Graphic the Valley (27 page)

They came in the room, and one of them said, “Where is he? Is he under the bed? Is he in the bathroom?”

They knocked on the door. Said, “Open this up, now.”

I unlocked it. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

There were two men in suits and one park ranger behind them. One of the men in a suit said, “Do you have a weapon, sir?”

I was in a pair of boxers. I held up my hands. “No,” I said.

I didn’t try to run or fight, and the numbness was above my wrists when they zip-tied my hands behind my back. I couldn’t feel the plastic.

An agent put a badge in my face. “You have the right to remain silent.”

• • •

I sat in my cell. Waiting. Gray walls, a toilet, a sink, a bed, and a small window. There was no one in the cell with me. No one in the cell next to mine.

I asked the clerk as he came down the hall.

“Arson,” he said. “That’s a federal.”

“A federal?” I said.

“Yep. A federal charge.” He turned and continued walking down the hall.

I was alone in the cell all day. I lay back on the bed and looked behind me at the wall. At that angle, I could see, scratched in faint lettering, the names of people who had spent a night there before me. The etchings covered the wall, more than a hundred, and I wondered how many of those names represented the living. I saw the names of five dead climbers I knew, climbers who had died in the park in the past ten years. One who had died in the Karakoram. One in the Himalayas. These stories got back to us in Camp 4, told over the fire while we drank boxed wine or King Cobra Malt Liquor.

I looked for something to scratch my name, but I couldn’t find anything. I didn’t have a pen, a spoon, a rock.

I did push-ups on the floor. Then three-quarter lever pull-ups on the bars, my forearms in line with the steel. Sit-ups on the floor, my bare back collecting the grit. My fingertips still numb, but less so. Then I slept.

• • •

Day two. The FBI agents came in again.

The taller one sat next to me on a wooden chair. The shorter one walked around the cell. I’d seen this on a TV show at the Curry Village buffet once when it was snowing outside and I felt like being underneath a roof. I wondered which agent would hit me with a phone book, but there were no phone books in the room.

“How long have you been living in the Valley?” the shorter one said.

“A long time.”

“About how long, would you say?”

I said, “A long time,” again.

“In the Valley?” he said. He clicked his pen.

I looked over my shoulder. The tall one still didn’t have a phone book. He was leaning against the wall now.

The shorter one repeated the question. He said, “In the Valley?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you know that it is illegal to live in the Valley long-term?”

I said, “Huh?”

He clicked his pen twice. He said, “And you know that it is illegal to live in the Valley long-term?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he said. Then he laughed. “I think you know.” He clicked his pen again. Then he talked about camping laws in the National Park System. The seven-day, fourteen-day, and thirty-day rules. Permits. Tent tags. He said, “So how many days have you been camping?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you won’t say?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

The taller one was writing on a yellow pad behind me. His pen scratched quickly on the paper. He never sat down. He leaned against the wall or paced back and forth while he wrote notes.

The shorter agent said, “Do you know about the Miwok longhouses?”

“The what?” I said.

“The Miwok longhouses.”

I said, “What are those?”

“A new housing and tourism program. Do you know anything about them?”

I said, “I don’t know. Tell me more about them.”

“No,” he said, “I’m asking if
you
know anything about them.”

I said, “I’ve heard that there’s a new housing and tourism program.”

“You have?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “You just told me.”

“Oh,” he said, and his lips came up on his teeth like he wanted to bite me. His teeth were very clean and white. He said, “So it’s going to be like that, huh?” He clicked his pen. “So did you know anything before I told you?”

I said, “Before when?”

He didn’t click his pen. He tapped the table in front of me. “I’m sorry. Maybe you don’t understand what I’m saying to you. Would you like an interpreter, sir?”

He sat back in his chair. His tie looked too tight, as if his neck was constricted. I turned to look at the tall one who stood next to me now, writing. He raised his eyebrows. His tie fit him better. He looked more comfortable.

I said, “Why would I need an interpreter?”

“Well,” the shorter agent said, “let’s try it from this angle. Where’s your social security card? Where’s your driver’s license? What’s your full name? What country were you born in?” He paused. He leaned forward again. “I said, what country were you born in?”

“The United States?”

“Really,” he said. “Do you have a birth certificate? And can you show it to me?”

The taller one was writing faster now on the page just behind my head.

The shorter agent said, “I said, can you show me your birth certificate?”

I still didn’t say anything.

He stood up. Walked to the wall and touched it where the names were scratched in. He said, “You have no rights here. You’re not a citizen here. We might keep you. We might deport you.” He shrugged. “We might let you go. We might let you walk out of here. But it’s up to us. Do you understand?”

• • •

There were no books in the cell but I got the newspaper each day with breakfast. The clerk handed me the
San Francisco Chronicle
and said, “Sorry there’s no TV, man.”

I said, “It’s okay.” I was looking at the free oatmeal and bacon and juice and coffee and newspaper.

I read an article about a well-known actress who had left her husband to sleep with a man who was twenty years younger than her. I read an article about a bond measure that would allow four businessmen to build casinos on private properties near San Francisco. I read an article about the link between the Tamil Tigers and the Chechen rebels, how they both trained and employed suicide bombers, sometimes children and women.

That night, I was sitting on my bed in the cell when the feeling crept through my fingernails to the backs of my knuckles. It felt like caterpillars wriggling on the chrysalis. I tried to do another workout to make it disappear.

Squats and lunges. Shoulder stands. Curls with the metal bed frame.

The numbness lessened and I lay down. Went to sleep a little while after.

• • •

Day three. I scratched my name with my fingernail, chipping the first layer of paint. I used a different fingernail for the second.

McKenzie came to see me.

She said, “I didn’t tell them.”

“No?”

“I didn’t tell them anything,” she said. “I’m not sure how they knew.”

“Knew what?” I said.

She leaned in close to the bars. She said, “About the longhouses.”

“What about the longhouses?”

She said, “They told me you burned them.”

“They did?”

“Yes,” she said. “They told me that the night they arrested you.”

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t say anything more because I didn’t know if they were recording what we were saying. In the TV show that I’d seen at Curry Village, they’d recorded every conversation.

McKenzie said, “There’s going to be more building than I thought.”

“How?” I said. “What do you mean?”

She said, “They’re going to put two Twin Burgers and two Motel 4s in the Valley. One of each at each end. Four total.”

“How’s that possible?”

McKenzie drew the Valley on her hand with her finger. “Motel here at Bridalveil, and Twin Burgers here, north side. Twin Burgers here on the south side, and Motel 4 here, just past Curry. The sponsorship money is in the tens of millions, but Thompson isn’t worried at all. Everything will be double-priced. Their advisers are saying that they’ll recoup in fewer than five years.”

“And this new superintendent?”

McKenzie said, “He loves it. Says we can go from three million visitors a year to five million. New growth model for all of the parks.”

I looked at the paint chipped under my nails. Gray, almost purple. I said, “Now you think it’s wrong?”

“Well, that’s too much. Clearly,” she said. “So I’m driving to Los Angeles today to try and talk to my boss. I’ll see if we can slow everything down. But it doesn’t look good.”

“Slow it down, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t think it can be stopped. But we can slow it down.”

I said. “That’s not good enough, but I guess that’s where we’ll start.”

McKenzie leaned in close again. She said, “One more thing, and this is important: they haven’t charged you.”

“What?” I said.

“They haven’t charged you with anything.”

I said, “I don’t know what that means.”

“With a crime,” she said. “If they don’t charge you, you don’t have rights. No due process. No phone call or lawyer. They might keep you or let you go. They can make you disappear.”

• • •

Day six. I was reading a newspaper story about the homeless population growing in San Francisco. A sheriff’s deputy came to get me. The agents put me in a new room, a room with a table and two wooden chairs on either side. This looked more like the TV show I’d seen.

The shorter agent said, “What would it look like if we were to let you go?”

“What would it look like?” I said.

“I mean,” he said, “have you ever left this Valley?”

“Left this Valley how?”

“Stop that,” he said. “Stop repeating my questions. You understand me perfectly well. Have you ever left this park? This national park? Yosemite?”

“No,” I said, “I haven’t.”

He pulled his pen out of his pocket and clicked it. “No?” he said. He pointed his pen at me and looked me in the eyes. We both looked at each other. Then he said, “You’re telling the truth. I can see that. I know these things.”

The taller one scratched on the paper again. He still didn’t talk.

The shorter one said, “But would you leave the Valley now?”

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

The shorter one said again, “I’ll repeat the question. Would you leave the Valley now?”

I wanted to say yes, but I said, “No, I wouldn’t leave.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. He clicked his pen and put it in his pocket.

• • •

We’re at the campfire eating marshmallows. My father says, “You are a warrior.”

My fingers are sticky with burnt marshmallow. I lick them. I look at my mother. She doesn’t say anything.

My father says, “That’s why I came back, why I reclaimed this Valley.” He fumbles in the marshmallow bag. Pulls out two more.

My mother’s family played tourists in the pines in 1929, blending in, waiting through the Depression, living out of their car. Her father fished three times a day for food, trout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She told me the stories when I was little, and I didn’t forget.

My father puts another marshmallow on my stick. He says, “You’re a warrior, and you’ll protect this place. Right?”

I say, “Yes,” my hands sticky, the roasting stick hanging out over the coals.

• • •

Day eleven. I read about the storm in the paper. Snow on the cliffs, almost to the Valley floor, the Camp 4 climbing ranger worried about teams up on El Cap. He ordered helicopter rescues for everyone who’d filled out a permit.

I knew Kenny hadn’t filled out a permit. I counted back, figured out how many days he’d been up there: thirteen. Maybe he’d decided to retreat early. Hopefully he’d run out of water.

I called down the hall. I said, “Hey. Is somebody there?”

No answer.

I said again, “Is somebody there?”

The unit buzzed, and the clerk came through the door. He said, “Yes?”

I said, “I need to log a missing climber report.”

“A what?”

“I need to log a missing climber report. My friend is up on El Cap.”

The clerk had his hand on the door. It was halfway closed. He said, “On El Cap? You mean the big cliff, El Cap?”

“Yes,” I said. “Up there in the storm, and it’s raging. He probably needs a helicopter rescue.”

The clerk nodded. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll let people know. What’s his name?”

“Kenny Cox. Cox with a C,” I said.

“Got it,” he said, and started to close the door.

“Quickly,” I said.

He put his head back around the door. “What?”

• • •

“Quickly,” I said. “He didn’t file a permit, so nobody knows he’s up there. He’s on Tangerine Trip, and he probably needs a rescue immediately.”

He said, “A tangerine tripped?”

I tried not to be impatient with him. “No, no. On Tangerine Trip. The famous climb. The rock climb. Write it down. Kenny Cox is on Tangerine Trip. He needs a helicopter rescue. He’s probably halfway up at a hanging belay somewhere. He needs help immediately.”

The clerk wrote it all down.

Later, I looked at the cafeteria tray underneath my food in my cell, and wondered if the trays circulated the Valley, if all of the trays went somewhere central to be washed. Maybe Kenny and I had eaten on this tray before, maybe in the Lodge dining hall. I thought of Kenny’s dirty hands on a leftover waffle. His stained down coat. Orange with the one big, red mark.

I couldn’t get the numbness to leave my fingertips that day no matter how many push-ups I did.

• • •

On day twelve, I made my workouts harder. One-handed push-ups. One-legged squats. I waited for the guard to come.

“Did you file the report?” I said.

“About the climber? Yeah, I did,” he said. “I filed it yesterday, right after you told me. They sent it down to Camp 4, to Search and Rescue.”

“Good,” I said. “Thank you. Did you hear anything?”

“About him? No,” he said. “Not yet. But they wrote it all down. I know they took it seriously.”

“Okay, good,” I said.

“No problem,” he said, and walked back down the hall.