I heard laughter at my back, a hundred feet? Less? Bobby Lee Crayline was moving with caution, tree to tree. Safe in the cover of the hemlocks and pines, he had only to slowly advance until I was in his sights.
I was in the point of a V, with nowhere to go. Nowhere at all.
Up, said a voice in my head. There’s nothing left but up.
I craned my head back as the moon shone through a wisp of cloud. Four stories above me in the sandstone I saw a hueco – Spanish for “hole” – a depression eroded into the cliff face, common in the sandstone cliffs. I heard a trampled branch, a crunch in the black air. Crayline had moved one tree closer. He was silent now, fully focused on gliding in for the kill.
I looked back to the cliff face. There was cover of a dozen feet of rhododendron before I’d be lit bright on the sandstone. Sweat stinging my eyes, I hid my shoes under leaves and leapt on to the rock, hand grabbing upward at a small shelf. I missed, tumbling to the ground. My clothes were binding me and I stripped to skivvies and pulled off my socks. I hid the clothes with my shoes.
I leapt again and made the jump, fingers holding. I pulled, straining, until my scrambling toes found purchase.
A dull pop and I heard lead splat against the cliff a dozen feet away. Crayline was guessing at my position, firing blind into the point of the V. The moon broke through the clouds and the world turned spotlight white for twenty seconds. I saw a vertical crack, used it to pull ten feet higher, leaves tickling at my back. I emerged above the rhododendron, now an easy target on the cliff face.
The moon disappeared and I recognized the impossibility of my task. The only way to see hand and footholds was in the moonlight. But the same light displayed me like I was centering a snow-white screen at a movie theater.
The moon filtered through a thin cloud and I saw a handhold two feet above me. My feet scrabbled, found purchase. I brought my right foot to the tiny outcrop now holding my hand. With my foot secured, I slipped my hand away, slapped it upward. My face pressed into the stone. Even my breath was an enemy, inflating my chest, pushing my center of balance back an inch or so. I heard Crayline move another tree closer, the sound now as much below as behind. I prayed his upward view was cluttered by limbs or brush.
I saw another hold four feet up and three laterally, a handhold no larger than a pack of cigarettes. An impossible move, almost, the edge of my limits.
The world went black, a thick cloud rolling over the moon. Come back! my mind screamed at the moon. I need you!
I froze against the sandstone, heart pounding in pitch-black. I heard a gnome in my head: Gary, my rock-climbing instructor. Make the move before you make the move, he constantly lectured, promoting visual and physical visualization. I pictured the rock’s surface, the small holds I needed to catch, felt how it would feel to make the move.
I launched myself upward, exploding like a coiled spring, scrabbling for something only seen in my mind, feeling nothing, then …
My right index and forefinger fell atop a one-inch outcrop, left toe on a tiny shelf, the rest of me stretched tight between hand and foot.
Another shot from Crayline, a dull pop aimed into the rhododendron below. The moon returned. To my right, waist-level, I saw a small stone rumple that might hold a foot. My fingers burned, shivered, muscles filling with lactic acid, strength dying away. I checked the position of the rumple, brought my leg up … easy, easy … Visualize as the moon tucked under cloud. See the move and … Got it! I pulled upward with every ounce of strength, sweat searing my eyes.
“Here, coppie, coppie, coppie …”
Crayline returned to the taunt, trying to spook me into making a move, but still looking for me at ground level. He was almost to the cliff. I tried to pull up another few inches for stability but my toehold crumbled into dust, my foot kicking wildly. My body canted sideways, falling, hands flailing uselessly, slapping at the rock, falling, goddammit it’s over why now falling …
My fingers slammed something pushing from the rock. A metal circle. I grabbed. My fingers howled in pain, but held.
It was a bolt. A freaking BOLT!
I’d found a regular climbing route, a path pioneered up the cliff. The rock had been drilled, bolts jammed in to hold safety ropes affixed to harnesses.
I had no rope. No harness. No chalk to enhance my grip. But I was on a pre-built route. The moon blazed again, white light now revealing the series of bolts above me, tiny lighthouses in the rock. I tried to recall everything Gary had taught me. Every move. Every technique.
The moon fled. I dangled one-handed from the bolt for several seconds until my feet found holds. My hands patted rock above, knowing the metal circles were there, waiting. I found one and grunted upward, crossing my body length through the dark in seconds.
Moon. I looked up and saw the dark hueco just feet above me, beside a cleft in the rock. I heard a muffled pop and the stone inches beside me splintered. Seen! I held my scream of terror and pulled for the hueco like a man swimming vertically, waiting for the second shot.
I tumbled into the hueco seconds later. Below me I heard cursing and the sound of stripping tape. I realized Crayline was using a soft-drink silencer – an empty plastic bottle duct-taped over the weapon’s muzzle – to blunt the shot’s sound. A fresh bottle had to be taped on for each shot.
Crayline knew an open gunshot could carry for miles. But the semi-silenced shots sounded numb and inconclusive, liable to be mistaken for a falling branch if noticed at all. He probably had a backpack full of bottles.
Another pop. The bullet whanged off the roof of the hueco, buried in the dust three inches from my knee. I rolled against the rear of the hole and tucked fetus-tight. “HELP!” I yelled into the night, hoping the cavity performed like a giant megaphone. “HELP! CALL THE POLICE!”
I heard my words echo back to me, no idea if they were carrying a hundred feet or a thousand yards.
“HELLLLLLP!”
I screamed for two more minutes, until I saw a flashlight through the trees, moving quickly away. Crayline had decided it wasn’t worth the risk. I watched his light diminish until I knew I was out of range. I crawled into the crevice at the side of the hueco, wormed the final dozen feet to the ridge and circled toward my truck.
Rain had started when I found it an hour later, shoeless and limping from countless stumbles, listening into the dark before I approached. I tried my phone, but recalled the nearest cell tower was miles away and this section of the forest was a dead zone.
I fired up the engine but kept the lights off, snapping them on only when shadows indicated I might be nearing a precipice. I was afraid Crayline was lurking in the trees. I continued several miles until the service road intersected two-lane. I was still deep in the backcountry, but felt safer using headlights and speed. The rain escalated as I tapped a phone button, finding no reception. I flicked on the dome light and checked between the map and the road. Cherry’s home was about three miles away.
I saw headlamps ahead on the highway. They shifted to dim as I cut mine back. Then they blazed bright and blinding between my wipers. I held my hand in front of my eyes to cut the glare. The vehicle passed by, a high-sprung mini-pickup painted with camouflage blacks and greens.
A hunter’s truck.
I looked in the rear-view and saw the scarlet lights of braking. I knew in my gut it was Crayline. My eyes returned from the rear-view to see a tight curve ahead. I braked too hard, skidding from the road into a shallow ditch, wheel spinning in my hand until I grabbed tight, losing valuable