Valley Girls

by Sarah Nicole Lemon

  Rilla swallowed and looked at the rope. She couldn’t be trusted. She wasn’t on. She didn’t remember how to do this. But she didn’t want to expose herself. “On belay,” she said faintly. The wind snapped at her braid.

  “Louder,” Adeena ordered. “You’re a team. You have to communicate.”

  “On belay,” Rilla said, louder.

  Petra immediately rocked forward on her toes. “Climbing,” she said.

  “She’s telling you she’s about to climb,” Adeena said. “Now, you have to tell her to climb on. That means from that moment on, you’re the person to keep her alive.”

  “Wait.” Rilla gripped the rope tighter, heart thumping in her ears. “What’s supposed to hold her?” The rope hung slack between the two of them, nothing in between Rilla’s Grigri and the knot Petra had tied to her harness. If Petra began to climb and fell, she’d just fall. There was nothing Rilla could see to do to stop her.

  Adeena pointed to the metal bits hanging at Petra’s side. “She’ll set one of those pieces of protection—pro—every so often along the way. Either in a crack or on a bolt. Then, it’ll be just like when you did it with Walker.”

  Rilla squinted up the wall. This was such a bad idea. A Bad Idea: The Priscilla Skidmore Story. Caroline’s Instagram feed popped into her head, and she clenched her jaw. She wanted to be that, so badly. But she stood frozen, unable to start. And she wasn’t even climbing.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Adeena said. “I’m your backup. And Petra’s done this climb a thousand times. She doesn’t even need you.”

  “I could do this with no hands,” Petra said, balancing on her toes and waving her hands in the air to demonstrate. “Now. Climbing.”

  Rilla took a deep breath. It was this or Netflix and staring at her undone homework all summer. “Climb on,” she said.

  “All right!” Adeena fist-bumped the air.

  Petra began moving up the wall, rope trailing behind her.

  Rilla’s stomach turned and turned, and her palms were sweaty, but she carefully fed out rope as Petra moved.

  In less than a minute, Petra paused and reached for a piece of pro at her side. A few seconds later she called, “slack” and began pulling up on the rope that trailed down to Rilla.

  Adeena lifted up the rope from the pile. “Slack means give her more rope. Keep your hands on the brake and feed it through the Grigri.”

  Rilla’s hands got all crossed, and her fingers trembled as she tried to feed the rope out without letting go, like she’d practiced with Walker. She couldn’t even seem to recall Walker’s face at that moment, let alone what he’d taught her.

  “She’s not going to fall,” Adeena said. “You don’t have to rush. Think about what you’re doing and do it. Don’t make a mistake because you’re nervous.” She clamped a hand over Rilla’s right fist, pushing it to Rilla’s thigh.

  Oh. Her brake hand. She remembered now. Rilla’s cheeks warmed. She’d unthinkingly lifted the brake and let go. The thing Walker had told her never to let go of.

  “Calm down,” Adeena said. “Then feed it without lifting your hand.”

  Rilla stopped. Petra wasn’t going to fall. They were okay. She was safe. She took a deep breath in through her nose and looked at her hands, carefully managing the rope through the Grigri. Her hands felt like they would shake if she let go, but she wasn’t in a giant knot anymore.

  Petra pulled up all the rope Rilla had let out. “Clipping.” Then a second later. “Clipped.”

  Rilla glanced at Adeena for an explanation.

  “She’s got the rope clipped into the pro now,” Adeena said. “You tighten up that slack. The reverse of what you just did.”

  Following Adeena’s instructions and trying to move as smoothly as possible, Rilla pulled the rope taut without getting crossed or letting go. Allowing herself one relieved sigh, Rilla anchored the rope at her hip and tipped her chin to Petra. “Got you,” she yelled.

  Adeena smiled. “See? You’re doing great. Just go smooth and steady and think. I promise, you’ve got this.”

  Rilla nodded, a whisper of a smile crossing her tensed jaw as she stayed focused on Petra’s upward movement.

  The sun blistered Rilla’s shoulders and the wind kissed away the burn. And somehow, in the wind and the sun and the intensity of watching Petra and listening to Adeena’s instructions, Rilla forgot everything else. All that was real was her focus on keeping Petra secure. It made her feel useful. Like she was needed—because for this one second, even with Adeena there as backup, that was true.

  They continued on until Petra called down that she was off belay and Rilla could pull the rope out of the Grigri and tie in.

  Tie in?

  Rilla stared stupidly at her waist and tried to remember how to tie the knot.

  “Let me know if you need a refresher,” Adeena said.

  Rilla pushed air out of her cheeks and undid the rope from the Grigri. “Let’s see.” Clipping the Grigri to her harness, she double backed the rope, and knotted it with a figure-eight follow-through. Walker’s blue eyes flashed in her memory. “I forget how to tie the backup knot.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Adeena said. “It’s not really a backup. It’s just to keep the tail from whipping in your face if you fall. People just call it that.” She shrugged.

  “Oh.”

  “That tail is pretty short. You’re fine.”

  Rilla hated it when the rules changed. It left her unsettled and on edge—a terrible feeling anytime, but definitely when she was about to ascend a cliff. Swallowing her feelings, she dropped the rope and tried to move on.

  “You ready?” Petra called. “I’m going to belay you from up here.” The rope went taut, pulling upward on Rilla’s harness. “When you’re climbing, use your legs more than your arms. Push up, don’t pull. Take your time.”

  “Okay.” Rilla nodded. Her heart raced. It was too late. Too late to turn around. Was this peer pressure? She was going to die from peer pressure.

  “Okay?” Adeena asked. “Don’t forget to have fun.”

  Rilla nodded, her heart firmly fastened into the back of her throat.

  Adeena stepped back. “Tell your partner you’re climbing.”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  Rilla stepped to the edge of the granite, fingers trembling as she skittered over its surface, looking for anything where her hands could rest. “Belay on?” she croaked into the fathomless sky.

  “On belay,” a thin voice replied.

  “Climbing,” Rilla said.

  “Climb on.”

  This was just like playing. Playing. Rilla told herself as she pushed off the ground. Her body weight seemed to double. Her limbs too long or too short or too something. Her fingers slipped and she scrambled to move up. Playing. She reached and pulled, remembering halfway Adeena’s admonition to push. As she went, the rope stayed taut, and after a few heart-pounding moments, Rilla relaxed.

  Petra hadn’t been lying. The climbing was easy. For a moment even, it was fun.

  A thick stretch of granite had cooled millions of years ago as a fold—creating a perfect space for her to grip the blunt edge and step along its curving line up toward Petra.

  The rock itself was smooth but finely textured, rough and sharp against her bare fingertips like a heavy grit sandpaper, and her shoes—the ones Petra had handed her—stuck firmly.

  Rilla pulled level with the one metal bit Petra had shoved into a crack and stopped. Her stomach turned. This was what she’d put her trust in. A little piece shoved into the wall and attached to the rope with some carabiner and webbing. This. Somehow, knowing that was scarier than if she’d simply climbed up here without anything keeping her secure.

  She kept moving to the overhanging lip, where instead of a piece, the rope was dropped into a carabiner and webbing hanging off a bolt.

  “Look at you, dude. No sweat,” Petra said when Rilla had almost reached the ledge Petra belayed from. Two separate stretches of webbing
with carabiners attached Petra’s harness to a pair of silver bolts drilled into the clean rock. It looked tidy, but complicated. How did anyone know how to do this enough not to mess it up? Rilla stepped carefully on the narrow ledge, and the rope between them shortened to only a horizontal foot.

  A lot of sweat. And terror. But she’d done it. She’d fucking done this shit.

  Rilla laughed and shakily leaned against the wall.

  The world spread out in front of her. Far in the blue-gray distance to her left, the falls outside her attic window formed a streak of faintly moving white. The wind gusted in her face, cold and dry, and the kind of breeze you only get high above the ground in wild, empty space. All around, the peaks of the high Sierras were thick with snow.

  She felt free. Alive. Focused. Like she was capable of anything.

  “First pitch down,” Petra said. “Seven more to go.”

  What? Rilla jerked to Petra. “Seven more? We have to do that seven more times?”

  “You’re in training now,” Petra said in a chipper tone. “Let’s get you anchored so you can belay Adeena up here.”

  Rilla tipped her chin up—surprised and somehow not surprised to see that the dome looked very much the same as it had at the bottom. The eighty feet she’d just climbed seemed to make no difference in the distance left to go.

  Eleven

  Rilla crawled on the raised spine of granite lifting out of the dome like some prehistoric snake frozen in the act of diving for the depths of the earth. Nearly forty feet of rope blew in the wind ahead of her, shortening as she climbed to Adeena.

  They were only halfway up the curve of the dome—but the angle was leveling off and when Rilla finally reached Adeena and Petra at the anchors of the eighth pitch, she could stand and walk.

  “You did it,” Adeena shouted.

  Petra pumped her arms in victory. “See?”

  “I did it!” Rilla yelled to the wind, dropping onto her back on the granite. She smiled so wide it hurt, cheeks aching, and raw from the wind and sun. She couldn’t even imagine herself doing this, and yet, it was done. She had done it. Whatever happened, no one could take this moment. With the granite against her backside and the sunshine on her face. She grinned to the sky.

  “You’ve officially completed your first multi-pitch,” Petra said. “Peanut butter crackers?”

  “Ooh. Yes, please.” Rilla sat up so quickly her head spun.

  “Here, take some of these.” Adeena scooped a handful of almonds out of her bag. They were coated with flakey salt that smelled faintly of wood smoke. “They’re better fuel than crackers.”

  “You did not just come at my crackers,” Petra said.

  “Oh, I definitely did. What are you, ten? Peanut butter crackers?”

  “Peanut butter, Dee,” Petra said. “It has protein.”

  “That’s not even real peanut butter.”

  “It’s . . .” Petra frowned and looked at the package. “Canola oil, soybean oil, sugar, wheat . . .” It was quiet a second. “Peanuts!” Petra shouted triumphantly. “In your face!”

  Adeena rolled her eyes. “Oh, the pinnacle of western nutrition.”

  “Whatever, you lost, I win. All that counts.”

  Petra’s competiveness didn’t seem to bother Adeena, who just flopped back on her pack and threw an almond at her, laughing.

  Rilla still didn’t know how to act—whether this was all a joke, or whether there was something real at the root of their arguing. Inside, it made her want to stay very still, like a rabbit in the grass, waiting to see if the way was clear.

  Rilla hooked her arms over her knees and stared down the climb they’d just come up, crackers in one hand and almonds in the other. Below them, another group of climbers was nearly halfway up the last dike. She’d been so focused on getting up here, she hadn’t paid attention to anything behind.

  “Is it always this busy?” she asked Petra, interrupting their arguing to point down the dike.

  “I was surprised we didn’t have to wait when we got here. It’s usually busier,” Petra said.

  “It’s been cold this spring,” Adeena said, standing and brushing off her pants. “And the cables on the back for hikers aren’t up. I think that cuts down on traffic.”

  “You did good today,” Petra said to Rilla. “Did we get you hooked?”

  “Yes,” Rilla said confidently. She could see why people did this. The taste of the wind and the edge of fear. The feeling of pride and accomplishment that she had just done something not many people could or would ever do. That she’d done something she herself was afraid of. She didn’t know how she would ever do it again, but she wanted to.

  “You’re going to become the next Lynn Hill now, right?” Petra teased.

  “Who?” Rilla asked.

  “The patron saint of women climbers.”

  “In Yosemite, at least,” Adeena added.

  Rilla laughed. She laughed—not because she thought Petra was absurd, though she did—but because her entire body felt lighter and stronger and sharper, and she could hardly believe she sat here, laughing.

  “You have a chance hardly any other climber in the world has,” Petra said. “You live inside Yosemite Valley. In a house. With a bed. And a kitchen?” Petra squinted at her.

  Rilla nodded.

  “A kitchen! And this is your backyard.” She flung her arms wide. “This is your fucking backyard.”

  “Well, yeah . . . I guess.” Rilla’s heart beat faster—whether from fear or exhilaration, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want the privilege of living in Yosemite to be wasted on her. She looked around, at the mountains surrounding her. Maybe there was a home here.

  “We’re going to turn you into a climber,” Adeena said.

  Rilla clutched the plastic wrapper in her fist. She understood the words, but didn’t believe them. The wind whipped her hair into tangled wisps about her face. In silence, they watched the climbers below them struggle slowly upward on the dike, before standing, hoisting their packs, and heading up the steep slab toward the summit.

  After another forty minutes, Rilla took back all the good things she felt—certain death was imminent. Her calves burned, and the cold wind scraped her lungs. Snow fell into her shoes no matter how carefully she stepped. Somewhere near the top, she paused to catch her breath, and a sudden wave of head-spinning nausea slapped her in the face, making her gag. “I’m going to be sick,” she gasped. “I need a minute.” She sank onto a rock and closed her eyes.

  “Altitude sickness,” Adeena said. “Be careful. It slows your head. It’ll get better once we start going down. We can stop again if you need it.”

  Rilla waited until she caught her breath and stood—following on, silent and nauseated. Her eyelids drooped, heavy and weirdly swollen. They crossed the barren moon landscape of the top of the dome in a thin line, one after another, with Petra leading.

  She was on top of Half Dome. She should be running around, high kicking and Instagramming all over the place—but all she wanted to do was get off.

  They wound past impossibly balanced cairns—rocks stacked one on top of the other to stand taller than Rilla’s head. She slipped in the snow as she tried to stay in Adeena’s and Petra’s footsteps.

  Adeena grabbed her wrist. “Hold up.”

  Rilla slid to a stop, lifting her head and realizing they’d crossed the top and now stood overlooking the back side of the dome. Even the altitude sickness didn’t dull the thrill of seeing what lay beyond the dome she’d gotten so used to seeing every time she looked east. They stood on a gentle edge before the plummet. As far as she could see, there was nothing but white and gray jagged peaks, charcoal valleys, blunt domes, and the scrubby dark sage of evergreens. Oblivion spread before her. Oblivion, with no way down.

  “How do we get off?” Her heart was already racing, thumping in her stomach and throat. It didn’t feel like it could go any faster. The edge of panic rippled against her.

  “We’ll go down the cables route,”
Petra said. “As soon as the people ahead clear out.”

  “I thought you said the cables were down.”

  “They are. But they just drop them down on the rock. The boards are left,” Petra said. “It’s not suitable for most hikers, really. But it works.”

  “Why don’t you sit,” Adeena said. “Drink something.”

  Rilla sank onto a rock, shivering in the icy wind.

  “See if this will fit.” Adeena handed her a ball of quilted nylon. “It will be warmer.”

  Rilla stupidly held it up, before realizing she needed to put it on. Slowly, she pulled it over her sweatshirt. It was too tight to zip and her arms and shoulders strained in Adeena’s tiny jacket, but she clutched it across her chest with numb fingertips.

  This was totally how people died. Even with Petra’s and Adeena’s experience she could see how the altitude numbed you and slowed you enough to make mistakes you wouldn’t normally make.

  Another group was ahead of them. Not climbers, but hikers who had made the climb to the top of dome using the thick wire cables lying flat on the rock. Petra stood at the edge, watching their progress as they disappeared over the swell.

  “Hey,” someone hollered across the wind.

  In unison, the girls looked up and behind them. A man came toward them from the summit, waving and running over the snow and rocks.

  “He’s going to slip,” Adeena said, before yelling back to him. “Slow down.”

  He didn’t slow. The strings on his hat bounced off his shoulders as he ran up to them. “My partner is . . .” He looked at the three of them wildly. The panic in his eyes made Rilla’s chest tighten. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  Adeena and Petra bolted off after him, snow flying into the wind. Rilla pushed up to follow, holding the jacket tight across her chest. Her pulse pounded hard even though she’d just been resting. She ran as fast as she dared up the slope, back to the summit, where a man leaned against a rock.

  “It’s like altitude sickness, but this altitude should be fine. He’s diabetic, but he’s got a pump. I don’t know . . .” the guy said, looking down at his buddy. “Rob. How’re you feeling? You awake?”