Graphic the Valley (21 page)

Kenny was staring at me. He had a dead mosquito under his left eye. “Wow,” he said. “I’m sorry, man. I’m really sorry.”

We kept walking west on the Loop Road. Kenny said, “Tell me the story, Tenaya. Tell me about her.”

The sun was up now and it was hot. I looked back at the Church Bowl cliffs behind us, their struts of vertical black and gray, water lines in the granite. I began telling the story. From the beginning. From when I first went up into the Tuolumne country at fifteen, to returning to Tuolumne to work the summer before. I didn’t tell about the superintendent, or Carlos, not everything, but I told most of it. I told all about Lucy until the burn.

Kenny listened as we walked the north side road toward the Village, 140, then the Lodge.

• • •

Later, after we ate, Kenny said, “Something I want you to see: my favorite bear.”

“Your favorite bear?” I said. “What’s that?”

“A bear,” Kenny said. “My favorite.”

“So he’s a real bear? Where is he?”

“Not far off 140. He’s always scrambling down from this ledge to pull stuff out of tourist cars. It’s pretty funny to watch, actually. You want to come?”

“No,” I said. “I might go back to the caves for a while.”

Kenny said, “I understand that. Wanting to be alone. I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah, but I’ll try to find you later.”

“Later sounds good.”

I walked back toward Church Bowl and noticed the cirrus clouds disappearing without weather, the scrub jays dipping to steal food messes at the Village. At the Ahwahnee, ground squirrels ran the road lot like they were being chased by dogs. I was watching the movement, walking back up the drive, and a young woman ran toward me in shorts and a bright pink sports bra. She was almost as tall as me, thin and strong, and she ran hard. Passed me. I turned to watch her until she disappeared at the turn.

Carlos was leaning against his patrol car at one of the first Ahwahnee parking spaces. He said, “I was hoping to see you here.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

Carlos said, “I know how you feel. But there’s nothing to be done about that now.”

“Nothing?” I said.

“Not really,” he said. “You could hurt me again. We could go on like that.”

A ground squirrel loped out onto the asphalt, took something from underneath the car, turned and ran. I walked past Carlos, toward the middle of the lot.

“Hey,” he said, “have you thought about what’s going on? Have you thought about everything I told you? The new contracts?”

“No,” I said.

“Everything’s linked, Tenaya. It matters. This could change the Valley forever.”

I stopped and turned around. My father was in a Merced hospital room, no name or information on his chart. No insurance.

Carlos said, “They’re coming into this Valley. And they’ll do whatever they want unless we stop them.” Carlos licked his finger and rubbed something off his front windshield. Then he used his thumbnail to scratch at a dead bug in the corner. He said, “Think about it. And think about what we’re going to do.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a card. “This is my number.”

I took the card.

Carlos opened his driver’s door and got in. He backed out of the parking space and drove away. I saw him arc the vehicle across the yellow lines to make room for the runner girl who was running a sprint back toward me.

She smiled as she passed. I turned and watched her slow to a walk, her hands on her hips. Then she disappeared into the entryway of the hotel.

• • •

Kenny said, “I might be gone a while.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Going to take a big walk. Bigger than before.”

I said, “But to where?”

Kenny said, “I don’t know. Maybe to the coast. Through Tuolumne. Maybe to the summit of Mount Whitney.”

“You might walk to the summit of Mount Whitney?”

“Yeah, can you imagine that? How pretty it’d be?” Kenny closed his eyes and tilted his head back and forth like he was smelling something cooking. He said, “Twenty miles a day on the John Muir Trail. It wouldn’t take that long. Back in three weeks, and really fun.”

“Are you going to do that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think so. Want to come with me?”

• • •

The next morning, I was alone in the Ahwahnee Boulders, climbing traverses and variations. I’d been climbing for an hour when the runner girl walked up. She was wearing black spandex leggings now and a bright red tank top. She looked as athletic as the day before.

She said, “I’ve been watching you climb the last few minutes. Sitting on that boulder over there.” She pointed to the flat rock by the bear boxes. “My name’s McKenzie.”

I jumped off the low side of the boulder. “I’m Tenaya.”

We shook hands. We were under the oaks, and McKenzie squinted against a line of light that came through the branches. She said, “Do you give climbing lessons?”

“No,” I said.

She twisted her lips to the right, making a crinkled W. “But would you make an exception?” she said. “I want to learn to climb.”

I thought about her running the day before, the way her body moved when she sprinted.

She said, “I’d pay you, of course. Say, $200 a day?”

I said, “I don’t really need $200.”

She shook her head. “Two hundred dollars is nothing for private lessons. You could make a lot more if you wanted to.”

I looked at my hands. Picked at the callous of an old flapper on my index finger.

She said, “Or we could just have fun. We could just climb together as if we were friends.”

She didn’t smile. She moved her lips around and made little noises by sucking in her breath.

“Okay,” I said. “But it’s going to be hot this afternoon. Let’s start in the morning, tomorrow, early, when the rock is more sticky.”

“How early?” she said.

“Six-thirty.”

“Okay,” she said. “Six-thirty sounds good. Meet you right here.” She pointed to the ground.

I pointed too. I said, “What’s your shoe size? I can borrow a pair for you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I bought a new pair before I came to Yosemite. I figured I’d pay somebody to teach me once I got here.”

• • •

I borrowed a rope, two harnesses, belay devices, and trad gear from the dirtbag group bins at the caves, and set them next to my sleeping bag before I went to sleep. When I walked down to meet McKenzie the next morning, she was there waiting for me.

She said, “I thought you might not show up.”

“Am I late?” I said.

“No, but I still thought you might not show up.”

We hiked down to the Swan Slabs where I knew I could set up an easy top-rope for her.

I picked up a harness. “We’ll start here, with the gear.”

She stepped close.

I explained harnesses, rope strength, and belay friction. She distracted me with her coconut sun lotion. When I put on her harness, she sucked in her stomach and I felt the hardness of her abdominals as I doubled back the belt loop.

Her face was serious. She said, “What creates a factor two fall?”

“That’s a good question,” I said. I had to think for a moment to come up with multiple scenarios. Then she asked about leads and gear placement. As I explained, she listened and looked right at me. I never had to repeat myself.

I scrambled up a 5.1 gulley to set a top-rope on the nearby 5.7. When the anchor was set, I rappelled down. “Ready to climb?” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Okay then,” I said, “keep straight arms and look at your feet, roll your feet onto holds, keeping your hips in, weight directly over the balls of your feet.”

McKenzie mimicked everything I did, pretending to climb as she acted out my directions. Then I tied her in with a figure eight, locked the biner on my belay device, and pretzeled the tail. She stepped onto the slab and began to climb, and she climbed well, with careful footwork and complete trust in the system.

When she was thirty feet up, I said, “Have you ever climbed before?”

“No,” she said as she moved toward the anchors.

“Are you sure?” I said.

“Yes, I’m sure. Maybe you’re just a good teacher.”

I said, “I’ve barely taught you anything yet.”

After she finished the climb, I lowered her back down. I said, “To be honest, there’s nothing very difficult on this slab. This place is for beginners. Do you want to hike over to the Books?”

She said, “I don’t know what that is, but okay.”

I loosened her harness and slipped it down over her hips. She stepped out of the loops. I coalesced all of our gear and stuffed it into my pack.

• • •

In the afternoon, we climbed Munginella and Selaginella, and McKenzie was as comfortable 400 feet off the ground as she was at 10 feet. I’d never seen someone so fearless.

We were standing on a ledge at the end of a pitch. McKenzie had just climbed up to me. I said, “Doesn’t this scare you?”

“Not really,” she said. “I like this sort of stuff.”

“You climb like you run, straight and fast,” I said. “Is everything this easy for you?”

“No,” she said, “and when I struggle, I really struggle. And I hate it.”

“Do you ever really struggle though? That’s hard to imagine.”

“I do,” she said. “Sometimes. But mostly I get what I want.” She wiped her nose on her shoulder and smiled. She looked up at the next pitch. “Should we keep climbing?”

The next belay anchor was a hanging belay, our feet together on a protruding block, gravity pressing our bodies together.

I re-racked gear, and to get the cams off her harness, I had to reach behind her back. I could hear her breathing next to my ear, smell her coconut skin and her sweat, feel her breasts pressing against my shoulder as I reached around.

She said, “This is really fun.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I like it.”

I adjusted my short-rope in front of me and my forearm brushed her stomach, knocking her off balance. She grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled herself in. I thought of Lucy, and Lucy’s finger.

I said, “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s a small ledge.”

I readied McKenzie’s belay device, our foreheads together. I said, “Ready?”

“Ready.”

I began leading the next pitch. McKenzie paid out rope as I moved, plugging gear, protecting the climb.

• • •

After, when we were hiking down the descent trail, I said, “What do you do for your job?”

“Public relations.”

“Oh,” I said.

She said. “Do you know what that is?”

“Not really. I’ve only read about it in the newspaper.”

“You’re cute,” she said, and bumped into me like a coyote shouldering a pup. She’d insisted on carrying the rope, and she had her thumbs hooked in the backpack straps.

Her nose was sunburned pink on the end. She had a black smear of rope-grime across her forehead. She said, “PR is easy and complicated. I talk to people for a living. When they like what I have to say, it’s an easy job. When they don’t like what I have to say, it’s a difficult job.”

“That makes sense.”

“Right,” she said. “But that also makes it sound like any other job, a good job. But my job’s not a good job.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” she adjusted the backpack straps, “because it’s…I don’t know. It’s a long story.”

I said, “You don’t have to explain.”

“I know I don’t,” she said. “But I sort of want to. Or I would want to if it wasn’t such a really long, complicated story. That’s all. It’d take a while to explain.”

We got to a wide space in the trail, and we stopped. I pulled out my Nalgene bottle. “Want some water?”

“Thank you,” McKenzie said, and drank. She still had that grime mark across her forehead, and I liked that. She said, “Can I buy you a real drink? I’m staying at the Ahwahnee, and they have a lobby bar.”

“Umm…” I said.

“Oh come on,” she said. “You don’t have to play hard to get. Or is it because I’m so dirty?” She held up her hands. They were dark gray from rope-grime.

“No,” I said. “I like that. Dirty’s good.”

“Right, and would you like an even dirtier girl?” McKenzie clicked her tongue.

But before I could say anything, she said, “You could use a beer. Let’s go.”

I put my water bottle back in my pack and we hiked down to the Falls path.

The Ahwahnee was as ridiculous on the inside as it was on the outside. It looked like a billionaire’s log cabin. My father had prohibited me from going inside when I was younger, saying the hotel was haunted by throat-cut Yosemiti.

In the lobby, McKenzie said, “I’ve got to talk to the bartender for a second, then I’ll wash up and meet you back here. Bathrooms are down there.” She pointed.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll go wash my hands.”

I walked down the stone-floored hallway to the restrooms. They were air-conditioned. Clean. The counters were waxed granite.

I peed, then washed my hands, turning the sink black with my hand grit. I ladled water back on the sink’s sides to wash off some of the gray-black smears.

When I came out, McKenzie wasn’t waiting in the hall, so I walked the other way, looking around. This section of the hotel had been rebuilt after the Arches rockslide a couple years back. I’d read about the construction of the new Great Room. The room was a recreation space, the only part of the hotel not built in the 1930s. The new Great Room included a stone-arched roof held up by two side-by-side ponderosa pine pillars, each twenty-four inches in diameter, standing four feet apart. The Great Room circled around these pillars like a meadow.

I walked down the stone steps and into the main portion of the room. All around me were tables, people on laptops and phones, clicking and talking. Two little girls played checkers. A boy drew in a coloring book. And above all of us, a black-and-white photography exhibit chronicled “The First Inhabitants: The Miwoks.”

I walked underneath these pictures all the way around the room, reading captions of basket weaving and flint knapping, two chiefs’ names and a woman grinding acorns. All the pictures were of Yosemiti, not Miwoks.

Standing under a picture of Captain John, a Yosemiti warrior, I read, “The Miwoks hunted game in the Valley for centuries.” But Captain John wasn’t carrying hunting gear. I stood under that picture for a long time and tried not to think about my father in the hospital, my father telling me stories, my father warning me.