Slippery Slope
Page 3
Chapter 3
THE black wall stretched upward. The foreglow of the rising moon etched its eastern face against the sky but as yet threw little light on the route. For the last twenty minutes Craig and Martin had fumbled in the dark, adrift in a strange limbo world of touch and sound, always moving upward, fingers reaching and caressing the rough granite, boots finding the next ledge by instinct and practice. They exchanged little conversation, but an almost tangible human warmth united them. Desperate adventures force one into a dependence on one's companion which breeds love and respect. When life balances on your partner's decision to move or not to move, on his extending a hand at the right time, or his cautionary word, even important differences are forgotten. Your every thought and every move are focused on your need to survive, and since you cannot make it alone, nor would you want to, on your companion's safety.
A tremendous irrational joy grew inside Craig. He had almost forgotten the implication of the load he carried on his back, and except for his consciousness of its weight, he was totally in the present.
They had passed the first fixed rope in good time. It had been impossible to see when they had reached it, but Martin had put his hand on it as though they were climbing in broad daylight. The rope, about ninety feet long, led out of the gully up a wall that overhung for its first fifteen feet and then leaned back on smooth slabs to a capacious ledge. They had placed it the previous week to save time and effort on this difficult section.
Martin went up first, grunting and scraping, and Craig was thankful of the rest while he waited his turn. Still, waiting there in the dark was not good. Thoughts that had been repressed by the last half hour's action began to demand attention again. Though Craig had successfully surmounted this obstacle five times in the previous month, and once in the dark, he was by no means happy. Once you swung up on the first grip you were committed. You could not retreat, for to do so was to lose strength. Over the lip of the overhang, ten feet of steep rock remained to a resting place. It required a supreme effort; yet energy had to be conserved for the even more difficult manoeuvres later on the face. With luck they would have some light from the moon in about half an hour, but that would be a mixed blessing. The yawning drop below their feet would become apparent, and more important, any pursuit would be aided. Still, the advantage would be theirs; they could move faster and, with their
knowledge of the area, could surely outdistance and outfox any police.
Craig heard a soft but clear whistle. Martin was up. It was his turn now. Craig knew that there is only one way to do something that is dangerous and committing—to attack it without hesitation. The body must be allowed to take charge, using the mind to its purposes. It must not be inhibited by fear and doubt.
He swung up, taking his full weight on his arms, held on with one hand, reached up with the other, got a good grip, and repeated the sequence. He could feel the nylon of the rope bite into his fingers, and as he swung upward he could see nothing. Like a man who has leaped off a high bridge, he seemed to be out of contact with solidity for an interminable time. Then his feet scraped the rock, got some purchase, and he was over the lip, climbing rapidly to the small ledge. Craig leaned against the wall, panting but exhilarated. The rest was easy, his feet finding rough spots and ledges to assist his progress.
"Good work! You came up like a bird." Martin greeted him on the capacious ledge with a warm hug.
"Let me take the sack."
Craig could make out his features now and the black wall stretching above his head. He passed over the sack, thankful to be rid of it and feeling light and powerful. He began to coil the rope he had just climbed. No trace of their progress must be left. There were two more ropes to collect, the one giving access to the cave and the last one, which would take them out of the cave and onto the easy ridge.
"Let's go." Martin turned and seemed to flow away from the ledge. Up they climbed, easily at first in grooves and cracks, then with more difficulty as the cracks gave way to a smooth face on which the holds were far spaced. In full light it had not been difficult, and even on their previous night climb it had not posed serious problems. Now with the tensions imposed by the necessity of speed it seemed a different climb.
Ahead of Craig, Martin reached a small ledge and seemed to be having difficulty leaving it. Craig heard him curse in impatience as he tried first one way, then another. The moon had risen low in the east but as yet was not bright enough to afford much help. Craig joined him on the miniscule ledge where there was barely room for both of them. He remembered this spot. About one hundred and fifty feet above was the piton for the second fixed rope.
Below him, as he stood on the ledge, Craig could see the small lake near which they had lain that afternoon glint in the moonlight. The face spread out above and below them. It seemed an age since they had waited in the hot sun, yet his watch showed that they had only been a half hour on the climb so far. This was a different world and one they had to leave soon if they were to be successful.
Martin tried the moves again, made about five feet, and faltered, searching for the hold that would lift him farther. Craig could see his hand groping, white against the dark rock, creeping over the slab in fluid, unhurried movements. Then he was descending, panting and obviously in bad humor.
"Christ! What's the matter with me? I walked up it last time."
Craig had suggested earlier leaving a fixed rope at this spot, but Martin, supremely confident, had brushed the suggestion aside.
"Let me try." Craig edged along to where the first hold, a small ledge at full stretch, gave access to a steep groove.
"Let's put on the rope." Craig reached over to Martin to take the coil.
"It's a waste of time. I'll make it. We have to hurry." Martin was impatient, his pride hurt by his failure to surmount the problem.
No go," said Craig. "One slip and we've had it. Even the one who doesn't fall. Your body down there means that I go to prison. Similarly if I fall. The stake's too big to take a risk like that. Give me the rope."
Martin shrugged and surrendered the coil. In a moment Craig had it uncoiled and tied a bowline around his waist. Martin tied on and found a spike where he could belay himself to the cliff. When the rope was around Martin's waist and in a position to be paid out, Craig set off. Quickly he gained a few feet, keeping in balance, using his strength as little as possible. He would need it later. Feet wide apart, he felt upward for the vital hold. He edged his hand way over to the right toward a shadow, and his fingers curled around a small rough grip. That would have to do. He couldn't hold on much longer in this position. Looking down, he could see Martin's black hair silhouetted against the lake. He raised his left foot to a small sloping ledge about knee level, pulled with his right hand, stood up gingerly and, with his left arm at full stretch, reached an excellent hold like the handle of a jug. With a sudden effort he was up and over the hard part, heart beating and a moist sweat on his brow.
On he climbed for fifty feet farther, cautiously as the gap between Martin and him widened. If he fell now he would go a good hundred feet, like a bat in the night, swooping and howling, before the rope would come taut. And Martin would almost certainly be plucked from his stance on the thin ledge to follow him to the boulders below. But he knew he would not fall. He had never climbed better, hand and foot had never been so well coordinated, and he exalted in his fitness.
On another ledge, broader this time, he quickly found a good spike of rock to tie onto and took in the rope. Martin came up with ease, and when he arrived, Craig made light of his earlier failure.
There was no place for rivalry on a great cliff where each depended on the other.
They pressed on now, eager to get off and to be free of the money on Craig's back. Above them the slab they were on swept upward to their left to disappear into an edge, steep and stark against the night sky. At the top of the slab began the most desperate section of the climb. Around the ridge that lay bare and sharp above them lay the cave.
Also it was small and insignificant in the overall chaos of the face, with its cracks, ridges, and overhangs. When he had pointed it out to Craig, the latter had laughed in disbelief. It was surrounded by rock that looked blankly impossible, and Craig was all for seeking out some more accessible and less dangerous place. But he had underestimated Martin's dedication and his skill. It had taken them two days to gain the cave for the first time, but Martin had approached the problem with a patience and ingenuity born of a long acquaintance with the most difficult North American climbs.
The secret of gaining access to the cave was to get above it and descend to a ledge running into it using the rope.
They were now at the piton that they had driven in on that first attempt. Craig had chosen a long one of hardened steel and had driven it fully to the hilt in a tight crack. There was no chance of its coming out. Already hanging from it was a doubled rope, about one hundred and fifty feet of nylon, thin but strong.
"You go first, Craig. I'll see you on the ledge."
Out here on this exposed edge the situation was incredible. Below them the slab curled away in the pale moonlight, its near edge jutting out toward the ridge, and a deep gash of shadow following its entire length. Around the corner of the edge the wall fell away in great sweeps of slab and overhang, and the eye was drawn inexorably downward to the boulders, the meadow, and the lake. To trust oneself to the rope in that fearsome situation was an act of faith, and as Craig wound the rope around his body, he prayed that it would not prove too difficult to reach the ledge.
"See you." With a smile that was rather forced, he swung off the ledge and began to lower himself down the rope, paying it out over his shoulder with his right hand and searching out the rock below. Once on the vast face Craig felt very alone, the only sound that of the rope running around his chest and over his shoulder. He was swinging free of the rock about five feet out. His destination was a slight easing of the angle about seventy feet below, where he could build his impetus for the moves left to the ledge, about twenty feet away.
Swinging in space, sometimes facing the cliff, sometimes looking out over the mountain ranges stretching west to Boise and civilization, Craig felt strangely disembodied, a soul adrift in a surrealistic landscape. Over there the small plane must now have landed and, if all was going well, the police would be awaiting the information in Jean's last phone call. Then, with nothing to lose, they would swarm over this area, searching and pursuing, angry at having been restrained so long, like a pack of dogs who have got the smell of game but have not been unleashed.
Craig felt his feet come into contact with the rock again and was able to take some of the weight off his shoulder, which was smarting with the friction of the rope. A few feet farther down he stopped. This was the place. He now had to swing himself across twenty feet of unbroken face to gain the ledge he could see. Once on the ledge, the rest was easy to the cave.
He launched himself off, running and scrambling in the opposite direction from the ledge, muscles working hard to give himself enough momentum to swing back and reach the ledge. Gradually slowing down, he reached a point at which the rope was pulling him back harder than he could press forward. As he began to swing backward he fought to turn. The rock was rushing |past. Craig passed the starting point and began to kick at the rock, scratching and pulling with his hands, throwing everything into the desperate attempt to reach the ledge. At the edge of the ledge nearest him was a large spike of rock pointing upward which he had to reach. He could see it coming, but he felt his swing slow down with every foot gained. It would be close. Reaching, pulling and thrusting frantically, in a despairing effort, almost crying out in apprehension, he grasped the spike, slipped, lost his balance, and grasped it again more firmly. Panting and sobbing, belly flat on the ledge, he lay like a fish fresh from the creek, gripping the spike till his fingers hurt. Cautiously, he edged himself farther on and then stood up. The rope, like a fragile thread, stretched up and away to where Martin waited. Craig unwound the rope from his body, made it fast to the spike, and gave a strong, clear whistle.
It did not take Martin long to descend the rope. Now that it was attached to the spike he could come directly to the ledge.
"Great! You were great." Martin was chortling and smiling as he arrived. "Jesus, that's quite a bit of trapeze work. We could earn an honest living in a circus."
Their spirits were high again. All that remained was to remove the rope, make their way along the ledge to the cave and then down the rope again to get off the face. Craig took one end of the rope and began to pull. Nothing happened.
"Christ! The rope's jammed. Give me a hand."
Martin lent his weight to Craig's, but still the rope would not budge.
"Try the other end. It must come." They transferred their efforts to the other end of the rope. Sweat was breaking out on their faces, both from the effort and from the mounting fear that one of them would have to climb back up to free it. The rope could not be left. Remaining, it would point clearly to the hiding place.
"It must have jammed on the edge. I should have checked it more thoroughly before I left. I guess I'd better climb back up. We must retrieve it."
Craig did not reply. He took one end of the rope and began to flick the slack back up the cliff in an attempt to free it.
"Come on, we can't waste time." Martin was getting impatient and eager to exchange inaction for motion again, even if it meant climbing the pitch again.
"Just a minute. I think this might do it." Craig worked his arm hard, flicking his wrist and causing the line to snake in great curves up into the dark. The rope shifted position. He stopped flicking and pulled.
"It's coming! It's coming! Here, pull with me. Keep it coming." The rope began to ease toward them, slowly at first, then more easily, and finally the free end disappeared from view with a rush. The line cascaded about them, hissing like some great snake, and plummeted past to drop into the abyss below, jerking on Craig's wrist with a sudden and unnerving force.
Martin took the end from him and began to coil the rope by his feet, like a sailor removing a mooring line from a windlass.
Along the ledge they inched cautiously, yet with all possible speed. If the path had been three feet above the ground they could almost have run, but stuck out here between heaven and earth, they moved slowly, one hand on the wall to their right, settling one foot before moving the next. It was an incredible formation, this ledge about three feet wide, beginning in the maze of walls and overhangs and leading slightly upward without a break about thirty-five feet to the dark shadow of the cave.
"Cave" was almost a misnomer. Its floor was no bigger than an average-sized table, and the roof sloped upward to merge into the great overhangs of the face above. It was almost impossible to stand inside it. At the back was a depression into which the sack would fit neatly, and two loose rocks could be pushed back to cover the spot from all but a determined investigation. And, God knows, thought Craig, it's a million to one against anyone getting here for pleasure. The cave did not lie on any possible route up the cliff. The face above it was blankly impossible, overhanging and crackless. The ledge which had led to it ended there, and below them nothing could be seen of the rock until the broken boulder slope, five hundred feet down. It was an amazing situation. The only way in was by the ledge, and the only exit was to swing down a long rope for about one hundred feet to a series of ledges and cracks, leading leftward to the easy ridge.
As he removed the sack and passed it to Martin in the cave, Craig thought forward to the time about a year from now when they would return to the face to regain the money. By then any pursuit would have cooled off. The loss would have been absorbed by the airline in the many ways a large corporation preserves its profit. Probably no one would remember th
e incidentexcept themselves and Jean. By now Jean would plucking up her courage for the last phone call, the one telling the airline how to defuse the nonexistent bomb. Craig laughed out loud. That was the beauty of the plan. It involved no violence, no danger except to themselves. He would not have been a party to anything causing death or injury, no matter what the profit. But to trick the airline into passing over a quarter of a million dollars gave him a pleasure that did not depend on personal gain. He would almost have done it for the sheer pleasure of pitting himself against the large organization.
Martin, he thought, was a different breed. The money meant a lot to him, and Craig felt that if necessary he would resort to violence. There was something in Martin's background that he never talked about, that gave him a core of bitterness against society. Craig remembered Martin's incredulity when Craig had objected to his stealing a bag of food from a supermarket in Seattle on one of their early climbing trips. Martin had not needed to steal, and the value of the food balanced against the risk was infinitesimal. He had done it, Craig thought, just because that was the way he operated. If you want something, take it. If someone gets in your way, push them aside. And yet, on a personal level, he was kind. He would share his last sandwich or give away his last cigarette and on a climb would risk his life to save his companion's. But, with equal dedication, he would steal from any anonymous organization. He revelled in the risk and delighted in the gains, however small. Perhaps he was a descendant of pirates, Craig mused. His last name was Gould, perhaps a corruption of "gold" that his ancestors had fought for.
Martin emerged from the cave, regaining his feet and brushing his hands on his gray climbing britches.
"Well, that's over. It's like getting rid of the albatross. We can move faster now, and if we're caught we can bluff it out. What do you mean money? No, we never saw anyone. You must be crazy! How could we get any money out here twenty miles from the nearest road?" Martin was gesticulating and mimicking, his face creased in an irrepressible grin.
"It's all over, Craig. The rest is as easy as catching snails."
While Martin had been hiding the money, Craig had uncoiled the large rope and hung it from a piton on the wall. Now he wound the rope round his body and launched himself into space again. Above him, the rope stretched taut over the lip of the cave floor, and below him and around him was nothingness. Without the umbilical cord of the rope he could not exist here. Only a bird could. Perhaps this was the great inspiring spark in mountaineering—to break into an alien element, to exist and be in command where no one had been before and few would ever come.
He reached a capacious ledge, unwound the rope, whistled, and soon saw Martin appear over the lip, gyrating like a sycamore seed as he floated down to join him.
The rope came free quickly and easily this time, and it was soon coiled. Martin led off up a series of ledges and short walls. The ground was easier now and they could see the broken black outline of the easy ridge a few hundred feet ahead. They were burdened with three heavy ropes, but without the sack of money Craig felt free and light. It had weighed on his shoulders more than its true weight warranted.
As they gained the ridge, the country to the west opened up before them like a fairyland, silver and gray in the moonlight. The ridge cast a dark shadow, but beyond it Craig could make out lakes, forests, and mountains, softened by the pale light, stretching for mile upon mile. There was no sign of civilization, no indication that humans had ever touched the land. Away to the north, Craig could see the deep valley where their camp lay. There were two high passes to cross and twenty miles of rugged mountainside to negotiate. But they knew the trail well, and in this light they could move fast. Still, if the police were efficient, paratroopers might be dropped around the area even at night, and they might find themselves cut off. Certainly, by morning it would be unwise to be anywhere in the vicinity of the valley where the money had been dropped.
Craig glanced at his watch. It was nine fifty, a mere two hours since they had collected the money. It seemed like an age ago, so much had happened on the great face that stretched behind them. By now the airline would have received the last call, and the great jet would finally be able to start its descent to Los Angeles, its fuel supply down to the last essential gallons and its crew still tense, hoping that their information was correct.
Martin and Craig climbed the broken back of the ridge, searching for the easy gully that would lead them down on the other side. When they reached the gully, it lay below them, dark and sinister, its walls like great jaws of a monstrous animal ready to engulf the unwary. Down this gully, however, lay freedom from the barren and desolate world they had existed in for the last two hours. Through it was access to the softer world of trees and grasses, of streams and meadows.
They descended it slowly at first, on a moving surface of small stones, then as their confidence increased, with great leaps and slides. The deafening noise of rocks set in motion by their progress echoed and re-echoed from the steep dark walls of the chasm, and it was with relief that they burst into the silence of the steep grassy slope below.
Craig subsided on a hummock of grass, revelling in the contact of soft vegetable matter after the hard, unyielding granite of the mountain. Martin joined him, laughing and exuberant, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. They each lit one, shielding the match and the glow of the cigarette from any possible observer, though, as they gazed over the unreal mysterious landscape before them, it was incredible to think of any other human traversing it.
"I told you it would be a cinch. All we have to do now is walk twenty miles on a trail we know well and get some well-deserved rest." Martin was bubbling over with enthusiasm and confidence.
"Yes, if they don't have all the trails covered within an hour or two." Craig could not resist voicing his fears. So far everything had seemed to go too smoothly. Though by nature an optimist, he could see some very big "ifs" that stood between them and success.
Still, they had made it thus far. As they set off down the soft turf toward the woods, it seemed impossible Thatthey would be intercepted, or that anything could prevent them from living happily ever after. Yet as they dropped down the silvered slope, closer and closer to the deep shadows of the trees, Craig felt his stomach tighten and a slow shiver spread down his spine. What lay ahead would in reality be more difficult and dangerous than the cliff. There, at least, problems were familiar and predictable, and their long experience had fitted them to cope with almost any challenge. The world they were entering, one of questioning, of deception, of lying, was not familiar to Craig, and he dreaded his responses to it.
As they stepped into the trees he turned briefly and looked back up the grassy slope, up the great black cut of the gully to the ridge and the moon behind it. He was leaving a world of purity and light for the dark complexity ahead. Craig turned away and followed the sounds of Martin, already crashing through the dry wood of the forest.