by Scott Graham
Thirty minutes into round three, with only a few climbers still waiting their turn, Alden called out, “And now, our teeniest, tiniest contestant, coming to us all the way from Durango, Colorado. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to little Miss Carmelita Ortega!”
“¡Ándale, Carmelita!” one of the park workers from the campground cried out.
“¡Arriba, arriba, arriba!” hollered another.
Chuck wormed his way out of the crowd as Carmelita emerged from behind the tower. She dipped each of her hands into her chalk bag while Alden snapped the end of the climbing rope into her nylon harness.
As he had the first two rounds, Chuck removed the other end of the rope from the auto-belay mechanism at the base of the tower and ran it through the alloy belay device attached by a D-ring carabiner to the harness at his waist. He backed away from the wall to take up the slack in the line.
Carmelita smacked her chalked hands against the sides of her legs, leaving two white handprints on her navy tights. She looked up at the route for no more than a second and began her climb without any sign of having noticed the new, large blank space high on the tower.
She again overcame the first two blank spaces on the wall without difficulty. Chuck took in the rope as she continued higher. He made sure the rope drooped slightly toward the ground before it ran up to the top of the tower and back down to her, assuring he added no upward tension to the belay line that would aid her ascent.
Carmelita reached the blank space near the top of the tower in less than a minute. She leaned back from the small holds below the gap, her fingers crimped, her hair dangling in a ponytail from beneath the back of her helmet.
Chuck bit down on his lower lip. When faced for the first time with a difficult climbing problem, whether on a cliff or a sport wall, a climber’s initial instinct—particularly that of a new climber like Carmelita—was to take a moment to assess the situation. During a competitive climb, however, every second mattered; energy expended clinging to the wall was no longer available to help overcome the problems above.
But Carmelita proved herself unlike most rookie climbers. She took no more than a cursory glance at the blank space and the nubbin above it before she sank low on the holds to which she clung, her nose to the tower and her knees pressed out to either side so that her center of gravity remained close to the wall.
The spectators fell silent. Only the whoosh of passing traffic on Northside Drive outside the campground disturbed the otherwise quiet morning.
Chuck eyed her intently. Perhaps it was simply the fact that, without a frame of reference, Carmelita didn’t know how distant the tiny hold was from where she clung to the tower below it. Whatever the reason, her body remained loose as she reached the bottom of her downward crouch and instantly propelled herself upward, uncoiling her bent legs like a pair of springs.
Chuck relaxed as she shot straight up, inches from the wall, her right hand stretched high above her head. Most new climbers tended to tip their heads back when reaching for holds, their eyes fixed on the objects of their desire, unaware that the weight of a backward-tipped head shifts a climber’s center of gravity appreciably outward. Even when rookie climbers reached overhead holds at the top of demanding moves, their back-tilted heads often created enough weight imbalance to peel their fingers from the holds, resulting in falls.
But Carmelita’s senses were true. She kept her head straight and reached blindly overhead. So powerful was her upward launch that her fingers extended above the nubbin at the top of the blank space and her palm first made contact with the hold. Thanks to her vertical posture, she fell straight back down the face of the wall, closing her hand around the nubbin as it slid past her palm and into her curled fingers.
She clung to the hold like a trapeze artist, her body penduluming across the blank space. Using the momentum generated by her swing, she grasped the next hold higher on the wall with her left hand. Gaining what purchase she could on the blank fiberglass panel below her with the sticky rubber toes of her shoes, she climbed the remaining holds up the wall and gave the top of the tower a triumphant tap.
The onlookers roared. Rosie leapt skyward, cheering with everyone else. Standing among several of the park workers from the campground, Clarence jabbed the air in front of him with his fists, shimmying his ample backside. Jimmy smiled and leaned forward on his crutches, freeing his hands to clap.
Chuck basked in the acclaim for his stepdaughter, who had just proved herself extraordinarily talented at his—his!—favorite sport.
Only when the cheers died away did he loosen his brake hand and lower Carmelita to the ground. Alden unclipped her from the climbing rope and she hurried over to Janelle for a hug.
One by one, the remaining climbers followed Carmelita on the tower until Alden announced, “It’s time now for our final climber of the day—Berkeley, California’s own Tara Rogan, women’s division champion at last month’s Joshua Tree Open.”
The woman in the magenta tank top appeared from behind the tower.
Chuck leaned down and said in Carmelita’s ear, “You’re the only female climber who has topped out this round.” He aimed a forefinger at the climber, Tara, as she chalked her hands at the base of the tower, her eyes locked on the gap near the top. “If she falls, you’ll win the female division right here and now, without even having to compete tomorrow.”
Carmelita’s mouth fell open. “I will?”
“I think Alden made the round-three route a little too hard,” Chuck said. “One of the primary goals of every two-day climbing competition is to make sure at least some competitors from every division make it to the second day. But that might not happen with this year’s Slam.”
Tara set off up the tower. Like Carmelita, she climbed smoothly past the two lower blank spaces on the wall. Chuck found himself hoping she would hesitate for a long time upon reaching the large blank space near the top of the tower, weakening in advance of attempting the strength move necessary to overcome it.
Instead, she surprised him.
16
When she reached the bottom of the large blank spot on the wall, without a glance at the nubbin above it, the champion climber, Tara, performed a quick hand switch. Upon trading her left hand for her right on the hold just below the blank space, she crouched and lunged, her body close to the wall. But rather than leap straight up past the blank space with the same cannon-like action as Carmelita and the successful male climbers, Tara leapt to her left, reaching with her outstretched hand around the side of the bowed wall. At the farthest extent of her lunge, she grasped a hold made of resin dyed the same color as the gray, rock-like panels that comprised the fiberglass tower itself. The hold, all but invisible against the wall, featured a jug-handled top that provided a sure grip for Tara’s fingers.
Tara transferred her right hand to the jugged top of the hold and performed a simple pull up, lifting her body until her head was above the hold, her feet splayed on the fiberglass wall below her. She reached back around the tower with her right hand and easily grasped the nubbin at the top of the large blank spot. From there, she swung across the space and scrambled on up the wall to the top of the tower.
As they had with Carmelita, the spectators broke into a raucous cheer for Tara’s unorthodox move and successful ascent.
“Hmm,” Chuck said, his eyes on the tower, as the auto-belay mechanism lowered Tara to the ground. He explained to Janelle and Carmelita, “That’s called an out move. Every now and then, a route setter will place a hold on the farthest edge of a route. Given how quickly competitors must climb to conserve their energy, most never notice the out hold. That’s especially true if—” he pointed at the gray hold “—it’s the same color as the wall itself.”
“She didn’t even slow down,” Janelle said. She gazed at the hold, barely visible where it was bolted to the wall on the far side of the tower. “It’s almost as if she knew it was there, waiting for her.”
Chuck sat with Janelle in their campsite. The
y were alone after round three of the Slam, Clarence having taken the girls for what he called an “uncle treat,” hopping one of the free park-service buses circulating the valley to visit the ice cream shop in Yosemite Village in celebration of Carmelita’s successful ascents.
The reunion campsite next door was empty. Jimmy and the others had headed west on the paved trail out of the campground for an old-times’-sake look at El Capitan from the foot of its three-thousand-foot face, Jimmy crutching along the path while Bernard hovered at his side.
“I’ll catch up with you for happy hour,” Chuck had told his fellow attendees, begging off going with them as the glow of Carmelita’s success in the Slam wore off and his thoughts turned increasingly troubled. The rumbling sound of the boulder crashing down the drainage wouldn’t leave him, the noise serving as a foreboding soundtrack to ominous visions parading through his mind.
Those visions included Thorpe’s leg, wedged in the tree, and the deep ankle laceration, along with the plastic stay poking from the wingsuit airfoil.
And Jimmy’s flailing arms as he plummeted from the tower, the sharp crack of fracturing bone when he hit the ground. What if that had been Carmelita?
Plus, Owen’s harsh interrogations, first concerning Jimmy’s accident, then Thorpe’s death.
There also was Alden’s apparent cheating on Tara’s behalf during round three of the Slam.
And, finally and most frightening, the fact that someone had sent the boulder down the drainage, aiming for Chuck and his family.
He clasped his hands between his legs. Questions, questions, questions, but no clear answers.
Best for now, he decided, to go with what he knew.
“The more I think about it, the more convinced I am we found the right spot,” he said to Janelle.
“It seems pretty unlikely to have found it on the first try,” she said, waving a circling fly away from her face.
“Not as unlikely as you might think.” He directed a finger through the trees. “See the bend in the river?”
Across the road outside the campground, water rippled in the midday sun where the Merced River meandered beneath the pedestrian bridge.
Her eyes went to the river’s glittering surface. “Sí.”
“A Yale dig in the 1950s on the far side, across from where the forest starts up, uncovered an old fire pit. Unlike tribal fire pits, which would have been lined with lots of large stones and filled with ashes, the pit contained just a day’s worth of ashes backed by only a couple of stones. If what the Yale team found was the gold prospectors’ overnight camp, then the prospectors’ retreat from the attackers, based on Grover’s description, would have taken them a short distance down the valley. From there, after being cut off from the west, they’d have headed up into bluffs.”
“To where Rosie found the projectile point.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“And where the boulder came from.”
“Like I said before, the Indigenous Tribespeople Foundation posted our plans for the survey on their website a couple of weeks ago, including the expectation we would start below the granite prow.”
“That would explain how someone could have been waiting up there ahead of us yesterday.”
“In order to scare us,” Chuck agreed. “I think you’re right, that the boulder was a one-off.”
“You’re singing my tune right back at me.”
“Ortegas don’t run. That’s what you said.”
Her eyes constricted. “You want to go back up there, don’t you?”
“That’s why I didn’t head for El Cap with the guys. Somebody doesn’t want us up there for a reason.”
“And you want me to come with you.”
“Two sets of eyes are always better than one.”
She shook herself, the feet of her camp chair rocking in the dirt. Then she straightened in her seat. “Promise me no more boulders will fall on us.”
“I promise no more boulders will fall on us.”
“You’re a lousy liar,” she said. Still, she rose from her chair. “What more are we looking for?”
“Anything that will lend credence to Grover’s story—particularly, the suspicions he raises at the end of his account about the murdered prospectors.”
“The ones who were attacked on the opposite side of the river from their camp?”
“Right. As the sun came up the morning after the assault, smoke from the tribe’s fires rose all over the valley floor, proving to the five prospectors who’d escaped to the rim of the valley that they were totally outnumbered. Plus, all five of them had suffered wounds of some sort in the battle the day before. They were extremely lucky to have made it to the top of the valley alive themselves, and couldn’t risk going back down after the other three members of their party. They had no choice but to head south, off-trail, back the way they’d come.”
“So they left without knowing for sure what had happened to the others.”
“They didn’t learn that until two weeks later.”
17
From “A Reminiscence” (Part Two) by prospector Stephen F. Grover:
Suddenly a deer bounded in sight. Some objected to our shooting as the report of our rifle might betray us, but said I, “As well die by our foes as by starvation,” and dropping on one knee with never a steadier nerve or truer aim, the first crack of my rifle brought him down.
Hope revived in our hearts, and quickly skinning our prize, we roasted pieces of venison on long sticks thrust in the flame and smoke, and with no seasoning whatever it was the sweetest morsel I ever tasted. Hastily stripping the flesh from the hind quarters of the deer, Aich and myself, being the only ones able to carry the extra burden, shouldered the meat and we again took up our line of travel.
In this manner we toiled on and crossed the Mariposa Trail, and passed down the south fork of the Merced River, constantly fearing pursuit.
As night came on, we prepared camp by cutting crotched stakes which we drove in the ground and, putting a pole across, enclosed it with brush, making a pretty secure hiding place for the night, where we crept under and lay close together. Although expecting an attack, we were so exhausted and tired that we soon slept.
An incident of the night occurs to me: One of the men, on reaching out his foot quickly, struck one of the poles, and down came the whole structure upon us. Thinking that our foes were upon us, our frightened crowd sprang out and made for the more dense brush, but as quiet followed, we realized our mistake and, gathering together again, we passed the remainder of the night in sleepless apprehension.
When morning came we started again, following up the river, and passed one of our camping places. We traveled as far as we could in that direction, and prepared for our next night to camp and slept in a big hollow tree, still fearing pursuit. We passed the night undisturbed and in the morning started again on our journey, keeping in the shelter of the brush, and crossed the foot of the Falls, a little above Crane Flat—so named by us, as one of our party shot a large crane there while going over, but it is now known as Wawona.
We still traveled in the back ground, passing through Big Tree Grove again, but not until we gained the ridge above Chowchilla did we feel any surety of ever seeing our friends again.
Traveling on thus for five days, we at last reached Coarse Gold Gulch once more, barefooted and ragged but more glad than I can express. An excited crowd soon gathered around us, and while listening to our hair-breadth escapes, our sufferings and perils, and while vowing vengeance on the treacherous savages, an Indian was seen quickly coming down the mountain trail, gaily dressed in war paint and feathers, evidently a spy on our track, and not three hours behind us. A party of miners watched him as he passed by the settlement. E. Whitney Grover, my brother, and a German cautiously followed him. The haughty Red Man was made to bite the dust before many minutes had passed.
My brother Whitney Grover quickly formed a company of twenty-five men, who were piloted by Aich, and started for th
e Valley to bury our unfortunate companions. They found only Sherburn and Tudor, after a five days march, and met with no hostility from the Indians. They buried them where they lay, with such land marks as were at hand at that time.
I have often called to mind the fact that the two men, Sherburn and Tudor, the only ones of our party who were killed on that eventful morning, were seen reading their Bibles while in camp the morning before starting into the Valley. They were both good men and we mourned their loss sincerely.
After we had been home six days, Rose, who was a partner of Sherburn and Tudor in a mine about five miles west of Coarse Gold Gulch, where there was a mining camp, appeared in the neighborhood and reported the attack and said the whole party was killed, and that he alone escaped. On being questioned, he said he hid behind the Waterfall and lived by chewing the leather strap which held his rifle across his shoulders. This sounded strange to us as he had his rifle and plenty of ammunition and game was abundant.
After hearing of our return to Coarse Gold Gulch camp, he never came to see us as would have been natural, but shortly disappeared. We thought his actions and words very strange and we remembered how he urged us to enter the Valley, and at the time of the attack was the first one to fall, right amongst the savages, apparently with his death wound—and now he appears without a scratch, telling his version of the affair and disappearing without seeing any of us.
We all believed he was not the honest man and friend we took him to be. He took possession of the gold mine in which he held a one-third interest with Sherburn and Tudor, and sold it.
Here ends the account of Stephen F. Grover
18
Chuck held the sheets containing Grover’s account in his hand as he walked with Janelle across the pedestrian bridge over the river, having just read the conclusion of the account to her.
“The end of Grover’s story is what has the Indigenous Tribespeople Foundation so interested,” he explained. “The part when the guy named Rose shows up back in Coarse Gold Gulch.”