The Wall (27 page)

With more than half the rope still left to climb, she’d stopped here for some reason. High beyond her shoulder, Augustine stood perched at the crack, looking up. Was she waiting to welcome Hugh? Or simply making sure he wouldn’t leave her.

“Here I am,” he said.

The water spun him in a circle. He tilted back to smile at her. It was just another few feet before he cleared the overhang and gained solid stone.

The rope kept twisting. Her face revolved. She became the blinding sun, then the water, then a woman again. Her head was cocked. She was studying him almost, making up her mind.

Her hair draped down, and for a moment the black mane lit bright with color, red going on blond. He blinked at the water spray and sunshine. Her hair returned to black, cowling her face from view. He tried to see inside its shadows.

The sun cut at him. The water. Her hair flickered like fire, dark to light. Strawberry blond.
Annie?
He swiped at his face. “Cuba?”

He spun toward the sun, and it blinded him. He craned back to see overhead, and the water whipped his eyes. He twisted in space, fighting the gyre, clamoring to see.

Why didn’t she answer? She crouched there, quiet as Annie in the end. Just watching him. Waiting with that infinite, mindless patience. Each time he’d looked back, she was watching him, waiting to be led out from the dunes.

The first night he’d circled back to her. The moon had been full, the air chilly. He lay on top of a dune and looked down at her curled in the sand. He didn’t descend. Her hair looked black, her skin silver. She hadn’t moved all day. Their footprints tracked in. They led out. But without him, she was lost.

He left her no water. It was a mercy, of sorts. Why drag out her suffering?

She had no idea he fell asleep on the hill above her. When he woke at dawn, she was standing, facing the sun. Again he left her, and went to his cache of water.

The second night he peered over the dune again, and she had crumpled to the sand. At first, he thought it was over, but she began singing. He lay on his back and watched the moon roll by, and listened to her song. It was not a sad song, whatever it was.

On the third morning, she was silent. He kept walking that day, and the next. He knew the direction. Eventually he would cut the highway. A breeze came up. He watched it bury his tracks. He took off his hat and let the sun burn his face and split his lips. At last, it was time to surface from the desert. He approached the goatherder. He had chosen his savior.

Hugh shook his head. He shucked the past. Water flew. “Cuba?”

She reached down a hand. He thought she meant to pull him up. Her fist was wrapped tight, though, and there was something in it.

He screwed his body around, struggling to see.

It was a black thing, glistening, a sliver of night.

That puzzled him. They were paupers up here. Cuba had no possessions. He’d found her nearly naked.

Then he remembered the sack she’d emptied during the storm. His book of maps and the bundle of syringes had been missing. He’d never even thought to look for this unnecessary thing, wrapped in an Ace bandage. It was his souvenir from Joshua.

The obsidian blade jutted from her fist.

“Cuba?” Hugh shoved higher. The water spun him.

She squatted there, facing down, a gargoyle in stirrups. He couldn’t see her face. Which mask was she wearing? Which Cuba was this? The sun wheeled. The water hissed.

His jumar butted against the rim. He slapped for a hold, and there was nothing but slick rock and his five-hundred-pound legs and the choking water. He bucked to free the jumar.

She laid the blade against the rope.

He grabbed for the bottom rung of her stirrup, but the water dragged him back. A few inches more, that’s all he needed. A few seconds. If he could just breathe.

She whispered. He couldn’t hear. The water was sighing.

“What do you want, Cuba?”

She whispered again, ever so patient. She waited for him. He couldn’t hear. “What?”

She lowered her head until it was almost between her feet. He stared into her eyes, and still the truth eluded him.

“Cuba?”

Then he saw what she was showing him. Cuba was gone. Borrowed one final time.

Bullshit.

He struck at the water. She didn’t back away. He pulled with all his might, squinting through the spray.

They were Cuba’s eyes, the same as before, green as olives. And yet there was something in them. Not madness. A glint, not a gleaming.

The water dragged at him. He reached with his neck. He gained an inch. The water parted. He saw what she wanted him to see.

It wasn’t her eyes that had changed, but rather their reflections of the sun. They were lit bright, but not with the golden light shining over his shoulders. The spark was white, not gold. He reached with his neck, lifting his head closer, and his mouth fell open.

He recognized that tiny sun on the curve of her green eyes. It was a different sun in a different sky. It didn’t belong to this morning. This was the round white star that had burned him on his exit from the dunes.

He searched deeper in Cuba’s eyes and they were a lens into her soul. But not Cuba’s soul. In that instant, he understood. Here was the last sight of her life, that pitiless desert sun.

“Annie?” he whispered.

“Hayati,”
she said. The water froze him.
My life.

Her fist twitched. White fluff burst from the black blade. The rope blew.

The world stood still.

There was no sense of falling. He seemed to be hanging in time and space. All around him drops of water came to a halt in perfect beads. His hands held the stub of rope.

Then he noticed the prayer flags fluttering around his neck.

He was in motion.

As if she’d already forgotten him, as if their paths had never crossed on the high stone, Cuba turned and started climbing. It occurred to Hugh that he would land where the first girl had landed, possibly on the very rock, in the forest now sacked to ash and prowled by muddy beasts.

It amazed him. How could he have been so blind?
An eye for an eye.
From the very start, he’d been warned.
We knew you would come
.

He watched Cuba speed into the heights. Not once did she look down. She was free at last. He knew absolutely that she would lead Augustine, crippled, out of the abyss.

As he fell, Hugh kept his eyes on the dwindling woman. He preferred to see her soaring toward the summit, not himself into the darkness. The valley’s shadows rose up.

And still he refused to be damned. The walls were pure gold up there. He reached past the prayer flags, up from the darkness, fingers outstretched, commanding the light to hold him from his fall for just a moment more.

A book is like an expedition, a confederacy of prior experience, maps, and true believers. In this case, I had the advantage of all three.

I am indebted to Keith Lober—a Colorado boy who went west and became the manager of Yosemite’s Search and Rescue unit—for patiently walking me through SAR history, the latest rescue techniques, and the life of a park ranger.

My El Cap partner Cliff Watts once again loaded me up with just the right medical nostrums and fine Georgia humor. Thanks, doc. And long live the Ramones.

I tapped my two brothers—who have lived in Saudi Arabia for a combined thirty years—for details about Arab folklore and Islam, the Empty Quarter, and local customs and language. To Ken, the desert rat, and Steve, the Arabist…muchas gracias, bros.

My story’s two routes are inventions pieced together from real routes. At all times I kept a copy of Chris McNamara’s
Yosemite Big Walls: SuperTopos
by my side, which meant losing more hours than I can count wandering through his masterpiece. For big wall climbers,
SuperTopos
is a must. For non-climbers it is a magic window onto the vertical world, filled with the poetry of El Cap’s landmarks, and the wall-rat’s love for steep rock. Highly recommended.

My agent, Sloan Harris, is the granite I continue to lean upon. A steadier soul, I have never met.

The pen behind my pen is Emily Bestler, the kind of editor writers dream about, the best I’ve worked with.

Finally, Barbara and Helena, I am blessed to be tied in with the two of you.