by Scott Graham
Cheers from the crowd rose to a crescendo as the onlookers recognized how high Tara had climbed on the seemingly insurmountable route set by Alden and Jimmy. She turned to the spectators at the foot of the tower and acknowledged their acclaim with a small wave, her face downcast, as Alden unclipped the rope from her waist.
Audience members embraced Tara when she reentered the crowd. Alden retrieved the microphone and addressed the audience: “As most of you know, the rules state that a climber must top out on the tower to complete the route and, in this case, win the competition. If Carmelita fails anywhere on the wall, we’ll reset the route for both competitors and move on to their next one-on-one round.”
A spectator to Chuck’s right muttered to a companion, “Looks like we’re gonna be here awhile.”
When Alden called Carmelita’s name, she appeared from behind the tower to a boisterous ovation. Rosie and Clarence offered particularly spirited cries of support, their hands cupped around their mouths. Alden placed the mic on the ground, attached the rope to Carmelita’s harness, and stepped back, his brake hand on his end of the rope.
Carmelita coated her hands with powder from her chalk bag and set off up the wall, climbing fast.
Chuck gnawed his cheek as she sped upward. Even as he fought the urge to call out to her to slow down, he knew her instincts were correct. Completing the grueling route to the top of the tower would depend on wise retention and use of energy, by moving fast, along with loads of skill.
Carmelita overcame the lowest blank spot on the wall without hesitation. She paused at the base of the second blank space, studying the holds above it. Chuck glanced at Alden, who used his free hand to give the rope above his belay device a slight twitch. The subtle vibration traveled up the rope, through the pulley, and back down to the rope’s attachment point at Carmelita’s waist.
Carmelita wobbled when the nearly imperceptible pulse struck her climbing harness and traveled into her body. Her toes slipped from the holds on which they’d been balanced. The onlookers gasped as Carmelita fell several inches down the face of the wall until her fingers, grasping tiny holds above her head, caught her and halted her plunge.
She huffed with obvious exertion and lifted herself back into place on the wall, regaining her toeholds but burning valuable energy in the process.
Moving even more quickly now, she shot first her right hand, then her left, to holds above the blank space and scrambled higher on the wall, her arms and legs spread wide like a spider.
Rather than haul in the excess slack in the rope running from his brake device to Carmelita, Alden allowed the rope to trail downward away from his waist as Carmelita ascended, requiring her to deal with the added weight of the dangling rope with each move. Only when the rope drooped all the way to the ground did Alden take up some of the slack running from his waist to the top of the tower and back down to Carmelita.
Enraged, Chuck left Janelle’s side and pushed his way through the spectators as Carmelita approached the largest blank space on the wall, three quarters of the way up the tower, where Tara had fallen. After working his way around to the side of the tower, Chuck stepped out of the crowd and glared at Alden’s back.
Carmelita reached the bottom of the large blank space on the wall. Below her, at the foot of the tower, Alden took hold of the rope with his non-brake hand, ready to give the line another twitch.
“Don’t,” Chuck said menacingly, just loud enough for Alden to hear.
Alden froze. He glanced over his shoulder at Chuck and lowered his free hand to his side.
High on the tower, Carmelita leaned back and surveyed the tiny hold atop the expansive blank space. She sank low on her toeholds and sprang cat-like up the face of the wall.
The onlookers fell silent. Carmelita hung suspended in midair at the top of her upward leap. She stretched her hand high above her head, grabbed the tiny hold with her fingers, and hung from it atop the blank space, her body swinging free below.
Chuck bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood. Here was where Tara had fallen despite the aid of Alden’s upward tug on the rope.
Carmelita wedged her toes against the blank patch of wall beneath her, neither foot coming anywhere near the extended screw head. She maintained her tenuous grip on the upper hold and climbed her feet up the wall. With her lower body contorted, she shot her left hand to a higher hold and immediately followed with her right hand to another hold still higher on the wall. She scrambled upward until she gained tenuous purchase with her fingers as well as her toes on minuscule holds above the large blank space.
Thunderous cries erupted from the crowd as she continued to climb, still moving fast, and still overcoming the swinging, off-putting excess slack left in the rope by Alden.
Chuck kept an eye on Alden as Carmelita neared the top of the tower. Alden’s free hand trembled but remained at his side.
A triumphant roar rose from the spectators as Carmelita completed the climb by tapping the tower’s fiberglass top. Standing together in the crowd, Dale, Caleb, Mark, and Bernard pounded one another’s backs. Jimmy grinned. Even Owen, on the opposite side of the semi-circle of onlookers from Chuck, clapped politely, his ever-present clipboard tucked beneath his arm.
Carmelita released her holds and leaned back from the tower, ready to descend. But the rope did not take her weight. Instead, she plummeted straight down the face of the tower, free-falling toward the ground just as Jimmy had two days ago.
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Rosie screeched as Carmelita fell, but Chuck did not move.
Carmelita spread-eagled her arms and legs, facing the wall, and held her position until the slack left in the rope by Alden played through the pulley at the top of the tower and the rope tightened, bringing her to an abrupt halt five feet down the wall. She bounced lightly off the tower’s face, using her out-spread arms and legs as springs, then leaned away from the wall and walked backward as Alden lowered her, the rope running steadily through his brake hand.
Regaining their voices, the spectators hooted and hollered for Carmelita when she reached the ground and Alden freed the rope from her waist. She turned to the crowd with her head bowed, shaking out her hands at her sides.
Alden picked up the microphone and addressed the onlookers, who surrounded the front of the tower at the edge of the spotlights, their backs to what was now full darkness.
“There we have it,” he announced, his voice lacking its earlier enthusiasm. “This year’s women’s open Yosemite Slam champion, Carmelita Ortega.”
Carmelita raised her head as the crowd cheered. She stood in place while the acclaim washed over her, the pride in her eyes glowingly evident. As soon as the applause ended, she beelined for Janelle.
“We’ll take a few minutes’ break to reset the route for the men’s competition,” Alden announced. He detached himself from the rope and headed for Tara.
Trailing Alden, Chuck crossed the open area at the foot of the tower with his hands twisted into fists. In the crowd ahead, Tara’s face turned crimson when she caught sight of Alden approaching her. She turned from him and walked away through the onlookers, her back stiff. Alden came to an abrupt halt in the lit area between the tower and spectators, watching Tara’s departure.
“What the hell?” Chuck demanded, coming up on Alden from behind.
Alden turned to Chuck. “I . . . I . . .”
Chuck stopped inches from him. “You did everything you could to throw the competition.”
Alden gulped. Guilt flooded his eyes. He aimed a finger at Tara as she strode off. The spotlights winked off the smooth skin of her bare shoulders, her wavy hair rippling down her back, her legs smooth and muscled in her skintight climbing pants. “How am I supposed to say no to that?” he asked plaintively.
Chuck drew back his fist.
Then he hesitated.
Before Janelle and the girls had entered his life, he’d have torn into Alden, heedless of the consequences. But he was a husband now, a stepfather.
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sp; He lowered his fist. “If . . . you . . . ever,” he threatened.
Alden’s chin rose and fell above his thick neck. “Never,” he said, his voice shaking. “Never again.”
Chuck spun away, his shoulders bunched. He spied Carmelita through the crowd, clutched in her mother’s embrace. He opened and closed his hands, releasing his anger, anxious to commend his daughter for her incredible climb.
Cheers of encouragement for the first male competitor of round four resounded through the deserted campground when the Slam resumed thirty minutes later. In the darkness on the far side of Camp 4, Chuck folded the final camp chair from the emptied Bender Archaeological campsite and stuffed it with the others into an oversized duffle bag.
Janelle walked the perimeter of the site, her phone light directed at the ground, checking for any items missed while packing. Chuck straightened from the duffle bag and scanned the site from where he stood as he waited for Janelle to circle back to him. He crossed his arms over his chest. They’d broken camp quickly. The picnic table was bare, the family tent and Clarence’s solo tent collapsed and carted off by Clarence and the girls to the truck in the parking lot.
Like the rest of the campground, the reunion campsite next door was quiet; Jimmy, Dale, Caleb, Bernard, and Mark were among those watching the resumption of the men’s competition at the tower. A yellow dome tent among the other pup tents ringing the reunion site caught Chuck’s eye.
Chuck pointed at the tent as Janelle came up to him. “That’s Ponch’s. My heart hurts just looking at it.”
“Mine, too,” Janelle said. She sighed. “He’s why we’re getting out of here.” She turned off her light. “We’re making our escape, just like those gold prospectors of yours.”
“I’d almost forgotten about them. Aside from Carmelita’s winning the Slam, the only good thing from this weekend is your finding the ring, which points straight at Rose as having gotten away with murder.”
“But the questions about Ponch and Thorpe? And Jimmy’s fall?” Janelle shook herself, the wiggling movement of her body visible to Chuck in the filtered light reaching the campsite from the bathroom in the center of the campground. An additional flutter of movement showed in the shadows beyond Janelle’s shoulder to the north, in the direction of the side-by-side park worker campsites near Columbia Boulder, as she continued, “Those questions can stay unanswered forever as far as I’m concerned. I just want to find a motel room as far away from the valley as possible tonight, and head back to Durango first thing in the morning.”
Chuck looked past her. No more movement showed itself in the darkness. But he’d seen something. He was sure of it.
He picked up the chair-filled duffle and offered it to Janelle. “Think you can handle this?”
“Sure.” She slung the bag over her shoulder by its strap.
“I’ll be right behind you. I want to take a look around the reunion site, make sure I didn’t leave anything over there.”
He handed her the truck key. She headed for the front of the campground, the duffle riding low on her back. Jimmy’s voice rang out from the climbing tower as he announced the name of the next climber in the competition, taking a turn at the master-of-ceremony duties.
Peering north, Chuck made out the two park worker campsites in front of the dark bulk of Columbia Boulder. The sites, bubbled with tents and backed by hanging laundry, were deserted.
He stood motionless, staring. Nothing.
He counted to five, watching the campsites. Still nothing.
He released his breath. Clarence and the girls would have the bed of the truck loaded by now. It was time to go.
Turning away, he crossed the campsite. When he reached the gravel path leading through the center of Camp 4, a muffled groan sounded behind him.
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Chuck spun, listening. The groan had come from the area around the worker campsites, where he’d spotted the movement in the darkness. The groan had been deep and raspy, that of a male.
Jimmy’s amplified voice carried through the trees. Cheers from the spectators reached Chuck, too, as did the rustle of the evening breeze sifting through the branches above his head.
He waited, tense.
Hearing nothing more, he crept toward the campsites, placing one careful foot in front of the other.
Hunched low, he slipped into the nearer of the two sites, only to find it empty. He continued into the farther site, but spotted nothing out of the ordinary there, either, just the workers’ hoop tents and strung clothes.
He straightened in the center of the second site. Noisy hurrahs rose from the crowd gathered at the climbing tower. When the cheers died away, another groan sounded, directly ahead of him near Columbia Boulder.
He hurried through the second campsite, past the line of softball-sized rocks marking the north Camp 4 boundary. Two-story-high Columbia Boulder reared above him in the dim glow of the bathroom lights from the center of the campground. A bulky shadow the size and shape of a human body lay on the ground at the base of the massive boulder.
Chuck yanked his phone from his pocket and rushed to the shadowed shape. Metal gleamed on the human-sized form—a ranger badge.
Owen Hutchins, Jr., lay on his back at Chuck’s feet.
The ranger groaned a third time.
Chuck tapped frantically at the face of his phone. Before he could activate its light, a voice said from behind him, “Don’t do that.”
Ice chilled Chuck’s veins. He turned and came face to face with Alden.
The tower attendant stood in the shadows ten feet away, barely visible in his black slacks and suit coat—though there was enough light to reveal that he held a pistol in his right hand, aimed at Chuck’s midsection.
“You wouldn’t dare use that thing,” Chuck challenged. “Everyone would come running.”
“I’d just tell them Owen did it,” Alden said. “This is his gun. Everybody knows he has it in for you.”
Chuck’s heart pounded. “What is it you want?”
Alden held out his left hand, his palm cupped. “The ring. Jimmy said it’s worth a fortune. I can’t let you leave here with it. I won’t.”
Chuck stared, dumbfounded, at him.
“I saw you were leaving,” he said. “I gave Jimmy the mic and got Owen to come over here with me and I popped him on the head.” He waggled the ranger’s pistol. “I was coming to find you, but you came to me instead.”
“The ring is in my gear duffle, at the truck.”
“We’ll head over there. Don’t try to run.” A sinister note entered Alden’s voice. “You thought you could threaten me about Tara and the Slam. Now it’s my turn. We know where your girls are.”
Chuck shuddered. Was Alden’s threat, aimed at the girls, for real?
More cheers rose from the spectators at the tower.
Alden kept the gun trained on Chuck. “We’ve got plenty of time. The competition will go for at least another hour.”
“I’ll get you the ring.” Chuck glanced at Owen’s prostrate form on the ground. “There’s no need to hurt anyone else.”
“Oh, but I already have.”
Chuck’s brain churned. “Ponch?”
“Collateral damage, I’m afraid.”
“It was you who bumped into me on Half Dome, wasn’t it?”
“I had you all lined up. But the explosion was bigger than I expected. Brighter. I bounced off of you and hit him instead.”
“Why?” Chuck demanded.
“Duh,” said Alden. “The ring.”
“Knocking me off Half Dome wouldn’t have gotten it for you.”
“It would have made it easy for me to get it from your wife. After your little tumble, she’d have given it up in a flash.”
A human form emerged from the shadows thirty feet beyond Alden’s shoulder. A second later, an additional form materialized alongside the first. Both forms crept toward Alden from behind.
Intent on keeping his conversation with Alden going, Chuck beckoned him forward
and squatted beside Owen. “He’s not groaning anymore. He might be dead.”
Alden stepped closer. “Good riddance.”
“You won’t get away with this, you know.”
“Wrong. The ring is my lottery ticket. I’ll find a buyer for it on the internet. That part will be easy. I’ll get myself a new identity and bounce from crag to crag—Thailand, Greece, Spain, you name it. I’ll climb my way around the world and have me all the ladies I want. No more sorry-ass Sacramento Rock Gym, and no more Jimmy, either, with his worthless promises.”
Chuck pressed his fingers to Owen’s wrist. “Lucky for you he’s got a good pulse. He just needs—”
“Oof!” Alden exclaimed, his breath escaping. The gun shuddered in his hand and fired, the blast concussing the night air.
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The bullet tore into Chuck, the force of the shot throwing him across Owen’s body. Alden dropped the gun and collapsed in a heap beside the downed ranger.
Chuck sat up between the sprawled bodies of Owen and Alden. He probed the bullet wound with his fingers. Pain stabbed his brain. His searching fingers discovered that the bullet had missed his torso, passing instead through the flesh of his inner, upper arm. He clutched his injured arm and staggered to his feet. Blood from the wound ran past his elbow. The pain was sharp but bearable, blunted by adrenaline coursing through him.
Janelle and Clarence stood over Alden in the shadowy darkness. Clarence dropped a brick-sized rock from his hand and scooped Owen’s gun from the ground.
Cries of alarm sounded from the front of the campground. Chuck looked through the trees toward the climbing tower. Spectators milled in the spotlights at the base of the tower, pointing into the campground. Several pressed phones to their ears.