Time on the Wire
Authors: Jay Giles
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, places and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual locale, person or event is entirely coincidental.
Time on the Wire
Copyright © 2008 by Jay Giles
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. Printed in the United States of America.
Reagent Press LLC
ISBN 1-57545-181-6
REAGENT PRESS
Other Reagent Press Books
Blindsided by Jay Giles
Time on the Wire by Jay Giles
Wrongly Accused by Tom Schwartz
Fourth Reich Rising by Tom Schwartz
The Pieces of the Puzzle by Robert Stanek
Content
APRIL. MT. XTAPPU, PERU
Water fell from the dark gray sky, exploding with the force of small bombs, stalling three climbers twelve hundred feet below the ancient ruins of Xtappu. Even the tents they’d erected afforded little protection. A constant mist found its way through the canvas, reducing supplies and equipment to a sodden mess.
Inside the larger of the two tents, Miles Marin knelt in several inches of muddy water, tried to get their radio to work to tune in a weather report. “It’s shot,” he said, giving up.
Behind him, Cal Esposita brushed wet hair out of his eyes.
“Waterlogged, probably. Five days of this shit will ruin anything.”
The tent flap opened, allowing a new river of mud and water to flow into the bottom of the tent. Steve Porter stepped in quickly, zipped the flap behind him. Covered in mud, he made his way to the cot, sat, panting from exertion. “It’s like trying to walk up a waterfall,” he said about the trail ahead of them to the ruins. Water ran from his hair, nose, chin. “I quit when I sank up to my knees.”
The three men looked at each other. They’d tried waiting out the rain. That hadn’t worked. The trail up was impassable. Only one alternative was left. “What about the trail down?” Cal asked.
Steve shook his head, sending water droplets flying in all directions. “Not a hell of a lot better.”
“What do you think?” Miles asked. “Wait some more? See if it gets better?”
He never got an answer.
Over the drone of the rain came an angry rumble—a ferocious churning, slithering sound—growing ominously louder.
Steve’s eyes were suddenly big. “It’s a m—”Everything exploded into a blur of motion, mayhem, and mud.
Trapped within the confines of the tent, the men were swept down the mountain at dizzying speed.
Tossed around like a rag doll, Miles curled into a ball, tried to protect his head with his arms. Tumbling, he landed on this back, had the breath knocked out of him. He fought for air, got a mouthful of water. Choking, he took a jarring blow to the side of his head. His whole body went numb. Unable to protect himself, he slammed to the ground, the sudden impact wrenching consciousness away from him.
• • •
He was alive. Gratefully, he gasped in air, took stock of his situation. His head throbbed. His entire body ached. But he didn’t feel that acute pain of broken bones. Miles knew it wasn’t his survival skills that had kept him in one piece, it was fate. Forces far beyond his control.
He blinked. Yes, his eyes were open. He was in total darkness, the only sound his own breathing. He reached out with his hands.
His left hit canvas first. No more than a foot from his body. On his right, he felt wood. He ran his fingers along it. Square. Long.
Possibly, the side pole of a cot. He felt above him. Canvas. Foot-and- a-half over his head. He pushed with his hand. No give. The realization made him shudder. He was buried.
Fighting panic, he got up on his hands and knees, used his back to push against the ceiling. Nothing. He stopped when he heard a faint groan.
“Cal. Steve.” Miles crawled slowly forward. In less than two feet, he bumped into somebody. Felt for a face to find out who, came away with something wet and sticky on his hands. Blood.
Frightened, he backed up quickly, bumped into a pole. This one, when he felt it with this fingers, was metal. One of the tent poles, lodged vertically. Probably saved them from being crushed. Slowly, he straightened up, surprised to find he could stand in a stooped position. He got back down on his knees, tried to find his other friend.
Miles located him curled in a ball on the other side of the cot pole. Now that he’d found them both, he rested for a moment.
Breathing had become difficult. The air quality wasn’t good, and it wasn’t going to get any better. He reached out for the cotpole, found it, pulled off the canvas that remained. Wedging it against the wall with his feet, he pulled on the end with his hands. It snapped, giving him what he wanted—a sharp point.
With his newly created tool, he crawled back to the tent pole.
Stood, as best he could, felt with his finger tips for rips in the canvas.
He found several small tears, before locating a cut at least four inches long. He pushed the cot pole, sharp-end first, through the slit in the canvas and into the mud, driving it as far as he could. The mud was still wet, soft. When he pulled the pole out, he thought he saw a glimmer of light before the hole oozed closed. If it had been light, based on the length of the pole, they were buried under three-to-four feet of mud.
Miles used his hands to rip the canvas, tearing it from top to bottom. He was going to try and create a controlled cave-in. The more he ripped, the more the bulge of mud wanted in. When the slit in the canvas reached bottom, he grabbed hold of one side and pulled hard. That was all it took. Mud hiccupped in the way air bubbles release from a half-empty bottle of soda. Miles listened, woozy from exertion and lack of oxygen. Silence told him the mud had stopped flowing. Darkness told him his plan hadn’t worked.
It was all he could do to push the pole in the mud again. This time, however, it went through easily. The remaining mud couldn’t be more than a foot deep. Summoning his strength, Miles dug, pushed, clawed until he had a hole of daylight. He put his face to the hole, sucked in fresh air. Twenty minutes later, he had a hole big enough to crawl through. Miles eased himself out, took a quick look around, went back for Steve and Cal. He pulled Steve out first. At 140-lbs., he wasn’t too difficult. Cal, at over 200, was a load. Twice, the weight was too much. Cal slipped back down the hole. Miles almost lost him on the third try but somehow managed to keep his grip, working him up and out, inch by inch, a tug at a time.
With Cal out of the hole, Miles lugged him five more feet to an area protected by a rock over cropping where he’d taken Steve. Cal was bleeding from a gash that ran down his hairline from the top of his forehead to his ear. Miles studied the wound but didn’t touch it.
Anything he might use for a bandage was muddy. Better to let it air.
He dropped down next to the two unconscious men, leaned back against the rock wall, closed his eyes. He was exhausted, yet he knew he couldn’t rest long, their situation still precarious. They were at the base of a large cleft in the rock. Debris—broken tree trunks, rocks, brush, their tent—clogged the base of the cleft. Had the tent not lodged there, they would have been swept the rest of the way down the mountain.
Miles blinked his eyes open, stood, studied his surroundings. If he tried to go down, there was a good chance he’d start another mudslide. He sighed, studied the rock walls on either side of the cleft. The only way out was up. Neither face was vertical. One side appeared to be about eighty-five degrees, the other eighty. Both looked about a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in height. A long way to climb without ropes and pins.
Miles wasn’t daunted by the magnitude of the climb. He’d done a good bit of free climbing. Never, however, in these conditions with everything slick from rain and mud. His boots were worn Timberland’s. Comfortable for hiking, not as responsive as he would have liked for climbing.
“Miles,” Steve’s strained voice said from behind him. “I think my ankle’s broken.”
Miles knelt next to him, saw Steve’s hiking boot was bent at a funny angle. “Look,” he said softly. “You guys are in no shape to travel. I’m going to go get help. When Cal wakes up, you let him know. Okay?”
He got a nod before Steve’s eyes closed.
With a renewed sense of urgency, Miles made his decision. The cliff face to his right seemed slightly more vertical, but not as wet.
He began working his way up.
Hand and toeholds were reasonably plentiful, but slippery as all get out. He hadn’t climbed five feet when his right foot slipped off a hold, causing him to slide all the way back down. He started over, gripping harder, conscious he had to force every hold. He gripped as tightly as he could with his fingers, rubbing off skin, breaking back nails. At sixty-feet, with two good footholds, he rested for a minute.
His hands were raw, painful, his knees and chest bloody from scraping them against the rock. He took a deep cleansing breath, blew out, dug his fingers into the next handhold. Slowly, painfully, a hold at a time, he continued to work his way up. At about a hundred and thirty five feet, he was rewarded with a small ledge. At a hundred and sixty feet, he lost a handhold, slid eight feet before his raw fingers clawed into a rock. He held himself there, pressed tightly against the wall, waiting for his heart to slow, his composure to return.
The last twenty feet proved to be the hardest. Handholds disappeared. Miles dug his fingers into little cracks in the rock, hauled himself up by force of will. Each hold was an agony and a triumph. When his hand reached the top, felt flat rock, he almost couldn’t believe it. He put his other hand over, swung a leg around, hauled himself over. He rolled away from the ledge, stood, looked over the edge at what he’d ascended. He felt drained, hurt, yet oddly exhilarated. A favorite quote from Carl Wallenda, of the flying Wallendas, ran through his mind: Time on the wire is living, everything else is waiting.
God, had he been living.