Edge of Flight (2 page)

It's not a campsite, really. It's a patch of hard-packed dirt, with a few rocks and weeds sticking out. In the center of the patch, three logs surround a ring of stones. Inside the ring, a pile of charred embers marks a sign of campfires past. The moon, nearly full, floats above a mass of thick gray clouds. Mosquitoes throng around us.

Rusty gets a campfire going by the light of his headlamp. He spears three marshmallows on a stick and roasts them. “Sugar.” He pops the gooey mess into his mouth. “My drug of choice.”

“You're gonna need treatment, boy,” Jeb says. “Rehab. Sucralose injections.”

Rusty grins. “I'm not an addict.” He spears more marshmallows on his stick. “I've got it under control.”

I fish a marshmallow out of the bag and set it to roast over the fire. I hold it steady in that sweet spot where it will turn crispygolden without catching on fire.

Jeb plunks himself down next to me. “You're mighty quiet.” I scootch over to give him some room. Jeb's a footballplayer—the kind of guy whose shoulders take up two seats on a Greyhound bus. “Thinkin' about movin'?” he says.

“Yeah, that and college,” I say.

“You don't sound too keen.”

“No. I guess I'm not.” When I applied, it seemed to make sense to go back to the University of Vermont. That's where most of my high school friends are going. After all, I have only been in Arkansas for a year. I followed my mom on a visiting professorship position at the University of Fayetteville.

Vermont's home, kind of. Mom's a poetry professor. So we moved around a lot while I was growing up. Turns out there aren't a lot of full-time jobs for people whose only skill is picking apart metaphors. So Mom moved from one little New England college to another, always hunting for a better position. I was happy when she got a tenure-track position at the University of Vermont four years ago, and I thought we would finally stay inone place. But last year, my senior year of high school, she decided to take the Fayetteville job. So we moved to Arkansas, of all places.

If I hadn't met Rusty and Jeb, if they hadn't taught me to rock climb, my life this year would have been a total write-off. But I did meet them. And they introduced me to a different way of living. I was just starting to get the hang of climbing. I was just starting to enjoy being out here. And now, I have to move again. I'm not so sure I want to go back.

“What is it you're fixin' to study?” says Jeb.

“General arts,” I say, without enthusiasm. “History. English lit. Philosophy.”

“Sounds practical,” Jeb says sarcastically. He's only ribbing me, but this comment touches a nerve.

I reel in my marshmallow. It is caramel on the outside and nearly liquid in the center. Perfect.

“Okay, smarty,” I say through a mouthful of marshmallow. “What's your plan?”

Jeb shrugs. “Get a job. Pay off my truck. Move out. Get my own place.”

“What about long-term?”

“Save up for a high-def
TV
,” he answers. “Watch lots of sports.”

I slap him on his granite-hard shoulder. “You're pathetic.”

“You should take outdoor ed, Vanisha,” Rusty says from his log on the other side of the campfire. “You'd be good at it.”

The truth is, Rusty's the only one of us who knows what he's doing with his life. He's already started studying to be an ambulance attendant. He jumped right into the summer semester after high school finished in June. He'll be great at it too. Rusty never panics in an emergency. He never seems to have a moment of doubt about anything he's doing. Unlike me.

“I can't take outdoor ed. My mom would never pay for it,” I say. “She doesn't think it's a ‘real' university degree.”

“Whattya mean ‘real'?” says Jeb.

“You know, like history or philosophy. Or science,” I say. I wish I was good at science. Then at least I could be something practical, like a doctor or a veterinarian. “She thinks you're not well-educated unless you have a real university degree.”

“Well, 'scuse my dumb ass for livin',” drawls Jeb, laying on a hillbilly accent.

“I didn't say I agreed with it.”

“But you're going along with it,” says Rusty. “Come on, Vanisha. What do you really want to do with your life?”

I shrug. But the truth is, lately, I've had a crazy idea in my head. I want to do something different. Something adventurous. Something meaningful. I picture myself rappelling out of helicopters and saving people from drowning. I imagine combing the woods for lost children. Or digging out skiers buried alive in avalanches.

But what do I know about that stuff? I was never even interested in the outdoors before I met Jeb and Rusty. And what if I'm no good at it? What if people die on my watch?

Doesn't it make more sense to go to university, like I'm supposed to? Go get my BA and a job in an office somewhere,or in government? Or become a professor like my mother, writing essays about dead poets and publishing them in journals nobody reads?

My mom would admire me if I became a professor. She'd look down on me if I didn't get a real university degree. Besides, I've already been accepted to the University of Vermont. Mom's paid the tuition deposit. School starts in two weeks.

So I hesitate at this crux of my life. I'm afraid to make the move I know I should. Just like I hesitate at the crux of Edge of Flight.

Jeb yawns and goes to pull his mat and sleeping bag out of the truck. He and Rusty bed down on the ground beside the campfire.

But I just sit on the log, stare into the fire and wonder why I can't make a decision that would put my life on a different course.

Jeb wriggles into his sleeping bag. He lays his head at my feet, like a loyal Saint Bernard. He looks up at me. “You can sleep in the back of the truck, if you're a-skeered of the critters,” he says.

“I'm not a-skeered of the critters,” I say. I glance up at the dark clouds. “I just don't want to get rained on.”

I take my sleeping bag and mat from the truck and lie down on the ground next to the guys. I ignore the rustlings in the underbrush, the mosquitoes droning in my ears, the faint sounds of hunters' voices drifting through the dark woods and the thought of bikers with tattoos and leather jackets.

I close my eyes and try to sleep.

I am practicing not wimping out.

chapter four

The next morning, Jeb cooks up a mess of bacon and eggs over the campfire. After breakfast, we pack our gear for a day of climbing. A light drizzle is falling, not much more than a mist. Still, we should get moving before the cliffs are soaked and slippery. But Rusty's a total gear-head. He can't resist showing us the new piece of pro he just bought with his part-time job at the climbing gym.

“Check this out,” says Rusty.

With a metallic clinking, Rusty pulls a massive rack of pro from his backpack. There are dozens of nuts and hexes of all different sizes. But one brand-new piece of equipment stands out. It's a huge camming device—a spring-loaded gizmo with sharp-toothed metal gears at one end and a trigger at the other. The gears on the cam are the size of Jeb's fist, which is as big as a trucker's long-haul coffee mug.

Rusty pulls the trigger, and the gears retract. “You stick it into the crack,” he says. Then he releases the trigger and the gears spring out. “And it grabs ahold.”

“Sweet…” Jeb drools. He reaches out to hold it, like it's a precious gemstone. “We gotta pull Chuck's Crack with this baby.”

“Dude, yeah.”

They sit in silence for a few seconds, soaking up the awesomeness of the cam. Then Rusty says, “Let's climb.”

He reloads the pro into his backpack and sticks his orange hunting cap on his head. I'm already wearing mine. Jeb shoves his into his back pocket. A corner of it sticks out like a flag waving on his butt.

“Good way to protect your brain,” says Rusty sarcastically.

“Listen, boy,” says Jeb. “I'd rather have brain damage than get my weenie shot off.”

We're camping at the top of the escarpment, but we have to get to the bottom to climb it. We set slings around a couple of trees, clip two carabiners to the slings and loop the rope through the 'biners. Now we've got a top rope to rappel down.

On the way down, I hear the gunfire from hunters hidden somewhere amid the woods below. It's cool being this high up, dangling from a rope like a kid on a swing. There's a feeling of freedom—one of the things I like best about climbing. But soon I'm among the trees again, my feet touching the dirt and rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

Once everyone's down, we pull in the rope and walk about a hundred feet to the base of Edge of Flight. When I look up, the cliff face glistens with rain drops. I try out the first handhold. My fingers slip off right away. For a balancy route like this one, it's already too wet to climb.

“Sorry, Vanisha,” says Rusty.

“It's okay,” I say. “Maybe tomorrow.”

I'm disappointed because I've been psyching myself up for this. But deep inside, I also feel a tiny bit relieved.

Maybe I couldn't have pulled the crux. Maybe I would have stalled or fallen. Now, I don't have to test myself. And it's not even my fault for wimping out. It's the weather. No one can control the weather.

I hate my cowardly thoughts, but I can't stop them. Why do I have to be so afraid?

“What do we do now?” asks Rusty.

“Chuck's Crack!” Jeb bellows and probably scares off half the animals in the woods. The hunters are going to love him for that.

Rusty grins. “All right. You leading?”

“You bet,” says Jeb. He's obviously dying to test Rusty's new cam.

We walk about fifty feet along the cliff to the base of Chuck's Crack. Rusty sets his backpack on the ground. He and Jeb start roping in.

The name Chuck's Crack pretty much describes the climb. It's a crack, about five inches wide, that runs upward in a straight, vertical line from the base of the cliff.

Three-quarters of the way up, the crack ends at a rock shelf that sticks out and forms an overhang. The overhang keeps Chuck's Crack dry in drizzly weather like today's. But getting over the rock shelf is the crux of the climb.

Jeb picks up Rusty's new cam, along with some big hexes and wedges. He clips them onto his climbing harness. Then he makes a fist with one of his enormous hands, sticks it into the crack, turns his fist horizontally and pulls back on it. His hand is locked into the crack like a deadbolt. He does the same thing with his other fist, fitting it into the crack above the first one.

“Ready to climb,” he says.

“On belay,” says Rusty.

Jeb locks his elbows, leans back on his straight arms and jumps off the ground. He plants both feet flat against the rock face, one on either side of the crack. “Climbing,” he says.

“Climb on,” says Rusty.

Jeb's climb is a show of pure physical strength. His technique is simple. He takes one fist, shoves it into the crack. Takes the other fist, shoves it into the crack above the first one. Then he leans back on his arms and jumps his feet up the rock face. Fist-fist-jump. Fist-fist-jump. Repeat all the way up. His legs aren't doing much more than keeping him braced against the rock. His arms are doing all the work, pulling all the weight. And Jeb must weigh at least 250 pounds.

“How does he do that?” I ask Rusty.

“Jeb bench-presses three hundred,” he says.

“Right,” I say. “I guess I'll just stick to the balancy stuff.”

“Good plan,” says Rusty.

Jeb keeps going until he reaches the spot below the overhang. “Hey, y'all! Watch this!” he shouts.

He unclips Rusty's new cam from his harness, kisses it, jams it into the crack and clips the rope to it with a carabiner. Rusty keeps a tight hold on the belay. Now comes the crux. Jeb keeps one fiststuck in the crack, reaches over his head and grabs the lip of the overhang with his other hand. “Gimme some slack!” he yells.

Rusty lets out a bit of rope. Jeb takes his other fist out of the crack and circles it around to grab the lip of the overhang. His legs swing out. Now he's hanging from the rock shelf, his feet dangling in midair.

“I got ya, buddy!” Rusty yells.

Jeb curls his arms at the elbows, like he's doing a chin-up. His head comes up to the edge of the overhang. He reaches an arm out and grabs the trunk of a skinny tree growing on top of the rock ledge. Rusty lets out some more slack. Jeb hoists a knee over the ledge and scrambles to the top.

He stands up, hanging on to the tree for safety, and looks down at us.

“CHUUUUCK'S CRAAAACK!” he hollers, pumping his fist in the air.

“Dude! The tree's off-route!” Rusty shouts, like he has to find something to give Jeb a hard time about.

“No it ain't!” Jeb shouts back.

From the overhang, it's only a few more feet to the top of the cliff. But instead of topping out the climb, Jeb edges back to the lip of the overhang. He peers down, then turns to face away from us, like a diver about to attempt a backflip.

“You got me, buddy?” he shouts.

Rusty ratchets the rope in tight. “Got ya!”

“What's he—?” I say. But before I can finish my sentence, Jeb lets out a holler and jumps off the overhang.

“WEEEEE-HAAAAAH!”

From the ledge forty feet above the ground, Jeb flies through the air. He falls down…down…When he reaches the end of the rope, it catches him with a jerk. The force yanks Rusty forward, nearly pulling him off the ground. Jeb swings on the end of the rope toward the rock face. He braces his hands and feet to cushion the impact. He makes contact. Springs back. Swings toward the rock face again. Makes contact again, more softly this time. He ends up dangling from the rope five feet below the overhang, laughing like an idiot.

“What did you do that for, dude?” Rusty shouts.