Authors: Mark Nykanen
For three hours they’d scrambled over the smooth red rock that formed the foothills, passing through waves of heat so strong they could see it rippling the air. Their thirst had grown desperate, and now they could hear the river hundreds of feet below. The sound of the water was torture enough, but in minutes Lauren knew they’d look down and actually see the foaming rapids in the early evening shadows. All that coolness, all that comfort. They’d be staring at the single substance they needed to survive, and they’d be faced with the certain knowledge that any direct attempt to descend the canyon wall would surely end in death.
They clambered up the final stretch, looking back several times as they had throughout the afternoon. They’d spotted him twice, which had led them to angle to the northeast, while Stassler had continued climbing straight to the cliff. But Lauren strongly suspected that their lead in time and distance had increased only slightly, an advantage more than mitigated by Kerry’s shaky condition. The girl’s confinement had left her unsure of herself. Lauren didn’t know how else to put it. She’d had to hold her hand most of the way, and about an hour ago she’d even been forced to slap her when she’d refused to move from the scant shade of a scrawny desert tree.
Lauren had never hit another person, but there had been no time for discussion.
Now she worried the girl had grown delirious from thirst. Lauren’s own tongue felt as hot and swollen as a grilled sausage, as if she’d awakened in the middle of the night with a sore throat that extended to her lips. How they’d survive another hour to sundown was an agony she could not afford to consider. And this wasn’t even summer. This was spring in the desert. Temperature of about a hundred degrees. Temperate by local standards.
The edge of the cliff appeared before them, and the river grew louder with every step. She saw her hands dipping into the fierce current, scooping up mouthfuls of icy water, a wish made fervent by the sun baking through her white top. She expected her shoulders and back to blister; cotton provided the equivalent of SPF 14, hardly sufficient for all-day exposure in almost entirely treeless terrain. The few spindles they’d found looked ready to die, and as her thoughts had grown crazed by the unrelenting heat, she decided that if you were a tree, this would have to be your hell, to be rooted through crack-ridden rock to dry dusty soil, to drink but rarely and never enough, and to hear from the birds and the wind that far away were lands so sweet and moist and green that anything could prosper, even you.
If he looks this way, he’ll see us. She was seized by this thought. But still they had to search for a way to the water. If they couldn’t find one, they’d face at least three or four more hours of trekking before the foothills spilled down to the desert, where they could finally reach the river. A good nine to ten miles, based on what that chopper pilot had said. Without water, she doubted they could do it.
He’d given water to Leroy, though. Maybe he’d give it to us. Stassler’s strange act of kindness had puzzled her, as much as his stoning her dog had ignited her weary rage. But she didn’t trust his kindness, and now she didn’t trust herself for surrendering to the temptation of it, if only for a second.
She inched over to the edge, and saw the river far below. Her incorrigible fear of heights turned her palms damp, and she had to lie on her belly before she could look down for more than a moment. Kerry, on the other hand, came to life as she gazed from the towering precipice. She sat on her heels with the tips of her running shoes hanging over the abyss. It made Lauren’s stomach swirl just to glance at her.
They both looked south, scanning the waves of rock for him. They saw nothing but shadows, for this was the time of day when stones no bigger than soccer balls threw shadows as long as football fields. Somewhere in the dark mix, he could be staring at them.
Lauren forced herself to study the wall below them. Her eyes glided far to the right, then far to the left, moving as a giant pendulum might if it were suspended from the violet sky; but everywhere she looked the wall appeared as sheer as plate glass. She defied her fear by inching forward until her head and shoulders protruded over the chasm. Then she reached down and flattened her hands against the rock. It felt frighteningly smooth, with nothing to grip. As her eyes fell from the rock to the river, the tailspin in her stomach forced a fast retreat.
A few feet to her right, she spotted a one-inch seam that ran down the wall for a good fifty feet before it was lost to the shadows and dusky light. But she was no rock climber, and Kerry shook her head.
“We don’t even know where it goes,” the girl croaked.
Lauren agreed, glad to hear Kerry making sense.
They climbed to their feet and moved on, looking for a drainage in the rock where a spring would feed a tree or a cluster of flowers sprouting from the wall. Anything that might speak of life, of moisture. They’d both seen these growths of green leaves and colorful petals on rides and drives in canyon country. Maybe they’d see one now, when they needed it most of all. The imperative of finding water eclipsed every other concern, including the need to escape Stassler. Without ever saying so directly, both women acknowledged that death would come to them soon if they couldn’t find water.
A half hour of suffering later, Kerry hissed at Lauren to stop. She pointed ahead to a break in the clean edge of the cliff. Instead of the near ninety-degree face, a section of rock about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide was missing, leaving behind a roughly shaped rectangle with a fifty- to fifty-five-degree slope. Scary enough that Lauren kept herself several feet away. Kerry, however, stepped right up to it.
“It’s steep, really steep. I meant it’s steeper than anything I’ve ever snowboarded, but if I can find some footholds—”
“For what?” Lauren said. She saw nothing but air, seemingly miles and miles of empty air beyond the lower portion.
Kerry didn’t respond. She crouched and studied the rock.
“It looks like a funnel, doesn’t it? See those mineral deposits?” She pointed to a barely discernible cleft near the center, noticeable only because of its thin, ribbony shadow. “Those are from water. If there’s any water falling around here, it would flow right there.”
“But,” Lauren rasped with both palms flattened to the sky, “there’s
nothing
falling around here.”
Kerry nodded. “But it could collect around here. There could be a spring. I’m just going to climb down there and take a look.”
“Down there!” Again, the only thing Lauren saw beyond the steep slope was her greatest fear: empty space high above the hard crust of earth.
Kerry walked along the upper part of the angled rock. Lauren followed, but maintained her distance from the edge.
As they neared the center of the section, Kerry lowered herself to the rock, looked around until she found some dust, and rubbed it over her hands. Then she dropped her feet and legs down, as if to descend from a roof to a ladder; but as Lauren noticed all too sharply, there was no ladder, and there were definitely no rungs. She felt she was watching the girl commit suicide.
“Don’t do this! I’m telling you not to do it.”
Kerry had just enough spit and vinegar left to shake her head. “I’ve got a good grip. Besides, what would you rather do? Die out here?”
“I’m afraid you
are
going to die.”
“I’m not going to die. It’s—”
“Famous last words.”
“It’s no big deal.”
The girl dug the toes of her running shoes into the slope. Her fingers, filthy from their dusty bath, clenched the rock.
“Now would you please let go.”
Without realizing it, Lauren had taken hold of Kerry’s wrists.
“This is crazy. You don’t even know if there’s a spring.”
“There’s a crack, goddamn it, and I’m going to go see.”
Her eyes looked wild, or was she boldly determined? Lauren didn’t know, but she finally released her.
Kerry inched down the sharp face, keeping her body flush with the rock wall. Her fingers sought out and clutched the slightest protrusions. Lauren had seen calendars with pictures of rock climbers, their arms and backs ropy with lean muscles, but she’d never seen the extreme exertions demanded by such—
“No!” Kerry blurted.
Her grip had failed, and she was sliding, gaining speed rapidly, heading straight for the brink. The girl clawed at the rock as she slipped, as if to rip it open; but she found no purchase, and the edge came up on her faster and faster.
“Christ-Christ,” Lauren pleaded.
Kerry’s feet flew over the side, then her body, head, arms … But … yes! She clutched the cliff with her left hand and held on. Lauren could see her ferocious grip, knuckles as rigid as the rock itself. “Thank you, thank you,” she muttered.
And then Kerry fell. Lauren moaned. Tears would have run from her eyes, but her body had no moisture for grief.
Kerry never shouted, never screamed, never betrayed Lauren’s position to the man hunting them. Lauren could not fathom her courage, the restraint it took to fall that distance without shrieking in horror, in final gruesome terror.
Then, so softly that Lauren thought she was experiencing an auditory hallucination, she heard these words: “I’m okay. There’s an outcropping. And there’s water.”
Kerry sounded like she was drinking. No words passed between them for at least another minute.
“Come on,” Kerry said. “It’s only a trickle, but it’ll fill your mouth if you wait a little.”
Already she sounded refreshed, her voice stronger. But “Come on?” No way, thought Lauren. Not in this life. Only moments ago Kerry—an athlete, no less—had lost her grip, and would have died if there hadn’t been this outcropping thing to catch her. It never occurred to Lauren that Kerry might have seen the ledge and chosen to let go.
Not that it mattered because Lauren had no faith whatsoever that she could slide down this slope and then drop—
drop
—to another rock. Forget it. It would be insane to even—
Kerry’s face rose above the lower edge of the cliff. Her mouth and cheeks were wet. And she was smiling.
“It’s only about a four-foot drop, once you’re hanging, and there’s,” she paused to look down, “a good three feet of rock to land on.”
Three feet!
“We could stay here tonight and climb out in the morning. Or we could drink till we’re ready to burst and then climb out.”
Lauren didn’t care one bit for either of these options.
“I’ll be here to help you. I can grab you. Just do whatever you can to slow yourself down. Really dig your body and toes into the rock.”
“What if I take you with me?”
“You won’t. I’m not going to go flying off this thing for anyone.”
Which meant that flying off was a distinct, not a distant, possibility. That’s all Lauren could conclude. Even so, she knelt as if in preparation, or prayer, turned around and began to lower her feet over the upper edge. But no, no way, she … could … not … do … it. Then she spied Stassler several hundred yards away, a dark figure moving among the shadows.
“Stassler!” she hissed to Kerry, who nodded and waved frantically for her to come.
Never had she been so frightened, but the fear of falling during these critical seconds paled ever so slightly when placed against her fear of a man who kept skeletons in his cellar, and who’d tortured and murdered three people, including a child, in front of Kerry.
Her hands were so wet with perspiration that she wanted to swear at them for cheating her mouth of such precious moisture, and to swear at herself for not taking a cue from Kerry to cover them with dust. She understood the strange washing now, how the dust coated the sweat and oils of the hand and made your grip a little surer. But it was too late to go back up. She had to go down.
She held the edge of the cliff and lowered her legs, digging the tips of her cross-trainers into the rock. Then she reached down with her right hand, found a lump distantly resembling a hand hold, and clenched it so tightly her fingers throbbed. Now her left hand released the upper edge of the cliff, committing her to the steep climb down. She scoured the rock for a hold, felt the sudden weight of her body, and jammed her index and middle fingers into a tiny indentation, arresting what felt like a free fall, though in truth she’d moved only inches. Her legs were shaking so badly they felt like pistons turbocharging terror.
“Don’t look!” Kerry warned, but only after Lauren, frozen on the face of the cliff, had turned her head to gaze into the shadow-filled gorge that waited to swallow her.
Her fingertips, slick as dim sum, lost their slender purchase, and her own slide began. Raw panic drove her chin into the rock, and her head began to chatter as she moved toward the open maw of the canyon. The tips of three fingernails exploded, but there was no slowing down, only the horrifying acceleration of her body. Then her feet shot over the edge. Her belly. Her head. And for a brief, wrenching second she saw the outcropping, narrow as a coffin, and the harrowing backdrop of whitewater and monstrous looking boulders.
For an instant she felt no contact with anything, and the world, her life, and everything she knew stood in stark suspension. She filled with no flood of memories, only an intractable, infinite fear of death.
And then she hit the ledge. Hard. On her bum. Her hands reached out instinctively, glancing off rock, grasping only air. She teetered on her butt before toppling toward the void. Her right hand caught a rough ridge as her legs spilled over the side and dangled in space, hinting of what could await her. She reached desperately for Kerry. The girl grabbed her arm, and Lauren scraped and scratched her way to safety. She didn’t stop moving until she’d pressed herself against the wall. Still shaking, she realized she’d peed her pants. Not a lot, there wasn’t much water left in her, but her pants were unmistakably wet. She was too frightened to care.
Kerry leaned over. “You okay?”
Lauren couldn’t respond, not right away. Neither could she look to her left, her right, or straight ahead. Each glance brought the emptiness rushing at her once again. She couldn’t bear its penetrating presence, and yet it all but surrounded her.