Come Morning - Joe Gores

by Gores

  Runyan turned back to Giovanni. "Esteban dice que usted es de Italia."

  "Si. De Ticino. Es la parte Italiana de los Alpes. He estado viajando durante un ano, escalaro por todo el mundo."

  "i,Donde estan las montanas chingonas?"

  "En el Rusia. Los Urales. Son las mas penosas y magnificas. Mejorisimas que los Alpes."

  The firelight flickered across their faces, making their features ruddy and dusky by turns; the bottle was making its circle again. Runyan turned back to her.

  "Giovanni is from the Italian Alps. He's been travelling and climbing for a year, all over the world. He says the rockwork in the Urals, in Russia, is much better than the Alps."

  Louise made a gesture around. "How do you like Yosemite?"

  "Aqui se encuentran las mfis bonitas de todas las montanas," said Giovanni.

  "The most beautiful," said Runyan.

  Louise made a departing gesture with her hands. "From here--where?"

  "El Peru. Ya, si yo tuviera el dinero por un boleto, a India," said Giovanni. "Las Himalayas."

  Runyan had asked Steve, "Which climbs have you guys done?"

  "The nose of El Cap. The Northwest Buttress and the North Ridge of Half Dome..."

  Runyan nodded, said to Louise, "Did you get that? Peru? The Himalayas?"

  "Didn't he say something about A Passage to India?" Runyan laughed. "He's going to India to climb the Himalayas if he can find the money for his passage."

  Steve was saying, "Tomorrow we're doing the transverse to Lost Arrow. If you guys want to come along. .." Runyan grinned and shook his head. "Out of practice?"

  "Amateurs." Steve gave him an appraising look, not accepting that, recognizing one of his own, but Runyan added, "Monday Morning Slab tomorrow. That's us."

  When the fire died down and the bottle went dry, they broke up, Steve and Giovanni hitting the sack, Runyan and Louise walking over to the store: Runyan had to make a phone call.

  "About the diamonds?" she asked.

  "Of course."

  "Can I listen in?"

  "Of course not."

  Camping areas made little puddles of light in the darkness. There was no moon, but the air was so clear that the sky was almost pale with the stipplings of the Milky Way. When Louise blew out she could see her breath.

  "You're just sore because I was making time with Giovanni."

  "He tried to buy you," said Runyan in perfect seriousness.

  "Tried to. .." Then she realized he was putting her on and laughed. She didn't know when she had felt so happy. She wanted it to go on forever. "If Moyers did follow us, where do you suppose he is right now?"

  "` Probably the Ahwanee Lodge--one of the big old national park hotels built by the CCC back in the 'thirties. Really beautiful--hand-laid stone fireplaces and formal dining rooms and carved hardwood. . ."

  "Can we see?" she exclaimed.

  "Better not, he might catch us poking around. We need him playing our game, not the other way around."

  "Just what is our game?"

  "Rock climbing," he said.

  She looked over at him in the starlit darkness. "Sometimes I wish I knew what was really going on in that head of yours."

  ***

  The room was spacious but simple, hardwood floors and knotty pine walls and a lot of blankets on the double bed. On the floor beside it the homing transceiver from the car pinged intermittently to itself. Moyers, on the phone, waited through the clicks and windy silences of his credit-card call until Stark, the Las Vegas detective, answered the phone.

  "I've got a little more for you on her," Stark said.

  "I hoped you might."

  "She was getting a little salty, they were afraid they couldn't trust her any more, so they tossed a scare into her," said Stark's heavy voice. He stressed all his syllables equally, like the computer-generated voice of Information. "The usual, we're gonna toss acid in your face-like that. She bought it and lit a shuck out of town, which was all they wanted anyway."

  "Alone?"

  "You kidding?" Stark gave a grating chuckle. "She already had a visiting fireman lined up, panting to play house with her."

  "Tell me about him," said Moyers.

  As he listened, he unconsciously nodded to himself several times. Then he started grinning. Just what he'd thought but hadn't dared to hope. It was all going to work out. He had Runyan just where he wanted him.

  ***

  On the canvas floor was a French four-in-one handtorch which cast a pale white fluorescent glow over the interior of the tent. When Runyan came crouching through the zippered flap, Louise was already inside, kneeling half-undressed on their double sleeping bag. God, he wanted her! Looking at her smooth bare shoulders, the delicate ivory slope of her brassiered breasts, he knew he could never get enough of her.

  "Can you believe I've never slept in one of these?"

  "What makes you think you're going to sleep tonight?" he leered.

  Then he remembered what Taps Turner had said on the phone: It was set for two nights from now in L.A. The plane would be at the airfield from 10:30 on. He turned quickly away, on the pretext of zipping up the tent flap.

  He'd told Taps he'd be there. Alone. Goddammit, why couldn't it be simple? Why had he had to overhear that damned phone call? Why had Louise had to make it? Why ...

  Louise's hot, naked body landed on his back. Runyan tumbled sideways onto the sleeping bag, breaking her grip, his gloom of a moment before dispelled.

  "You've led me on long enough," she exclaimed in baritone tones. "Now I'm taking what you deny me!"

  "Get away from me!" he squeaked in a girlish falsetto. "I'm not that kind of girl!"

  "Then why are you taking off your pants?" she demanded suspiciously.

  "I thought I'd slip into something more comfortable." Louise switched off the torch.

  "Hi," she said in the dark, "my name is Comfortable."

  A few minutes later, Runyan said, rather breathlessly, "It certainly is."

  CHAPTER 22

  Monday Morning Slab, near the base of the north face of Glacier Point, was an upended triangular plate of granite 400 feet high. Moyers sat on a fallen tree a quarter of a mile away, using his binoculars to bring up Runyan and Louise. The early morning sun cast their shadows long and thin across the carpeted pine needles at the foot of the massive slab. Runyan, with that remarkable combination of daring and caution which marks the skilled climber, scrambled up a pitch like a monkey going up a tree. No wonder the man had ended up a cat burglar; what else could he have done?

  Moyers switched to Louise, watched her with conditioned, almost indifferent lust--and a great feeling of power. He knew enough to make her get out of it any time he wanted, leaving Runyan out there naked and alone. Except for Moyers.

  Back to Runyan. He had driven a piton into a crack in the rock and clipped a carabiner to it; through this was run the safety rope which trailed down the rock to Louise. She was still on the ground a dozen yards below, looking up, shading her eyes with her hands, the safety rope running down from Runyan, under her backside, and up to be tied around her waist. Runyan gave it a healthy jerk. Since it was wrapped around her butt, she was slammed painfully against her rock.

  Moyers chuckled as he watched her yell angrily up at him. He lowered the glasses. Giving him hell. He'd like to give her something, all right, when all of this was over. But right now, TCB, as the hookers said--Take Care of Business.

  He unclipped his canteen awkwardly from his belt, drank half the contents straight down, lowered it, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Tough work, this rock climbing. When he raised the binoculars again, Runyan was far up the face on a ledge, with the safety line tied off around a rock. Moyers found Louise below, carefully climbing upward, searching out toe- and finger-holds, her face red and sweating and contorted with effort. Do the bitch good, he thought with surprising bitterness. He hadn't forgotten how easily she'd given him the slip at the airport.

  Of course she was a pro. Running casino sk
im to L.A, for laundering, being nice to important clients from time to time for the pit boss; then, when things went sour, cold-bloodedly picking out a protector to get her out of Vegas. A protector, as last night's phone conversation with Stark had confirmed, whom Moyers had seen sneaking out of the hotel after the shooting attempt on Runyan. A lethal lady to fall for.

  In his binoculars, Louise was just below the ledge. Her foot slipped, her knee bashed the rock face painfully. He could see her yelping her pain, but Runyan's grip on the safety rope kept her from sliding. She got a hand on the ledge, he caught her wrist and helped her up. Moyers lowered the glasses and turned away. They were safely up on the rock face for the next couple of hours; plenty of time to snoop their car and tent and duffel bag and make sure he left no trace of his visit. He was really getting into this. It was all downhill for him from here.

  ***

  An hour later, Louise was standing under a steep overhang with the safety line hanging down from it to a loose coil at her feet. Her neck was stiff and her eyes burned from hours of looking up into the sun. Her body prickled with the salt crust of drying sweat; her inner thighs stung from chafing. All her muscles ached. She just knew her face was blotchy and her hair a mess from the pitiless sun. This was fun?

  Runyan rappelled down the rope from above to land lightly beside her. He grinned. "How you making it?"

  "Fine," she snapped irritably.

  He unsnapped from the safety line, went over to rummage in their black nylon haul sack. "I know this is just easy practice stuff, but we have to get ready for-"

  "I'll keep it up as long as you, damn you!" she exclaimed.

  Runyan looked at her in surprise. He held the odd-looking things he had called ascenders or something like that.

  "Hey, I'm sorry, sweetie," he said, mistaking the source of her irritation. "This isn't a putdown or anything. .." He started to adjust the ascenders on the hanging safety line, one above the other at about head height. "I'm so out of shape for climbing I don't want to take you on a real rock face until I'm sure I can handle it." He gestured at the safety line. "You remember these, don't you? Jumar ascenders?"

  He was just being dense on purpose, to goad her, talking over his shoulder without even turning around. Totally frazzled, she snapped, "Do you really think I care, Runyan? I've barked my shin, I'm dying of thirst. .."

  "These can be used for horizontal traverse, but. .."

  "-blisters on my heels and rope burns on my hands-"

  "... but climbers usually use them to climb ropes belayed from above on overhung rock faces like this one."

  '-and you want to talk to me about something called Jumar ascenders?"

  Each Jumar had a rope sling hanging from it. Runyan stepped a foot into each sling, turned and grinned at her. "They're so great because you can just walk right up a rope with them."

  He did, hand above hand, each knee flexing as the Jumar from which that sling depended moved, thus literally walking straight up the line and out of her vision.

  Louise found herself stepping back a few paces, even as she fumed, squinting up into the sunlight to see how he did it. Damn, her neck was sore. But he was right: Those Jumars were pretty neat things.

  They sat facing one another on top of the massive flake of granite in the red scorch of dying sun.

  "Red sky at night, sailors delight," said Runyan.

  He offered her the canteen and she drank sparingly, small sips which let her savor the cool nectar running down inside her throat. Runyan put the canteen back on his belt without taking any himself; his water discipline was remarkable.

  "Is it always like this? Climbing?"

  He shook his head. "Usually it's a lot more fun."

  "I didn't mean that."

  She looked out and away, up the incredible valley the retreating glaciers had casually sliced through the middle of the Sierra during the last ice age. Deep purple peaks thrust up against the sunset which had retreated from scarlet to faded rose and delicate grey.

  "I mean, this close to-"

  She stopped, seeking words to express the inexpressible. She ached all over, she couldn't count the scrapes and nicks and cuts and bruises on the outward angles of all her joints, she was tired and hungry and sunburned--and she had never felt so good.

  "I just feel ... as if it were all made for me."

  "Just a little something I had God lay on for you." "Thanks, Runyan." She leaned forward and they kissed.

  ***

  She was still thinking in superlatives as she took her shower, even though it was just a trickle of cold water from a rusted-out showerhead in the ladies' facility near Camp Four. She rubbed herself red with the rough towel, scrubbed her hair halfway dry with it, realizing her mind was made up.

  She'd always acted quickly on urges and impulses, even on intuitions, and her feelings about Runyan were more than intuition. God help her, more than infatuation. But she also always thought of herself as an intensely loyal person.

  Now she realized that loyalty carried too far ceased being a virtue and became cowardice. So she had to do it. Tonight. A clean break with the past, no turning back because there would be nothing left to turn back to.

  After supper, Runyan sat on a rock by the fire and she sat on the ground beside him, her forearms crossed on his knee, looking into the flames. It was a much warmer night, or she was getting used to it. Sap made the green wood crack and spit showers of sparks. Around them but somehow at a distance other climbers sat around other fires, their voices and bursts of laughter carried like swarms of fireflies on the gusts of warm wind.

  "Tomorrow?" she asked.

  "Royal Arches."

  She looked at him over her shoulder. "Should I be scared?"

  "You'll be fine." He put a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "You were great today."

  He poured red wine into two styrofoam cups and handed her one. They raised the cups in a mutual toast.

  "To crime," said Louise.

  At the same instant, Runyan said, "To love."

  They drank quickly, each mildly disconcerted by the other's toast. Louise put aside her empty cup and scrambled almost abruptly to her feet. Runyan, in the act of pouring more wine, looked up at her in surprise.

  "I'm going over and get an ice cream cone." She was glad of the shielding darkness that hid her expression. "Want me to bring you one back?"

  Runyan merely shook his head, smiling dreamily after her. He sipped wine from the styrofoam cup, and fought a mighty battle in his mind. Love made him want to sit right there staring at the embers of the fire; survival tried to drag him to his feet. It was a wretched feeling. How in God's name had the old people he saw walking hand-in-hand down suburban streets gotten through it all to reach that point in their lives still together? What was their secret that he didn't know?

  Runyan stood, threw his cup into the coals. It hissed and blackened and shrivelled. Her betrayal of him forced him to be a betrayer also--of himself, of her, of the facts he knew. Why did he need her so? Was this the ultimate irony: that she might be the one against whom he would have to defend himself?

  He went silently after her into the darkness. Even as he ran he kept hoping, thinking, I'm wrong, all she wants over at the store is an ice cream cone.

  But she was spotlit inside the phone booth, feeding her coins into the prim little mechanical mouth. He moved quickly and with little noise through the foliage behind the booth, his hands guiding the small branches back to their original positions individually. He was so close that when she spoke it was as if into his ear.

  "It's me," her voice said into the phone. "I've always played straight with you so I'm playing straight now. This is the last phone call you'll be getting. I'm dropping out."

  Runyan started to ease his way almost blindly back through the foliage. He couldn't stand listening to her. He couldn't stand spying on her. He needn't have been here. She was not a betrayer. He was.

  Louise was saying, "Well think what you want, buster, it isn't the mo
ney. .." She listened, spoke again, her voice edged with tears. "I tried, goddamn you, I really tried! But all you ever wanted was a piece of me, not the whole package. I can't live like that any more. I need some absolutes. .."

  CHAPTER 23

  Louise's boot turned over a rock; it clattered loudly in the dry stream bed along which she followed Runyan. She shivered with the cold despite the heavy coil of Gold Line rope slung bandolier-fashion over one shoulder and across her chest. The icy dawn air offered no suggestion of the day's heat to come. Runyan, loaded down with their haul sack and all of the climbing gear, gestured up at the towering rock face which stretched a sickening 3,000 feet above them. His breath went up in white puffs.

  "I'll be leading the climb, all you have to do is follow. Just remember that you'll be roped in, and that if anything happens, I'll be set to take the strain."

  Her mouth felt suddenly dry, full of cotton. This wasn't like Monday Morning Slab. "You talk too much," she snapped.

  Runyan didn't answer. He was concentrated, focused, thrusting last night from his mind, thrusting away everything but the mechanics of the climb.

  Four hours later, his groping hand found the edge of a narrow rock ledge. He levered himself up, turned, and sat down with his feet dangling over eternity. The tops of the pines were so far below now that they had lost all individual definition and were just a rich green spiky carpet. He snubbed off the safety line to a bolt some earlier climber had left sunk in the rock.

  "Off belay!" he called down to where Louise waited on a similar ledge a hundred feet below. He took a sparing swig of water from the canteen. He was starting to steam in the warming midmorning sun.

  "Tension!" came Louise's distant response.

  Runyan immediately took up the slack on the safety rope by drawing it through the bolt until it was taut but not tight. He held the line in his hands as she started up, feeling her as a deep sea fisherman will feel the marlin delicately mouthing his bait fifty fathoms below. As she climbed, he kept drawing in the rope to maintain that even tension which gives the climber a feeling of confidence and thus reduces the chance of accident.

  ***