by Jeff Long
the day; then at night, when the bears came out and would rip tents open or push car windows in at the smell of food, the packages would be removed. All this happened while he slept. John noticed, but didn't dwell on the kindness. Some of his cuts, particularly a rope burn along his right thigh, were getting infected. And either his lips and ulcerated fingernails were worsening or else, without the heights to distract him, he was just noticing them more. Individually, his torments were trivial. Taken all together, they were more pain than he ever wanted to feel again.
He hauled himself over to a nearby tree and pissed against the bark. "Son of a bitch,"
he cussed under his breath. The world became a triangle. There was the tent, the tree, and the picnic table, where he now eased himself down. There was some kind of poison in him, the glands in his armpits and neck were knotty. Somewhere he was going to come out the far end of this, he told himself. The thought made him feel worse yet because here was where he was right now. Up above—and the motion hurt his neck—Jupiter was out, bright and shiny. He looked around. Damn few people around. Where had they all gone off to? Footsteps crunched across the pine needles, and John peered into the dusk. It could have been anyone walking around out there.
"Hey," he called.
The footsteps paused. "Yeah?"
It was not a voice he recognized. Nor did it sound like they knew him. "Where'd everybody go?"
The footsteps shifted. "Gone looking for some climber." Of course, they'd gone after Tuck. The voice was unfamiliar. Probably some climber from out of state.
"When was that?"
"Tuesday, I guess."
"What's today?"
"Thursday."
John groaned. He was getting sicker. He had to lie down.
"You want some help?"
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They'd been gone two days. Something wasn't right. It was half a day up, half a day down. "When are they coming back in?"
"Dunno. I guess they can't find him. Somebody said so." The figure stood still in the gloom.
"Man, I wonder what two thousand feet puts on a body."
John didn't answer. If he didn't get into the tent and onto his back and soon, he was going to end up flat on the dirt. A sudden chill shook him, and his teeth clicked comically.
"Glad I'm not up there," the shape continued. "Can't imagine being the first guy to find him. Not after all that fucking air time. Not after the animals are done with him."
John remembered what Tucker once said about animals getting him. It put a wild panic in him for a minute. Body evacs were always bad, especially after the birds and insects and predators had exacted their tax. First thing gone was usually the eyes.
Those electric green eyes. John clenched his jaw against the chill. "Who told them where to look?"
"I dunno the dude's name. It was his buddy. They said he showed up in camp babbling weird shit about boogeymen." John wondered what else he'd said. More than enough, no doubt. "They said he flipped out 'cause he keeps killing partners."
"Who are you?"
"Who are you
?"
"You're no climber."
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"Fuck no. I came here to score some smoke. You got any?"
"Go away."
"What?"
"Leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you anymore."
"No problem, asshole." Like a nighmare receding, the stranger's footsteps moved off.
John pressed on the tabletop with his open palms. So he'd been talking and they knew. But if they knew, then why hadn't they found Tucker? And if they were calling Tucker's killer a boogeyman, then they hadn't found him, either. Nor, probably, had they looked. Looked for what? Footprints on the summit of Half Dome? After that storm, it would be like looking for traces of John's imagination. He'd talked but they hadn't listened, or they'd listened and blamed his words on guilt and fever and illusion. What they were searching for then was proof of their own illusions. Still, Half Dome wasn't so large that a boy's life could completely disappear upon it, regardless of whose reality was dominant. They'd find Tucker, bag him, strap him in a Stokes litter, and carry him down to the floor. Somehow Tucker would speak to them. His death would instruct them. John's horror would redeem them. The Valley's normal rhythm would be restored and they could get on with their climbing.
But they didn't find Tucker.
The following night, hearing the sounds of the evacuation team entering camp, John stayed burrowed in his tent for as long as he could. It was dark, though he could tell file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (131
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light by listening that it wasn't very late because the coyotes weren't yipping and screaming and the bears and raccoons hadn't begun roaming among the sites, tipping over loose cans and snuffling at tent walls. There was still some loose acoustic guitar floating in the air and the drone of distant climber talk. When the evac boys came in, you could hear their weariness and excitement and sorrow as they dumped their packs and tripped over fire grates and guy lines and fanned out for their individual sites. Someone was wearing a tape deck, John caught the tinny sounds of country western. He heard several people doff heavy packs on the picnic table thirty feet over in the neighboring site. Headlamps bobbed against his tent wall.
Huge silhouettes eclipsed the light. Then someone brought over a big kerosene lantern, and John felt caged in the tent, foolish and cowardly. Instantly he regretted his sloth of the past few days.
He was filthy and his hair was greasy and he stank.
They were going to wait for him at the table. More and more people were congregating outside, and when he crawled from his tent they were going to see him like this. The longer he stayed in here, the worse his spectacle would be. He had to sit still for a minute because the fever had gutted his strength. Pack straps whipped free, and he heard the metallic jingle of hardware on the tabletop.
"Whoa," a voice admired. "Copper RDs, man. A whole set. Look at all these toys."
"Somebody bring over the rest of his shit?"
"Yeah. It's all here."
"Check how heavy this steel biner is. The old-timers must have been animals to carry these antiques around up there."
Unable to fathom why they had chosen to gather here rather than go to bed, John simply tried to sort out all the voices. He stared woodenly at the monstrous shapes playing against the tent fabric.
"Tuck found that up on Lost Arrow Spire." It was Bullseye's voice. All the animation was gone out of it. "That one's not up for grabs. Maybe his dad and mom'll want it."
"Shit, they're not gonna know. They're sure not gonna care. I mean that old biner's got history in Page 111
it. It oughta go to somebody who can appreciate it." That was why they were here then. To sort out John's gear and divide up Tucker's. Someone had broken open Tucker's footlocker, and now it was all subject to ad hoc disposal. Among Camp
Four climbers, this was the way it was done. In that way, Tucker would be absorbed into the tribe. By using his gear in their climbing, Tucker would be climbing, too.
"Like hell," Bullseye snapped.
"All right already," the other voice backpedaled. John heard the heavy steel carabiner plop back onto the pile.
"Maybe we ought to wait," someone suggested.
"Wait for what?"
"I mean they haven't even found him yet. It seems like not very decent to..."
John was stunned. They hadn't found Tucker. But that was impossible. There must file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (132
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light have been twenty or thirty people up there for the last three days, and Half Dome was no more than half a mile across. If they hadn't found him, where had he gone?
Then a darker, angrier voice stopped the hubbub. "Where's Coloradas?" it demanded. Kresinki had arrived. "Time to get us some answers."
"Hey, Johnny," someone called at the tent.
John was terrified. Trapped. But he had to face them. He reached for the door zipper and pulled it down. The shapes quit dancing on his tent wall. The silence felt like a deep, deep pit. He hauled himself free of the tent and, with some difficulty because of the infected leg, pushed to his feet. Over at the neighboring site the lantern hung from a tree branch, casting a brilliant white glow and making everyone's face stark and morbid. The table was heaped high with gear, among which John detected the ragged shreds of his and Tuck's old haul bag. Some of the climbers had pieces of equipment or magazines in their hands, examining or arranging it all on the table.
The magazines, John noted with a glance, were from Tucker's Silver Surfer comic book collection. Everyone paused to watch John gimp from the tent to his table where Kresinski and Bullseye were sitting with a pot of water on a cooker, waiting for him. Bullseye had evidently already taken his choice of Tucker's effects. He was wearing the big leather jacket that Tucker had found in his cave high above the lake.
Now John understood why no park rangers had visited over the last few days to question him and file a report on the incident: No one had informed the rangers. In typical fashion, Camp Four had decided to take care of one of its own its own way, only this time around the process had gone sour. The idea was to retrieve and honor
Tucker, and only then make an accounting to the Park Service.
They, not the rangers, would bring him out to the world. In the past, such voluntary body evacs had served to show that the climbers took their tragedies seriously. It also emphasized that the walls were their turf. But the search had failed. An ordinary tragedy had turned extraordinary, and the climbers wanted to know what had gone so wrong that they couldn't even track down a body. Trusting John, they'd swarmed off to find Tucker, but hadn't. Now the park cops would get involved. The rangers would trespass on territory that wasn't theirs, and that made the climbers angry. John sensed their hostility. This was no wake. It was an inquisition. No one helped him stand up. No one offered a hand when he limped over to the table. Even Bullseye looked stern and distant.
"Should have done this to start with," Kresinski growled at him. "But Bullseye said cut you slack.
Let you sleep. So I did. You were talkin' crazy and Bullseye said let's check it out. Fuck of a lot Page 112
of good that did us. Hoppin' round through the bush up there. Checkin' treetops. Pickin' up your gear. Now you've slept, Johnny. Now where's Tucker at?" He paused for emphasis. "You ditched him on the wall, didn't you?"
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John sat down with his right leg thrust out stiffly. He felt faint, but forced himself to keep his head up. The truth was, he repulsed himself. He'd done nothing wrong, and yet he felt like he must have. This gauntlet, the shame of his filth, the pain of his cuts and fever—he welcomed the punishments. He welcomed Kresinski's questions because John wanted to know what had happened, too, and maybe the blond, blue-eyed son of a bitch could free him from his ignorance and confusion. He wanted nothing more than to confess, for he'd lost Tucker. "I don't even know what I told you," he said.
Kresinski looked over at Bullseye, who was studying the dirt. "Exactly what your buddy said you'd say. Poor old John's out of his head. Cut you slack."
Bullseye broke in. "You said Tucker fell off the Visor. He finished the Visor. And then he"—Bullseye trailed off indecisively—"died."
"Died?" Kresinski fumed. "Shit. You said the Kid got pushed. Got killed. You said somebody killed Tucker."
"That's what I said?" breathed John. He prepared for the onslaught. "Well, that's what happened."
"Somebody pushed the Kid off the Visor," Kresinski reiterated.
"Pushed. Kicked. Threw. I don't know. But Tuck didn't fall." John frowned. "He didn't."
Kresinski looked at him hard, but John couldn't read behind the loathing. Kresinski knew something, it seemed. But maybe that was a bluff. Or a pretension. Ultimately, what did it matter? Everyone was in search of something. Finally Kresinski let go of his eyes. "Ah, come on, man. The little shit barely threw a shadow. Why would anyone go shove him off a mountain?"
"You talk too much," snapped Bullseye. "Just shut up."
"Sure. Sure thing. Tell me you believe this crap, I'll shut up."
Bullseye fell silent. There was a curious, defeated resignation on his face. A complicity with his old enemy Kresinski. The two of them had obviously done a lot of talking during the search for Tucker.
"It doesn't make sense to me, either," said John.
Kresinski bent in closer. "That's because you're a goddamn liar." Bullseye seemed angry and embarrassed but didn't interrupt.
Et tu, John thought sadly. You couldn't blame him, though. Over at the other table, climbers were chattering away, neatly lining up the gear for the final pick-and-choose.
"Doesn't much matter what I say then," said John.
"How come we can't find your little buddy?" Kresinski pressed. "We found every other damn thing down under the wall. The ropes you left. What was left of your haul bag. Your last crap.
We even found stuff climbers dropped twenty years ago. But no Tuck."
"It's the truth," Bullseye confirmed.
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"I don't know." John was sick at heart. The animals had gotten to the boy. The thought disgusted Page 113
him, most of all because the thought had always disgusted Tucker.
"But know," said Kresinski. "While everyone else had their noses down rootin'
I
through the trees and bushes, you know where I kept lookin? Up. At that big mother of a wall.
And you know why, don't you? Because you ditched Tucker up there. He's up there on a ledge, and I'm gonna climb your fucking wall and find him. You ditched him just the way you ditched Tony."
John snorted his reply. But he'd expected this, too. John examined Kresinski's face.
There was an interior to the man's words and his hate, something that went far beyond personal dislike. John had seen it before, though never this distinctly. As in the past, he pushed away the mystery of Kresinski's hatred. He didn't care. But for all Kresinski's venom, John still wanted to talk about it. Otherwise it would remain a cipher. "I saw Tucker climb all the way to the top," he said. "He went around the summit lip. It was windy and I couldn't hear anything. But I felt him tug on the ropes and untie from them. Then I got ready to go up. He was safe. He was off. One hundred percent done."
"If you couldn't hear anything," asked Bullseye, "how do you know he was finished?"
"Because he took the haul bag. He brought it all the way up and off." No one challenged that proof because it was self-evident. If Tucker had hauled up the haul bag, then he'd been anchored in and secure. "Next thing, the haul bag goes flying by.
Next thing, Tucker came flying over the edge. But he caught himself." John could see it all again.
He'd been saving the image until now, when someone else could make sense of it for him. He wanted to talk fast, but kept it slow and monotone. "He hung on to the rim and kept edging around up there. And he was talking. Arguing. I
couldn't hear a word. But somebody was on top arguing back. And then Tuck started back down the crack, but he was untied and there was no pro, nothing. He tried to down-climb the roof but it was hard 13, hell 14, I don't know."
Kresinski spit. Even dead, Tucker and his magic hands galled him.
"You can't down-climb something that hard," said Bullseye.
<
br /> "He tried."
"Bull," said Kresinski, but he was really disputing John's estimation of the difficulty.
Next to no one in the world could climb 5.13. And 5.14 didn't even exist.
"And no pro," John reminded him, just to twist the knife. Tucker would have enjoyed the bitter expression on Kresinski's face.
"John," said Bullseye with a voice full of sudden revelation. "That's not where he fell, is it, there on the ceiling?"
John saw what Bullseye was getting at, that perhaps Tucker had fallen on the Visor ceiling, gotten injured or killed. And that John had abandoned him just as Kresinski was insisting. John shook his head. "Tuck climbed back up to the top. He was pumped. He was scared."
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"The ropes were tied off?" said Bullseye. "Then how come he didn't just grab one and batman up or down?" To batman was to climb the rope hand over hand.
"The ropes came untied," said John.
"What, the knots fell apart?" scoffed Kresinski.
"I keep saying, somebody was up there."
Bullseye was staring at him, judging the improbabilities. "But you didn't see anybody?"
"Didn't see. Didn't hear."
"And Tucker didn't shout down, like, this guy's trying to get me or something?"
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"He was scared. And there was that damn wind."
"What wind?" asked Kresinski. "It's been like banana land down here all week."
"There was a storm," said John.
Bullseye kept staring.
"The ground was wet when I got here."
"Maybe," said Bullseye. "Maybe it stormed up higher. At night."
"Maybe not," said Kresinski, then waved the question away. "Screw that. Motive. Try motive.