The moment seems to hang there. Time seems to stop. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens next.
Don’t do it, Dawn mentally urges the boys, though there’s a part of her that would like nothing more than to see Christian get his face kicked in.
Brandon and Evan study Christian for a beat. Then Brandon looks past the counselor and meets Warden’s eyes, and it’s like he’s waiting to see what Warden thinks they should do.
And the rest of the group turns to look at Warden as well. Don’t do it, Dawn thinks, and now she’s mentally speaking to Warden, too. Please.
The moment stretches.
Brandon and Evan wait.
Then Warden’s head tilts in a slight, barely perceptible shake. No.
And Brandon and Evan stare at Warden like they can’t believe it, but Warden’s expression doesn’t change. Another long moment passes and then Evan shrugs, and Brandon shakes his head, and the spell is broken; the boys turn back to their tents and start packing, and time resumes its normal pace.
And Dawn lets out her breath, which she didn’t even realize she was holding in the first place.
“FIRST OF ALL, NOBODY’S GETTING BUSTED,” Amber tells them all. “Christian and I have discussed what happened just now, and we’re in agreement.”
All eyes turn to Christian, who stands at the edge of the huddle and doesn’t exactly look like he’s in agreement with anything, but from Amber’s tone of voice, it’s clear there will be no negotiations.
“We’re all tired,” Amber continues. “We’ve got a big mountain to climb, literal and metaphorical, and I know that it’s stressing us all out.”
Kyla isn’t looking at Christian. She’s not looking at Christian in the way you don’t look at someone when you want them to know they are the only fucking thing on your mind.
She’s not looking at him, but she knows he’s there. She’s staring up at the mountain, her jaw set and her eyes clear, the tears on her cheeks wiped away, gone.
She looks tough and defiant. She’s not looking at Christian, and it’s a good thing, too, because if she were, he would probably burst into flames.
“Let’s get through today,” Amber is saying. “Together, as a Pack. Let’s lean on our individual strengths and use them to help the team, and let’s climb that mountain and get the hell out of here, and I promise Christian and I will pull some strings and we’ll all have a nice meal and maybe a night indoors for once when we get back to headquarters.”
Christian gives her a look, sharp. Amber cuts him down with one glance.
As for the rest of the Pack, shit, most of what Amber just said is psychological mumbo-jumbo, but getting to sleep inside doesn’t exactly sound bad.
“What do you say, Pack?” Amber asks them. “Can we do this?”
There are halfhearted shrugs and maybe a couple of nods. Amber gives them a wry grin.
“I guess it’s too much to ask for a cheer, huh?”
It’s too much to ask.
“Well, all right, then,” she says. “Let’s send this bitch.”
* * *
There are two routes to the top of the Raven’s Claw that don’t require harnesses and rope and other climbing gear.
“We’re taking the scenic option,” Christian announces, pointing to a ridgeline that runs left from the summit, an undulating spine to the top of the mountain.
“Are you sure?” Amber says, scratching her head. “We’ve never done it that way before. You don’t think we should just stick to the tried and true?”
Christian shakes his head. You can tell he’s just about taken his quota of L’s for the day, and he’s not about to give in easy.
“I was looking in the guidebook,” he says. “The spine is supposed to be the same level of difficulty as the standard route. Anyway, it’s like three hundred meters longer.”
He looks around. “Longer means not as steep,” he tells the Pack. “The other option is we go straight up the gut.” He points to the right of the summit, where a series of rockslides has formed what looks like a sheer, slippery path to the summit.
“You said it yourself, we’re all tired,” Christian tells Amber. “We take the scenic route, we won’t work as hard. Make the summit and get down fast before the weather kicks in.”
Amber studies the mountain, her hands on her hips. You can tell she’s not really into calling an audible at this stage of the game, but at the same time she’s got to be aware she has totally undermined Christian’s authority once already this morning—and the day is young—and she’s got to at least try to present a united front of authority.
So Amber doesn’t say anything.
“What do you guys think?” Christian asks the Pack. “You want to bust your asses up the gut? Or take it easy on the spine?”
There’s a pause and a general murmur of not-wanting-to-answer and definitely-not-wanting-to-be-seen-agreeing-with-Christian, but mostly just shrugs and the occasional nod.
It’s all Christian needs.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, turning left toward the spine. “Let’s go.”
This will turn out to be a BAD IDEA.
AFTER ALL OF THAT CAMPSITE DRAMA, the day truly begins with a steady climb through a moderately steep alpine boulder field. The Pack plans to camp by the tarn again tonight, so they leave most of their belongings at the campsite. Christian and Amber bring daypacks with food and emergency supplies, and everyone in the Pack carries water and a couple of energy bars for snacks.
It’s lighter going, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Dawn is worn out and sweating through her shirt within ten minutes of leaving the campsite. The ground is slippery with loose rock and dewy lichen, and she can’t find her footing and nearly twists her ankle a few times. Besides, her muscles are burning from just hiking to the base of this stupid mountain; she’s not sure she has enough in the tank to make it up to the summit, and it’s starting to scare her.
Lucas and Alex fall in beside her. “Crazy morning, huh?” Lucas says, panting for breath. “Christian’s such a weirdo.”
I guess it’s friends-on again, Dawn thinks. “Did you see what happened?” she asks the boys. “I was peeing.”
“I guess he touched that girl Kyla’s ass, just like she said.” Alex pulls himself over a boulder the size of a fridge. “It could have been an accident, but I don’t really know.”
Lucas helps Dawn over the same boulder. “Nah,” he says. “I see no reason to doubt Kyla; Christian’s done it before.”
“He’s a creep,” Dawn agrees. She cranes her head toward the front of the Pack, high above, where Warden and Brandon and Evan are leading the way, climbing fast and steady with long, powerful strides.
Dawn has to tear herself away from watching how Warden’s muscles ripple through his shirt, the way his triceps flex when he reaches to pull himself, the definition in his calves.
Down, girl.
“I think those guys are sick of it,” she tells Lucas and Alex. “Like, if Amber hadn’t stepped in, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Lucas and Alex follow her eyes to the boys at the front. Lucas frowns. “Those guys are bad news,” he says. “Don’t you think?”
Dawn shrugs. “We’re all bad news, dude,” she replies. “That’s why we’re here.”
Alex laughs. “You guys don’t seem so bad to me,” he says. “All things considered. But that counselor—Christian? He’s fucked.”
Lucas makes to answer. Loses his footing on a patch of loose shale and slips and slides down about five or ten feet, ripping his pants, his palms coming up bloody. “Shit,” he says, the conversation forgotten. “I freaking hate Fart Mountain.”
* * *
When they reach the spine it’s like the sky opens up and they’re standing on top of the world.
“You can almost see the ocean,” A
mber tells them, pointing in a direction that must be west. Dawn follows her gaze, but she can only see mountaintops and vast forest, same as always except more of it, miles and miles of unbroken wilderness.
Some of the mountains have snow on their peaks. The Raven’s Claw doesn’t, not yet. “Not the south face, where we’re climbing,” Amber tells Dawn. “It all melted away in the summer sun. But when we get to the top and you look down on the north side, I’m betting you’ll see snow. That stuff lingers year-round. No sun to fall on it and melt it away.”
At least I’m learning something, Dawn thinks. Who knew kidnap and torture could be so educational?
From their perch on the spine, the campsite down below looks tiny, the tarn barely the size of a postage stamp. And they haven’t even climbed halfway to the summit yet. Ahead, the spine extends northeast, humping and rising along a thin, narrow crest, with sheer drops and gullies falling away on either side.
“Careful with this part,” Christian calls back as he leads them onto the spine. “And if you have to fall off, fall to your right, so we can collect your body at the campsite when we come back tonight.”
He grins back at them. It’s not a nice grin. He motions to the north side of the mountain, where a long, steep glacier zone culminates in another perfect blue lake, a million miles from anywhere.
“You go that way, we’re not coming to save you,” Christian tells them. “That’s helicopter territory, assuming you don’t die outright from the fall.”
The Pack just kind of stares at him, then at each other. Even Brandon and Evan look worried.
“I think I’m afraid of heights,” Dawn tells Lucas.
Lucas nods back, grim. “Yeah,” he says, looking up the narrow spine to the summit. “Me too.”
WHATEVER GUIDEBOOK Christian is reading, it’s more fiction than fact.
They’re halfway up the spine when it starts to get weird. Like the spine kind of, you know, truncates at this fifteen-foot-high wall that they’re going to have to get on top of if they want to keep going, and that’s fine and all, it’s just fifteen feet up, BUT IT’S A THOUSAND FREAKING FEET DOWN IF THEY FALL.
(And if they fall the wrong way, even the rescue helicopters might not be able to retrieve their bodies.)
Terrifying.
Christian stops and kind of scratches his head and pulls out his guidebook. “Aha,” he says. “We’re just supposed to edge around to the north side of this wall. There’s an easy chimney to climb over there.”
The Pack looks at each other. They’re strung out on this narrow spine with nothing but a steep, slippery drop on either side, and this motherfucker is talking about edging out onto the steep, slippery bits to climb up a chimney?
Even Amber looks worried.
“Christian,” she says, “maybe we just call it, huh? Go back and try the normal way up.”
“No time,” Christian says. He’s already edging out onto the top of the steep slope, kicking down rocks that go tumbling and tumbling for what seems like years, toward that pretty blue lake below. “We burned too many hours getting up here,” he says. “If we want to summit this thing, we gotta go this way.”
“So maybe we don’t do it,” Amber replies. “Climb back down, take a rest day, head for home in the morning.”
Christian is unresponsive.
“Chris,” Amber says. “We don’t want to get anyone killed.”
“No one’s going to get killed.” By this time, Christian has disappeared around the side of the wall, and his voice is barely audible over the, oh yeah, the chilly, high-altitude wind that is starting to pick up.
“Look,” he says, “the chimney’s right here. It’s easy. We get over this and it’s smooth sailing, I promise.”
(Spoiler alert: it is not smooth sailing.)
First of all, just getting to the chimney is a nightmare. Dawn keeps slipping on the scree and sending it falling hundreds of feet down that, uh, approximately sixty-five-degree slope. And then the chimney is another form of hell.
It’s steep and narrow and it’s all loose rock that comes off in your hands as soon as you put your weight on it, or another person kicks it down at you as they make the climb, so you’re always either ducking or holding on to something that feels like it’s about half a second from crumbling and sending you falling to your inevitable death. And then there’s the wind, which is still rising, and the fact that if you look down between your legs you can see the rest of the Pack clustered beneath you, waiting for you to get a move on, and beyond them that god-awful slope and the little blue lake far below, and it’s enough to be freaking vertigo-inducing, panic-attack-causing, enough to make Dawn start to hyperventilate and freak out and freeze up on the mountain, which is exactly the kind of place you don’t want to do those things, but all Dawn can think about is how she’ll never see her nana again, and—
“Put your hand here.”
(Huh?)
Dawn snaps back into focus. She’s breathing hard and her whole body is shaking from being so scared. But when she looks up, there’s Warden leaning down from the top of the chimney above her, pointing at a rock just above her head.
It looks solid. Dawn tries it. The rock holds her weight.
“Good,” Warden says. “Now lift your right leg a little higher and there’s a ledge you can sort of stand on.”
Dawn does what he says, slowly, expecting at any second to pull the mountain down on top of her. Her foot finds the ledge. It holds.
“Right hand on that outcrop right there,” Warden says. “Left leg beside your right.”
Dawn hesitates.
“You got this,” Warden tells her. “You’re almost there. Just remember to breathe.”
* * *
Dawn remembers to breathe. She listens to Warden. They climb the chimney together. And when she reaches the top, he’s leaning down with his arm outstretched to pull her up the last couple of feet, and when Dawn gets to the top and out of that fucking chimney, she’s so messed up and so grateful to be alive that she squeals and actually laughs and then she actually kisses Warden, just, like, spontaneous, and it’s like an electric shock goes through her and she pulls back so suddenly she nearly falls back down the chimney—but Warden catches her.
“Whoa,” he says, laughing and holding her steady. “Easy there, killer. We’re not at the top yet.”
He doesn’t exactly look upset that she kissed him, though. Those green eyes are twinkling as he stares back at her, and he looks a little bit flushed himself, a little surprised and excited, and as they stand at the top of the chimney and wait for the others, Dawn wonders if Lucas saw her kiss Warden and if so, what he’s thinking, and then she decides to push the thought from her mind and just really not care.
There’s still a freaking mountain to climb after all.
* * *
The wind gets progressively stronger as they climb toward the summit. Eventually, the spine ends, and the Raven’s Claw widens and steepens to almost vertical, and it’s more chimneys and insane slopes and vertical views.
They take it slow, and Dawn and Warden work together, and Dawn doesn’t have any more freak-outs, and slowly, but surely, they climb that stupid mountain.
And then they get to the ledge.
It’s hard to be sure, from where the Pack is standing, but Dawn guesses they’re only about a hundred feet from the top of the mountain. On the other side of the ledge, she can see where the trail curls up around some loose rock and keeps climbing, steep but not terrible, totally doable. The ledge, though, is going to be a problem.
The ledge is like two feet wide. There’s a wall of rock on the right side, and lots of space on the left. Empty space.
Like, there’s a fifty-foot drop and then just more scree and snow sloping down steeply all the way down the north slope of the Raven’s Claw to that pretty blue lake in the middle of n
owhere, the lake where even the helicopters will have to work hard to find you.
The wind is starting to howl now.
The ledge looks insane.
Christian’s staring from the guidebook to the trail and back again, and you can almost see the words OH SHIT written on his face.
“Sweet,” he says, trying to act like he hasn’t just royally fucked them all over. “We traverse this here and then we’re just about home free. Good work, guys.”
His bullshit is totally transparent.
“I’m not crossing that,” Kyla says, arms crossed. She’s leaning against a slightly less sheer cliff as she takes a drink of water.
“Me either,” Evan says. “This is freaking nuts.”
Brandon nods in agreement.
Dawn looks at Warden, whose face is inscrutable. She looks at Lucas, who appears to be terrified. Alex looks from Christian to Amber like he’s hoping common sense will prevail somehow; only Brielle doesn’t look fazed, but she doesn’t exactly look enthusiastic, either, from where she stands at the back of the Pack.
Amber nudges her way to the front. She surveys the ledge.
“Oh, man,” she says, “I don’t think we can do this, Chris.”
Christian laughs. It sounds forced. “Of course we can,” he says. “It’s like a thirty-foot traverse, max.”
“The drop is like fifty feet,” Lucas says. “Minimum.”
Christian ignores him. He’s looking at Amber, who is staring at the narrow outcrop of rock her partner is proposing to, you know, traverse, and looking sick to her stomach.
(And when the Ambers in your group start to look scared, you know you’re screwed.)
“Well, we can’t turn back,” Christian announces before Amber can say anything. “Those chimneys we climbed? Twice as dangerous going down as up. Best thing we can do is just tough this one out and then go down the easy way.”
The Wild Page 8