by Paul Yoder
Cavok slung down to the nice-sized ledge that the rest had all started their climb on, easily passing it by, going to the crack, using the same back-and-forth method of down climbing that Fin had used to walk down to where everyone now stood, the sloped edge starting to get uncomfortably crowded with the addition of Cavok’s large frame.
The rest of the group attempted to gingerly spread out to give Cavok some room to stand on the slope, Reza going ridged as she attempted to plant her heels in the shifting dirt, her footing slowly giving way, promising to slough her off the angled cliff edge within a few feet.
A large hand snatched Reza by the scruff of her shirt, Cavok acting as an anchor, the group watching as dislodged rocks continued to slide along the path Reza had been on towards the cliff’s edge, rolling off out of their sight. The only sound was that of trickling sand being carried up in the wind as it was whipped back up to the slope’s edge. The group listened as the rocks a few seconds later exploded hundreds of feet below them.
The whipping sand flow died down and the group stood still as their attention turned from the grim close call to the odd image of Jadu and a displeased looking Zaren dropping quickly past them, seeming to be falling slightly slower than they should, but not by much.
The group on the ledge could make out Jadu saying, as he zipped past them, “Let me try that again,” the two then disappearing out of their sight a moment later.
Reza, along with the rest of the group on the ledge, held perfectly still, listening for word from the two oddball couple, hoping to not hear the same explosive ending as they had with the rocks a moment earlier.
Gut-churning moments passed by, and after a few seconds of supreme stillness, they could just make out a tiny voice loudly exclaim, “Told you, I always get it right on the second try!”
Everyone letting out a collective sigh of relief, Cavok began looking around for the rock chimney Fin had mentioned earlier.
“Thought that was our best route, Fin?” Cavok asked, Fin turning to consider the section of wall.
“Yeah, it goes down maybe twenty feet before it lets out to more cliff. There seemed to be enough cracks and spires that we’d be able to anchor the cord at the end of the chimney, which should give us enough length from the cord to descend most of the sheer wall before touching down on the next ledge.”
Cavok pulled the cord from around his waist, looping it up once more, checking to make sure everything was in order for him to utilize it while under pressure on the wall.
Setting an anchor while climbing was no small feat, even for him, and he took two deep breaths before starting down the slope to the right to start the climb, calling back as he began testing his footing along the rock pillar opposing him, “I’ll call up when it’s safe to start climbing down.”
Bracing his back along one side of the large break in the rock, feet holding him up while he pressed against the other side of the rock slab, Cavok began sliding down the gash in the mountain face easily, disappearing from the view of the rest of the group, switching sides as the chimney became more pocketed on the other side the further down he traveled.
Switching off to just one side of the wall as the gap widened, Cavok unlooped the cord from around him and looked for a good place to anchor it.
Looking around, poking at holes and protruding rocks in the cliffside, Cavok let out a frustrated sigh, hanging on to the rock face which, just below him, let out over a seventy foot drop before hitting a ledge over a steep hundred foot slope to the canyon floor.
The tip of the cord was clipped into a loop which fastened to a steel ring. The best he could see to do with what the cliff face offered him was to wedge the ring into a crack in the wall. It wasn’t how he preferred to anchor the cord, but it was all he was seeing available to him at the moment.
Finding the best slot within his grasp to wedge the ring into, Cavok slipped the end of the cord into the crack, fidgeting with it for a moment before it wedged into place, not giving any as he tugged the cord downwards.
Working with it a bit more, tentatively putting his whole weight on it once for good measure, Cavok called up the chimney.
“Alright, come on down!”
Hearing some scrambling up top, figuring that the group was getting ready to send someone down, Cavok carefully put his weight on the line, slipping down over the edge of the overhanging rock channel.
The overhang left him a few feet from the rockface, leaving him hanging in midair over a huge drop to the bottom of the climb, causing him to be hyperaware of the thin braided-steel cord he hung his full weight on.
Reaching up to the rock roof of the overhanging slab by his head, he sought for a place to hang on to, wanting to get back onto the wall, trusting his own hold on the wall much more than he trusted the thin cable.
He knew that since the cable had supported his weight so far, it was more than stable for the rest of the lightweights in the group soon to follow, but even still, depending on the cable put him on edge.
Him and his brother had never used rope or other climbing gear for a number of reasons, but among those reasons was that they didn’t trust their lives to the sturdiness of a single device. They much preferred to place their trust in their own skill and strength.
“There you are,” he said, smiling as he spotted a huge cavity in the side of the rock just below the roof of the overhang. The lip of the cavity would provide for a nice hold to hang and rest out on, which came as a relief since the cord now cut into his fingers naggingly so.
The hole was just out of reach, even for his long arm span. He looked up to the tip of the cord, knowing he was going to have to swing lightly on the cord to get over to the wall.
Pushing off of the roof gently, swinging his legs to get the momentum he needed to rock himself back, he swung on the cord once, building up enough movement to get himself close to the rock lip he was shooting for.
Swinging out one more time from the wall, a sudden jolt in the cord set his nerves firing, his mind for a split second in shock, thinking the cord had given out on him, but after a moment longer, the cord swinging him back to the rock wall, Cavok knew it hadn’t, but his wavering faith on the line had been completely depleted with the sudden, inexplicable slack in the line.
Swinging in, his momentum bringing him within reach of the hold he was going for, the line completely gave out, dropping him, forcing him to leverage every bit of forward momentum he had built up to thrust him to the hole in the rock that held his last chance at recovering from a fall that could easily kill him.
Every nerve in his body was screaming—every muscle exploding beyond normal functioning limits. The moment passed in a blur as his hand slapped against stone.
34
Trust and Sacrifice
Thrusting three fingers into the hole, slapping over the lip of the large pocket in the rock, Cavok clenched his fingers over the slope of the lip, locking his thumb over for support as his body rebounded off the rock face, luckily—very luckily he knew—sticking onto the wall after the initial slam and jostle of the impact, his vise-like grip holding steady through the tumult.
Gasping for air, wide-eyed looking down over the vast expanse that he had just barely managed to avoid falling to, he took his free hand and wiped massive beads of sweat that had formed over his brow from the intensive movement and stressful few seconds.
Readjusting his weight, getting a more secure hold from the pocket hold, he looked down, seeing the cord finally touching down at the bottom of the climb, also seeing a worried Jadu and Zaren looking up, spectating the almost disastrous moment on the rock wall.
Looking down below him, Cavok started to look for a route the rest of the way down, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to hang on to his spot on the wall forever. Luckily, it seemed like the rock face was very diverse, with rock formations leading all the way to the next ledge.
The climb down he wasn’t worried about now, but the rest of the group now would
have to make the climb with him, and on top of that, they also needed to traverse a difficult overhang.
Cavok knew that normally, just the prospect and sight of an overhang feature in a climb was usually enough to demoralize novice climbers and put expert climbers on edge. The very strange sensation of hanging over nothing was the hallmark and pinnacle of the most difficult technical features of climbing.
Cavok would have just talked the group through what they needed to do to traverse the juncture, but as he already knew from attempting that earlier, he saw nothing along the roof that offered much option for safely making it to the handhold he now latched onto.
“Cavok, where’s the rope?” Reza called out from just above the overhang, a bit of concern discernable in her voice.
Looking around frantically for options to scream out to him, Cavok took a deep breath, steadying himself, thinking through briefly their only options.
He could tell Reza to attempt to climb back up the way she had come, a feat that wouldn’t be very doable, he knew from the last ten feet of the chimney being the most difficult to not just downclimb, but would be that much harder to climb back up. If she did happen to make it back up to the ledge, the rest of the group would have to reclimb the hundred feet of wall to make it back to the top of the canyon’s rim. If he had to guess, judging on everyone’s performance thus far, Fin would be the only one he’d bet on to make it, with risky odds placed on an injured Nomad—but he knew Reza stood little to no chance at successfully rescaling the route, knowing her skill on a wall to be little better than a novice.
The other option they had was to continue down the wall. This was the crux of the climb, the most dangerous, technical, and difficult part of what the wall would be asking of them. If he could assist Reza and the rest past this point, they could more than likely handle the rest of the climb without issue. He just needed to figure out how to get them all past that barren gap separating them from where he clung, latched to the wall some six feet away.
“Cavok! You down there?” Reza said, notably more worried now.
Deciding what he was going to have Reza do, a solution coming to him, he called up in a sure tone.
“I’m here, come on down over the lip. Don’t worry, I’ve got you from there.”
He listened—stillness answering him back as he knew Reza worriedly considered what Cavok was asking her to do. There was no rope where there should have been, and now Cavok was asking her to let herself down over a complete drop off—suspended over thin air. He was asking her to trust him wholly that he did indeed, have her from there.
“Reza. Trust me,” Cavok called up, an underlying calming cadence clearly coming through to Reza up above, neither being able to see each other, but understanding one another through tone better than if they had been face to face.
Cavok could hear shuffling up above, then two legs hung over the cliff’s edge, lowering the rest of her body over until she hung freely over the edge of the cliff, for the first time assessing the situation she was presented with, her limbs going close to numb with fear, a terrible sinking feeling in her loins, the feeling of terror sinking down through her core, to her pelvis, giving a look of incredulity, and then of fear, to Cavok.
He knew she felt as though he had just betrayed her and sentenced her to death, but if he didn’t get her to move fast, the chances of her falling would rapidly become more a likelihood, knowing her muscles weren’t trained for the wall and would give out much, much quicker than his, seeing that the pang of fear already was sapping her of her courage and energy.
“That hold you have is solid,” Cavok started, trying to inspire a bit of confidence in her as he continued. “You need to swing on that hold. Swing to me. It’s only a few feet. I’m here. You jump to me and I’ve got you. I’m ready for you.”
Reza, turning her gaze from Cavok to below her, revealing a hundred and seventy foot space between her and the canyon floor below, froze up, looking up the way she had climbed down, considering if she would be capable of rising up to the necessary challenge of reclimbing the route she had been led down.
“Nope,” Cavok forcefully said. “You can do this. We’re here already. You have to make this jump. Don’t look down. Clear your mind. Focus on this one move. Think only of this leap. Focus. I have you—trust me.”
“Bastard,” Reza spat out at Cavok while making a nervous attempt to reposition her sweaty palms on the rock ledge she clung to.
A tremble in her left arm showing, she eyed Cavok again, knowing now that there was no other option. She didn’t have the strength to pull herself back up over the ledge. She had to do as Cavok commanded—focus, leap, and trust that he would catch her. That was the only choice she had now.
Rocking her body forward, then back, once, twice, she decided that on her third lunge, she was going to launch herself at Cavok, who clung to the wall with one arm, leaning as far out as he could, ready to catch her.
Letting slip the ledged section of rock that she held to, sand sprinkling down from the cracks in the rock above, Reza shot forward, her trajectory quickly sagging, gravity pulling her down, out of reach of Cavok’s outstretched hand.
Lunging out his arm, a distance that she didn’t know Cavok was capable of, his hand gripped her wrist crushingly so, swinging the both of them up against the rock wall, crashing hard, but with Cavok still holding to both the wall and to Reza, a desperate gasp for air issuing from her once she realized she wasn’t falling any longer.
“Told ya,” Cavok smiled, hefting Reza up to cling to the wall alongside him, “I’ll always have you.”
Reza laughed in nervous relief. Cavok knew he was probably going to get a wicked earful from Reza later about tricking her into the difficult situation, but for now at least, she was alive, and that’s all that mattered to the both of them.
“Rest a bit with me here and regain your strength for the rest of the climb. Looks simple enough. Think you can handle it. Soon as Fin or Nomad gets here though, you’ll have to be on your way. I’m going to need to do the same for them.”
Reza nodded her head, catching her breath while inspecting what was still below her to downscale. Spending a few moments to confirm that the climb below did seem a lot more manageable than previous wall sections, she looked back to Cavok with a smile.
“Thanks for catching me.”
Never had Cavok heard a more sincere, simple statement before from Reza, and he could only think to respond with, “Next time you can catch me—deal?”
Reza let out a tension-relieving laugh, watching below for the first time to notice that they had an audience, Jadu and Zaren, watching them from a couple hundred feet below them along the canyon floor, who Reza could barely make out,
“I think Jadu and Zaren are pointing above us. What do you think, Cavok?”
Squinting down below, Cavok nodded in agreement just as Fin called out up, over the overhang, “Cavok—Reza,”
“That’s your cue,” Cavok said to Reza, calling out loudly to Fin, “Yeah, I’m here, Reza’s on her way down now. You need to come down off the overhang’s lip. I’ll fill you in with the rest once you’re there.”
Reza, shaking out the tension in her forearms, started to climb down to the first clear line of foot and hand holds, leaving Cavok up under the lip of the overhang alone again.
The two could faintly hear Fin mumble, “Fill me in with the rest as I dangle in midair? He’s gonna hear it from me once we’re down off this rock, that’s for sure.”
“Reza,” Cavok called as he waited for Fin to make his way over the lip of the overhang.
“Make sure if you start getting fatigued and need a break to stop sooner than later to do that. Never know when you’ll find a good hold to shake out on.”
“Got it,” Reza called up as Fin popped down from the ledge, hanging on the same lip that Reza had clung to for dear life.
Looking down, seeing that Reza was safe and climbing down a well-featured route, F
in looked over at Cavok and said, “Well, you’re a good six feet away from me and I don’t see a nice way to get to where you’re at. What’s the plan, and more importantly, what did you do with my cord!”
“Your cord was garbage. Almost cost me my life,” Cavok stated, moving on to answer Fin’s first question.
“You’re going to swing and jump to me and I’m going to catch you.”
“That’s the plan?” Fin asked, a bit uneasy.
“That’s the plan,” Cavok said evenly.
“Alright…” Fin murmured, pointing a demanding finger at Cavok and adding, “Better catch me.”
“Better jump far enough,” Cavok shot back, leaning out, getting into position, reserving his stretch slightly to force Fin, just as he had done with Reza, to jump further than they thought they would need to so that he could make up the difference if he needed to.
“Here we go,” Fin grunted as he started to swing his body forward and back, a bit of grit pouring down from above as he swung.
Leaping forward, letting go of the ledge, Fin launched forward with such force that he practically slammed right into Cavok’s mass, clinging to the man with all his limbs, so wrapped up around him that Cavok didn’t even need to hold on to the cat-like object that clung around his chest and legs.
Gripping Fin by the scruff of his clothes, Cavok lifted him from around him and placed the man on the wall, saying with a smile, “Here you go, little one. Your own spot on the wall.”
Now clinging to the wall, his breathing noticeably heavy, Fin gave Cavok a glare before starting to climb down, mumbling under his breath, “Don’t you call me little one or you’ll be drinking alone for the next month….”
Giving him a few moments to vent, Cavok called down after Fin managed ten or so feet of cliff, “Hey Fin. How soon do you think Nomad will be along? My arms are starting to get a little pumped.”
Showing the slightest concern for his friend’s tough role of having to stay on the wall longer than all of them and taking into his own hands the personal safety of each of them, Fin obliged Cavok with a reply.