by Jeff Long
Without it, and him, she would have perished overnight in
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light the freezing hurricane. She stared dully at the flat white shroud in front of her face. It was too close or far away to properly focus the parts of its fabric. No stitching. No warp and woof. The world was just blank white. She was remembering how the color white had driven a group of German terrorists to suicide. The prison staff had painted everything in their individual cells white. A few months later, the prisoners lost their minds. She stared at the white. She could smell his breath against her neck, feel his gigantic arms under her shoulder and across her chest. Thank God for his warmth, she thought. Thank God for the cold, too. It had been too cold for rape. In a way it wouldn't have been rape. Last night she would gladly have traded the use of her cunt for his body heat. Last night as the sun sank and the wind jugulated the land, she'd even offered to lower her pants if he would just hold her. "You must be kidding," he said. But he wrapped her in his arms just the same, tenderly, like a lover. The wire wound tightly around her wrists conducted the cold like refrigerator coils. All night her head ached from the rapid hike to higher altitude and from the times he cuffed her skull to goad more speed. Sleep never got there for her, so she just lay still and kept warm counting his pulse. All night the minutes masqueraded as days. Thank God for the darkness, she thought. Darkness meant rest. But please God, where's the sun? she also prayed. John had told her the formula, the one monks use before dawn.
Fiat lux.
Let there be light. Let there be order. Coherence. Life. Let there be... white.
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The strange thing was he was religious. She'd figured that out on the march in.
Several times she'd fallen or he'd tugged too hard on the wire around her neck and she'd expelled a hardy "fucking Jesus" or "Christ" like some muscle-tongued cowboy.
He hadn't punished the blasphemy, hadn't said a word. But she knew it constituted blasphemy from the way he got quiet and looked at her. Once his displeasure became clear, she quit using those words to cuss with.
In hope of achieving such insipid cowlike mediocrity that her captor would eventually turn her loose, Liz made up a few guidelines as the miles passed beneath their feet. Do whatever he wants, she instructed herself. Shut your mouth. Keep up.
Be nice. Don't look him in the eye. Some instinct informed her that this man was different. He wasn't wantonly cruel, and there wasn't a shred of paranoia in him.
Beating her, cutting her hair with a swipe of his sheath knife, wiring her hands together, kidnapping her—these were completely impersonal acts, cost-effective, timesaving means to an end. He had purchased her fear for the lowest price obtainable. In that context, eye contact would be utterly futile. Her real reason for avoiding his eyes was more spiritual. Very simply, she didn't want to lose her faith in man. Right up to the instant he might take her life, she wanted to believe.
Quite suddenly he woke up. He didn't grunt or jerk. His breathing didn't change, and he didn't say anything. But his presence altered. Liz swallowed her fear. One moment he was a vast scoop of heat shielding her from the Martian winds. And then,
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light suddenly, his eyes were open. She sensed it. Her destiny was once again in rapid, uncontrollable motion. She lay inanimate in his arms, but knew there was no way he could not feel her breath pumping quick like a hummingbird's. There was no way to stop him from doing what was begun. If only he would leave her in this whiteness. If only the day would pass her by. But the Valley had finished harboring her. The arms released her. The heat and solidity against her back vanished. It felt like half the world just swept away. With an arc of his arm, the giant stripped the parachute canopy from over them, and there it was, the harsh, rocky, stock-still earth. The sky was like cold stained pewter, clouds on clouds. No sun today.
By their heads was a frozen stalk of waterfall ice. Rising well over a hundred feet, it carried in its glass every color of blue Liz had ever imagined. She had guided them here yesterday, acutely uncertain if here was where they really wanted to be. All she could say with confidence was that whatever he wanted, she wanted. His will was her god. "There's a shortcut to the lake," he'd told her. "Show me." Based on foggy memories of John's description, she'd led her captor through a miserable gauntlet of avalanche debris and mud straight into this cul-de-sac. The dead end was so bluntly barren of any exits that Liz had started crying, though silently and without theater because she didn't want to annoy the man. But he didn't lose his temper. He didn't kill her. There were two reasons why. A weathered rope lay draped down the side of the ice shaft, and that was a declaration of progress. Secondly, this parachute had lain rustling behind a rock. The giant man recognized it. "Congratulations," he'd said.
"We made it." Then night fell, and they pulled the parachute over them.
"Morning," he greeted her from high upon his legs. It was a mistake to brand his flashes of courtesy and affection and cheeriness as aberrant schizophrenic touches.
Nor were his demonstrations of violence a symptom of monstrosity. Liz had never encountered a more genuine person. You could tell he knew himself well. He knew the weight of his hand, the length of his shadow. He kept his vanities simple—a mustache, a silver belt buckle—and his risks slight. He had no use whatsoever for hesitation. For all she knew, he was married. He might be a splendid, demanding lover. A father his children could brag on at school. For all she Page 168
knew he could have been her Adam. Could have been.
Her golden hair mutilated, old blood from the scalp wound crusted down the left side of her neck, Liz remained curled in a ball on one corner of the parachute and didn't plague him with her gray eyes. She was in conflict with herself. She was his instrument, a compass for his guidance. But she was also the daughter and granddaughter of men who would have gutted and castrated the son of a bitch for his sins against her, who would have made him lost forever. She was passive and even, inescapably, worshipful of his Old Testament certainty. But she was also alive to the possibilities of escape. The man was hunting John and Matt for reasons that were unclear. So be it. It had to do with the lake. She hated John for not anticipating this file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (200
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light savagery, or anticipating it and yet not telling her. She hated him for his weak, gentle ignorance. If only he'd been more like this giant stranger, she would have been safe.
But at the same time, she feared for his life the way she feared for her own.
"Well," the man decided. "We'll go up now."
Liz was relieved and yet terrified. He wasn't finished with her yet. Against reason, she was still feeding the tiny fire of hope that any minute now he would unwire her hands, spank her ass, and send her galloping down-valley, hurt and ugly but at least alive. Not only was that hope illogical given what had happened to Tucker and
Bullseye—and she had revised all her doubts that they had been murdered by this man—it was also an act of intellectual cowardice. Without even knowing it, she had taken sanctuary in her womanhood. In her mind this torrent of events was a masculine storm. It was a bad accident that she was a victim. That she could lose what Tucker and Bullseye had lost and what John and Matt were in danger of losing was unthinkable. She was free. She was safe. It was only a matter of time before her captor realized the truth of it.
She stood up. She left the white folds of nylon and staggered back onto the dirt of the world.
"You hungry?" the man said. He had a big army-surplus rucksack that was empty except for some nuts and fruit. Sticking his arm shoulder-deep inside the rucksack, he pulled out some apples and a can of beer nuts. The apple was
sweet and cold, the first liquid Liz had tasted since chewing dirty avalanche snow the previous afternoon. The beer nuts were almost too sugary, but she forced herself to eat everything that was offered. That was another of her guidelines for survival. Take what's offered. Say thanks. "Thanks," she whispered.
"You're sturdy," the man praised. He walked over to the rope and gave a hard yank on it, then tied a loop near the ground and put his foot in it. He tried his weight on the rope, then hopped up and down in the loop to really stress the anchor above.
They couldn't see around the edge where the rope was anchored, but it seemed secure enough for the man. "How close are we?" he asked.
"Close," said Liz. She didn't really know. But that's what he'd want to hear.
The man worked the loop of rope off his foot. "Here's how we'll do this," he said. "I'll go up first. Then you'll come."
At first the plan seemed absurd to Liz, not much different from trying to get the fox, the hen, and the peasant across the river in a boat that only carries two. There was no way she could climb the rope, even if her hands were untied. And the moment the giant reached the top of the ice shaft, she could run away. She'd be like the wind back down across the avalanche debris.
Back to the Valley.
"Okay," she said, cloaking her excitement. Then he removed another ten feet of wire from his rucksack.
"I'd like your help when I pull you up," he said. "Try and use your feet while I pull, okay?" With Page 169
the wire he hobbled her ankles, leaving maybe ten inches in between. By file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (201
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light the time she got the wire unbound—if she even could with fingers this numb—he would spot her escape attempt and slide down the rope. He unknotted the loop in the rope and with some slack tied a tight coil around her chest and gave the knot a good extra tug, the way you do with a packhorse. "Ready?" he asked, though it didn't matter. She nodded yes.
"Would you sit over here, Liz?" he asked, patting a rock. When she sat down, he draped the parachute over her shoulders. "Keep you warm," he said. "I'll call down when it's time for you, all right?"
He grabbed the rope with his bare hands and planted one foot against the ice. The muscles bunched under his flannel sleeves when he pulled. Smooth and steady, he walked his feet up the slippery surface. Halfway up his boot slipped and he cracked against the ice, showering Liz with crystals and shards.
"Are you okay?" she called up. It seemed important to ask that. She wondered why.
The slip didn't faze him. He hung on. He hammered a few powerful kicks against the ice and regained his footing. Every few feet he looked down to check that Liz was still in place. Though her body was covered by the parachute and she could have been working invisibly at the wire bonds, she didn't. The man was omnipotent. Her obedience disappointed her. But that's the way it is, she told herself. The end was near. Above all the end was something that couldn't be disobeyed. All the patterns of action were set, and it was practically her duty to be what she was.
The feeling shocked her, but she was almost happy. It went beyond resignation. Her own history was being written, and she was right there to read it.
The giant man was not graceful. More ice came clattering down, though nothing big hit her. His mechanical power looked all the more clumsy to Liz, who had the likes of John and Tucker and Matt as examples of how ascent ought to look. Where this man pounded the ice and thrust himself higher and higher along the rope, they would have glided. They would have whispered across the ice. Just the same, measured against this huge juggernaut of a man who was pursuing each climber to his doom, it made very little difference how beautiful their climbing was to watch. Art is a delicate thing. Unless you've provided for its safety, the painting fades, the sculpture melts away.
The man pulled himself over the edge of the ice shaft and disappeared from sight.
Once again, Liz imagined that her freedom was about to be granted. The rope would collapse in a heap around her shoulders and feet. She would untie the wire from her ankles and wrists and the rope from her chest and leave the harsh violence behind to those who'd bought into it. Take the parachute with you, she reminded herself.
Weakened like she was, it might be another night in the open before she reached the valley floor, and the canopy would keep her warm.
Abruptly the rope jerked her from the rock, cinching tight around her chest. It notched into her chest and squeezed the air from her lungs. "Ready?" she heard file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (202
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light distantly. There was no chance to answer. The rope hauled her a yard off the ground.
Desperately trying to relieve the suffocating tightness, Liz scrambled with her feet against the ice.
She almost found an edge to stand on when the rope hoisted her higher. With her bound hands, Page 170
she tried to grab hold of the rope, but the wire deadened her grip. She rose another three feet, banging against the ice. For pity's sake, she thought, the sun isn't even showing. Every breath was a struggle. The thought occurred to her that if he wanted, the man could simply tie the rope off and walk away. It might take a half hour, but eventually the effect would equal dropping her. She considered it all without alarm. The rope hurt too much.
At last it was over. Barely conscious, Liz felt herself arrive on a bank of flat ice. "Get up," the giant told her. Liz tried. Her arms had gone numb. She lay on the ice panting.
"Okay," the man said. Patiently he picked her up and walked over to a thin rock sticking up through the frozen streamlet. He deposited her sitting on the ice and began wrapping the rope around her and the rock.
"It's almost over, Elizabeth," he said. His voice carried a tenderness that told her this was it. She was going to freeze here. Then he would fetch his rope and wires, and by the time the animals and the elements finished with her, all people would wonder was what on earth she'd come up here to see. They would wonder about the other two bodies, too, John's and Matt's. Some would call it a love triangle smashed.
"Sleep," the man murmured by her ear.
Liz felt tears flickering down her windburned cheeks.
Then he was gone.
CHAPTER 17
For centuries dragons infested the Alps. They bullied the imagination and held men at bay from the mountains. They represented risk, but a very peculiar species of risk.
Like dragons themselves, the risk was composed of squat, dangerous, brute acts that soared in the sky for no good reason, unlikely ascents above the flat landscape of correctness and ordinary possibility. The great climbers were those who chased after dragons, not to kill them or banish them, but to cavort with them, to celebrate the light. How many times had he and Tucker talked this through and elected worthy names and sterling climbs? Edward Whymper, Walter Bonatti, Paul Preuss,
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light
Hermann Buhl, Layton Kor, Dougal Haston... the Eiger, Nanga Parbat, Annapurna, Cerro Torre. Lounging by the Merced River or perched on bivouac ledges high above the trees, he and Tucker had wondered if they would ever encounter a dragon of their own. Once, just once, in a moment of extreme confidence, Tucker had reckoned how the West Face of Makalu might be his great ascent, and the singularity of that remark had saddened and also thrilled John. It was easy to see, given Tucker's secrecy about
Makalu, that what the boy had in mind was a solo of the immense eight-thousand-foot face. And despite all his talents, John knew Tucker would never make it. Like Page 171
George Mallory in 1924 on Everest, Tucker might get to the top, but he'd never come down alive. Of course, John hadn't tried to talk him out of it. You don't snuff another man's fire. From that time on, John had figured that Tu
cker's days were numbered.
Just as privately, he'd also figured that of the two of them, at least Tucker would meet his dragon, and that was fine. For the handful of visionaries like Mallory and Whymper, that was the very point.
But then Half Dome had cheated them of Tucker. Half Dome and the smuggler. The smuggler and Kresinski. John saw that now. Now, with the wind pouring past their shattered citadel of rock, John also saw that he had come face to face with a dragon of his own. His was a different kind of dragon, though. It had nothing to do with going higher or meeting darker risks. Very simply, he'd come all this way to learn that he could turn around and go back. And that's what he was going to do. Turn back. Back away. Quit. Lying there on the floor of the cave, John realized—for the first time really accepted—that descent was valid. For all these years it had been the thing he dreaded most. But now, faced with the chance to touch top, to loot the gold and buy his own kingdom by the sea, his own beach on which he and Liz could count sunsets and race the surf and mount the world and never come down—now he was turning away. He was turning his back on Kresinski, on the coke, on the song of glory. Whatever it was up top—Oz, Shangri-la, Eden—he was bagging it.
He unzipped his sleeping bag and stood up. There was no telling what time it was; the gray light tunneling in from outside was absolutely generic. It was day. That was all John needed to know. He dressed quickly, stuffed his bag in its stuff sack, and reached for his coil of red rope. In the pall of gray light, the cave looked like a tomb.
Kresinski looked dead. The coke had wiped him out. But when John stepped across him and moved toward the entrance, Kresinski's eyes opened automatically.
"What you doing, Johnny?" he asked.
"Going down," said John. It would be faster rappeling than down-climbing the uppermost section of the col, faster still if he didn't have to uncoil his own rope.