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mentioned before. She ventured out across the footing, trying to keep her balance the best she
could and avoid using the rope, but it was almost impossible, just as Carol had told her.
Margaret found the spot where the ledge widened considerably. It almost looked like a
cave inside the rock, and was impossible to see from the top of the cliff, which hung over thirty
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feet above. The only problem was that the ledge between the cave and where Margaret needed to
go, grew too narrow to walk across.
The large overhang above her made it hard for a person to get over to the spot, even with
the aid of the ropes. Carol had told her there was a way down to the ledge, but she wanted to
explore this route first. Margaret had found the dead end which could only supply a person with
a view of the spot Carol spoke of. The only way out was back up the hill.
She climbed up the side of the mountain, using the rope and her immense arm strength to
pull herself to the top. The task was a hard one, even for an experienced mountain climber like
herself. The wind had kicked up considerably, and it tossed her around as she fought her way to
the top. She left the rope hanging over the ledge and tied another rope to the same anchor.
Margaret walked farther across the ridge to the path which Carol had told her about. She
found a long vertical crack along the side of the hill, which led directly down to the ledge. She
knew immediately that this was the way to get to the cave.
Margaret neared the camp about an hour later. She finished setting everything up and
took a longer route back so she could make sure Carol had left. Heather’s car had vanished, and
by now they had probably driven to the highway. Within an hour they would reach the state line.
Something inside her told Margaret that her friend would make it.
Margaret stopped outside the camp to clear her mind. This did little to calm her as it
released a haunting thought in her head. Heather’s life looked pretty bad now, but she had
nothing to do with that really. Margaret did this for herself, and she told herself it was the only
way.
She took several minutes to prepare mentally for what she had to do. A light rain began to
fall and the coolness of the water against her feverish skin relaxed her. After a few minutes, she
took off at a dead run towards the camp.
Margaret reached the camp and ran quickly to the tent where Heather lay sleeping. She
tapped Heather gently on the shoulder and brought her finger up to her lips, signaling Heather to
keep quiet.
Heather opened her eyes and saw the girl standing above her. Margaret clasped her hand
over Heather’s mouth, so she wouldn’t wake anyone. Heather realized by the look on Margaret’s
face, that something terrible had happened. Margaret indicated to her to come out of the tent so
that they could talk in private.
Heather stepped out from the tent, dressed in her warm long underwear. She had on a
tank top and shorts over top of the insulated clothing, and she looked funny standing outside in
the moonlight. Her feet quickly became soiled in the slippery mud.
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Margaret led her far enough away from the tents so that nobody else in the area could
hear what she said. Heather noticed Margaret limping on one of her legs as they walked. She
stopped Margaret before they got very far and asked what had happened.
“It’s Carol,” Margaret explained in a panicked voice. “She couldn’t sleep and wanted to
go for a walk. We left about half an hour ago. She hasn’t been the same since we left the camp.
She’s all freaked out and she won’t move. I thought maybe you could come talk with her.”
“Sure,” answered Heather. “Where is she?”
“In the mountains, near the cliffs.”
“In the storm?”
“It’s worse. I don’t think she’s stable.”
“Let me go wake up Susan, in case we need any help.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not,” urged Margaret.
“Why?”
“Carol broke down tonight and told me everything,” Margaret began. “She’s pregnant,
and has been for over a month now. She thinks you’ll be upset with her.”
“Where is she now?”
“She took me up into the cliffs,” explained Margaret. “She said she wanted to explore
some of the ledges. There’s a spot up there you can only reach if you go down with a rope. She
made me bring my gear with us. We left before the storm moved in. I thought it was some kind
of midnight hike. We got down onto the ledge. That’s when she freaked out. I’m scared, Heather.
I don’t know what she’s thinking.”
“Is she there now?” Heather asked, her voice full of panic.
“Once we got down on the ledge, she broke down and told me everything. She was acting
really strange and making me nervous. Then she passed out on the ledge. She keeps drifting in
and out of consciousness. When she’s alert, she just sits there moaning the word mommy and
won’t budge.
“I was afraid she might try something drastic. I thought you would want to keep things
quiet about this, for everyone’s sake. If you want to, I’ll go wake up some of the others to go
with us. I hurt my leg getting down onto the ledge. I can’t pull her up by myself if we need to,
and I can’t get back down again. It would be nice to have some others with us.”
“No,” answered Heather sternly. “You just get me up there, and I’ll talk to her and calm
her down. We can do this without having to embarrass anybody. Let me go put some shoes on,
and then we’ll go ahead. Will you be all right walking there?”
Margaret couldn’t believe that Heather didn’t want others to know about her daughter.
Her social status overpowered her reasoning, even when her daughter’s life was at stake. Then
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again, that’s how Margaret had planned it. Maybe her subconscious had made her do it, to test
Heather one last time.
“Sure,” answered Margaret. Heather went quickly and quietly back to her tent and
grabbed a change of clothes for the hike. Several minutes later, the two left the camp.
Heather Whitmore looked over the side of the steep hillside where Margaret had guided
her. With the light rain and penetrating moonlight, she could see part of the ledge below the
overhang, where the water ran off the side. The full moon made it possible to see the bottom of
the cliff. A fall would drop a person over one hundred feet down the mountainside. Heather
Whitmore had a severe fear of heights.
“Carol, are you all right?” Margaret yelled as loud as she could. She grabbed a hold of
one of the two ropes tied to separate trees at the top of the hill. “She’s still there,” Margaret
announced as she tugged gently on the rope.
“I tied this rope to her harness, in case she passed out again and rolled near the ledge. We
can use it to pull her up if you can’t talk any sense into her. I don’t want to tug on it, in case it
makes her nervous and she tries to cut it. She was passed out when I left her.”
“I can’t see her down the
re,” remarked Heather in a concerned voice.
“She’s beneath the overhang,” Margaret explained. “You’ll only be able to see the spot
from the ledge. The only way to the ledge where she’s at is to come at it from the side. I’ll climb
down to the ledge, and then walk to the ledge where she’s sitting.”
Margaret strapped her harness to the rope. She checked the secureness of the tightly
anchored rope, which she had tied to the tree trunk, and walked to the edge of the cliff. Heather
could still see her favoring one of her legs.
“No, Margaret,” stopped Heather. “You can’t go down there on your ankle. I should go
down and talk to her now. Give me the harness.”
“But I’m the one who helped her get down there, Mrs. Whitmore. I should be the one
who gets her back up. You don’t know the first thing about climbing.”
“I went repelling once years ago,” Heather announced, almost proudly, “and besides, I’m
her mother. You stay here and keep an eye on the rope,” she insisted as she held her hand out to
the harness which Margaret wore. Margaret slipped out of it and handed it to the woman. She
almost felt the urge to laugh as she watched the confident woman take the rope. Margaret never
took her climbing lightly, but rarely boasted about her abilities. She felt satisfied as she watched
her unknowing quarry climb into the device.
“Relax, Carol,” Heather yelled as she locked the harness securely to the rope and started
over the edge of the cliff. “Mom’s here now. Everything will be all right. I’m coming down to
help you, sweetheart.”
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Margaret helped Heather start down the side of the mountain. She showed Heather the
way to use the ropes and friction to lower herself down slowly. Heather didn’t even ask how she
would get back up. She flipped on the flashlight and shone it on the rock, trying to get an idea of
her surroundings. Margaret could see the heavy winds, amplified by the sheer ledge, tossing
Heather around like a rag doll.
The rain had begun to intensify, and occasional brilliant flashes of lightning, followed by
deafening thunder, sounded about her. Heather struggled on the way down, trying to move
quickly. Her inexperience left her quite vulnerable in the blowing wind and heavy rains.
Heather reached the ledge about thirty feet below, and tried to get her footing on the wet
surface. She hugged the wall tightly, and let a little slack out of the rope so she could walk along
the ledge to where Margaret indicated Carol was. She shone the light over in the direction and
could see what looked like somebody all rolled up in a ball just a short distance away.
She couldn’t make out the mound clearly, and crept closer towards it, clinging to the rope
for safety. She noticed the ledge growing smaller and smaller as she got closer to what she
thought was her daughter. The ledge dropped off completely before she could reach the spot, and
she tried to figure out how Carol had gotten over there.
Heather shone the flashlight against the wall, and then up above her, but she couldn’t find
anything to hang onto. She switched off the light, and looked down at the valley beneath her. A
brilliant flash of lightning lit up the entire valley, and the sight of the drop below caused her
stomach to turn as she lost her balance. She clung to the rope tightly, trying to steady herself and
regain her composure.
Finally, after getting stable on the wet surface again, she shone the light over to where
she thought her daughter sat. The rain couldn’t strike her directly from beneath the overhang, and
she could see much more clearly now. She called out her daughter’s name, turning the flashlight
on to see under the overhang just as another brilliant flash from behind her lit up the entire side
of the mountain. Heather realized something was wrong as the echoing clash of thunder reached
her ears.
Utter shock and disbelief came over Heather as she recognized what the heap tied to the
harness was. She stood silently for a moment as she looked carefully over the black bag of camp
garbage a few feet beyond her grasp. She looked around, searching for a sign of her daughter, but
couldn’t see her anywhere.
“She isn’t here,” Heather yelled up in a confused and frightened voice. She looked over
the side of the cliff for a sign of the girl at the bottom of the canyon.
“Sure she is,” Margaret answered from above her. Heather looked up and could see
Margaret’s face staring out from the overhang thirty feet above her. Margaret held a length of the
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rope tied to the bag in her hand where Heather could see it. “She’s sitting right there in front of
you,” Margaret continued.
“It’s just a sack of garbage, Margaret,” Heather yelled back, becoming upset in the cold
rain. Margaret remained still, her face expressionless.
“You’re right, what was I thinking?” yelled Margaret in an odd voice. Heather sensed a
new tone in Margaret’s speech, one she had never heard before. The tone frightened Heather.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Whitmore,” Margaret continued. “I get things mixed up sometimes. I
mean, garbage and children, let me see, the garbage is the stuff we throw away because it doesn’t
really matter, right?”
Heather watched with surprise as Margaret tossed a burlap bag filled with rocks off the
side of the cliff with her free hand. The bag was tied to a length of rope which followed behind
on its descent. Heather saw Margaret release her grip on the rope in her other hand and then
realized that the two lengths Margaret had held were segments of the same rope.
The bag dropped down past Heather and jerked the sack of garbage off the ledge beside
her. She watched the two bags in the moonlight as they descended down the cliff and hit the
bottom of the canyon many feet below.
“That’s a pretty good drop to the bottom, huh?” Margaret asked. Her voice sounded
emotionless, but there was a certain fire in her eyes.
“What did you do with my daughter?” Heather yelled up in a frantic voice.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Whitmore, this is a new side of you, and I’m not sure how to respond to
it. I wasn’t sure if you really cared about your children or not. This is between you and me now,
Carol’s nowhere near here. She went on a walk all right, but by herself, she’s out of the picture
now. Oh, she isn’t pregnant either. I told you she was a bright girl. She isn’t in any sort of
trouble. She’s much more sensible than her mother was.”
“Then why did you drag me up here to play your silly little joke? I didn’t find it the least
bit funny. You scared me to death!”
“Oh, I haven’t begun to show you scared yet,” Margaret replied from above, “but we’ll
get to all of that in time. As long as we’re up here, let’s talk about another member of your
family.”
“Whom do you want to talk about?”
“You’re husband,” Margaret answered. “You talk as if he’s the greatest lover in the
world.”
“He’s a great lover, but then that isn’t any of your business, now is it?”
“I didn’t think he was anything to bra
g about.”
“Excuse me?” yelled Heather from below, not believing what she had just heard.
“I got almost no satisfaction from him.”
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“What are you talking about, Margaret?”
“Why didn’t you find a guy with a little more to offer a woman, if you know what I
mean? I would think with all the guys you’ve had during your life, you could have done much
better than that. Why did you settle for such a poor excuse for a man? I bet my dad was a lot
better.”
“Margaret, quit talking nonsense. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m soaking wet
and really tired, and I don’t need to hear more lies on top of this. Now if you’re finished with
your little joke...”
“I’m not lying, Mrs. Whitmore. I’ve witnessed your husband firsthand, and this is no
joke.”
Margaret’s voice still had little emotion, and Heather felt something terrible would
happen. She prided herself on keeping cool under pressure, and knew that she had to keep her
cool now. She felt sure that Margaret was bluffing, and decided to call the bluff for what it was
worth.
“All right, Margaret, I’m beginning to understand now. You want my husband. You think
that by telling me these lies, you’ll make me want to leave him. Well, I’m not buying it at all. My
husband’s always been faithful, his conscience wouldn’t allow him to cheat.”
“Not even a good guess, Heather. I just told you, your husband isn’t anything to brag
about. He’s the last thing of yours that I want. I didn’t do it for myself, really. I wanted you to
understand what a loser he is, but then you probably already know that. I mean you’ve been
having sex with him for years. I don’t even know why I did it now as I look back on things. I
don’t blame you for all your affairs. I’m sure that if he was all I ever got to make love to, I would
look elsewhere also.”
Margaret didn’t know why she said it, but she wanted to test Heather. She knew the only
way to scare Heather, was to show her that she could think in the same manner. The only person
who could get to Heather, was someone just like her, and Margaret wanted to get to Heather. She
wanted Heather angry before she carried her plan through.