We don’t speak as we stand at the base of the climb. The weather is just above zero but overcast and the cloud line hovers just above the valley. I feel the sun bearing down from behind the clouds; it casts a slightly ominous light over the valley. The wind pushes us a bit, but there’s no snow, except what’s kicked up. We couldn’t ask for more pleasant conditions, at least by mountain standards.
At the base of the wall, I look up to the top and realize that even the distance we crossed to get here hasn’t diminished the steepness and length of the climb. I want to look over at Paul and cry or beg him to turn around, but I push down the impulse. No more crying in front of the Bastard, which is how I will think of him from now on, I decide. I can’t give him that satisfaction.
“Listen,” he finally blurts out after playing with the ropes for what seems an eternity. “I’m going to lead us up. This is your rope. Run it through your belt loop.”
I grab it and pull the rope through my back loop and tie a knot.
“If you fall, that won’t hold you,” he says.
I look at him with a so-tell-me-what-to-do-dipshit stare.
“Pull it through the front and loop the rope around all the loops, like a belt. Then re-loop the last one and tie off a couple of knots. That stitching will hold you. You’re like a feather anyway; it won’t take much.”
Well, at least he noticed! I loop, tie, then nod.
“Let’s do it,” he says, putting up a fist bump.
“A fist bump,” I say. “I’m going to die and you want me to fist bump.”
He looks sheepish for a second and then says, “Sorry. Just trying to inspire you. Remember yesterday. You were amazing. Be amazing today.”
I look up the mountain one more time to assess my situation. Because the wall in this section is steep, there’s less accumulation of snow. That could change in a couple of months, but I’m starting to see the wisdom of Paul’s choice. After about one hundred feet of steep hiking, there’s a fifteen-to-twenty-foot climb to a small ledge.
Once we make the ledge-and that is if I can make the hundred-foot hike up the icy side of the mountain, followed by the short wall climb-I can see there’s an inversion of maybe ten feet that juts out as if Nature herself put it there to prevent all those who have entered this valley from ever leaving. Once over that, we will be off the valley ledge and on the mountain again. From there, maybe- maybe — it will be easier for someone to find us.
Paul hands me two one-foot-long sticks, maybe an inch thick, that have been whittled to a sharp point on one end and left untouched at the other.
“For climbing this first bit. Watch me.”
He jams the right-hand stick into the snow, which is thick and icy but not impenetrable. His boots are better suited for climbing in snow with their sharp steel toes, and he kicks them into the mountain as well and then jams his left-hand stick a foot or two higher. He starts moving up the mountain, one limb at a time, with slow but remarkable precision.
He turns back and looks at me.
“Come on. Use my toe holes, but make your own stick holes. You’ll be fine.”
Simple. Just replicate a trained soldier up a mountain. I start to question the validity of this decision. I start to question this whole euphoric feeling I’ve had since crashing, the adrenaline rush that has picked me up and carried me several times over the last forty-eight hours.
“Come on, Jane. I can’t go any higher without you moving behind me.”
As a kid-before my father died-I was invited to birthday parties at indoor climbing walls, and I was always drawn to the heights. I was a natural climber and was exhilarated by what I considered the most death-defying climbs. All that went away after he died. I take a breath and try a technique I learned at another hospital from a woman named Dr. Morris, who liked to say, “Visualize who you want to be.” I amend her words and try to visualize my younger, more daring self. I watch my younger self dance up the wall like a spider, light and sticky.
I poke my left toe into Paul’s first toe hole, leaning my weight against the mountain, simultaneously slamming my right-hand stick into the snow above me. The slope is gradual and supports my body, and the sticks Paul made add balance and grip. I pull up my right boot and find his toe hole again. Holy Jesus, I’m climbing. Don’t look down, I tell myself. Don’t look down.
He moves quickly and with purpose up the first fifty feet. Halfway up, he stops and looks down and gives me a thumbs-up. I nod in the most imperceptible way, instinctively, because any energy not going into this climb is wasteful.
Turning back to the mountain, he moves five to seven feet to the right, hand over hand, foot to foot, sideways instead of straight up. When I reach the spot, I see a large splotch of rock-hard ice. It is frozen runoff water from the overhang above it. I shiver for a second, wondering just how far back that ice goes and fearing that the overhang itself could be completely covered.
His sideways steps are long, and it is difficult for me to stretch my legs out wide enough to re-create his steps. I can feel my heart pounding underneath my jacket. My ears ring as my blood surges, and I feel aware of my heart pumping it all through my veins. There’s something about moving sideways that makes me look down, and when I do, I feel a rush of dizziness, and the earth below me becomes weirdly elongated. I turn my head back to the mountain, but it’s too late. I gag, and bile comes up into my mouth. I spit into the ice in front of me.
“I’m stuck,” I shout.
“No you’re not.”
My body is giving out. I can’t move. I can’t think. Except I know I’ve never wanted to slug another human being the way I want to slug Paul Hart right now.
“Because you’re me, is that it? You know exactly how it is for me right now.” I’m already rattled by the climb, but my anger toward Paul makes me shake even more.
“No, because I know you’ll make it,” he shouts. I feel a sincere and positive tone in his voice; he’s trying to inspire me.
“I can’t. I really can’t,” I shout back. I don’t want to be a victim, but I’m stuck and scared. I look down again. We must be sixty or seventy feet off the ground. The slope is so steep, I wonder how we’ve gotten this far already.
“I’m going to tighten the rope between us and give you a little lift. On the count of three, stretch across.”
“I can’t,” I shout.
“One-”
“No.”
“Two-”
“I can’t!” I scream, feeling my face burn red as I strain my vocal cords.
“Three.”
The rope between us is suddenly taut and I feel my weight lift, and I reach out my right foot and find a new hole and then again with my left. I stop thinking altogether and, foot by foot, I slide across the mountain slope until I reach Paul’s new path.
I look up at Paul, who watches me from behind his chrome, mirrored sunglasses, giving me zero to hold onto emotionally.
“What was that?” he hollers down.
“What?”
“I can or I can’t?” He laughs.
Bastard. Cambridge-Boston butthead. I focus on the mountain and don’t respond. My legs burn, like acid is pumping through my thighs. My arms feel wobbly, like they are made of Play-Doh. I feel doubt blooming in my brain, so I take a few deep breaths and refocus. Crush the doubts, Jane. They offer nothing and take everything.
We make our way up, and as Paul hits the first ledge below the wall climb, he pulls me up on the rope as I climb, making my own climb much easier. When I reach the first summit, I lie on my back and stare at the sky for a few minutes. My chest is heaving and my heart is racing, mostly from effort but with some pride too.
“Not bad,” Paul says. “Not bad at all.”
He stares out over the wall we just climbed and then up the next ascent. I sit up and then shimmy to the edge and put my legs over, letting them dangle.
“Wow. Thank you,” I say, trying to find a way to bridge the anger between us.
“Thank yourself.” He swipes playfully at the top of my hat and then turns to the wall. He looks up and I follow his gaze. There’s nowhere else to go but straight up.