[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
dry gorp down. The haul bag turned Tucker's Famous Amos cookies into fine
powdery crumbs and the sun melted their chocolate, but that was okay, anything
sweet had gotten to be too sweet.
Privately Tucker remained unsure if that was a curse or a blessing.
On the fifth day they crept vertically across a sudden border onto
enamel-white stone. Since the bottom they'd been handling black-and-gray
monzonite speckled
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (111
of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52
Jeff Long - Angels of Light with white. Now, suddenly, the world became a
region of pure whiteness. It lifted their spirits and John talked about the
Carrara marble of Italy he'd once seen. They discussed what it would be like
to climb the dome of St. Peter's, and that led to an anecdote about a wild
Jewish-American climber who'd been shot by Israeli soldiers when he attempted
a spontaneous ascent of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Tucker accepted the
fiction as fact, and John accepted Tucker's acceptance. It was on this day
that they passed within eighty feet of one of Half Dome's already established
routes, the Northwest Direct. Over to the left, they could see a crack and
three pitons, and knew that by penduluming across and following the relatively
simple line up, they could exit from the wall next morning. A staircase made
of cable and wood for tourists led off the rounded back of Half Dome, and
there was a stream of clear water not two minutes from the base of the stairs.
It was tempting, but they stayed true to the Visor, and soon the crack was far
out of reach.
On the sixth day the issue of retreat was raised again. John was "out on the
sharp end," leading out, when he inserted his hand into a perfect, fist-size
bottleneck and a startled fox bat sank its fangs into him. Without really
thinking, already wired with adrenaline from the climbing, John grabbed the
bat by one dry wing and smartly brained it against the wall. Then he stuffed
the feather-light carcass inside his shirt and finished the pitch. An hour
later, after Tucker joined him, they scrutinized the crooked little body and
then, unable to decide if it had been rabid or not, tossed the bat off into
the abyss. No odyssey can be complete without a monster, John reasoned. This
could be his. And besides, they joked, hydrophobia wouldn't be such a hardship
since they had next to no water anyhow.
John knew they were adapting to wall life when he started enjoying more than
an hour of sleep at a time. The biggest ledge they encountered was a
three-inch-wide slat cut into the middle of a pitch where they couldn't really
use it. No ledges meant their nights were longer than real time. No ledges
meant the hammock and the Porta-
ledge. John's was the one-point-suspension hammock, in which sleep ordinarily
comes in delirious, half-hour snatches, no longer. No matter how you rig it, a
hammock will sling you tight against the cold rock all night long,
pressure-bruising your rock-side shoulder and hip. It takes so much wrestling
to get into and out of a climber's hammock that a midnight piss requires more
misery than it relieves. That problem solved itself with John before long; by
Page 95
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
midweek one scanty piss was all either one of them could force out daily
anyway. John adapted. He began to sleep. To dream. One trick to sleeping
better was sleeping less. Each evening, for as long as he could stretch it
out, he sat with Tucker on the Porta-ledge. Not much different from a
two-by-six-foot trampoline, this lightweight platform could be set up in a
matter of minutes to form a springy, comfortable frame for sleeping and
sitting. As night chewed away the final light, the two climbers lounged side
by side on the platform, backs to the wall, both roped into the anchor, feet
dangling over the black void. They
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (112
of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52
Jeff Long - Angels of Light kicked around a lot of things the day's highlights
or mistakes; Snake Lake, greed and poverty; TV and the Himalayas; their lives;
the origins of the universe common wall talk.
"Reno," Tucker broached one evening, his voice a dehydrated croak. The plaque
of stone at their backs had gone the color of gold and lemons from the setting
sun. John passed him their allotted after-dinner pint of water. Tucker sipped
a thimbleful from it, smacked his chalky lips, and passed the bottle back.
That was part of the game, pretending barely anything was plenty. They were
both good at it.
"What about it?" rasped John.
"Reno was okay."
John kept on looking at the thin, magma-bright line of sunlight on the
horizon.
Already stars were chasing on stage. "Thought you said it sucked."
"I mean," said Tucker, driving to the heart of it. "Liz."
"Yeah."
"Too bad Liz doesn't climb. She belongs here."
"Probably not," sighed John. He had scrupulously eliminated any talk of Liz
from his conversations with Tucker. He couldn't get free of her, though.
Tucker missed her, too. He missed the chance to even hear her name.
"She'd like it up here."
"Nah. Too scary up here."
"She's scared down there."
John quit talking. Tucker knew something.
"I saw her." The wall was losing its blush. Not long and John would have to
swing off the Porta-ledge onto one of the ropes and descend to his hammock
underneath. Not yet, though.
"I couldn't find her," said John. "Her cabin's all locked and shuttered up."
"She's in there," said Tucker. "You just got to sit there until after dark.
She comes out."
John scored himself for not trying harder. "How's she doing?"
"I wish we didn't go to the lake." Not well.
"I know."
"She ought to cry and get it over with. But, Liz, you know."
"Yeah."
"I make myself sort of sick sometimes."
"It wasn't our fault." But what did blame have to do with Liz suffering? "You
tell her we were going up here?"
"I told her I wish it was still Reno. She said me too."
Me too, thought John. Damn. "She's scared?"
"They're kicking her out."
"No way." But that had to be the truth of it, John knew. The thought had never
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (113
of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52
Jeff Long - Angels of Light occurred to him before this. But why not? he
Page 96
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
wondered.
"You think?" Tucker asked hopefully.
"What did Liz do? Nothing."
"I said, you want us to stay with you? She said no. She said go on up there.
Touch the moon."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]