Climbing High (4 page)

Within seconds of the thought, Fate wrested his decision to speak up from his control. Stretched like spiders they inched their way up a flat granite slab with limited handholds. Two climbers above him, Gretta gave a sharp cry and swung out from one arm and foot, barn-dooring as she searched for a second toehold to take her weight. Sig, above Gretta and to the left, instantly moved downward to help his wife. In his haste, he kicked loose rocks that came down on Ernst directly below.

“Rocks!” Ernst yelled, ducking to the side. He lost one of his toeholds and started swearing like only a frightened Frenchman could. Using the smearing technique to literally press himself up the face by forcing friction from foot to rock, Jake moved up fast to get to Gretta. Siree also crabbed on a diagonal to her friend. Sig reached Gretta first, grabbed her foot and stuck it in a narrow fissure, then wrapped himself over her while she got her free hand back on the rock. The sound of their accelerated breathing cut the still air. Ernst turned a loud sob into a rasping cough.

Siree moved up beside Sig and Gretta. “We have to make that chimney, Gretta. Then you can tuck yourself in and take all the time you want to shake this off. But move now.”

Gretta nodded and lifted her foot to find her next toehold. Sig leaned back and let her climb up out of his arms, then followed her, keeping as close as possible. In five minutes they were all tucked into the chimney. Jake assessed the group. Gretta had scraped her hands raw and an ugly bruise colored her thigh, where a rock had struck, taking her foot out from beneath her in the first place. Shaking, sweating, Ernst took a long slug from his flask to steady his nerves.

“I have to bail,” Gretta spoke into the quiet. “My hands are a mess, and I’m not even sure I have the nerve to get down. I turned into a panic bear on you.”

“No, you were definitely a barn door, flapping about in the wind.” Sig’s rusty laugh signaled his relief. He climbed even with her and wrapped her in his shaking arms.

“We’ll belay you down,” Sig and Jake said at the same time. Gretta looked up at her lead, then down to Jake and took a cleansing breath. “Yes, I can get there with a belay or two.” Her voice shook only slightly. “But there is no need for the rest of you to lose the climb if Sig will take me.”

“Sig’s the best lead around and puts in a pin better than anyone I know. Let’s do what we can for your hands.” Siree turned her back to Jake. Reading her intent, he pulled her First Aid kit from the pocket on her pack. In minutes they had Gretta’s wounds sterilized, and a stretchy dressing protected the worst of her cuts.

It seemed Siree had made her decision to summit. Jake felt a leap of excitement. She fascinated him. Fearless, logical and disciplined, she’d responded instantly and strategically when Gretta needed her, the ideal climbing partner. He felt so closely tuned to her they didn’t need words to communicate. But he wanted words. He wanted to add to what he’d already learned about her.

Ernst looked directly at Jake for the first time. “If you plan to continue with Siree, I’ll take advantage of the belay and make my descent with Sig and Gretta. I can see I’m not up to your level of competence and I’m not only holding you up, but admit I’m losing my nerve.”

Jake had to give the guy points for manning up. They maneuvered within the chimney until he had lead with Siree behind him. He heard the ringing sound as Sig hammered in the first piton.

He climbed with total focus, his mind in the moment. He’d always relished the thrill of risk and there wasn’t anything much riskier than hanging by two fingers with a three thousand foot drop below you. He increased their pace, taking into account Siree’s shorter reach and height. Climbers called a woman who could move on rock with strength and grace a Wallerina. Siree deserved the title.

The sun dropped behind another peak, returning them to the heavy shadows. Soon goose bumps replaced the sweat on their bodies. The steep face offered no resting place to add a layer of clothes. They still had over a hundred metres to climb when a huge overhang blocked their approach to the final face at the top. To transverse the underside and come up over the lip, a climber would have to do the equivalent of dozens of one arm chin-ups, a test for a strong man, difficult for all but the most experienced women. Unwilling to give Siree the benefit of the doubt, he buried the awareness he wasn’t prepared to watch her do it deep in his mind. He’d investigate that aberration later, and meanwhile choose an easier route. To his left and behind them, empty space offered vistas of distant peaks. Unless they backtracked and looked for a secondary route they had only one option. Across two metres of open air, weathering had undercut the cliff, forming a rocky roof much like the one blocking their path. To reach it they would have to deadpoint onto the rounded edge of the roof, swinging across the space on the momentum of one arm and find finger holds before they slid down the metre of curved surface available. From there, a good climber could flip himself up and over the edge onto the top of the roof.

He climbed higher so he could look over and down on the roof and calculate if it’d be wide enough to offer purchase and strong enough to take their weight. He waited till Siree came up to him. Her breathing sounded ragged and sweat beaded her hairline and upper lip. Her skin glowed with it. He wanted to lick it off every inch of her. He’d long since shed his T-shirt for the muscle shirt beneath. Below his hiking shorts rock dust clung to his damp legs. Sweat soaked his chest and back, a danger of another kind as the temperature dropped.

“Tough one.” She assessed the obstacle standing between her and the summit. She looked to each side and behind, then down, to locate a better route. She came to the same conclusion as him.

“Sorry, I’m not strong enough to do the underside of this overhang. It’s either deadpoint over to the adjacent roof or head down without a victory.”

“Your call.” Jake offered her either support to go on or a chance to turn back. No judgment.

Siree settled her foot and hand into a deep crack and rested back on her other haunch against the smooth rock. She assessed her body, felt the lactic acid building in her quads and biceps, the small trembles that indicated muscle fatigue. Yet the summit beckoned.

“Only about one hundred and fifty or so metres left up there, wouldn’t you say?” Her chin now pointed at the last vertical above the roof. “On my own I’d continue, but I respect that if I splat down there somewhere it would affect you.” Her chin poked toward the base. “If you don’t believe I’m up to doing it, I’ll wait here for you.” She looked at him steadily, waiting for his answer.

Jake’s eyebrows arched up in utter amazement. The women he’d climbed with in the past didn’t give a guy a vote, and several times he’d seen climbers put at risk by one who refused to recognize they weren’t up to the job. Siree, it appeared, played fair, knowing any accident would have a lasting effect on him. “That goes both ways,” he said gruffly, his throat aching for some inexplicable reason. “You think I’m up to it?”

Her laugh echoed off the rock cliff opposite. The sweet sound stole the tiredness from his body and sent euphoria soaring through him. “We go then. It’s about a two metre jump, but the curved front of the roof appears quite dimpled, especially if we land right of center. We swing on, we pivot up and over.” His hand moved, tracing the maneuver in the air. “Come up here. Position yourself while I make my pivot. I’ll hang onto the roof and wait for your jump in case you get in trouble.”

Waiting for her to get in position and land would put extra strain on his arms. And losing momentum by hanging still would make his arque onto the roof a lot harder. She didn’t bother to point out the greater risk. He’d made the choice knowing, if she missed her mark, he would have only one chance to catch her. One look into those brilliant blue eyes and she knew nothing she said would stop him from trying to help her if she needed it. She slid her hand into the groove he grasped and levered herself even with him.

He let her rest a few minutes in the upright position. Both of them regulated their breathing. Siree pictured the maneuver over and over in her head, building an imaginative rhythm for her swing. She swallowed thickly when a flash of what could go wrong sizzled across her mind.

“Did you ever hear how I came to name my company, Siree?” His smile challenged and supported her all at once.

“I assumed you used your initials.”

“Nope. Just a coincidence. I must’ve been eleven the first time I got in a really tight spot. I’d climbed up a steep cliff behind our town with a couple of friends. It had rained a few days earlier and we got onto a vertical that gave way and dumped us on our butts on a narrow shelf, with no way up and no way down and no help coming because we hadn’t bothered to tell anyone where we were going. It was coming on dark and looked like more rain so it wasn’t like we could just sit around. One of my friends had twisted his ankle and the other refused to move. I figured nothing would happen if I didn’t make it. A narrow ledge—I’m talking scary narrow here—ran off to the side and below us. If I could get to it, I would be back on firm ground and could find plenty of toeholds to the top. If I didn’t, I’d take a forty foot dive onto serrated rock. I looked at my buddies and knew they depended on me. ‘Jump, damn it,’ I screamed at myself and leapt for that ledge. My chances were slim to none, but I landed and managed to hang on. My friends were rescued.” He chuckled. “I think we were all grounded for a month.”

The warm tenor of his voice held Siree spellbound.

“It was a defining moment in my life. Whenever I got in a tight place again, needed to risk everything to make something happen I’d say those words and do it. JDI. Jump, damn it. They’ve served me well.” He looked steadily into her eyes. “And here we are again.” Back to the wall, he gave her a brilliant smile, let go with his forward hand and feet and swung himself in a wide arc across the expanse of space, dropping toward the roof. He landed, slid lower, found purchase and hung by his fingertips, waiting for her to hit the rock beside him. She knew if she miscalculated, his chance of grabbing her was almost impossible. She moved into position for her jump as he took off. Sweating back to the cold stone, she had only a second to feel relief when he landed. The faster she acted the less risk for him. She took a deep breath, let her right hand go, pushed off with her left toe and launched herself across the space. She landed too far to the left on a narrower, less rounded piece of the bridge, her swinging arc shorter than she’d hoped. Rock grated along her bare legs, then arms as her legs slid into empty space, her hips, her waist, her torso falling, falling. Her hands scrabbled over the smooth surface, her momentum dragging her faster than she could react. Desperately, she sought a fissure, crack, anything to stop her fall. Then her left hand connected with a heuco. Her fingers clamped in a death grip around the raised edge of the small hollow. Her arm jerked as her body fell into empty space, its weight dragging on four slender fingers. She hung below the roof, fighting to get her free hand high enough to gain another hand hold on the ledge and knowing she didn’t have the strength left to lift her weight that high with just one arm. Her breath sawed into the emptiness beneath her.

Jake watched Siree slide off the mountain in horror. When she caught herself at the last possible second, instinct demanded instant action. He swung his right leg up and drove the toe of his soft climbing shoe into a crack. Pain radiated through every bone in his foot. He ignored it. Hanging from his foot and right hand, he stretched to reach her. “Grab hold,” he commanded, silently saluting her courage. No hysterics for Siree. She stayed quiet, keeping her lower body still to minimize the pull on it.

She looked over at him, her eyes almost black in a face drained of blood. The tight seam of her lips held back a scream. She didn’t waste time arguing with him, though they both knew if she didn’t get this right, if he couldn’t hold her weight, she could take him with her. He registered her total determination. She heaved upward a few inches, stretching her right hand to grab his. Flesh met flesh with a resounding whack. Their labored breathing syncopated the silence. Using his anchored leg as a fulcrum, he lifted her weight until he set her hand in another rocky hollow. She clamped onto it like a starving baby at a nipple.

Adrenaline overload helped him tolerate the tearing pain in his groin. “Hang on,” he grunted. Freeing his foot, he swung himself out from the roof and in a high arc that flipped him over the ledge onto his stomach. He scrambled on all fours to the edge and grabbed her hands, pulling her in one smooth movement onto the shelf with him. They lay draped over the curved top like newborn babes set on their mother’s belly. Warmed by the sun, and comforted by its solidity.

****

She lay on her stomach, gasping, a stifled sob punctuating every third breathe. The soft sounds reminded him of how helpless he’d felt watching his mother fight the agony of terminal cancer. He wanted to draw Siree into his arms, comfort her like he’d held his mother. He had an inexplicable urge to wrap himself around Siree just to feel the life flowing through her, but comfort wouldn’t get her off this ledge. If she wanted to climb again
ever,
she’d have to get to the top now.

“Light’s going fast.” He kept his voice neutral. His experience of women told him she’d break down if he showed her the tenderness he felt, and she wouldn’t thank him for it. “Good save.” He patted her shoulder and gave her a slight push, like he would one of his buddies.

She looked up, checked the heavy shadows filling the valley far below then got to her feet, like a hundred-year-old woman. Bent over, she rested her hands on her knees. Then she looked up at the dark forbidding face of granite before them. She straightened. “Let’s get it done,” she rasped.

He had to give it to her. They made the last one hundred and seventy-five metres in record time. When she stepped onto the summit beside him, he felt a greater sense of victory for her than for himself. They both stood panting.

He noted the top of Mont Blanc in the distance. The ultimate peak measured about thirty metres. His research had informed him that in 1960 Henri Giraud had landed a plane on it, the equivalent of a ninety-eight foot long runway.
Now that’s a feat
, he thought, which (1960)brought his attention back to Siree, and her win over Death.