Angels of Light

by Jeff Long

  He was genuinely surprised, Bullseye saw. Whatever was in that photo had the effect of a fist in Kresinski's belly.

  "You stole this from me," Kresinski rumbled.

  The drugs and alcohol had improved Tucker's confidence, or at least provided him an unexpected defiance. "No way," he shot back. "You stole from me. This belongs to me." He reached for the photo, but missed.

  "I thought you were ditching that jacket, man."

  Tucker dismissed the loss of his photo. "I never said that."

  "What are you guys talking about?" Bullseye asked.

  "Nothin'," said Kresinski. "Right, Tuck?"

  Tucker didn't answer.

  "You seen my dog?" said Bullseye. Time to retreat. Go plug in some Hendrix. These people thought they'd arrived? A little Jimi and they'd see no one had even opened the door.

  "That way, out there," said Tucker. "I'm goin' with you."

  "Hang on, Tuck," Kresinski ordered. "We're gonna powwow a minute." Tucker glared at Kresinski and snorted. Bullseye threw one arm around the boy's shoulder and the two marched off, disappearing beyond the firelight's corona.

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  Jeff Long - Angels of Light

  The moon moved. Constellations flattened. Time passed. No one noticed. It was going to be their night forever. The fire stayed high and white and orange, littered with broken glass. More and more, it was just tribe, Camp Four folk, the stayers.

  People danced. A group joined arms and began stomping in a tight little circle, crooning old Bing Crosby songs as if their very deliverance hinged upon it. A game of pine-cone soccer lifted long, vigorous tunnels of dust toward the stars before finally running out of players. Men and women held hands, kissed, departed into the trees.

  Katie hunted for Tucker for hours, but never found him. The FBI and Treasury agents called it an evening and left. And John wandered.

  He wanted a beer. Cold and wet with a moderate head. And it had to be in a cheap plastic cup.

  He angled for a dented aluminum keg muddy with dirt and foam and pine needles. Just short of his goal, a pair of iron-hard hands shot out from the shadows and stopped him. John jerked Page 85

  back, but the hands held him tight. It was

  Bullseye. He was on his last legs.

  "All the mountains, Johnny," he said. "They all been climbed."

  John looked his friend in the eyes. Bullseye's ambush was a surprise, but the sentiment wasn't. He understood what Bullseye really meant, that there was no longer any proportion worthy of this firelit, hard-core machismo, that the age of giants was dead. They'd had this conversation before and John disagreed. Now that the highest mountains had all been tramped upon, now that the age of colonizing and brute domination had come to a close, it didn't necessarily spell the end.

  Just because the new hard-core wore Lycra stretch pants and climbed with Sony Walkmans it didn't mean they weren't out on the cutting edge. Risk is risk.

  Excellence is never reducible. Things had changed, that was all. Now that all the mountains had been climbed, the age of aesthetics could begin. Elegance could take over. Elegance, not sheer muscle, that would be the new ethic. Out of that would sprout a million new mountains on routes and lines never before conceived, mountains that he and Bullseye and Kresinski could never hope to climb because they were too damn old now.

  "It's okay," he told Bullseye. But there was no possible way to explain how it was okay. It just was. Part of his certainty that the spirit was alive and well came from being raised by an Indian.

  "A species of pauper," some general had once promised to make the American savage, and so Geronimo had ended up growing watermelon like a plantation nigger. And the slavery had kept on. His father had been an oil-rig nigger and his brother a big, strapping Marine Corps nigger.

  Injuns. The general had won. Not all the oil and minerals and ski resorts on all the reservations could revive that demonized soul glaring out from the eyes in century-old photos of Cochise and

  Naichez and the others. The closest thing to that hungry, egotistical, earth-loving demon that John had managed to find was right here, frolicking all around him in Camp Four. He pulled Bullseye's grip off his shoulders, and Bullseye flung a file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (101

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  Jeff Long - Angels of Light despairing hand at the shapes twisting and cavorting around the fire.

  The dancing climbers looked like the ancestors of Vikings or Goths, savages hypnotized by the fire. But they were, most of them, soft. Even though they had corded bellies and feared no evil high on the rock, it was Bullseye's oldest lament that they'd grown up with all the General Electric amenities and couldn't hear the voices in the trees. It was true. They were more domestic than pantheistic and Camp Four was just a phase, and few if any were on for the long haul the way Bullseye was. But John saw in their midst, at their most extreme fringes, that the demon was burning bright. Tuck, for one, you could see the wild god in his eyes. There was someone they could hand off to. Tuck would carry the torch.

  "Yeah, but the mountains," sighed Bullseye.

  "I know," said John. Bullseye was sinking fast. It wouldn't be the first time he woke up in a pile of pine boughs or limp on the dirt. Best not go pitching headfirst into the fire, though, John thought, and steered him out toward the darkness.

  "The walls," Bullseye intoned. "It's just these fucking walls. They're everything."

  Typical, sloppy, drunk climber talk. Some climbers would actually sob at times like this.

  "I know," said John. "You want your van?"

  "No," Bullseye declared. "I've got to find..." He stopped in his tracks, and it hit John, too.

  Bullseye had nothing to find. Me either, thought John.

  "Go look at the walls," John advised, snapping Bullseye's parka shut so that he could sleep warmly wherever he might drop.

  "Right," said Bullseye. "The walls."

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  They parted, Bullseye charting a black, cool course in search of those beloved cliffs.

  John was still thirsty, but the thought of beer repelled him now. He wondered where Liz was. In four days of searching, he hadn't managed to track her down. What that meant remained fuzzy, though no news probably meant bad news. Hacked off. More likely in a fury.

  He wasn't much on regrets, but Liz had made him regret going to the lake. The winterful of petty skirmishes with her had smoothed out so nicely in Reno.

  And now all their sweet talk of riding off into the sunset was scotched. Even the forty-thousand-dollar nest egg he'd realized from Kresinski's inscrutable Bay Area connection was worth regret because without Liz what was it a nest egg for? Without Liz, there was numero uno, like in the old days of his "singular state" when he'd carried the same condom around in his wallet for two years straight, a very private, very unwanted symbol of his optimism. The bottom line was she was the one woman he'd ever really loved. And he'd betrayed her.

  "Chingado,"

  he cursed himself. For an instant Tony Schaller's long, horsey face sprang to mind. Betrayal of a sort. Loss most definitely. Then he cleaned it up and shoved Tony back into deeper recesses and bore in on other losses: a nurse with freckles at the Stockton Hospital emergency ward who'd finally dumped him,

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  Jeff Long - Angels of Light unwilling to play widow to his matador in the mountains; his brother, Joe, who just kept re-upping with the Marines and shacking up with his various "brown sugars" at

  Subic Bay in the Philippines. Realizing there wasn't much to write about, he and Joe had quit writing years ago. Those and a few others like their dad weren't magical losses, though, not like losing Liz. Not like that vein of gold he'd once crossed high on a mountain in the Andes, a rivulet of dull pure Inca min
eral that wound through a quartz band near the summit of Aconcagua. John remembered the gold and then he remembered Tony's snaggletoothed grin all over again, because Tony'd seen it, too, scraped a bit loose with his ice hammer and put it in his water bottle where they watched the flakes floating around. Lost. Both of them, Tony and the gold, as they descended. Both still up there. Lost but not forgotten, as if he could forget. John sighed. But Liz wasn't lost. Not yet. He kept looking for her on the dark sides of the trees, hoping maybe she'd slipped loose of her anger and come to join the outlaws. It was a ridiculous hope, though. Of course she was pissed. He'd larked off to Snake Lake and ditched her cold. He kicked a pebble.

  "Goddamn it," he rehearsed in a whisper. "I'm sorry, babe." Not even the voices in the trees whispered back, though. So he kept on searching.

  Tucker was on the move, too. It was that kind of forest tonight. There were important persons to connect with, rendezvous to meet, potentialities. For one thing, he had to find John and confirm the Visor climb. They'd meant to leave the next morning, but when this party spontaneously generated itself, D-day was postponed one day. Their gear was sorted, food purchased, water bottles filled. He was ready and the weather was perfect. At long last the Visor was going to reach down to them, and then they'd see what was what. He pulled the big leather jacket higher onto his back. He was starting to sober up a little. Good thing they'd decided to wait a day. Katie was somewhere out here, too, he'd heard she was looking for him. It was silly, he knew, but that one kiss at the lake had stuck with him. The taste of her was still on his lips.

  The feel of her chest against his had bewitched him. He needed to find her and ask, can we talk, can we just go for a walk. What he really needed was another kiss. He needed more water, too.

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  The plastic water bottle in his hand was almost empty, and it was imperative that he flush the poisons out of his system. The six-hour hike in to the base of Half Dome would sweat most of the stuff out, but he had to make sure his blood was pure by the time they reached the Visor roof itself. He was superstitious about virgin routes. What virgin would choose a drunk for her first time? Lots of water had to pass through his system. Lots.

  "You ever hear of the Lotus Wall?" Bullseye had quizzed him as they parted an hour before.

  "Twenty million tons of glacier-polished granite, Tuck, five thousand feet high. And it's got this single crack that runs from bottom to top. Finger jams all the way. How's that sound?"

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  Jeff Long - Angels of Light

  "Awesome," said Tucker. "Are you kidding?"

  "Yeah," said Bullseye. "I'm kidding. I made it up. But that's my point, ya see."

  "No."

  "What?"

  "No, I don't see."

  "Illusion, man. Even the big walls. You ever hear of Jim Bridger, the mountain man?

  He found a mountain made of pure glass. Claimed you could look right through it and see an elk magnified from fifty miles away. What's that tell you?"

  "Don't know."

  "It means he spent so much time in the mountains, it got so he could see right through them."

  "Yeah," said Tucker.

  "That's what I'm saying."

  "Yeah." Then Tucker was alone and wondering if the mountains would ever open to him like that. There was so much to be true to. So much yet to be found. One thing was sure, he needed more water. A tin cup of icy, milky glacier water would be perfect. Cold and pure. Minus a tin cup or a glacier, the Merced would have to do.

  It was on his way to the river that he saw the ghost. For the rest of his short life, anyway, he would believe it was a ghost that rose up from the grape and licorice ferns and called him a little motherfucker. Tucker didn't believe in ghosts, though it was impossible for him not to believe in hauntings. He'd seen climbers take bad falls and never climb again, plagued by the memory of one misstep. He'd seen John after Tony died. But ghosts, that was bullshit.

  It began with a noise off to his left, part crackling, part rustle as it kept pace with him. It was too large to be a raccoon or coyote, though for a minute Tucker was sure Ernie was playing wolf with him. A weird dog. Tucker called his name, which never failed to bring the dog in. But Ernie didn't come. The noise halted, then resumed when Tucker did. He stopped again. "Hello," he called. No answer. There were only so many people it could be out there, and he systematically whittled down the real possibilities. Wouldn't be a ranger: too unorthodox, and there was no flashlight.

  Wouldn't be a tourist or drunken camp follower: too steady on his feet. Wouldn't be Katie. Or would it?

  "Katie?" he tried wishfully. No, she would have showed herself by now. But it had to be a climber, fairly tall to judge by the stride, confident on the animal trails leading through the meadow. Bullseye and John wouldn't waste their time plowing around just to scare him. Not that he was scared. He just hated to be out in the open like this, no rock to put your back against.

  With rock behind you, half your world was always dependable. Ordinarily he could have reached for his palm-size flashlight in the right-hand parka pocket, but tonight he was wearing the smuggler's jacket. He stood still and waited for the moon to hoist itself free of the cloud cover. The noise came closer, Page 88

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  Jeff Long - Angels of Light and still Tucker couldn't see anyone. It had to be Kresinski or one of Kresinski's droogies. He hated open spaces like this. Tucker crouched down among the ferns and grasses.

  Then the voice called to him. "You little motherfucker," it muttered.

  At first Tucker thought his name was being called, the words were so soft and the rhyme so exact, and he almost answered back. But the raw black anger in that voice made him hesitate long enough to distinguish the words and keep silent. He'd never heard this voice before. Tucker was shocked. The man was looking for him. Him in particular. If he were bigger, there might have been room to think the man was just looking for a fistfight. But Tucker was wiry and the

  "little" in motherfucker meant him. Still crouching, he slid back down the animal trail toward the bonfire. There was danger out here. Why and what sort didn't matter. With an intuition that had nothing to do with all the close calls he'd survived, Tucker sensed that if he didn't escape from this black meadow, he would be killed. Slaughtered. It was in that voice.

  Moonlight suddenly spilled across the meadow for the space of three fast breaths, then it was gone again. Tucker flattened out on the trail, not daring to exploit the light and look at his pursuer. He prayed the man hadn't seen him. When the meadow went dark again, he continued to retreat, keeping his head lower than the grasses that scratched like whiskers at the leather on his jacket. He was tempted to shuck the jacket and bolt for the trees. What if the man had circled out ahead, though? The noises had ceased or else moved out of his earshot, and there was no way to predict where the man had gone. Could it be one of those bikers? he wondered. Maybe they'd heard about the cash he'd found. Everyone else had cash, too, though, so why pick on him? Also there was something too polished about the man's movement. He was practiced at hunting. At night. Hunting men. Tucker kept a smooth rein on his respiration, easy enough for a climber, and stuck to his strategy of returning to the bonfire. All he lacked was another three minutes of crawling through the ferns and grasses, then a fifty-yard dash through the trees. The fire would save him. Camp Four would rally round. It was a good plan. He almost made it. He was within ten feet of the forest's edge, he could smell the bonfire and hear the music and see the flickering light, when suddenly the clouds pulled back and the ghost reared up in front of him.

  It was the dead smuggler. He hadn't seen the body in the lake. But he had seen the photo on page one of both San Francisco papers, the man's thick neck cinched tight with a noose made of climbers' rope. The face was the same as on that body and the same as in his photograph, with a heavy, drooping mustache and w
ide forehead.

  Even if he hadn't seen pictures of the smuggler, Tucker could have guessed who it was from the figure's massive size. It would take a man this big to fill the jacket he was wearing.

  It was the dead man, all right. The lake was getting its revenge. Tucker barked his horror. He was still on his knees and both hands clenched fistfuls of cold dirt. The file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (105

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  Jeff Long - Angels of Light silvery face was going to say his name and suddenly he didn't want to hear his name.

  Tucker dove sideways and rolled in the ferns wet with chilly dew. He couldn't seem to get his feet under him and his lungs were stuck, no air for yelling, so he rolled some more. The ghost launched a powerful kick that would have dropped Tucker dead, but the meadow grass wrapped around its ankle and shin and it missed.

  And suddenly a bass yell issued from the forest, followed by the sounds of pounding feet and Page 89

  crashing as people tripped over tree roots, fire grates, and guy lines in camp.

  More ghosts? That quickly the smuggler disappeared, and Tucker got to his feet as figures came streaming toward him from the bonfire.

  "It's a bust," people were screaming. In the moonlight the forest suddenly looked like the floor of Hell as prone bodies resurrected themselves from the ground and stumbled away. People raced past Tucker and pointed backward yelling, "It's a bust."

  At the center of light, sparks flew up as a stereo speaker fell into the fire. Tucker had no adrenaline left, though. He could barely walk, much less run. And so it was he alone who saw a cinnamon-color bear and her chubby yearling come ambling from the far trees. The party was over.

  CHAPTER 9

  By the time John reached the base of Half Dome's Northwest Face eight hundred feet above the valley floor, his knees were creaking and the forest had turned into that obstinate manzanita brush and rhododendron that sprouts up in the shatter zone wherever rock falls off Yosemite's big walls. Early-morning fog hung in long, torn scarves, and moss grew fluorescent and lime green. The smell this early morning was primordial, manless. He half expected Himalayan cuckoos to call in that intermediate fabric, and at one point he caught sight of a bluejay, all liquid and jewels, flowing between the trees, the slight beat of wings dampened almost in silence. John kept looking for the wall because he was humping ninety pounds going on, God, half a ton. So was Tucker, but the boy had shamelessly scampered off on those pipe-thin legs as if their loads were feathers, not metal and rope and nine-pounds-per-gallon water. John could hear the water with each step, a tiny ocean with tiny waves rocking on his back. Atlas with a hangover.