A Song for the Asking

by Steve Gannon

  After both had tied into the rope using a secured bowline knot as their father had taught them, Tommy moved to the base of the wall. Travis passed the rope around his back and wedged himself between two large slabs of granite. “Belay on,” he said, his pulse quickening.

  “Climbing,” Tommy answered, slipping into a terse argot used by climbers to minimize the chances of a misunderstanding on the rock. He dipped his right hand into a bag of gymnastic chalk hanging from his sit-harness, then his left. Next he placed a foot in the crack that split the dihedral. Twisting his foot, he locked it in. His left hand followed, then the other foot. Alternately wedging his hands and feet progressively higher, he started up the nearly vertical face.

  Ready to catch him should he fall, Travis slowly paid out the rope, watching as his brother ascended.

  Using an aggressive, gymnastic style of climbing, Tommy powered through the first pitch, or rope length, placing a protective nut every twenty feet or so and clipping the line to each through a sling and carabineer. Twenty-five minutes from the time he began, following a strenuous series of moves 140 feet up the dihedral, he anchored himself in. Hanging in his harness, he then belayed up his brother, steadily pulling in slack line to ensure that if Travis slipped on the way up, he wouldn’t go far.

  “Man, my lats are cooked,” Tommy announced cheerfully when Travis finally reached his airy position forty minutes later. “Want to take the next lead?”

  His breath coming fast, his limbs shaking with both excitement and exhaustion, Travis clipped himself to Tommy’s anchor, then passed him the protective pieces he had removed on the way up. For Travis, the first part of the dihedral had proved extremely difficult. Several times he’d been forced to resort to dynamic lunges and risky swings for the next hold, attempting heart-stopping moves he would never have considered had he not been roped from above. Once, if he’d had the lead, the climb would have ended right there—and the next section appeared even more treacherous. “I’ll pass,” he said, paradoxically both proud and terrified that he had somehow managed to complete the first pitch.

  “You sure?” Tommy chuckled, amused by his brother’s reluctance.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  After a short rest Tommy led the second pitch, and then the third—his moves a study of technique and strength that bordered on physical poetry—ascending without incident to the large slot at the top of the dihedral. While the following pitch up the chimney eased somewhat in difficulty, it presented little opportunity for the leader to place protective pieces.

  Again Travis gave Tommy the lead.

  By now their climbing had assumed a smooth, easy rhythm dictated by the rock, and as Travis belayed his brother from below, he finally felt himself beginning to relax. Shortly after Tommy disappeared over an outcrop, Travis let his eyes roam the valley, employing his sense of feel to maintain contact with his brother.

  Suddenly he heard Tommy shout down from above. “Tension!”

  Travis’s mouth went dry. He tightened the rope around his waist and leaned out, peering up the face. “What’s happening?” he yelled.

  “I … I can’t … oh, shit. Get ready, Trav.”

  Travis’s heart began slamming in his chest. “Tom? What’s going—”

  “Falling!”

  A split second later the rope snapped tight around Travis’s waist. Several feet of line hissed around his back and through his hands before he managed to clamp down and stop Tommy’s fall. Face slick with sweat, he stared up the taut line. “Tom?”

  Nothing.

  “Tommy?” he called again, close to panic. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. No problem,” his brother’s casual reply floated down.

  Travis leaned out even farther, straining to see past the outcrop. There! Ninety feet up, dangling at the end of the rope below his last protective piece, was Tommy. Thank God the piece had held. “What happened?” Travis shouted.

  “I screwed up, bro. I paid for it, too.”

  Heart still racing, Travis held the rope fast, watching as Tommy struggled to regain the rock. The fall had swung him out of position, and he had to strain to get his hands and feet back on opposite walls of the chimney.

  “Okay,” Tommy called down seconds later. “Slack.”

  Nervously, Travis eased tension on the rope.

  A pause. Then Tommy’s voice again. “Climbing.”

  Business as usual … for Tommy.

  A little over three hours into the climb, Travis joined his brother in a small cave at the top of the slot, just beneath the chockstone they had noticed from the ground. Seeming tiny and insignificant, their packs lay at the base of the talus far below, while across the valley a thicket of clouds billowed into the afternoon sky, casting a patchwork of dark and shifting shadows on the eastern reaches of the Sierras.

  “Nice lead,” said Travis, clipping himself to Tommy’s anchor.

  Tommy nodded. “Thanks, bro. That fall I took got the old adrenaline pumping, though.”

  “No argument there,” agreed Travis. “I may have to change my skivvies when we get down,” he added, attempting a smile.

  Tommy grinned back. “Me, too. You think it was hairy on your end of the rope, you should’ve seen how it looked on mine.”

  “No, thanks.”

  The brothers rested there, talking quietly and taking in the view. Then, all too soon to suit Travis, Tommy decided it was again time to move. But instead of taking the lead as he had before, he slipped off the equipment rack. “Last chance, Trav,” he said, offering the rack to his brother. “After this one it’s a scramble to the top, then a walk off the back.”

  Travis hesitated. Despite the difficulties experienced during the initial pitches and the unsettling memory of Tommy’s fall, as the climb had progressed, he had felt his fears gradually being eroded by a growing sense of confidence and accomplishment. Presented now with the prospect of leading the final pitch, his terror came flooding back, stronger and more pervasive than ever.

  “Come on, bro,” Tommy prodded gently. “You can do it.”

  “Guess I can’t let you do all the work,” Travis replied, wishing he could refuse but knowing he couldn’t. Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he took the rack.

  He spent several moments nervously arranging the equipment, sorting slings, and replacing the pieces he had cleaned on the preceding pitch. Next he dipped his hands into his chalk bag, finding, to his embarrassment, that he had to dust them twice to dry his sweaty palms. At last, filled with a presentiment of disaster, he leaned out, placed a large stopper in a crack above his head, and clipped in the rope. He looked down. The wall fell away in a sickening plunge to the jagged rocks below.

  “On belay?” he said, hoping Tommy didn’t catch the tremor in his voice.

  Tommy passed the rope around his back. After checking the anchor to make sure it would take an upward tug, he braced himself in the cave. “Belay on.”

  Travis took one last look down, regretting it immediately. Then a deep breath. “Climbing,” he said.

  Trembling with anticipation and exhilaration and fear, the rock cold and unforgiving beneath his hands, Travis edged out over the void.

  Part One

  1

  Earlier that year, on the final Friday of spring, Detective Daniel Kane arose well before dawn. Without waking his wife, Catheryn, he slipped out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of swimming trunks, and quietly descended the worn wooden stairs to the beach-level deck below his house. There he began his morning ritual of exercise, working out for fifty minutes without pause, gradually pushing the limits of his six-foot-three, 220-pound frame. By the time a faint palette of reds and oranges and yellows in the sky over Santa Monica to the east heralded the birth of a new day, he had completed a rigorous regimen of sit-ups, push-ups, bar chins, and dips, and a sheen of sweat covered his body as he faced the dawn.

  Feeling his breathing slowing and his blood-thickened muscles beginning to relax, Kane glanced back at his house, chec
king to see whether anyone else had risen. Although disappointed that no lights were yet burning, he smiled as he inspected the structure that had been his home for the past eighteen years.

  Viewed from the deck, it seemed an organic part of its environment, with towering palms flanking both sides, flowering bougainvillea draping a large section of roof and upper balcony, and lush beds of ice plant and aloe anchoring its failing foundation to the sand. Built in the early thirties, the ancient house sat on a small Malibu cove guarding the mouth of Las Flores Canyon, located along the northernmost crescent of Santa Monica Bay. Catheryn’s mother, who had spent most of her childhood summers there in the late thirties, had inherited the old cottage and subsequently bestowed it on her daughter and Kane as a wedding present.

  Over the years the ramshackle structure had metamorphosed to accommodate their growing family, with a porch enclosed as a nursery for Tommy, rooms later added for Travis and Allison, and the defunct cistern platform atop the roof converted to a “tree house” bedroom for Nate, the youngest. Despite its scars and imperfections—termite-ridden beams, sadly sagging rafters, antiquated plumbing and wiring, and countless bootlegged additions and temporary fixes that time had lent the air of permanence—the old house was a living, if dilapidated, monument to Kane’s family, embodying years of growth and change forever entangled in the milestones of their lives.

  As Kane stood enjoying the first weak rays of the sun, he spotted seven Mexican brown pelicans moving in silent unison over the ocean, skimming the water in a loose V and lifting effortlessly on currents of air gusting off the waves. He followed their progress down the beach, noting that the Santa Ana winds from the desert had already begun picking up, delaying the transparent green walls of water on their march to the shore and whipping plumes of spray seaward from their paper-thin crests. The intermittent breeze felt warm and alive on his skin, vibrant as an animal’s breath. It gusted briefly, stopped, then began again, bringing with it the smell of sage and the promise of another sizzling, smogless day. The press of traffic driving south into the city would increase later on; for now the sound of commuters on Pacific Coast Highway, hidden behind the single row of houses lining the beach, was barely audible, and the morning belonged to the gulls and pelicans and terns, an occasional dog padding up the clean slate of sand left by a receding tide, and Kane.

  A moment later Sam, the family’s white-muzzled Labrador retriever, scrabbled slowly down the stairs onto the deck. “’Morning, pup,” Kane greeted him when he arrived, regretfully noticing that the old dog’s arthritic gait seemed to be getting worse. “Feel like a swim?”

  As if to say, “No, thanks,” Sam thumped his tail and sat, following with his eyes as Kane started for the beach. When his master reached the seawall, the old dog groaned in resignation and hobbled after him. Though the sand on the other side lay only a few feet down, Kane carefully lifted him over. Then, leaving him there, Kane retreated to the deck, returning minutes later carrying a pair of swim goggles and a small buoy tied to a coiled length of polypropylene line.

  Sam followed him to the ocean’s edge but refused to go in. “Come on, boy. It’ll loosen you up,” Kane coaxed.

  Again, Sam balked.

  Finally giving up, Kane waded into the water, glancing back at the shoreline once he had made it past the break of a three-foot swell. Sam’s black shape still sat outlined against the sand, his golden eyes watching wistfully.

  Although by then the air temperature had risen to the mid-seventies, the water surging around Kane’s torso felt as cold as January in Idaho. Shivering, he spit into his goggles, slipped them on, and dived under the next wave. A dozen powerful strokes carried him past the shoreline turbulence, and before long he could make out broad fields of kelp covering intermittent rock shoals twenty feet down, the sand in between rippled to a washboard appearance by onshore currents. With the end of the buoy rope looped over his shoulder, he continued on, warming a bit by the time he reached a point about two hundred yards from the beach. There, treading water, he adjusted his position by aligning land-side reference points, preparing to initiate his search.

  The depth of the ocean had now increased to over thirty-five feet. Satisfied with his position, Kane took a deep breath and dived, descending through the cool green water. He cleared his ears halfway to the bottom, then leveled off and began working his way up-current, his eyes studying the silent world beneath. Oblique shafts of sunlight filtered down from above, shifting with the undulating surface and seeming to dance with the swaying kelp and sea grass on the ocean floor. As he passed overhead, Kane spotted a bright-orange garibaldi darting for the protection of a rocky crevice, while a school of torpedo-shaped calico bass, curious about the intruder in their midst, watched from a safe distance with cold, predatory eyes.

  Kane continued to work the area for the next twenty minutes, searching in a grid pattern and taking bearings each time he rose to the surface. At last, after numerous dives, he saw it: the wheel.

  Four feet in diameter and weighing over five hundred pounds, the gigantic chunk of iron lay in forty feet of water, its lower third covered with sand, the central hole serendipitously still accessible. Kane hovered a body’s length above it, inspecting the rusty remnant. He supposed that the old train wheel—scrap from a long-forgotten railroad spur that years ago had run up the coast—had once been used for some erstwhile mooring. Whatever its provenance, he knew it would provide a massive, unyielding anchor for a project he had been planning for years.

  Grinning with excitement, Kane rose to the surface, took several breaths, then dived again and attempted to thread the buoy rope through the wheel’s axle hole. He found the passage blocked with sand. Three dives later he still hadn’t secured the line, for each time he rose, the ocean surge refilled the hole, replacing the sand he’d laboriously scooped out on the previous attempt. Finally staying down until he thought his lungs would burst, he managed to clear the opening. Realizing he was running out of time, he raced to jam through the buoy rope.

  As a red haze began to dim his vision, he got it through. Forcing himself to stay down a few more agonizing seconds, he tied it off with cold-thickened fingers. Then, blood pounding in his ears, he kicked with all his strength for the surface, taking an explosive, gasping breath as he burst into the morning sunlight.

  Rising and falling on the incoming swells, Kane rested briefly. After he had caught his breath, he set off for shore, hammering through wind and current on the return trip. When he finally stepped from the water, he found Sam still waiting for him on the sand, faithfully maintaining his solitary vigil.

  Following a cold shower on the outside deck, Kane toweled himself dry and entered the house. He smiled as he mounted the stairs, considering how best to rouse his sleeping children. “Reveille, troops,” he bellowed upon reaching the top landing, choosing an old standby. “Everybody on the deck for lineup in ten minutes!”

  Silence. Then a plaintive cry from Nate’s loft above the entry: “Dad, it’s hardly light out yet.”

  “Ten minutes, kid,” Kane warned. “And just in case you’re considering catching some extra winks, don’t think I won’t climb up there,” he added with a chuckle. “Oh, by the way … happy birthday.”

  Next he strode to his fifteen-year-old daughter Allison’s room and pounded on her door. “Up and at ’em, petunia. Let’s go!” Without awaiting a response he moved to Tommy and Travis’s room, throwing open their door and flipping on the light. “That goes for you two debutantes, too.”

  “C’mon, Dad,” Tommy answered sleepily. “This is supposed to be summer vacation.”

  “Tough. I want every skinny butt out on the deck pronto. You now have nine minutes.”

  “Does that go for Mom’s skinny butt, too?” Allison called from the safety of her bedroom.

  “Don’t push it, Allison. I may not be around much the next couple days, and there are a few things I want to discuss with you kids before I leave. You now have eight and a half minutes.”


  With that, Kane turned crisply on his heel and retreated into the house. Shortly afterward the children heard the sound of Charlie Daniels blasting from the living room, followed by the dark, earthy aroma of brewing coffee. Resentfully, they started to dress.

  By the time they reached the deck below, Kane had changed into his work clothes: white shirt and tie, slacks, and a nine-millimeter Beretta automatic holstered on his right hip. He had his sleeves rolled up, exposing a thicket of curly reddish hair covering his massive forearms, and he was standing with his back to the house, staring at the waves and sipping a steaming mug of coffee. Allison moved quietly to a large swing suspended from the upper balcony. Nate joined her. Travis sat on the steps leading onto the house. Tommy remained standing. Sam, the last one out, glanced up at Nate, then sank down beside the swing.

  Kane took his time draining the last of his coffee. Then, clearing his throat, he turned and regarded his children, fixing them in his gaze to impress upon each the importance of his intended communication. “Okay, rookies, listen up,” he began, satisfied he had secured their undivided attention. “I can see you’re wondering why the ol’ dad here’s decided to schedule a little quality time with the squad this morning, so I won’t keep you in the dark any longer. There are a couple of reasons, but let’s get the main one out of the way first. Lately I’ve been tied up at work more than I would like, and unable to provide adequate paternal supervision—especially considering how much free time you’ve all got on your hands now that school’s out. That’s gonna change.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Allison groaned.

  Cracking his knuckles, Kane glared at her, then continued. “First off, if you think this summer is going to be a time of lying around munchin’ bonbons and improving your tans, you’re mistaken.”

  “Aw, Dad,” Tommy complained. “Why can’t we just—”

  “Tom, when school let out, I gave you two weeks to find a job,” Kane interrupted. “There’s been no progress whatsoever in that department, has there?”