by Nina Revoyr
“Get the fuck off me!” A.J. cried. He jerked and flailed, pounding the dog’s back and head, and as he spun with her, he kicked the gun and it flew off over the ledge. Timber yanked and twisted and he fell to the ground. Gwen had moved to grab the gun but now it was gone; then she remembered the bear spray. She unzipped the lid of her pack and pulled out the canister and removed the plastic safety. She stepped over and expelled a quick powerful blast right in A.J.’s face. His forehead, cheeks, nose, and hair turned a bright, sickly orange. He cried out—an awful, gargled sound—and his hands went up to his face. “I can’t breathe! I can’t see!” he gasped. “What the fuck did you do?” Then: “Jesus Christ, I’m burning!”
The orange spray swirled back toward her. She felt the heat on her face and her eyes began to sting. She stumbled back a few feet, reaching out to grab the rock wall; her lungs were burning as if she’d swallowed fire. She could barely open her eyes but when she did, she saw that A.J. was writhing on the ground on his hands and knees, scratching at his face as if trying to rip off the burning skin. He was gasping, hyperventilating, crying in pain.
“You blinded me, you fucking bitch! I can’t breathe!”
The dog was standing a few feet back from him and sneezing. A.J. was wriggling closer to the edge. Gwen stumbled back over to him, waving her hands in front of her as if to clear away smoke. He was gagging now, grasping blindly at the dirt. She put her foot against his hip and shoved hard; he fell over onto his back, right at the edge of the cliff.
“I’m going to kill you, you bitch!” he rasped, reaching blindly, but she stepped up and pushed him again with her foot; he didn’t realize what was happening until he started to fall. He grabbed at the rock but there was nothing to hold and he tipped out over the edge and was gone. A horrible scream came out of him and echoed through the canyon. He tumbled down the cliff face, screaming all the way, until he crashed on a rocky ledge two hundred feet below. His head hit a rock and split apart like a melon. His body lay broken and still.
Gwen could only keep her burning eyes open for a few seconds at a time, but she looked down anyway to make sure he was dead. Then she turned to look at Timber. The dog was sitting back three feet from the edge, tongue lolling out, gazing at the mountains, as if enjoying the beautiful view. How had she gotten up here? Had she found another way? She must have, that crazy dog; she must have left soon after Gwen did. Her muzzle was soaked with blood and her teeth were red; there were speckles on her chest and sides. She kept sneezing, big events that made her whole body shake. But other than that, she seemed unharmed.
“Thank you,” Gwen said. “Good girl.” She wanted to pet the dog’s head but when she touched her own skin, a new burning would begin, like spot fires. Her face felt as if it might burn off. Just beyond the ledge there was a patch of snow the size of a swimming pool, and she picked up her pack and stumbled over to it. When she got to the snow she fell to her knees, scooped it up in handfuls, and pressed it to her burning face. She remembered something she’d read about pepper spray—was bear spray the same thing?—and pulled out her water bottles, rinsing out one eye and then the other. Holding her eyes open made them burn even more but she didn’t know what else to do. When the water was gone she buried her face and hands directly in the snow. Finally, the pain began to subside. She sat back on her heels, noticing that her pants were soaked through at the knees. The dog stepped up and tentatively licked her face. She jumped back and her tongue flashed out and she curled her lips, trying to get rid of the terrible taste.
“Sorry, girl.” If it had been this bad from a backdraft, she couldn’t imagine how A.J. had felt. Thank God Tracy had made her bring the bear spray. But it wouldn’t have made a difference if the dog hadn’t come.
Once the burning sensation eased a little, she sat and collected herself. What to do now? How to signal to the others? She couldn’t go back—she’d never make it across the cliff face again—and she needed to press forward. It seemed like she should let them know that A.J. had reappeared. But maybe not. He was dead, he was gone, and that knowledge wouldn’t necessarily help; his brother might still be out there. As for the other guys, José’s friends, she didn’t know.
She looked up and to her left, and a whole new part of the range was visible now. There was a gap she hadn’t been able to see before, maybe half a mile away. Two small, sharp peaks like the spires of a castle, with a windswept cirque between them. The top of the cirque, between the peaks, was lower than the other gaps she’d seen. She could walk straight up. But there was snow—a field of untouched snow stretching at least a hundred yards down from the top. Maybe that was a good thing; maybe her shoes would sink in, and that might help her footing. Or maybe, if it was hard, she’d slide backward. Damn, she thought. I wish I could ask Tracy. She felt another surge of nervousness. But then she thought of what had just happened, of A.J.’s body lying broken, and she knew that she could handle it.
“What do you think, pup?”
Timber smiled at her, tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. Gwen felt slightly frightened by the knowledge of what the dog could do. But Timber had saved her, given her the few seconds she needed to get to her pack. And besides, she was glad for the company.
She took a moment to loosen her shoes and readjust her bunched socks, and then laced up again. They walked parallel to the top of the ridge, following a narrow ledge. As she got farther from the place where she’d come around the corner, she could see how much easier the terrain was on this side, how quickly A.J. could have caught up with them. In another few minutes, she found herself at the bottom of the cirque.
The bowl of snow looked more daunting from here. A football field–sized expanse of white, framed by the towering spires. But there was the top, within sight, and she knew, she felt, that this really was the eastern crest this time. All she had to do was get to the top. From there, she could walk to the Owens Valley.
She stepped onto the snow and it held her, the uneven surface bending her foot sideways. She took another step and the same thing happened. The snow was solid, frozen, like waves on a petrified ocean. And slippery, half-formed into ice. She used her hiking pole to stabilize herself and took one slow step at a time; Timber picked her way carefully, stepping into depressions, and moved more easily up the slope. Then Gwen put her foot down and broke through the crust, sinking in up to her knee. “Shit!” she said aloud, pulling her leg out and brushing snow from the top of her shoe. She got back on the surface again and walked tentatively, breaking through every ten or fifteen feet, getting progressively more tired, and colder.
The going was very slow, and she didn’t know what was worse, the crusty ankle-twisting surface or the plunging through. The tops of her feet were burning, and she realized she’d gotten spray on them when she’d loosened her shoes, so now, despite the snow, every time she took a step it felt like she was lifting her feet through fire. The bright glare of the snow was hurting her eyes, and here, at what must have been over twelve thousand feet, she was struggling to breathe. But she kept going. At one point she stopped and ate several handfuls of snow, then rubbed some on Timber’s face to wash off the blood. The dog tolerated this and bent down and bit off a frozen chunk, crunching on it loudly. Then she took off and charged up the slope, legs working wildly, tail waving like a flag to lead the way.
As they neared the top the slope steepened, and Gwen paused, looking around to consider her options. There were really only two. Head straight up, or traverse, and she chose to traverse, moving diagonally to the left, then the right. But when she looked down and saw how steep the slope was now; when she slipped and barely caught herself with the pole; when she saw that if she did fall, there was nothing to hold onto, nothing to keep her from skidding all the way past the end of the cirque and farther down the mountain, she decided it was better not to look. She remembered stories Tracy had told her of climbers on Shasta and Rainier, sliding all the way down sheer gullies like this to injury or death. That won’t happen to me, she
decided.
She hiked straight up, kicking steps into the snow. Moving like this, with her pole to support her, she made slow but steady progress. Twice, three times a foot slid out beneath her, but she dug the pole in and caught herself. When they were within striking distance the dog ran ahead, all the way to the top. She stood there, looking east, striking a proud and happy pose, and Gwen knew that they had made it.
And then she was there herself. And a new world opened before her. A small plateau just below that held another teal lake. Beyond that, her eye traveled over gradually lessening ridges and peaks, back down into gullies and forests. She saw the great Owens Valley off in the distance, high brown desert, flat and unarable. She saw a range of red mountains behind it, stark and plain, as if mere shadows of the range on which she stood. She saw a tiny ribbon of highway bisecting the plain, light gray against the red-brown earth. And in the center of the valley, a cluster of buildings, metal roofs reflecting the sun. She stopped and dropped her pack and sat down heavily. A town, she thought, tears rising up. And people.
She stared at the reflecting lights, which flickered and wavered like a mirage. In the midday sun, a distant river gleamed. Once she was sure that this vision was real, she turned and looked back where she’d come from. Layer upon layer of mountains rose off to the west, with dozens of sharp peaks cut through by deep canyons, and marked with stubborn pockets of snow. Up here, at this pass, she stood above them all—there was nothing between her and the sky. She had crossed those mountains, she told herself. It didn’t seem possible, and yet it was true. Turning to look at the valley and town again, she felt herself at a border, a tipping point between wilderness and civilization. Were these worlds separate or related? she wondered. Could she carry one back to the other?
She rested just long enough to eat a bit of snow she’d put into her water bottle and to give another handful to the dog. She needed to keep moving. Tracy had told her that there were trails on this side, not more than a few miles apart. The descent looked easy here—not so steep, and she could zigzag through the scree. She started down, trying to be cautious, but looking up too, hoping to see a hiker or even a copter, anyone who could help her get out of here.
It took her twenty minutes to traverse down to the edge of the lake. Feathers of ice floated gently on the surface. Both she and the dog drank thirstily from the frigid water, and she refilled her bottles. They kept on. After another twenty minutes a few scraggly bushes appeared, then occasional windswept trees. She was tired, very tired, and it was hard to keep moving; all her energy and will had been focused on reaching the pass, and she’d somehow forgotten or put out of her mind that she still had miles to go. The sun seemed to penetrate the material of her clothes and she felt seared, dried out, and depleted. Tears filled her eyes. As she descended, the Owens Valley became less visible, disappeared from sight; it was obscured by sub-peaks and canyon walls. But she knew it was there, and that kept her going, even as she stumbled several times, too tired to watch where she was placing her feet. Each time she managed to catch herself—with the pole, or by grabbing a rock. Timber came over and touched her occasionally, providing encouragement.
They made it back down to the tree line and Gwen was glad for the cover; she stopped and drank half a bottle of water. She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t let herself fall asleep—she had to keep moving. And she couldn’t be distracted by the growling in her stomach, the hunger that was starting to eat her away from inside.
She hiked methodically through the forest, between tall shading pines and scattered rocks. She leaned more heavily on the pole now and reached out for trees to help keep her balance. A few more miles, she kept telling herself. A few more miles and I’ll be safe. She had never known she could do something like this, but now she was sure she would make it. And as she moved down the mountain, it occurred to her that she came from a long line of women who walked. She thought of her great-aunt Emmaline, who had trudged for hours each day through all kinds of weather in order to provide for her family. For the first time Gwen understood how exhausting this had been, how heavy the mail bag must have felt on her shoulder. She thought even further back, to Phillis, her grandmother’s grandmother, who’d braved the hilly forests of Tennessee and Kentucky on her long trek north to freedom. Now Gwen could feel the sharpness of the rocks under Phillis’s bare feet, the terror as she fled men pursuing with ropes and guns. Those women had pushed forward, despite exhaustion and discouragement and menace and fear, to reach the promise of safety. If they could press on, then she could too.
She rounded a large boulder and almost walked into a bear. It was coming up the slope straight toward her. Cinnamon-colored, huge, with tremendous rippling muscles in its shoulders and back, it had paws the size of dinner plates and sharp curved claws. He swung his great head back and forth, looking up at trees or the steep mountain walls, entirely at home in his world.
Gwen froze—he was ten feet away and she had nowhere to go. An involuntary sound came out of her, and at this the bear turned and saw her. She was so terrified she could not move; the dog pressed against her and growled. The bear’s big, wet nose twitched and its ears perked up and then lay back against its head. He raised himself up halfway on his back legs as if to confirm what he had seen. Then he turned and galloped off into the forest.
Gwen tried to walk but she was shaking so much she couldn’t control her legs. Timber let out a few tentative barks; all the hair on her nape was standing up.
“Oh my God,” Gwen said, leaning against a tree. “Oh my God.” The bear, for all its fearsomeness, was the most magnificent creature she’d ever seen. But what would it do now? Would it come back? For all she knew it had climbed a tree and was waiting to ambush them. She managed to calm herself and started walking downhill, the dog sticking close by. Her legs wobbled and her heart raced; she was trying not to gasp. She looked everywhere as they walked, whipping around completely one time when she thought she heard something behind them. Then she noticed something moving off to the left. There was a clump of thick bushes maybe forty feet away. They were quivering, and between them she could make out a bit of brown. It was obviously the bear—was he gearing up for an attack? Gwen held her breath and prayed. For ten, fifteen seconds nothing happened. And then she realized something both unbelievable and comforting. She understood that the bear was hiding. From her.
She felt a surge of relief and adrenaline, and this helped power her down the mountain. For the first mile or so after she’d seen the bear, she kept looking back over her shoulder, but she knew that it was not coming after them. They moved slowly and carefully downhill, and soon Gwen was feeling groggy again—the lack of sleep and food catching up with her and dragging down her limbs. Twice, she stumbled over rocks and fell; the second time she twisted her knee. But she kept on, despite her growing exhaustion. She hadn’t made it this far to give up now.
Then suddenly they came upon a worn groove in the earth. A trail. She stared at it in disbelief, not trusting her eyes. But Timber seemed to know what it was and she began to run down it, as if this had been their planned route all along. They followed the trail left and downhill for a hundred feet, two hundred—it was real. Gwen could hardly keep her eyes open, but she knew the trail would lead them to safety.
She rounded a bend, and saw that she was at the top of some switchbacks that twisted down through the forest. Then movement between the trees—another bear? No—there was color, orange and green. She stopped and squinted and made out two figures—people. Carrying backpacks. Walking up the switchbacks, walking toward her.
“Hey!” she yelled weakly, her voice half its normal volume. She called out several more times but they didn’t hear. So she steadied herself against a rock and waited until they were closer. “Hey!” she yelled again. They seemed to be taking forever. Now Timber caught sight of them too, and she gave a muffled bark. She ran straight down the slope, hackles up, white tail raised and flashing. Finally the people looked up. They stopped for a moment
, turned toward one another, and continued up the switchbacks, faster. When Gwen saw that they were coming, she collapsed to her knees and gave a prayer of thanks and broke into gasping sobs.
It took them another five minutes to reach her. They were a young couple in their twenties. He was tall and blond; she was dark-haired and petite. They both carried well-worn packs and were dressed in hiking shorts and long-sleeved shirts. When they got within sight she could see the worry on their faces, and it was because of this that she understood how bad she looked. The dog barked at them protectively, but Gwen called her back. “It’s okay.”
“Hey,” the boy said when they were closer. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” she managed. “But I have three friends back there, and they need help.” She gestured behind her, toward the pass.
“You’re the missing backpackers!” the girl exclaimed. “They were talking about you at the ranger station yesterday!”
“We’re missing?” Gwen said, confused. She didn’t know what day it was; she didn’t know how long they’d been gone.
“They found your car burned up at some remote trailhead,” the boy explained. “They’ve been searching for you—didn’t you hear the helicopters?”
Gwen shook her head.
“You need some water,” the girl said. “You look dehydrated. And when was the last time you ate?” She’d already set her pack down and was rifling through it.
“I don’t know. Could you please get help? Two of my friends are hurt, and one of them’s been shot.”
The couple looked at each other.
“They both need medical care right away. Can one of you go back down and get someone?”
“That’ll take too long,” said the boy. “But I’ve got my safety beacon, and I can signal for help. Hopefully a rescue crew’s not too far away. They’ve been looking over toward the west side of the mountains.”