Greg reached out to a low bush and pulled off a needle. Cracking it open, he handed it to her. “Smell.”
She did. It was fragrant and fruity.
“Pinion.” He started to move again. “You’ve never climbed?”
“No.”
“Scared of heights?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She swiped at the insects nearest her eyes and said, “Sounds like you do this a lot.”
“Whenever I can. Climbing’s the only thing that matters to me. Besides pizza and beer. And fucking. Two out of three on this trip ain’t bad.”
“But what about your job?”
“It pays for my trips. Money means climbing. Period.”
“Is that why you’re so cheap?”
He laughed. “When Dimitri and this other guy from Oregon and I go, we’re really cheap. We take a tub of peanut butter and some loaves of day-old bread. And lots of apples. Chocolate too; it tightens you up. But none of this fancy freeze-dried shit.” He hitched up his pack to even it.
“You have a steady girlfriend?” Fiona asked him, more to pass the time than caring.
Greg gave her a grin. “She thinks so. But I don’t need anyone telling me what to do, how to spend my money. My college girlfriend—when we got engaged, she wanted me to give up climbing. ‘Too dangerous.’ ” He imitated a querulous soprano. “Like I’m ever going to do that. I might as well be dead.”
“So you gave her up instead.”
“Damn straight.”
Nearly stumbling on a rock and then righting herself, Fiona asked, “Have you ever had any accidents?”
He turned on her, their rapport instantly gone. “Why? Why do you ask that?”
Taken aback, she said, “Just curious. I wondered why she was so worried. Accidents do happen.”
“Not if you’re any good, they don’t.”
They went on in silence until, ascending a small rise, Fiona stumbled against a hidden boulder and started to fall.
Hearing the scrape of her shoe on dirt, Greg turned around and steadied her. “Want to go first?”
“No, I’ll be okay.”
“This guy you’re looking for—you been with him long?”
“About six months.”
“That’s good. That it’s not that long, I mean. Like I’m not expecting Dimitri to jump off this mountain any minute yelling, ‘Hey, dude!’ ”
A preposterous image. “I haven’t given up hope yet.”
He made a noncommittal sound.
FINALLY THEY WERE approaching water. Fiona was thinking about how unusual it seemed to find a lake on a mountain when her left foot caught in a root, and she stumbled. She clutched at a stand of tall green plants—Indian pipes?—but could not right herself and landed hard on her knees.
Greg, ahead of her, didn’t see what had happened. When he finally sensed her absence, he turned around and came back. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
She let him pull her up, but her ankle was unexpectedly sore, and she felt unable to put her full weight on her foot. She tapped her foot once or twice experimentally on the path, feeling a pain shoot up her calf. “I’ll be okay.”
He squinted up at the peak doubtfully. “I don’t know, Fiona. This mountain, it’s like a kindergarten outing. Rosa could probably do it. But no way am I going to have your ankle giving way and you sliding off a ledge. And me getting blamed.”
“I’ll be okay! Just—why don’t you go ahead? I’ll catch up.” She lowered herself to the ground to inspect her ankle and felt hard stalks of grass pressing against her jeans. Inside her shirt, lines of sweat pooled and meandered down her back. “I just need to rest for a minute.”
“Catch you on the way back. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“If I ever settled down—and I’m so not ready to do that—I’d look for someone like you.”
Before she could say anything, he was gone.
THE BEST THING was that it was always faster going alone. But it was weird that there were no other climbers. No voices, nothing but the back-and-forth calls of a few birds. And, of course, the usual constant cracklings in the underbrush. He had relied on Dimitri to identify the rustlings of everything out here, to tell the difference between foxes and bobcats, jackrabbits and snakes. Dimitri wasn’t even spooked by rattlers. Greg reminded himself that they usually nested in flatter, hotter areas, not on mountains.
Why the hell had Fiona asked him about accidents; did he have some kind of mark of Cain on his forehead? Only one accident in his whole life, and that had been years ago with the Outing Club. He’d been a kid then, showing off a little, but even when the report was made, no one blamed him. It was understood that rock climbing was dangerous.
He caught sight of the aspens that signaled more water and wondered if it was potable. He had filled up his canteen back in Santa Fe, but only had the one with him. Not that the hike up would take very long, but he was already sweating like a sumo wrestler. He reached back and eased the pack away from his shoulders to let the air circulate under his soaked shirt.
It had been a fall day when the accident happened, the trees that brilliant New England rust though the sky was overcast. He couldn’t even remember the name of the mountain now. Although they were belaying, he had used very few chocks, trying to impress Dimitri by depending on his own hand holds and his own balance. And it would have been fine if Ben hadn’t slipped and panicked, hadn’t ripped them all off the mountain like someone peeling away a Band-Aid.
Overhead a hawk wheeled slowly as if keeping an eye on his progress to report back. Ben had punctured the wrong part of his spine on some jagged edge—every climber’s nightmare—and wasn’t able to walk anymore. Dimitri had complained of headaches afterward and that he couldn’t concentrate on anything. Was that when his failing at everything started? Still, if the data-compression program was as good as he claimed it was, it would make up for years of failure.
A droning began somewhere above his head and it only took Greg a moment to realize that it was not an insect, but man-made. Instinctively he pressed himself into the shade. When he and Dimitri climbed on Navajo land, on monuments like Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, they had been alert for aircraft or jeeps on the canyon floor. The Indians got picky about outsiders on their sacred land.
The noise turned staccato as the copter swooped lower and then moved away. Surveillance, but so what? This wasn’t private land. As he paused on the climbing trail, something black overhead caught his eye. Squatting, he let his pack slip off to one side, then rooted around for his camera. He didn’t carry binoculars; the telephoto lens usually brought things close enough.
Bringing his Nikon out, he focused up on the dark glint, then caught his breath. There was definitely something up there, something that did not belong. The trouble was, it was hard to see. Hints of color gleamed in some places, but they looked more like reflections on plastic. No, not plastic. What was the thing it reminded him of? Rainbows—rainbow slicks on oil.
Straightening, he leaned back to assess how to get up there.
It was tempting to leave the trail and go straight up the mountain. But he was alone, and pulling out his equipment was a hassle. For a moment he did nothing. Wiping the sweat away with his fist, he wondered if he should go back and tell Fiona. But what could she do? No, that would take too long. He would check it out, snap some photos, and then get the hell out of Dodge.
A shadow crossed the ledge before he actually heard—or saw—the helicopter again. It passed over him, then continued to the top of the peak. He let out his breath. It was painted a rich blue with yellow trim. Probably some kind of ranger patrol.
He raised the camera again. A breeze must have rippled the black cover, because he could now see glinting silver edges like the frosting on Rosa’s black hair. He replaced the pack firmly on his shoulders and started to move again.
Chapter Forty
FIONA UNF
ASTENED HER sweatshirt from her waist, stuffed it under her head, and lay back gingerly on the rough grass. Beneath the plant spikes the ground was stony. Lying on her right side, she protected her face with her arm. The world smelled like her childhood, flowers turning to syrup in the sun, the sharp scent of earth waiting to foam up when the rain hit it. There was a different, cleaner scent too, something of the way sliced cactus might smell.
So close to the ground, she was no longer troubled by flying mites. She thought about Greg and his girlfriend. Would Lee have given up photography for her? But she would never have asked him to, any more than he would have made similar demands of her. They were who they were. She would never stop traveling. And Lee . . .
Closing her eyes, she moved her left ankle experimentally, wriggling it from side to side. It still felt sore, but she supposed she could walk on it. She would be able to make it to the Explorer when Greg came back. It was peaceful here, with only the constant low buzz of nature and the drone of what she assumed was a crop duster, coming closer then fading away.
Surveillance . . . She thought of something she had only seen in movies. The police were always planting tracking devices on criminals’ cars to monitor where they went. Day Star knew the cars they were driving. It would have been easy for them to plant something when they were mining the tires. Why hadn’t any of them thought of it?
They would have to look when she got back. If only they had thought of it when they were with the mechanic.
She had a sudden sense that this was not a safe place to fall asleep. No black car had been following them from Santa Fe, but if they were anywhere close to where they shouldn’t be . . . Twisting her body around slowly, she was finally able to stand up. She brushed off her jeans and T-shirt, pulling away a few stubborn brambles from her sweatshirt. She looked up toward Blanca Peak but could not see Greg.
He would be annoyed, she knew, if she went back to the truck. But it seemed safer than waiting on this path by herself. She could leave him a note, but she had nothing to write with. He would know, though, when he did not see her.
There was irony here—that he was doing the hard work when he had not even wanted to come.
AS GREG MOVED closer, still hugging the cliff, he saw that whatever it was was further away than it first appeared. It almost made sense to go back to the truck and try to drive up another road, except that there was the problem of locked gates and private property. He calculated the time it would take to get back to the others and decided to push on.
Searching for a cliff face with some natural footholds, he wondered if the helicopter could have been hired by relatives of other people who had never arrived. Someone smart enough to actually implement his idea. They must have seen the same thing he was heading toward. Had they stopped on the top? Was that why he no longer heard the copter? Stepping up onto a narrow ledge, he swayed for a moment under the weight of his pack. He considered bivouacking it, then decided against that. He might want to go down a faster way.
Greg kept moving laterally until he felt he must be directly under what he had seen, but the overhanging cliff face prevented him from looking that far up. It was the kind of climbing he least liked to do by himself. Still, there was a vertical crack of several inches that would lend itself to liebacking. Letting the pack slide off, he fished around inside and pulled out his climbing boots, his camera, and his canteen. After taking a long swallow, he laced and tied the boots, then closed up the pack tightly and pressed it against the stone. Much as he hated to leave it, he had no choice.
Pull with your arms, push with your feet. But instead of moving, he stood there for a minute, arms crossed against his chest. Listening. A fall from here, eventually landing in the brush, would be painful but not deadly, though there was always the chance of a freak accident like Ben’s.
He ran his hand back and forth over the rock, assessing it. There was enough unevenness to guarantee points of contact along the way. If not, he could always use a few wedging chocks. But it didn’t look that hard. What worried him, he acknowledged finally, was hanging out in open air like a bug on a thread. He shoved away the image that came right after that, a giant pair of scissors snipping the thread.
What the fuck—just get on with it.
The rock was firm under his embrace. When he scraped at it with his nails, it barely flaked and he found himself moving more rapidly than usual. His shoes worked perfectly, holding him without slipping. Justifying their outrageous price, he thought, as he let himself hang off toward the right. The problem was always money, enough money to go where the real challenges were.
As he reached the top of the cliff, he grabbed at its stony surface with his hands, then swung his leg up to anchor his heel on a boulder that slanted backward. With a final, awkward push, he was over the top gracelessly, panting like a winded dog, his legs shaking. Never again, not alone, not with helicopters buzzing the trees.
But for now he was home free. He moved his head to clear it, then looked around. The blackness he had seen from below was actually an immense sheet of vinyl pulled tightly over something. It looked like the black plastic covers you could buy for cars. In a few places the seams had ripped and gaped, revealing the silver he had seen.
As he moved around, he saw something extended like the wing of a plane. But how could it be a plane? The plane hadn’t crashed, and even if it had there would be luggage, stuff, people strewn around. But who would store a plane on top of a mountain?
Pulling himself to a crouch, he moved closer. A spike had been pounded into the ground to hold the cover down, and he wiggled it until it became unpegged. Cautiously he lifted the vinyl and saw a pair of blue fabric seats sitting incongruously upright. They were splashed with something dark, their metal feet twisted. Airplane seats, definitely.
There was an odor of fuel mixed with something sweeter, something decayed. Quickly he let the cover drop and moved back, still on his knees. No way was he getting any closer, no way would he stumble over someone’s fucking leg. It was time to take a photo, to show he had been here and what he had seen, though he would have to pull up the vinyl again to do that. He was reaching out his hand when he heard the chop-chop of helicopter blades. It sounded as if it was landing on the other side of the destroyed plane.
Shit. He stayed still, trying not to breathe until he heard the cruel crunch of brush as if someone was walking toward him. To hell with souvenirs, to hell with photos. He had to get away. But not by dangling over the cliff face again. He would have to go down the long way through the trees and meet up with the path. Except that his pack was on the ledge and no way was he leaving without his stuff. He would have to hide and wait them out.
Flattening himself behind a juniper tree, he felt his heart whacking in his chest like a moving army. It doesn’t matter to them where we are, as long as we’re not where we shouldn’t be. He had had no idea what he would see from the mountain top, had secretly thought he would see nothing, but had been desperate for the climb. But this was proof that Dimitri could actually be dead, this incredible, smelly scene. He needed to get as far from it as he could, back to Santa Fe to find Dimitri’s apartment and the program. Why had he let himself be sidetracked?
The others could do what they wanted. He was heading back to the rest of his life.
Chapter Forty-One
IT TOOK FIONA almost an hour to make her way back to the truck. The trail was not difficult, but it was uneven, and she had to protect her twisted ankle. Once, hearing a noise like a rattle, she froze and looked around for the snake. She stayed poised without moving for several minutes. But the sound did not come again, and she finally moved on. A little later down the path, she saw a gray hen coming toward her. She stopped, surprised, and it turned into a boulder. Only the tiny lavender flowers on stalks surrounding it were what they seemed.
When she saw the Explorer waiting up ahead like a faithful pack animal, its white sides streaked with dust, she almost cried. Her own body was sweaty and prickling with exhaustion,
but she had had no more trouble walking. She was ferociously thirsty though; they should have thought to buy bottled water. A bunch of city slickers under Western skies.
Reaching the truck, she saw that the driver’s side was reclined back and Dominick was asleep. Rosa had climbed into the front seat beside him and was reading. She peered at Fiona over red-framed half-glasses. “Back so soon?”
“Well, I didn’t go all the way.” She climbed into the backseat and left the door ajar so that closing it would not wake Dominick. Then she told Rosa what had happened. “It’ll be a while till Greg gets back.”
“Have a book.” Rosa handed her Examination in Blood.
“Thanks, but I already bought it.”
“Did you really? Bless you.” Rosa looked delighted, but then her smile turned wistful and Fiona knew she was thinking of Susan.
“I brought it along, but I haven’t had time to read it yet.” She considered telling Rosa the story of how she had been prompted to buy it for Karen Jensen, but Dominick stirred and mumbled and they stopped talking.
Keeping quiet so he could sleep turned out not to matter. Less than a minute later there was an explosion from the mountain, a sharp report that Fiona’s jumping heart identified as gunfire. A pause, another shot, and immediately after it a third.
Dominick jerked awake, banging his stomach against the steering wheel. Catching sight of Fiona in the rearview mirror, he seemed to relax.
“Greg’s still up there!” she cried.
“It’s just hunters,” he said reassuringly, returning his seat to upright.
“Is it hunting season out here?” she asked doubtfully. At the farm, Eimer Jensen did not bring out his fluorescent orange vest and funny hat until nearly Thanksgiving. She had never heard of a license to hunt game in August.
“There are always poachers. Greg didn’t come back with you?”
“He’s climbing the mountain. He wouldn’t let me; I hurt my ankle. But I was thinking, he’ll need water when he comes down. I’m dying of thirst too. Maybe we could make a quick water run.”
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