The Last Descent

by Jeff Soloway

  “I called yesterday,” Magda explained, “and Grant’s assistant said they had a few open spots.”

  “Did you talk to Jewel’s mother?”

  Grant trudged by us, wheeling two maximum-size sets of carry-on luggage, one balanced on the other, in defiance of the airline’s one-bag rule. He stopped to salute us with his free hand, but his smile curdled in the heat of Magda’s glare. He slogged onward, head bent, like a horse pulling a load.

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Magda. A few of the other writers were glancing our way.

  I boarded early; Grant had graced, or bribed, me with a business-class ticket. He always saved a few for celebrity writers and one for himself. Magda had to settle for economy with the other freelance proles. Grant was just ahead of me on the jetway, struggling with his suitcases. I found a seat in the back row of business class, just a few rows behind Grant and across the aisle.

  Then I saw why Grant was dragging such a load. Victoria, unencumbered by luggage, was strolling up the aisle. So she was on the junket too. Had she come to help Grant? To watch him? To watch me? Grant heaved their bags into the overhead compartment while she took the aisle seat, perhaps just to force him to tiptoe awkwardly past her when he was done. As more passengers arrived, I kept my eye on Grant and Victoria. They stared at their seatbacks and said nothing to each other. They didn’t even pull out their phones to justify their silence. I kept watching. I knew she wouldn’t humiliate Grant in front of his invitees. But I hoped to see her inject little reminders of hate as we flew. She extracted a Kindle from her purse and started reading. I remembered she had once told me that her father, who had been educated in England, had pushed on her the British writers he considered socially improving: Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh (avoiding the most racist stuff), and P. G. Wodehouse. “Books about clever people in big houses,” she called them. She still loved those books best. Which was the Jane Austen novel where the young woman rejects the feckless asshole and eventually chooses the guy who really loves her? Wasn’t it all of them?

  She craned her body sideways to whisper something to Grant. I heard the crack of a guffaw from his seat. Their affection might have been designed to crush me except that it didn’t seem designed at all. But then while Grant bent forward to fuss with his entertainment system, Victoria turned and looked straight into my face. As if to show me she could betray him as well as charm him, just as he had done to her.

  —

  We were in the air. Victoria was chatting across the aisle with the only other writer in business class, Grant’s biggest get, Brian Blackpool. He was a former host of a CNN travel show and a current host of an Amazon-streaming travel show. His professed age of forty-nine was a lot less plausible without the help of makeup artists.

  “Did you see my latest?” he was asking her. “On Colorado River rafting? ‘Float Like Cleopatra.’ Me and the production boys called it ‘Float Like Caligula’! You don’t want to know why.” He lunged forward and clubbed Victoria on the knee, where her skirt was riding up. “Got to have a sense of humor, no?” Must have come in handy when CNN canned him.

  Victoria retracted her knee but kept on smiling, schmoozing, doing Grant’s work. Her Kindle now lay neglected on her tray, beside a little bag of vanilla wafers, which I knew were her favorite cookies (and was proud of myself for remembering—we had been downright plastered the one time our conversation zagged to snacks). She was incapable of standoffishness, even to this buffoon.

  I pulled out my book, Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, a comprehensive account of all seven-hundred-odd known fatalities there. The book was divided into ten chapters: “Death by Falling,” “Death by Freak Accident,” “Death by Suicide,” “Death by Murder,” etc. Each chapter contained not only a chart listing every known Grand Canyon death in that category, but also an extensive introductory discussion describing in detail and with gusto the most complicated, gruesome, or moving incidents. I started by skimming “Death by Falling.” The victims of this relatively quotidian catastrophe were mostly tourists fiddling with cameras or horsing around on outcrops. A small but notable minority consisted of young men attempting to pee off a cliff—a poor idea at any time but especially so in the middle of the night, when moon- or starlit ledges blend uncertainly into the dark emptiness beyond them, as the nighttime sea blends into the horizon. More poignant—and much longer—was the “Death by Exposure” chapter. Many hikers had died after running out of water, often while alone. “The key to desert hiking,” the authors noted, in a tone of world-weary exasperation, “is to know at all times the location of your next permanent water source.” Seasonal springs dry up, even in what was supposedly the right season, so responsible hikers rely only on the few park-maintained water sources on the popular Bright Angel trail; the rare permanent springs such as Santa Maria and Dripping Springs on or near the Hermit Trail; and of course the Colorado River and its tributaries, if you could drag yourself down that far. If there wasn’t a source within a few hours of every step of your hike—and many dry stretches of trail took much longer than a few hours to traverse—you needed to carry all the water in your pack, at least a liter for every two hours of hiking, more in the summer. Novice hikers often underestimated their needs. Even experts made disastrously dehydrating mistakes or just got unlucky. Anyone could spill a water bottle, miss a trail turnoff, have to slow for injury or illness and thus prolong the dry march. As hikers get thirstier, they get disoriented and make mistakes. They misread maps or take chances on risky shortcuts. They die of sun-induced stupidity.

  In recent years, the dangers had increased. The last edition of Over the Edge had come out several years before. Since then, drought had transformed the entire Southwest. The Grand Canyon’s suffering was particularly dire. I had spent many hours on the New York Public Library’s databases (accessed from home, of course) researching the situation. The Colorado River was running at its lowest level since the construction of the Hoover Dam. Many of the once-permanent canyon springs were now dry for months at a time; many of the seasonal springs had disappeared entirely. The photogenic series of North Rim cascades known as Vasey’s Paradise was now just one narrow spurt, and the legendary oasis it nourished had shriveled up. Obscure local species like the Kanab ambersnail were dying off, to the distress of NPS naturalists. Less obscure species that normal people cared about, such as elk, deer, and foxes, were leaving the forests around the rim and foraging for food and water in the nearby towns of Tusayan, Valle, and Williams. Some scientists blamed global warming; others the growth of urban populations that tapped the Colorado River for drinking water; still others the ceaseless thirst of industrial agriculture in California. Environmentalists blamed all of the above, but these days, those local to northern Arizona blamed in particular the new Grand Chalet Grand Canyon, which supplied water for thousands of luxury tourists every week and almost as many staff members. A five-star resort charging five-star prices was in no position to ask guests to abbreviate showers, reuse towels, or go easy on the ice buckets. The Grand Chalet’s environmental engineers claimed to be tapping a separate subterranean water source, an aquifer that stretched toward Flagstaff to the south and east and had nothing at all to do with the spring water of the Grand Canyon. Independent analysts called the claim preposterous, but the Grand Chalet dismissed them as cranks. Their own highly dependent analysts were better funded, better dressed, and better armed for public debate.

  Jewel, of course, hadn’t died of thirst. The Grand Canyon has many ways to kill hikers. Ledges crumble, stones roll, dirt slides. Death by human in the canyon was much rarer, but it still made for the most gripping chapter in Over the Edge. The most famous Grand Canyon murder was accomplished by a man named Robert Spangler, who decided to escape the tedium of married life by taking his wife on a multiday Grand Canyon hike—and pushing her off a hundred-foot cliff the last day. That accomplished, he hiked back up the rim to Grand Canyon Village, waited in line at the Backcountry Information Center, and informed the attending r
anger that his wife had slipped and died. They believed him. So did friends, family, listeners of his country music radio show in Durango, and everyone else, until law enforcement officers from various locales got together and realized that two more of Spangler’s wives had also died suddenly, unwitnessed, and in his presence.

  “Jacob.” I looked up and saw Magda. Sven, our flight attendant, stared at the intruder from coach but withheld his reprimand when he saw me greet her. Invited guests are allowed up front, as long as they’re well groomed, temporary, and don’t try to use the bathroom.

  Magda pointed resentfully at my chess-queen bottle of Chardonnay. “I had to pay four dollars for a Sprite.”

  The fat man next to me uprooted his earbuds and pushed past us, leaving the Avengers to squabble unappreciated on his screen. As I made way for his wobbling ass, Magda looked enviously at the empty seat.

  “Jewel would hop right in it,” I said. “And when he came back, she’d hypnotize the guy into taking her seat in coach.”

  Magda nodded with a kind of grateful eagerness. “And if the flight attendant sassed her, she’d get him by the neck until he passed out. Jewel laughed at FAA regulations.”

  Even before I’d started dating Jewel, Magda and I had been telling these stories about Jewel’s superpowers, the only way we could explain her supremacy in our social circles. I wondered how long we’d keep up the joke.

  “Sit down.” Magda sidled by me. My neighbor looked like the kind of guy who took his time in the bathroom.

  “What did Jewel’s mother say?” I asked. I could see that the passengers in front of us had their headphones on; behind us was the thin but mighty partition that separated business class from coach. We were practically alone.

  But Magda turned to stare out the window, where there was nothing to see but a cottony wasteland stretching to the horizon.

  “Jacob.” Victoria was standing next to me in the aisle.

  Magda refused to look at either of us. Victoria leaned over me to share Magda’s view out the window. I smelled perfume and travel sweat; all odors bloom in an airplane.

  She straightened and stood just in front of me, half in the aisle, half in my personal airspace. “My mother used to read me an old children’s book about a little girl who died and went to heaven,” she said. “She’s lonely; she can’t find any other kids, and all the adults are always off singing hymns or flying in devotional formations or whatever. This is what heaven looked like in the illustrations—a beautiful bright shag rug of clouds and nothing else, no children and no toys.”

  “Did the girl find some friends?” Maybe that was the key to the allegory.

  “Jesus himself started coming by for play dates. Those uptight, self-important adult angels were mortified. That’s the part my mom loved. I bet Jewel would have been the kid’s friend, even before Jesus. Cheer the kid up and at the same time stick it to the snobs.” Victoria was the lonely child trying to make friends by bringing up some popular topic of playground chatter—Taylor Swift, the crotchety recess aide, the prettiest girl’s prettier brother.

  Magda turned from her view of paradise.

  “Here.” Victoria handed her two mini wine bottles. She must have been listening.

  Magda slipped the tribute in her pocket. “When you heard Jewel died,” she asked, “what was your first thought? That she got what she deserved?”

  Victoria’s face seemed to harden with pride. The lonely girl was used to snubs. I wondered what the kids in her New Hampshire town made of her dusky skin, foreign father, and strange name. “Islam, pronounced like lamb,” she’d described her given surname to me—she’d been grateful to swap it for Flanders. And what had her father made of that weird Christian children’s book?

  “For an instant,” Victoria said, “I felt lucky. And then I hated her for making me such a bitch. She was dead and I just was pissy about my marriage. But is that my fault? What else do I have? Everything’s so trivial compared to death. So I was bitter, I admit it. But you know what I remembered?”

  She had to lean forward to avoid Sven as he strode suspiciously by, his gaze sweeping both sides of the aisle but sweeping our row extra slowly.

  “Jacob,” she said. “I remembered that Jacob used to love her. Even after she blew him off, he still seemed to be fond of her. So I knew he’d miss her, and I felt sorry for him, even if I couldn’t feel sorry for Jewel.”

  “Thinking of Jacob was the best you could do?” asked Magda.

  “Yes.”

  “You should have thought of Jewel’s mother.”

  “Come on, Magda,” I said.

  “Jacob wanted me to talk to Jewel’s mother,” Magda said. “So I did. You know what the rangers told her? That Jewel’s body was spotted by a hiker, far below the trail. When the rangers got there, they had to clamber down some scree way off to the side, where it wasn’t quite as steep, and then bushwhack a few hundred yards over to get to it. The body was half-hidden under a bush. It was beaten up and broken, which happens when a body falls like that, but there was also a trail of blood leading to a patch of open ground. Or from a patch of open ground. The body had been dragged. Not by an animal. There weren’t any bite marks or scratch marks on it, or any tracks nearby. It was dragged by a human. Someone who wanted to hide it.”

  “Then how did the hiker spot the body?” Victoria asked.

  “Birds,” Magda answered. “Picking at it.”

  “Was anything stolen?” I asked.

  “Her wallet and phone were gone. They found her name and address on a tag inside her daypack. They had to put the body in a box, attach it to ropes, and haul it out by helicopter. They’re going to cremate it when the coroner releases it. Her mom told me all this. She had written it down. Jewel would have done the same.”

  “What about Jewel’s things?” I asked.

  “Her backpack and clothes are all being held at the hotel. They’re waiting for her mom to come down and collect them. She says she’s not ready yet. When will she be ready?”

  “Any papers?”

  “No.”

  “Why would there be papers?” asked Victoria.

  “Jewel was always marking things up,” I said. “Maps, brochures, even guidebooks. What I really want is her notebook. Magda knows—she liked to squirrel it in a secret pocket in that goofy purple backpack. Do you know where in the hotel they’d be holding it?”

  “The backpack?” Victoria said. “Security would have locked it up.”

  “Do you know anyone in security?” I asked.

  “A few of the guards.”

  “Can you get access?”

  “I could try.”

  “Can you try without asking Grant?”

  She reddened and nodded. I felt a little ashamed of my coldheartedness toward her—it was all fake. She returned to her seat.

  My neighbor harrumphed from the aisle. Magda apologized and slid out. I had to lean back hard against my seat cushion to let him squeeze past me.

  “Jewel was a hard person to lose to,” I whispered up to Magda, who was still in the aisle. “Especially to lose a husband to.”

  “She doesn’t love her husband,” she whispered back. “She loves you. Jewel told me that. Well, she could do worse than you. I guess she has. Jewel’s mother asked me to come by when we get back. To tell her what we found. Will you come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe we should make up some lie. We could say it was all an accident. The rangers made a mistake. Her daughter slipped off the trail and died instantly—no pain at all. Her last thought was that the Canyon was her favorite place in the world and she was happy to be resting there.”

  “Okay. But how could we pretend to know Jewel’s last thought?”

  “We’ll say Jewel told us. She flew back from heaven to fill us in on the details.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said. “Then her mother will be expecting visits from heaven too.”

  “There are worse things to wait up for.”

  M
agda returned to coach, the wine bottles clinking in her pocket.

  Chapter 9

  At Phoenix Sky Harbor airport we eased our homesickness at a stand called NYPD Pizza while Grant gathered arriving writers from other parts of the country. At 2 P.M. we finally piled into vans for the trip north. The first van went to the marquee writers—me, Magda (at my insistence), Brian Blackpool, and Jeannette Solum, a full-time senior content provider from Google. That Internet behemoth had recently snatched up the corpses of several defunct travel-guide publishers and, without the input or even permission of any of the writers, resurrected their book content online—in the process resurrecting the careers of editors like Jeannette. I had no such prospects: Even Google didn’t care about Bolivia. But here I was, in the first-class van for once.

  Grant (who was, to save money, driving) and Victoria (her name tag read, in a nice inversion, ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE) took charge of the van; a security guard named Grayson and a young Grand Chalet marketing assistant named Marlene were in the back. I managed to insert myself between Magda and Jeannette in the middle of the van’s middle row, the least comfortable seat but the one with the best view, between headrests, of Victoria and Grant in the front.

  Brian, behind me, rapped my shoulder, winked meaningfully, and passed me a leather flask embossed with the upside-down words THIS WAY UP. I took a nip. It’s always good to make friends.

  “What’s with the armed guard?” Brian asked loudly.

  I turned again and saw that Grayson was indeed carrying a gun on his hip, only partly obscured by the seat belt. I’d also noticed that Marlene had slipped her fingers into his hand.

  “It’s Arizona,” Grant replied. “Unarmed driving is against the law.”