“Mine, too,” echoed Clay.
I scowled. “Well, someone has to come with me.”
No one answered.
“Are you kidding?”
Still no answer, which was just fucking great. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Avery whispering something in Archie’s ear again. Cheeks flushed, he shook his head vigorously and shoved her back. Avery said something else—I couldn’t hear what—before turning and marching away from him. Her eyes burned with frustration.
“Hey.” I tried catching her attention, but she brushed past me, arms crossed tight, dark hair falling in her face, to storm off into the trees.
I made a move to go after her.
“Leave that girl alone, Gibby,” Archie warned.
“But I need someone to go with me to get the keys.”
“Well, it’s not gonna be her.”
“Is it going to be you, then?” I asked. “Because I’d kind of like to get out of here.”
Archie snorted. “Fuck getting out of here. I’m not helping you do shit.”
“So you want Rose to die?”
“I don’t care if we all die.”
“Jesus,” I breathed. “You’re an asshole.”
He flipped me off, and this was the Archie I knew. Callous. Uncaring.
Bitter as hell.
“Whatever. I’ll just go by myself,” I said.
“Wait!”
I turned. It was Rose who’d called out to me. She’d managed to sit up in the camping chair, separating herself from her brother. Her face was pale, drawn, but her jaw was firmly set.
“I’ll hurry,” I told her. “I promise.”
“No. That’s . . . that’s not what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s the money.” Her gaze darted from me to Archie to me again. “I know where it is. You have to get it while you’re up there, Ben. It’s our one chance to have this mean something.”
“Huh?”
“That guy.” She took a deep breath, then pointed to Abel, still lying motionless on the ground. “He—he told me where it was.”
“He did?”
She nodded. “When you were gone. Getting that jacket.”
“Why would he tell you that?”
“Because I promised we’d let him go if we found it.”
“Oh, Rose.” My heart foundered. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“So then, where the hell is it?” Archie demanded. “Tell us, already.”
Rose lifted her chin. “I’m not telling you anything, dickhead. I’ll tell Ben. You go with him and help him and maybe he’ll show you.”
“Don’t fuck around like this, Rose,” he said. “I’m serious.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Then tell me where it is!”
“No.”
Archie rose from the tree stump and stomped his way over to where Abel lay curled in his own blood and piss and who knew what else. He didn’t hesitate. Gripping the Preacher’s rifle by the barrel, Archie brought the stock of it down on the back of the man’s head, the blow landing so hard there was an audible crack. Blood sprayed onto Archie’s pants. Abel moaned and writhed against the ropes.
“What the fuck?” Tomás shouted, leaping up from his chair. “You’re going to kill him!”
“I want him to wake the fuck up!”
“He’s not going to if you keep doing that!”
Archie looked at Rose.
“Go with Ben,” she ordered. “Put the gun down. Leave it here. Then go with him up the mountain, and if you don’t piss him off and you don’t act like an ass, maybe he’ll take you to where it is.”
“What?” I squeaked. “I’m not doing that. No way. I’d rather go alone.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
“Come here.” Rose beckoned me with her finger, wincing as she did it. Sweat beaded her upper lip. Her brow.
I walked over and knelt in the dirt beside her. “I don’t care about any money. I don’t want to look for anything. I just want to help you. I want to get out of here.”
“Then listen to me. Come closer.”
I nodded. Dropped my head. Cupping my chin in her hand, Rose leaned forward to whisper the location in my ear.
I stared at her. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you want me to do this?”
Her eyes puddled. “Because this—everything that’s happening, everything that’s gone wrong—it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I have to fix it. As much as I can.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Just go up there with him. For me. Please?”
I relented. “Okay.”
Rose leaned back. Gave a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Ben. I can always count on you.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I hope so,” she said.
32.
ARCHIE AND I set off almost immediately. I was gripped with panic leaving Rose behind, but in leaving I also found purpose. This was how I would save her. This was a chance for me to make the right decisions, and I wouldn’t screw up. Not again.
The trees rattled overhead, the wind racing the branches, and I glanced back only once as we left the clearing, my gaze falling on Abel’s motionless form. He’d done nothing but spit blood after Archie struck him, but his eyes never opened. And while I was glad Rose had made Archie leave the rifle behind, it wasn’t like I didn’t know about the handgun resting in his backpack. There was nothing safe or honest about him. I had to remember that.
“You shouldn’t have hit him,” I told Archie when we were out of earshot of the others. “It wasn’t cool.”
“Oh, shut up,” he said. “You think people like him deserve mercy?”
“He could be lying about the money, you know. He’s probably full of shit.”
Archie snorted. “Why the hell would he lie?”
“Why the hell wouldn’t he?”
“Because he has to know I’ll kill him if we don’t find it.”
I had no answer for that. We made our way across the stream and began the steep hike up out of the gorge. My legs protested the effort, but I pushed myself to go faster. Soon I was coated with sweat.
Archie was silent as we climbed, but I watched him drink from a silver flask that I recognized as Maggie’s. He didn’t bother trying to hide it, the drinking, and I didn’t bother caring. Together we wound our way past Hunters Camp—the shady spot where we’d eaten lunch and I’d slept curled in Rose’s lap.
The trees thinned as we hiked higher, and the exposure threw sun in my eyes, a mid-morning assault, but one I needed. Rather than retreat, I tipped my face into the day’s glow and tried soaking it in, all that light, the clarity. Something broke inside me as I did this, tight cobblestones of grief dislodging to remind me of all we’d lost—not just now, but from the future, too. There were mountains that would never be climbed; shitty homes never escaped.
Another half mile and we stopped to splash water on our faces from the frigid depths of Grizzly Creek. That felt good. My head spun from lack of food, lack of drinking water. But when I stood again, after kneeling by the creek, a swarm of colored dots filled my field of vision. I instinctively sat back down and shoved my head between my knees, waiting for the light-headedness to pass.
When I felt better, I looked up, only to catch sight of Archie staring at the sun rising over the mountains, just as I’d been doing earlier. I don’t know what expression I expected to see on his face. Arrogance, I suppose. Or maybe resentment at forces beyond his control. After all, weren’t those the reasons we were in this situation in the first place? Wasn’t that how we’d gotten here?
What I saw instead wa
s pain. Of the wet-cheeks-and-heaving-chest variety. I turned away, embarrassed for Archie the same way I’d been embarrassed for Mr. Howe when he’d tried giving me relationship advice I hadn’t wanted to hear. Whether sorrow or need, some emotions were best left unexpressed.
“Let’s go,” I said gruffly and started walking again before Archie had a chance to answer. For all I knew, his weepy mood wasn’t because of Mr. Howe or Dunc or the grim finality of death, but because he was grieving for himself. For the realization he just might have to answer for his own stupidity.
We made it to the meadow at last, our small campsite coming into view with a burst of bright color amid a sea of green. I made a beeline for the tent I’d shared with Rose. Crawling inside, I made a mess as my shoes tracked dirt everywhere while I tore through our belongings, searching for the keys to the Pathfinder.
Only I couldn’t find them. They weren’t in her backpack or mine. Or anywhere I could see. I searched more, going through all the tent compartments. Then going through them again.
Still nothing.
“Shit.” I sat back on my haunches, and there was that weight of uselessness again, a familiar beast settling in to rest heavy on my chest.
The answer came to me then, a swift gut-kick of insight. I lifted Rose’s sleeping bag and pulled it to me. Reaching inside, my fingers roamed before landing on a zippered pocket stitched into the lining, opposite the hood. Tugging hard, I worked the pocket open. Sure enough, the keys were in there. I slipped them into my own breast pocket with a grunt of satisfaction—well, technically, it was the Preacher’s pocket, but it wasn’t like I planned on giving the jacket back.
Crawling from the tent, I felt more purposeful than ever. Capable, too. Not only had I found what I’d been looking for, but it was my studied knowledge of Rose that had led me to the keys. She was different from me in a lot of ways—most, actually—but there were two things central to her nature that I was absolutely certain about: First, she liked to use things for their intended purpose; she wasn’t one to carelessly leave her keys in shoes or hats or on the ground, the way I might. And, second, if something was truly important to her, I knew that Rose would always, always keep it close to her heart.
—
Archie had vanished by the time I got back outside. I jogged the perimeter of the campsite but couldn’t find him anywhere. The wind blew harder, pushing the lush meadow grass around so that it swirled and bent. I didn’t bother calling out for Archie. Doing that would’ve felt like I wanted him to return and that wasn’t a desire I wanted to put out into the universe. Besides, I was starving.
Our food hung in a bear-proof canister twenty feet off the ground, tethered to a white pine near where we’d been playing cards. I walked over and undid the anchor at the base to pull it down, hastily flipping off the lid when it reached me. I grabbed for the first things I saw: a package of Pop-Tarts and a bottle of Gatorade. Not my favorite, but I forced them down, followed by a handful of almonds and some beef jerky.
Still no Archie. I began gathering supplies I wanted to take back to the others. Spreading a tarp out on the ground and placing items on it, I didn’t even try to grab people’s personal belongings. Those would have to wait, although I made an exception for Avery’s camera. I knew she’d want it, not because it was hers but because it wasn’t. I also picked out a small selection of food that didn’t need to be cooked and wasn’t too heavy, plus salt, matches, and water-purification pills.
Ducking back into my own tent, I grabbed my compass and trail map, before moving on to Mr. Howe’s, which was this fancy blue-and-white four-season North Face deal. He’d boasted that he’d slept in it up on Denali when the temps dipped below zero. Personally, I didn’t see how that was a feat worth bragging about since it meant admitting you’d been foolish enough to go camping in weather like that in the first place.
But kneeling in that narrow tent, knowing he was gone, I could scarcely breathe. Everything inside was arranged so neatly, his belongings waiting for his return. It wasn’t hard to imagine Mr. Howe was just outside in the meadow, finishing breakfast, getting ready to hit the trail. I reached to touch his shirt, his hat, then flipped my way through the trail journal that lay by the head of his sleeping bag.
A few photographs slid from the pages. I picked them up and held them to my face. Some were of mountains, places he’d been, but most were of Lucy, an account not of distance or place, but of time—here she was glowing in her youth, sitting cross-legged in a college dorm, her hair short, beer in hand, wearing a faded Jane’s Addiction T-shirt; in another she stood atop a rocky cliff overlooking the pounding ocean, pointing to a ring on her finger, her cheeks wet with joy; the most recent shot showed her walking through a California vineyard at sunset, arms outstretched, her smile wide, her long hair blowing in the wind.
I searched the photos for what I knew of Lucy—that moment when her hope for a family had vanished. I thought I would see it in her eyes, in the way she looked at her husband, who’d failed to give her what she wanted. It wasn’t there, though. In every photo Lucy gazed back at the man behind the camera with absolute adoration. Her love, it seemed, didn’t come with conditions.
After tucking the photos back where I’d found them, I gathered the items I’d come for: the truck keys and his phone, which I briefly turned on to check the barometric pressure. It had dropped again, only I didn’t know what that meant because Mr. Howe wasn’t around to tell me. I also grabbed the larger of the two first aid kits, which contained not only my medication, but also gauze and antiseptic and other tools that could be used for cleaning Rose’s wound. Maybe more. I unlocked the lid to peer inside.
What I saw confused me. My prescriptions were there; I quickly stuffed them all in my side pack. But there were other medications, too. Ones that didn’t belong to me, which was strange. I was the sick one. I always had been. But rolling around with my own meds, I found a bottle of Zoloft with Tomás’s name on it. That wasn’t such a huge surprise—it wasn’t pregnant-lady porn—but it turned out Clay had a prescription for Xanax, and Shelby, one for a medication I’d never heard of called Sulfazine, which had a lot of dire warning labels and got me worrying that something might really be wrong with her. Most surprising, however, was a bottle of Risperdal, which was a drug I happened to recognize because it had been prescribed to my mother in the past. It was meant to stabilize her moods and keep her from hurting herself. She hated it taking it, which probably tells you a lot about either the medication or her. I held the bottle up and squinted to read the patient’s name on the label: DUNCAN STRAUSS.
I put the pills back.
I finally found Archie when I went down to the river to fill my water bottle. Well, found is the wrong word, since I wasn’t exactly looking. But there he was. And just as I had the night before, he was sitting on the very edge of a rock with his shoes off and his legs dunked in the current, deeper than they should’ve been. Unlike me, though, he had his open backpack beside him and that damn flask in his hand again and was clearly dead set on getting wasted.
A few images flitted through my mind: a drunken Archie tumbling into the water, yelling out for help before being dragged under. My honest, heartfelt testimony about being unable to save him. There was also the darker scenario where I shoved him into the river on my own, making my testimony less honest but all the more heartfelt.
But murder, like decisiveness, wasn’t in me. Not anymore. So I stood, watching him, until he turned and saw me. There was a different expression on his face, an almost wistful look, but it vanished fast.
“You ready?” he asked.
I gave diplomacy my best shot. “How about we take the food and stuff back down to the others? Someone else can walk out. Get help for Rose. Then you and I, we can come back up here and look for the money. If it’s really that important to you.”
Archie’s eyes gleamed as he pulled his dripping feet from the water. “So it’s somew
here up here, then? Is that what you’re saying? It’s close by?”
“Yeah. Supposedly.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Then we’re not going anywhere, Gibby. Let’s get it now before that bitch finds it. Or”—he looked me up and down—“you can tell me where it is. I don’t need your help.”
I sighed. Because the thing was, he did need my help.
He just didn’t know it.
“Fine,” I said, all resigned-like, because the path of least resistance did not involve arguing with Archie DuPraw. “Let’s go.”
“Where’re we going?”
“There.” I pointed up, high, to the very top of the waterfall, that majestic rise of granite cliffs and craggy peaks, a whole fortress of rock doing what it could to control the massive lake sitting hundreds of feet above, relentless in its effort to break free of its hold and come tumbling down upon us.
33.
CLIMBING THE WATERFALL by way of the formidable Grizzly Scramble was a challenge I’d planned for meticulously over the past six weeks—both physically and mentally. I’d taken to working out as best I could in my bedroom, trying to increase my upper body strength, as well as my endurance. I’d also scoured the internet for photos and personal accounts of the climb from other hikers, reading and rereading their words over and over, until I could lie back on my own bed, close my eyes, and actually visualize myself in their bodies, reenacting their every movement, every step, every decision.
What I knew about the Scramble was this: It began as a steep ascent by way of stone steps, risers set into the earth that would take us a good third of the way up the cliff, hugging close to the waterfall and the spray of the river. After that, the steps faded, trailing off into a narrow, almost impossibly steep path that cut back and forth, winding upward in a precarious serpentine.
A break in the trail came roughly fifty feet from the top in the form of a stone plateau, one that was wide and flat, overlooking the falls and valley below. Technically it was possible to pitch a tent on this ledge and sleep among the clouds, though from what I’d read, dueling wind streams made this a risky choice. But ahead lay the roughest part—a slick pile of shifting rock and crumbling granite that could only be climbed using all four limbs. At the very top, we’d have to pull ourselves up onto the cliff before leaping the waterfall outlet to land on the far side. This leap was the section I’d studied the most and I knew full well how harrowing that last crossing would be. Not a long jump, by any stretch. Just one you’d never get a second chance to screw up.
When I Am Through with You Page 17