Following the hug Cecelia pushes me out to arm's length and looks me over. “You look like shit,” she tells me. She turns to Rebecca and asks, pointing at my face, “Did you do this to him? 'Cause he's been needing a woman to do that to him for a long time! I thought about it a few times myself.”
Rebecca makes a denial, and I give a brief explanation about being jumped in the courthouse.
“I'd think you'd had enough excitement last year, Anton. When are you going to hang it up? Climbing's bad enough; you Burns boys act like you need risk in every part of your life.” I think she sees my eyes harden involuntarily at the mention of my brother; she lets the subject drop. Rebecca is watching us both intently while she fingers the cams and ice screws hanging on one wall.
Instead I talk with Cecelia about mutual friends in the area. A Wyoming native, Cecelia's lived and climbed in the Big Horns all her life. She and her husband pioneered first ascents all through those loose and dangerous granite walls. And a couple of years ago the probable finally happened to a couple who each possessed an insatiable Rat for isolated heights: a falling block of that stone they loved crushed her husband's spine. These days he only leaves the bed of their tiny cabin nearby in a wheelchair outfitted with mountain bike tires. Cecelia tells me he is still climbing from their bed, at least in his mind. He's writing a guidebook to the Big Horns. Rebecca wanders among the clothing but is still paying close attention. I wonder if she is thinking of doing another story.
While we talk I gather the items I had listed on the napkin for Rebecca. Fleece pants and jacket, sturdy boots, small backpack, sleeping bag, and an ensolite pad. She already has a Gore-Tex jacket, which is de rigueur for reporters and tourists in Wyoming this season.
While we help her try on boots, Cecelia winks at me when Rebecca can't see. She continues the pantomime by flashing me the okay sign, then shaking her hand as if she has touched something hot.
After we have talked about our mutual climbing friends, I tell her I'm working down in Laramie and ask if anyone from down that way has been around.
“Oh yeah,” Cecelia answers. “That bad-ass Heller was in just yesterday morning with a couple of his latest protégés. He's been coming up here quite a bit, putting up new lines in the Horns, he says.”
“Two guys were with him yesterday?”
“Yeah. Young guys, younger than you. What's this about? Are you a climber or a cop right now?”
“A little of both, Cece. I'll explain it all another time. Anyway, what were they buying?”
“Mainly beta,” she says, meaning information on the area. “Heller wanted to know the quickest trailhead and approach to Cloud Peak. Then just some food and pitons.”
I kneel on the floor to help Cecelia reerect one of the collapsed tents. Absently I finger the cord that's used to anchor the tent to Velcro pads on the carpet. The cord is oddly soft. I look at it closer. It's pink with purple flecks. I drop it in surprise, then pick it up again.
“You sell a lot of this?” I ask.
“No. It's crap. Too soft to be trustworthy on the rock. And only French climbers like those colors. I ordered it by mistake a couple of years ago.”
“Did Heller buy any of this?”
Cecelia shakes her head. “Not this trip—but he did maybe a year ago. Don't know what he wanted it for.”
“Can you give me some of that? The cord?”
“Sure, Anton, whatever you need. When are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“Soon, Cece, real soon I hope.”
She goes into the basement/storage room through a trapdoor behind the counter. Rebecca looks up from tying bootlaces and says, “This is great! Or terrible. I don't know anymore. This could be more proof that the Knapps didn't kill Kimberly Lee, right?”
“Right. What a clusterfuck, as our friend McGee would say.”
Rebecca opens her purse and takes out a pad of paper and a pen. She makes some notes until I interrupt and get her to walk around in the boots in order to make sure they fit. I'm getting even more anxious to talk to Chris Braddock before Billy Heller gives him a loose belay.
Cecelia comes back and hands me a piece of thin pink cord that is flecked with purple. It looks the right color and size for the cord McGee had described as being used to tie and strangle Kimberly Lee. It also looks the right size for having caused the abrasions on Kate Danning's neck.
We pile the purchases onto the counter. Cecelia tallies it and Rebecca puts her Visa on the counter. Cecelia looks at me.
“The usual discount?” she asks.
Rebecca answers for me, “No discount. I'm going to expense it all to a major corporation.”
Cecelia laughs and gives her a thumbs-up. “Stick it to the Man. I like this chick,” she tells me.
I ask, “What trailhead did you send them to? Heller and his friends?”
“Hunter Corrals. But now that I think about it, there's a back road near Ant Hill that might be a little closer. Prettier too, although I don't think those boys were too interested in beauty. But taking a girl along that looks like Rebecca here, you just might . . .”
“Where do we park?”
Cecelia gives me complex directions. I have to borrow Rebecca's paper and pen to get it all down.
I retrieve Oso from the yard in back of the store, where he is still entangled with the two amorous husky bitches. When I walk back in I find Cecelia giving Rebecca a tight hug. Before she sees me, I hear her say, “Be good to him. He needs some goodness in his life.”
Once Rebecca and Oso are situated in the truck, I start the engine. Then I turn to her and say, “I forgot something. I'll be right back.” I leave the truck running and go back inside the store.
“Now what?” Cecelia asks with feigned exasperation.
I explain what I need and she just shakes her head.
“Mine's locked up as evidence in Laramie. C'mon, Cece, you know there's bears up there.”
After a moment's consideration she bends behind the counter and hands me a snub-nosed .32 revolver with a scarred wooden grip. It's heavy in my hand, loaded with bullets. It is the first time I have held a loaded gun except on the pistol range in a year and a half. Giving it over, she says, “Bears, my ass. I hate this thing anyway. Don't bring it back.” I slip it in a paper bag and give her another hug.
I follow Cecelia's directions until we are on an ancient and unsigned dirt road. The mountains are hidden from our view by low, rolling hills. After making the final turn, I press the button on the odometer and, as instructed, carefully gauge a distance of 6.8 miles to a small turnabout on the north side of the road.
The aspens at the eleven-thousand-foot trailhead have recently been stripped of their leaves. All that remains is their bone-colored bark mixed among the evergreens that lead up into the steep foothills. There are patches of early-season snow already on the ground. Despite the chilly afternoon wind, Rebecca is impressed by the scenery and says so. I don't reply. But I smile, secure in the knowledge that this is nothing compared to what is behind the hills.
I help her on with a small backpack and adjust it for her, enjoying the small intimacies as I move around her, sliding my hand behind her back and tugging on straps. My own pack is much larger and heavier. But I manage to swing it on without gasping as its weight presses down on the fresh bruises. She laughs when I pull black nylon saddlebags out of the truck and fit them across Oso's broad back.
“Everyone pulls his own weight,” I tell her.
We climb a dirt and rock trail up and through the trees. I find myself excitedly running off at the mouth, telling her about the times I had come up here before with my dad and brother and later with friends and by myself. She doesn't understand my references to hairy pitches and off-width cracks, but she doesn't interrupt, not appearing to mind my babbling. I hope the stories will take her mind off the trail and the hot spots from the unfamiliar boots rubbing against her skin. Oso leads the way, obviously delighted, like I am, to be out of the city and out of the truck,
back in our element.
A few hours later I can see she is sweating under her jacket as the afternoon sun presses down on the dark colors. She has pulled her hair into a ponytail beneath and behind the bandanna to keep its tangled weight off her neck. I pause at the top of a rise and set down my pack by a fallen tree. She gives me a grateful smile as she drops her own pack and digs in it for the water.
It is only when she stands back up to take a swig that she sees the tremendous wall before us. “My God,” she says. “That thing's bigger than the Empire State Building!”
“Bigger. A lot bigger. It's called the East Face of Cloud Peak.” I say it proudly, loving this mountain and all its siblings.
For another few hours we hop over fields of talus toward its base. There is no sign of another camp on the talus. Heller and his friends must already be on the wall, where chimneys and overhangs would hide them. Every so often I pause to point at features of the face and offer her descriptions from past climbs I've done there. Rebecca follows my finger and stares at the wall, and then questions me, apparently puzzled as to why anyone would want to try to climb its dark, vertical mass. I try to help her imagine what it's like: climbing free with nothing but space below you and a nylon thread as your only backup in case of a fall. Studying her as I talk, I wonder if this sort of thing appeals to her, if she would be willing to let me teach her. Hook her.
Nearer to the wall, I begin scanning it with binoculars. I search the summit first, then the broken upper face, the middle, and finally the maze of haphazard ledges toward its base. That is where I spot a tiny line of orange. It trails from a ledge low on the face, swinging limply in the cool wind. I pass the binoculars to Rebecca and direct her where to look. “It must have been Brad, Billy, or Chris who left that rope there. I can't imagine there would be any other parties back here this late in the year.”
“Why would they want to leave a rope?”
“It's almost always a sign that something went wrong. No one would voluntarily leave a one-hundred-dollar rope.”
I take back the binoculars and again search the wall without success. Could they already be up it? If they were at Cecelia's store on Monday morning, the earliest they could have started the wall was twenty-four hours ago, yesterday afternoon. And I don't think even Billy Heller can climb that fast on the dangerous face. Either they are on it, hidden from view by a ledge or a chimney, or they have come off, I decide. The latter would mean there has been an accident.
Rebecca says, “We aren't going up there, are we?” Her voice doesn't sound as if it is out of the question. Maybe she does have the disposition, genetic or acquired, for an adrenaline addiction.
I smile and shake my head. “Unfortunately, I didn't bring any gear for this trip. This is purely reconnaissance.”
It is late in the afternoon when we are finally close to the wall. We have been in its shadow for a long time, but the sky above and around it is finally turning gray. From the summit of the wall thin-looking wisps of snow stream across the heavens far above our heads. They hadn't been there earlier. For me it is a telltale sign that the jet stream is lowering as the air pressure drops. It's likely a storm is coming.
Rebecca is clearly tired from our hike across the talus. She was all right when the scree was small and easy to walk across. But as it grew larger, when she had to leap from one uneven surface to the next, she began to falter. I'm impressed though that she has never once complained. Nor did she let me take her backpack when I offered.
I lead her to a small area of dried grass surrounded by piled rocks, and we drop our packs there. Instead of watching me or helping as I set up the tent, she fixes her eyes constantly up at the wall that looms above us like some monstrous wave. It seems to blot out the sky and threaten our existence.
Half the tent is rigid and the other half is fluttering in the breeze when we hear a whistling sound. It's high-pitched and alarming—it seems to be coming toward us. It sounds almost like the firecrackers called Piccolo Petes that I remember lighting as a child. “Rock,” I tell her just as the whistling stops and we hear cracks like gunshots. The faint smell of cordite drifts over in the air. I smile grimly and touch the scar on my cheek. “I hate that sound.”
I can see Rebecca is chilled by the time the tent is up and our gear is strewn inside. Although I encourage her to get in the tent, she can't take her eyes off the wall. Inside the tent I lay out three ensolite pads, two large sleeping bags, and a third that looks as if it has been cut in half. Oso promptly collapses on that one, which I had custom-made for him years ago. He is getting too old for these trips. He attempts to curl himself into a huge ball but his elderly bulk makes it impossible for him to jam his nose in his tail the way he did when he was younger. I'm saddened by the thought of leaving him behind on future trips, and then one day him leaving me behind altogether.
As I set up the stove on a rock outside, Rebecca finally ducks into the tent and changes into her new fleece tights. She slides into one of the sleeping bags and sits up Indian-style in the tent's open entrance, the hood of the bag pulled over her shoulders. The cold air and her exhaustion have drawn the white skin on her face tight against her cheekbones. Taking the bandanna off her head, she shakes her hair free, then combs at it for a minute with her fingers before giving up. Once again I find it hard to stop looking at her in the increasing darkness.
“How do I look?” she asks, catching me.
I smile at her and try an understatement. “Fine. Just fine.”
I find the leather bota in my pack, bite open the nipple, and take a long pull of the red wine inside. Its heat spreads through me like an electrical current. I feel so good it's hard to believe that we are alone in the wilderness with two or maybe three killers. It is more like a date that's going well. And I'm back to being the self-righteous, cocksure cop I was two years ago, made invulnerable by the badge and gun I carry. Then, as if to punish me, some brain cells flash to a memory of the shooting in Cheyenne. I almost lose the high. But I take control with another deep pull from the bag, which seems to drown the treacherous cells.
When I pass the bota to Rebecca she sputters at the leathery taste of the wine, then takes a second drink. Her teeth and the whites of her eyes flash at me.
I feed her rehydrated potato pasta with a thick red sauce and pan-fried turkey sausage. Oso rouses himself to eat a plate of his own, mixed with Purina, then licks the pot and bowls clean. It grows dark outside and the wind is increasing. I collapse the small stove and pull myself into the tent, where I light a small candle lantern and hang it from the tent's highest point. The nylon sides snap and the poles creak but the wind doesn't penetrate.
“I'm beginning to see why you do this.”
“This is home,” I say to her. “Maybe that comes from the way I grew up, always traveling. Except for my granddad's ranch, a tent was the most consistent home my family had.”
“I've never been comfortable out in the wild, on the trips I took with my dad. But those were tame compared to this.”
I tell her to close her eyes—that I'm going to change. She rolls to face Oso and pats his swollen belly. “If only it weren't so cold, or there was a hot tub.”
I slide into my sleeping bag and ask her, “Are you cold?”
“A little.”
I press my bag against hers, pinning her in the dead air space between the dog and myself. I can feel her hair on my face. She turns her head and kisses my nose. “Thanks,” she says. Oso passes gas loudly and lets loose a jaw-popping yawn. She laughs, telling us both good night. I lie awake for a long time. My skin tingles where her lips had touched it.
TWENTY-ONE
I WAKE UP TO the familiar smell of my own day-old sweat, the gunpowderlike scent of cold granite, and the damp odor of mildew from the condensation on our sleeping bags. The walls of the tent are still. I don't move for a while, listening to the labored breathing of my elderly dog and the beautiful woman who lies between us. When I finally sit up, Oso lifts his head and stares at me e
xpectantly. Then he folds back his ears in a smile. I unzip one wall of the tent and the beast slips out into the sunlight where I hear the jingle of his collar as he shakes off his dog-dreams.
Outside, the orange glow of the sunrise is seeping into the blackness of the great wall. The air is moist and heavy; there is a tension in it. Around the sun is a blurry haze that displays the unmistakable sign of an approaching storm. We won't be able to spend another night out. Not without skis or snowshoes. I know I have to get back anyway, for both the hearing Thursday afternoon in federal court and to try to get the sentencing of the Knapp brothers postponed.
I crawl out of my sleeping bag and the tent as quietly as I can, put on my parka, and fire up the stove. When I hear her moving in the tent, I pass in a mug of hot tea without a word.
“Thanks, Anton.”
I stick my head in and surprise us both by kissing her sleep-swollen lips. After a moment she kisses back, then pushes me away. “I'm a mess,” she tells me and lifts the errant strands of hair back from her face. “But God, that was nice.”
Instead of replying I just smile.
When she comes out of the tent in her fleece and Gore-Tex shells, she finds me crouching over the stove brewing oatmeal. “I like a man who cooks,” she says, examining our breakfast, “but I prefer lightly poached eggs and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Do you have any of that?”
“I'll make you all that the next time I wake up with you,” I say.
She grins back and nods thoughtfully.
A half hour later I leave her half-in her sleeping bag, propped against a rock, with a full mug of tea and a paperback novel she brought in her pack. The binoculars lie within easy reach. We already discussed my opinion that Heller, Brad, and Chris are probably off the wall. If they were still anywhere on it, tucked out of sight, we would have heard them climbing by now. So either they have finished the climb and for some reason left the rope behind, or something has gone wrong.
The Edge of Justice Page 21