Читать книгу Lighting Out - Daniel Duane - Страница 17

Nick pulled khaki shorts over his tan legs and put on a pair of old New Balance running shoes. He took off his polo shirt just long enough to fish out and quickly pull on a white T-shirt—he was never too into people seeing his body. He slammed the tailgate shut and we bounced the truck over potholes and out of the lot. Off to a two-pitch route called Positively Fourth Street to practice lead climbing.

An hour getting organized. Then, absolutely covered with ’biners, stoppers, hexes and Friends, rock shoes on, harness buckled, chalk bag full, I grabbed the edge of a lieback flake, pulled up about six feet, felt my hands starting to sweat, and greased off. I landed hard on my feet and stumbled over backwards into a bush. I lay for a moment with a branch in my mouth trying to breathe, then rolled over so I could stand up with all the gear. I handed Nick the rack, untied from the rope, and said, “Hell with it. Your turn.”

He looked away, shook his head, and said something I couldn’t hear. I didn’t ask him to repeat it, and after a minute of looking into the forest and running his fingers through his hair, he laced up his climbing shoes. It took him a while to get them tight enough on his narrow feet. Up off the ground, he started shoving gear into the crack about every two feet, and I didn’t blame him. Who knew if that stuff would hold. And who wanted to find out.

“You watching me?!” he yelled.

“What do you think? I got you on belay.”

“Watch me!” Was this narcissism or paranoia? I could see veins standing out on his forearms and his left leg was pumping in a spasm as regular as a sewing machine. If he peeled I was going to get yanked.

“Watch me!” He was growling through clenched teeth, his whole body locked in an awkward contortion.

“Dude . . .” I mumbled, getting worried.

“Shut up, shitfucker, I’m there.” Suddenly he pulled higher and stopped.

“Where?”

“The belay. The anchor.” I climbed up quietly, shaking my head. Not feeling too randy.

“What?” he said. “You’re leading the next pitch, aren’t you?” He sounded slightly hysterical.

A corner led fifteen feet up to an overhang, and my hands bled in the crack as I thrashed toward it. Hanging by a hand jammed behind a flake, I could see chalk marks leading left beneath the roof.

“How’s it look?” Nick asked, squinting under his pre-faded blue cap. I’d have to climb to the left underneath a huge block by shoving my hands in a horizontal crack behind it. My feet were melting in my dad’s lousy, too-tight shoes. I scrambled out a little ways under the roof and shoved in a Friend. At first it wouldn’t fit and my arms burned while I fought with it. Then back right to the corner. Panting, shaking out the forearms. Then, back left a little farther, another Friend. If I flew from underneath I risked slamming back into the corner.

Back out, past the first Friend, feet slipping around on the smooth granite, neck crammed up under the roof. Past the second Friend and the backs of my hands were getting slippery with blood. I grabbed the outside lip of the roof and was hanging way over backwards out in space no longer breathing and sweat stinging my eyes. My right hand shot over the roof and slapped onto a huge, solid handhold. One pull and I was over. Shrieking. Laughing while Nick looked about in embarrassment to make sure nobody’d heard me.

“Could do two more pitches,” I said. “Looks casual in the guidebook.”

Nick sat above the roof with me looking down at the ground.

“You sure?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we just rappel down?” We were well above the treetops, and they were tall trees. “Seems kind of late,” he said, “doesn’t it? But on the other hand, I mean, rappelling could take a while. We’re not real good at it.” He took the red bandana off his neck—a ridiculous place for it—and put it in his shorts pocket. I racked up without asking any more questions. He got me on belay and I led off. As I climbed above he looked at his watch. The sun did seem low. For nearly two hours I led up dirt-filled cracks that probably hadn’t been climbed in ten years. Soil fell in my eyes as I reached overhead for handholds. Nick periodically shook out his hair.

“You sure this is a route?” he yelled.

“Absolutely not.”

“Beauty.”

Above a wide ledge covered with loose rocks, I stumbled up a tree-filled gully, but right at nightfall it ran out in a blank wall. Nick followed up and we stood together in the darkness getting nervous. We weren’t really sure what would happen on a cliff at night, hadn’t even thought about it.

“What the hell?” Nick asked, apparently expecting an explanation.

“Be stupid to climb in the dark,” I said. I wished I could see his face. “Don’t you think?”

I looked overhead at the wall, now just a blacker part of the sky, then down below at a tiny pair of car headlights. Probably someone on their way to a steak dinner, maybe a couple with a nice hotel room. Nick leaned against a tree growing from the cliff and looked toward his feet.

“You didn’t bring any pants or thermals?” he asked.

“No. You neither.”

“Nope. We also spaced food and water. And rain gear. And matches.”

“You know anything about hypothermia?”

“Just that you start feeling tired and wonderful right before you die.”

“Guess it’s you and me, then, huh?”

“What?”

“Spoons. You know . . .”

Nick shook his head and peered at his hands in the dark. Then said, “Better to be homosocial than dead, eh?”

“Much.”

After a few minutes of getting used to the idea, he turned around and lay down in the dirt. I pressed my chest against his back, my legs against the backs of his. I felt him shiver. Half-asleep I hallucinated of rescues, of smiling competent men calling to me from a few yards away. A storm—or even a cold snap—would have killed us very quickly. I started awake once, hyperventilating and shaking, and noticed that a huge swath of stars was missing from the sky. Through the tree branches I could make out another amorphous vacant patch over the Cathedral Group. A colder breeze sifted through the still warm valley air and a few leaves rustled.

I pressed myself closer to Nick’s back and felt him shake from his stomach outward. He had wrapped one of the ropes around his upper body and had his cotton cap pulled low down over his ears. The flat tapping sound of light rain brushed across the tree and onto the wall nearby. I heard Nick say something.

“Hm?” I asked.

“I said this is bullshit.”

I could have sworn there was a hint of accusation in his voice. Another patter came harder and a cold drop made it through the leaves onto my arm.

In the shadowless light before dawn I woke up, surprised to find I’d slept. Nick was wide awake and shaking all over. The whole sky was overcast and the cloud cover seemed to be lowering. When I sat up he looked at me for a moment, then asked sheepishly if we could go down now. The first three rappels (sliding down ropes hung from an anchor) to the last ledge—still a hundred feet off the ground—went quickly. We were both surprised by how much technique we’d picked up.

“If the sky dumps on us,” I said, “we’re screwed.”

“You’re right,” Nick responded. “Once again, Dan’s correct.” Nick finally touched down on the ground and hooted up that he was off the rope. My bicep cramped as I pulled the rope into my rappel device. I had to stop for a moment to stretch it out—useless, untrained, collegiate muscles. I was leaning backward off the ledge when I noticed a dark curtain of rain moving down the valley toward us. Just as I swung back under the big overhang the curtain hit and I was soaked and shivering in seconds. The wall instantly became a light waterfall; my feet slipped against the rock and the rope became slick and hard to hang on to. Dirt and water poured over my braking fist and down my limbs. My T-shirt clung cold against my back while a wind blew me to one side.

Then I was down. My feet were on talus and I was shaking in big convulsions. Water squirted out the lace-holes of my suede climbing shoes. Nick helped me get free of the rope then pulled it down from the anchor. I clipped all the scattered gear onto my harness and chest rack while Nick wrapped the ropes in a mess of knots and coils around his shoulders. We ran stiffly through the forest back to the car. Inside, finally warming up, we drove over to Yosemite’s grand Ahwahnee Hotel where Queen Elizabeth once stayed. Feeling a little stupid, we walked under the massive redwood beams of the vaulted hall and past leather couches and cozy fires. Still filthy and freaked out, we stepped into the formal dining room and grabbed a couple of mimosas. Then we loaded green china plates with smoked trout at the all-you-can-eat buffet. At a steam table of eggs Benedict, Nick stopped and looked at me, suddenly exasperated.

“You enjoyed that,” he said.

“I don’t know.”

“There’s something very, very wrong with that.”