by Trevanian
It was another quarter of an hour before they found a slim lip of rock into which they could plant their heels. Jonathan tapped in extra pitons, and they hung there side by side against the ropes, facing outward, squatting on their haunches to rest their legs. Their bodies leaned some twenty degrees away from the face, which itself inclined ten degrees from the vertical. Ben struggled with his pack and produced a loaf of hard-crusted bread and a thick disc of cheese which he had carried along out of Alpine tradition. They ate with slow satisfaction, leaning out against their ropes and looking down at the small knot of thrill-seekers who had gathered near the base of the needle once someone at the lodge had seen men on the face of this seemingly impossible pillar.
"How you feeling, ol' buddy?"
"Just... really great, Ben."
"You're climbing fine. Best I ever seen you climb."
"Yes. I know I am." Jonathan's admiration was frank, as though he stood outside himself. "It might just be a fluke—a coincidence of conditioning and temperament—but if I were on the Eigerwand right now..." His voice trailed off as his imagination overcame each of the Eiger's notorious obstacles.
Ben returned to an old theme. "Why go at all, Jon? What do you want to prove? This is a great climb. Let it go at this."
Jonathan laughed. "You certainly have it in for the Eiger."
"I just have this feeling. That isn't your mountain, ol' buddy. She's knocked you off twice before. Hell's bells! This whole thing is screwy-assed! That fairy down there waiting to shoot you up. Or you waiting to shoot him up. Whichever it is. And all this about checking up on the men you're going to climb with. I don't know what's going on, and I don't think I want to know. But I got a feeling that if you try to take the Eiger while your mind's on these other things, that hill's going to flick you off onto the rocks. And you know that's going to smart some!"
Jonathan leaned out, not caring to talk about these matters. "Look at them down there, Ben. Miniature people. Miniaturized by the Japanese technique of slowly decreasing their intake of courage and individuality until they're only fit to serve on committees and protest air pollution."
"Yeah, they ain't much, are they? They'd sure get their cookies if one of us was to fall off. Give them something to talk about for the better part of the afternoon." Ben waved his arm. "Hi, turds!"
Those below could not hear, and they waved back vigorously and grinned.
"How'd you like a beer, ol' buddy?"
"I'd love one. Why don't you shout down for room service. Of course, the boy would deserve a considerable tip."
"We got beer."
"I hope you're kidding."
"Never. I kid about love and life and overpopulation and atomic bombs and such shit, but I don't ever kid about beer."
Jonathan stared at him with disbelief. "You carried a six-pack of beer up this rock? You're insane, you know that."
"Maybe insane, but not stupid. I didn't carry it. You did. I put it in your pack."
Jonathan contorted his body and grappled a six-pack out of his backpack. "I'll be goddamned! I think I'm going to throw you down on those rubbernecks."
Wait until I finish this beer."
Jonathan ripped the top off a can and sucked at the foam. "It's warm."
"Sorry about that. But I thought you'd balk at carrying ice."
They ate and drank in silence, Jonathan occasionally feeling a ripple of butterflies in his stomach as he looked into the space below him. In all his years of climbing, he had never completely lost the fluttering in the stomach and the tingle in the groin that came over him when he was not concentrating on problems of the face. It was not an unpleasant sensation and one that he associated with the natural way of things on a mountain.
"How far up would you say we are, Ben?"
"About two-thirds in distance. About halfway in time."
Jonathan nodded agreement. They had observed the day before that the last quarter of the climb, where the mushroom top began its outward flange, would be the most difficult. Jonathan was eager to get at it. "Let's push on."
"I haven't finished my beer!" Ben said with genuine offense.
"You've had two."
"I was talking about this third one." He tugged the top off the can and tipped it up until it was empty, swallowing with great gulps, some beer trickling from the corners of his mouth.
The next three hours involved a sequence of tactical problems, one after the other, the last forgotten as the next was met. For Jonathan there was nothing in Creation but himself and the rock—the next move, the quality of the piton, the sweat in his hair. Total freedom purchased at the risk of a fall. The only way to fly, if you happen to be a wingless animal.
The last five feet were rather special.
The weather had worked its erosive will on the fragile flange around the flat top of the needle. The outward angle was thirty degrees, and the rock was rotten and crumbling. Jonathan moved laterally as far as he could, but the rock did not improve and he could find no valid seat for a piton. He traversed back to just above Ben.
"What's going on?" Ben called up.
"Can't find a way up! How did you make it?"
"Oh, guts, skill, determination, talent. That sort of stuff."
"Screw you."
"Hey, look ol' buddy. Don't do nothing hasty. This piton is mostly for show."
"If I go, the beer goes."
"Oh, my."
There was no safe way to make the curling lip. Jonathan swore under his breath as he clung to the face, considering the problem. An improbable solution presented itself.
"Give me some slack," he shouted down.
"Don't do nothing foolish, Jon. We've had a nice climb like it is."
"Ninety-nine percent of the way is called a failure. Give me the goddam slack!"
Crouched under the overhang, facing outward, Jonathan flattened his palms against the rock shelf above him. By maintaining constant pressure between his legs and the heels of his hands, he could ease out, one hand after the other. As the angle of his body increased, the force required to wedge himself in became greater until he could no longer lift a palm from the rock above lest he shoot out into space. He had to skid his hands along, inch by inch, grinding the skin off his palms and moistening the rock with blood. At last, his legs trembling with fatigue, his fingers found the edge of the flange and curled over it. He could not judge the soundness of the lip, and he knew that when he pulled up his knees his body might swing so far out that his hold would be lost.
But he was no longer facing a decision. He could neither return nor hold the stance much longer. His strength was almost gone.
He squeezed until the finger bones were in contact with the rock through the pads of his fingertips. Then he released and tuck-rolled up.
For an instant, only his legs from the hips down were over the flange; the heavier part of his body and his pack began to drag him, head downward, into the void. He scrambled and fought back, slithering on his stomach, without finesse or technique, in a desperate animal battle against gravity.
He lay face down, panting, his mouth ajar and saliva dripping onto the flat hot rock of the top. His heart thudded in his ears painfully, and the palms of his hands stung with the bits of grit embedded in the raw flesh. A slight breeze cooled his hair, matted and thick with sweat. When he could, he sat up and looked around at the barren slab of stone that had been the goal of all this effort. But he felt just fine. He grinned to himself with the elation of victory.
"Hey? Jon?" Ben's voice came from under the lip. "Anytime you're through admiring yourself, you might bring me up with you."
Jonathan passed the line around a small outcropping of rock and held it in a sitting belay as Ben scrambled up over the edge.
They did not talk for ten minutes, weary with their climb and awed by the prospect around them. They were the highest things in the basin. To the west the desert stretched out forever, shimmering and featureless. From one edge of the tabletop they could look down on Ben's lodge,
compressed by distance, its swimming pool a fragment of broken mirror glinting in the sun. Occasional gusts of wind swept the heavy heat off the rock and chilled their sweat-dampened shirts.
They opened the two remaining beers.
"Congratulations, ol' buddy. You bagged yourself another first."
"What do you mean?" Jonathan sipped the tepid froth gratefully.
"I never thought anybody'd climb this needle."
"But you've climbed it yourself."
"Who told you a thing like that?"
"You did."
"You ain't going to get very far in life, listening to known liars like that."
Jonathan was silent for a time.
"All right. Tell me about it, Ben."
"Oh, just this plot of mine that backfired. Some pretty fair country climbers have taken shots at this needle. But it stayed cherry. It's that last little bit that stopped them all. You got to admit that it was a mite hairy. Matter of fact, no sane man would have tried it. Especially with a friend tied on to the other end of the rope."
"I'm sorry, Ben. I didn't think about that."
"You're not the type likely to. Anyway, I figured that if you couldn't make a climb you thought I had made, even with my game foot, you'd think twice about going after the Eiger."
"You're all that set against my going?"
"I am, and that's a fact. I'm scared of it, ol' buddy." Ben sighed and crushed his beer can. "But, like I said, my plot kind of backfired. Now that you've made this climb, I guess nothing in the world's going to keep you away from the Eiger."
"I have no choice, Ben. Everything's tied to the climb. My house. My paintings."
"From what I hear, dead people don't get much kick out of houses and paintings."
"Look. Maybe this will make you feel better about it. If everything goes well, I may not have to make the climb after all. There's a chance that I can finish my business before the climb starts."
Ben shook his head as though he felt something loose inside. "I don't get all this at all. It's too screwy-assed."
Jonathan touched his palms together to test for pain. They were tacky with the thick clear liquid of coagulation, but they did not hurt much. "Let's go back down."
Leaving the pitons for future climbers, and rappelling in great descending swoops, they reached the flat land in forty minutes, which seemed somehow unfair after the grueling six hours of the climb.
Immediately, they were surrounded by a throng of backslappers and congratulators who offered to buy drinks and gave suggestions on how they would have made the climb, if they had been climbers. Ben, one arm around each of two cute young things, led the crowd back to the lodge; and Jonathan, suddenly drained and leaden, now that nervous energy no longer sustained him, trudged along behind the convivial parade. He had been surprised to see Miles Mellough standing apart from the welcoming group, aloof and cool in a sky blue suit of raw silk, his well-combed Pomeranian squirming and whining in his arms. Miles fell in step with him.
"An impressive display. Do you know, Jonathan, that in all the time we were friends, I never saw you climb? It's rather graceful, in its way."
Jonathan walked on without answering.
"That last little part there was particularly tingling. It sent little thrills down my spine. But you made it after all. What's the matter? You seem rather done in."
"Don't count on it."
"Oh, I don't underrate you." He shifted the jittery dog from one arm to the other, and Jonathan noticed that it wore around its neck a ribbon of the same blue silk as Miles's suit. "It is you who insist on underrating me."
"Where's your boy?"
"Back in his room. Moping, I suspect. And looking forward to his next encounter with you."
"There better not be one. He's dog meat if I see him again on my side of the street."
Miles snuggled his nose into Faggot's fur and purred, "You mustn't take offense, little boy. Dr. Hemlock wasn't talking about you. He was using one of the little vulgarisms of his profession."
The dog whimpered and licked vigorously at Miles's nostrils.
"I hope you've reconsidered, Jonathan." The flat professionalism of Miles's tone contrasted sharply with the cooing purr he had used to the dog. Jonathan wondered how many men had been lulled into a lethal sense of security by Miles's feminine facade.
He stopped and turned to face Miles. "I don't think we have anything to talk about."
Miles adjusted his stance, putting the weight on one foot and pointing the toe of the other out in a relaxed variant of the fourth position in ballet, the better to show the line of his suit. "As a climber, Jonathan, your sense of brinksmanship is well developed. You're telling me now that you're willing to face an unknown target, rather than make your peace with me. All right. Allow me to raise the ante a little. Suppose I contact the target and identify you. That would put him in the shadow and you in the light. How would that feel? An interesting reversal of the normal pattern, isn't it?"
Jonathan had considered this uncomfortable possibility. "You don't have as good a bet as you think, Miles. Search is working on the identity of the man."
Mellough laughed richly. The sound startled Faggot. "That is lovely, Jonathan! You're willing to bet your life on the efficiency of CII? Does your barber perform operations on you?"
"How do I know you haven't already contacted the target?"
"And played away my last trump? Really, Jonathan!" He burrowed his nose into Faggot's fur and playfully nipped at his back.
Jonathan walked away toward the lodge.
Miles called after him. "You don't leave me much choice, Jonathan!" Then he nuzzled against Faggot's ear. "Your daddy doesn't have any choice, does he. He'll just have to tell on Dr. Hemlock." He looked after the retreating figure. "Or kill him."
Ben was grumpy and incommunicative throughout supper, but he manfully put away quantities of food and beer. Jonathan made no attempts at conversation, and often his attention strayed from the food and focused on an indeterminate point in space. At length he spoke without breaking his vacant stare. "Anything from your switchboard operator?"
Ben shook his head. "Neither of them has tried to call out, if that's what you mean. No telegrams. Nothing."
Jonathan nodded. "Good. Whatever you do, Ben, don't let them make contact with the outside."
"I'd sure give my front seat in hell to know what's going on around here."
Jonathan looked at him for a long moment, then asked, "Can I borrow your Land-Rover tomorrow?"
"Sure. Where you going?"
Jonathan ignored the question. "Do me a favor, will you? Have one of your people fill it up and put two extra jerry cans of gas and one of water in the back."
"This has something to do with this Mellough character?"
"Yes."
Ben was moodily silent for a time. "All right, Jon. Whatever you need."
"Thanks."
"You don't have to thank me for helping you put your ass in a sling."
"You know that shotgun we talked about yesterday? Will you load it and have it put in the Rover too?"
"Whatever you say." Ben's voice was grim.
Unable to sleep, Jonathan sat up in bed late into the night, working turgidly on the Lautrec article that had been the sponge of his free time for almost a month. George's scratching knock presented an excuse to abandon the arid labor. As usual, she was wearing jeans and a denim shirt, its collar turned up under her long black hair, the three top buttons undone, and her unbound breasts tugging the shirt up from the jeans in taut folds.
"How are you this evening, George?"
She sat on the edge of^ his bed and regarded him blandly with her large, dark eyes.
"Did you watch Ben and me make that climb today? Wasn't that something?" He paused, then responded for her. "Yes, that was something."
She slipped off her shoes then stood to unbutton and unzip her jeans with the brisk movements of a person with business to attend to.
"It looks as though I'll
be leaving tomorrow or the day after. In some ways, George, I'll miss you."
With a clapper action of her bottom, she forced the jeans over her hips.
"No one can say that you've cluttered up our relationship with sticky sentiment or unnecessary chatter, and I appreciate that."
She stood for a second, the tails of her shirt brushing her olive thighs, then she began unbuttoning it, her placid eyes never leaving his.
"I have an idea, George. Why don't we give up this banal chatter and make love?" He barely had time to get his notes off the bed and turn off the light before she was tangled up amongst his limbs.
He lay on his stomach, his arms thrown limply across the bed, every muscle liquid with relaxation as George trickled her fingers from the small of his back to the nape of his neck. He hovered on the rim of sleep as long as he could, trying not to anticipate the eddies of thrill her fingernails churned up as they slid with barely perceptible contact around his waist, up his sides, and outward along his upper arms. By way of thanks, he hummed a couple of times with contentment, although he would rather not have put forth the effort.
She stopped stroking him, and he began to slip over the edge of consciousness.
"Ouch!"
He felt something like a wasp sting in his shoulder. George leaped out of bed and cowered in the darkest corner of the room. He fumbled the light on and looked around, squinting against the sudden glare. Quite nude, George pressed into her corner, the hypodermic needle still in her hands, both thumbs against the plunger and the point directed at him, as though it were a gun she could protect herself with.
"You little bitch." Jonathan, also nude, advanced on her.
Fear and hate flickering in her eyes, she made a lunge at him with the needle, and with one broad backhand blow he reeled her along the wall and into the opposite corner, where she crouched like a treed cougar, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth and one nostril, her lips drawn back in a frozen snarl that revealed her lower teeth. He was moving in to expand on her punishment when the buzzing in his ears settled toward his stomach and made him stagger. He turned back toward the door, now an undulating trapezoid, but he realized he would never make it. He stumbled toward the phone. His knees buckled under him, and he went down, knocking over the bedside table and plunging the room into darkness as the lamp burst with a loud implosion. The buzzing pulsed louder and in tempo with the dancing bursts of light behind his eyes.