Lodestar Lightning. Wah! Here's the bottom line, Tuck. Those bales they're pullin' up? Twenty kilos each. I'm talkin' dry weight. But wealth. Hunt and gather. Would you walk past a ten-dollar bill in the street?"

  "It's okay for you guys," Tucker responded. "I just don't want to."

  "Lighten up, Tuck. One bale. One bale buys a year of big-wall climbing for ten guys.

  One bale buys you a trip to the Himalayas and back plus change. A new tent. Two. A pair of Koflach Extremes, new ropes, all the Gore-Tex and chrome-moly goodies you ever wanted. One bale and you write your own ticket."

  "There's other things, that's all."

  "Like what?"

  Helpless Tucker shook his head at his own simplicity. But there it was. "Tell you file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (77

  of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52

  Jeff Long - Angels of Light what," said John. "If I head for home, I'll come find you. Should be easy to find you in that snow."

  "Okay," said Tucker. He slung his pack on and cut north off the lake toward a ramp where the ring of stone dipped low. Higher up the East Face of the peak had turned an ordinary white and gray. When Tucker reached virgin snow on the far shore, his leg sank knee-deep through the crust. His next step landed midthigh. He slogged ahead, forging through the snow like a draft horse, knees high, shins tearing at the crust. Tucker really wanted to be rid of the lake.

  Postholing is the most tedious labor a climber will endure, especially a rock climber. Rock climbers like to drive to the base, open their door, and step onto righteous stone with the radio playing, no walking, most definitely no slogging.

  Someone changed the music in the blaster. The morning got on. The air of loony disbelief hung on as bale after bale was excavated. Ice chips flew. Crews of climbers rotated and sweated, only to be overwhelmed by hordes of scavengers who converged on surfacing bales for a free grab at the pot. There were several near fistfights with these city and country-swing freeloaders, but the climbers clearly outnumbered the others, and that in itself kept the peace. The man with the lever-action Remington kept his lonely vigil against the feds until Kresinski pulled some karate out of his hat and took the rifle away. "You're makin' me nervous," he said and, to scattered applause and whistling, deep-sixed the weapon through a hole. Discarded burlap littered the shore.
Every half hour or so, another small caravan departed for the lowlands with their precious cargo. The plundering was fun but eventually uninteresting. Much wealth was trading hands ("See, it works, it works," proselytized

  Bullseye. "Reagan said trickle down and it trickled down"). Much revamping of the hang-ten Valley ethic came to pass as climbers laid plans for new cars, real estate, vacations, and the latest in climbing gear. People estimated how best to invest, to spend, to hide. But that was boring after the first considerations. Rags to riches is only exciting until you touch the riches, then it's just another way of life. The blaster's batteries started to wear down, and by noon all they had for tunes was the sound of manual labor. There were several minor accidents, lacerations from knives and pieces of plane metal, and one boy cut into his small toe when his ax slipped. The Page 66

  injuries were treated with a variety of home cures, from packing the cuts in snow or binding them with petrol-soaked burlap to liberal infusions of what everyone was now calling Lodestar Lightning. One sweet girl took it upon herself to minister to the wounded with cups of steaming Celestial Seasons herbal tea, but soon found it more rewarding to sell her hot drinks to uninjured Lake Millionaires for ten dollars a cup.

  Around the time many would have eaten their lunch if they'd brought any in, the chain on the chain saw broke and whipped back and struck Jim Hanson on the arm.

  The good news was that the chain missed his face. The bad news was that he'd borrowed the chain saw from Kresinski and now their most effective probing device file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (78

  of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52

  Jeff Long - Angels of Light was out of commission. As Kresinski approached with a storm behind his Ray Bans, people expected big trouble. Hanson wasn't much for excuses and just stood there waiting for his medicine.

  "Fuck it," Kresinski magnanimously pronounced over the ruined machine, and with no further ado dropped it into the depths after the rifle.

  "So help me," Bullseye said a minute later. "I'm startin' to like that guy."

  "Spare me," said John.

  "He gratifies us with the spectacle of his damnation."

  "Whatever you say."

  "Hey," a boy neither of them knew called over, ax in hand. "You guys want some of this?" He was a good distance from the crowd.

  "Hell, yes," said Bullseye, and they walked over to his freshly cut hole. He and John had spent the morning on the outskirts of everyone else's strikes but always as spectators or referees. To this point they had only one- and two-pound "charity donations" to show for their presence at the lake. This hole and this boy represented their first real chance to score. But when they looked down into the neatly carved hole, there was nothing but water.

  "Some of what?" said Bullseye.

  Equally baffled, the boy said, "I know. There's nothing there."

  "Well, how come you cut here?" You couldn't afford to cut in a hole at random, not at four to six hours a pop.

  "Somebody said to." That explained it. He'd been sandbagged, duped into wasting his time on a dry prospect. One less turkey to have to share the lake with.

  "You've been had."

  "No. Some guy with a chain saw said dig here, he'd found one."

  "Sometimes the bales float off while you're chopping," said John. "You got to flop down and do some reaching."

  "In the water?" The boy started to kneel.

  "Nah," said Bullseye. "You did the grunt work, man. Allow me." He started peeling off the clothing on his upper body, a lumberjack's flannel shirt, suspenders underneath, and under that a turtleneck and a fishnet T-shirt. The end result was a farmer's tan, both arms and his face dark against his white torso. It always surprised

  John to see Bullseye stripped down like this because you expected a professor's flabby tits and fish belly. Bullseye didn't project an aura of strength, but he was strong and lean. Half naked, he looked capable of those one-arm pull-ups on vertical ice.

  "Lights, camera, action," he said and sprawled facedown on the ice. "Oh," he whimpered. "Oh, man, it's cold." He stuck his arm all the way to the shoulder down into the hole. "Cold water.

  Hope I don't freeze my little nipples."

  "Or frostbite your Weinberger," John threw in. Bullseye called it that, partner to his Page 67

  of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52

  Jeff Long - Angels of Light right hand, which he addressed as Ms. Kirkpatrick Sir. Bullseye was having the time of his life. First an impeccable performance on the ice column, now this circus of great apes. Tongue stuck out one corner of his mouth, Bullseye's face translated every sensation he was encountering.

  "Ah... oh, what this?" He shifted his body around on the ice and slid his arm deeper.

  "What?" said the boy.

  Bullseye withdrew his arm and knelt back on his heels. "I think we got something down there.

  Weird shape. A big sucker. Heavy. But my hand's too numb to grab."

  Frost stood in his chest hair and his arm was bright purple. "I'll try the other one, then it's your turn."

  He plopped down again and plunged his arm back into the hole. He had to reach deeper this time. "Oh, yeah." His smile got broader yet. "There he is. This guy's gonna make us millionaires." He pulled the load in closer. "This is the King Kong of bales, gentlemen. You're gonna cream your jeans when you see it." He hauled it in, raised his trunk off the ice, pulled some more. The load had its own momentum now.

  "Voilà,"

  he said.

  A dead man's head bobbed up through the hole.

  "Fuck!" shouted Bullseye. "Fuck. Fuck." He almost pulled his trick shoulder out of joint rolling away from the terrible sight.

  It was a large, sculpted head, hair plastered down, flesh well preserved. As it floated up and down in the hole, the man's face turned toward them. He didn't look dead, just wet and cold.

  His skin was a darker blue than Bullseye's arms, otherwise the man might have been taking a summer dip mid-hike. He had a drooping mustache and his massive jaw needed a shave. His eyes were blue. Something about him—maybe his size, which was apparent, or the scar like a varicose vein down one side of his face—

  said mean fucking son of a bitch. Maybe it was just that he was dead and they weren't.

  "Fuck!" Bullseye shouted again, stomping around in a circle with his arms stiff and dripping.

  This time people heard and pointed over and started flocking.

  "Ahh, gross."

  "Drag him out."

  "No way."

  As if shy of crowds, the corpse began sinking away. His eyes stared around and then the water was over his forehead. John shoved aside his old Apache bugaboo about touching the dead and dove for the hole. He could have let the man drift back to his bed of undisturbed waters, but for some reason he didn't. His hand slashed into the lake and found the waving scalp lock, and he pulled hard.

  It took them half an hour to pull the corpse free. They laid him out on the ice and gathered all around. It was out-and-out voyeurism. "I thought they got all hard and stuff," said a voice.

  "The guy's a goddamn giant. Look at him. He could play for the Raiders or file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (80

  of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52

  Jeff Long - Angels of Light something."

  "Must be the pilot," shivered Bullseye. "Must be. God, I dragged him out of his fucking grave."

  "You thought this was a bale of pot?"

  Page 68

  "Shit, I didn't know. It felt like..." Bullseye gave up and wiped his hands on his knickers.

  "Did you see the cuts on his body?" Sammy said to John. "And look at the bottom of his feet! It looks like he walked around barefoot on glass or something." Indeed, he had the scratches and cuts of a mendicant. In Tibet they circumambulate the holy mountains. In California, apparently, they circled lakes filled with pot.

  People heard and turned their attention to the implications. "You mean he was alive after the
plane crashed?" asked the girl with the tea.

  "That would explain the parachute," said Bullseye.

  "But why's he in the lake?"

  "Hypothermia?" suggested a voice. They grew silent. For the climbers, anyway, that was all the explanation they needed. Hypothermia. Public health brochures about winter dangers always call it the Silent Killer. First you get cold, then crazy, then dead. Everyone had heard the one about the hypothermic camper who stuck the arms of his sunglasses into his eyes and wandered around blind for two days. Lost everything up to his groin and armpits to frostbite. There was the Lightning Man for you.

  "What do we do now?"

  "Bag it," two climbers said simultaneously.

  "Leave the lake?"

  "We got what we wanted. It's bad luck now."

  "Bury him first," someone recommended. "Then bag it."

  "Yeah," came the consensus.

  "First take a picture, Delwood."

  "Have some class, man." Bullseye was disgusted and fetched a fluorescent green sleeping bag liner from his pack to cover the body over. "Come on. Let Delwood get a trophy shot."

  Delwood had done this all before. He prided himself on taking photos of rescue victims in situ.

  It gave him a morbid sort of pedigree. He pulled a small self-focusing Pentax from his parka pocket. He managed to snap one shot before Kresinski hit.

  No one saw him join the crowd, but suddenly Kresinski was in the middle of the circle backhanding Delwood. The camera went spinning across the ice. "No camera,"

  snapped Kresinski. "I thought I said no cameras."

  "It's just a dead guy," pleaded Delwood.

  "You dumb shit. All we need is pictures of this gettin' to the FBI."