by Jeff Long
There was the suicide talk again. John bit his teeth together. People were getting file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (161
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light pretty damn free slinging it around. First Tuck, now the Iceman.
"Bullshit," snapped
John, and everyone knew what he meant by it. For a minute they listened to the Trower music and the rocks toc-tocking hollowly under their feet.
"Yeah?" someone sullenly challenged. "Well, how come he slashed his wrists before he jumped?"
"You seen it?" said Pete, siding with John.
"You?" the voice retorted.
"Fuck it," Pete cursed.
"His wrists are slashed?" John asked more quietly.
"All we got is assholes talking. Kreski started it."
"It's the ghost," someone digressed.
"Bad karma," someone else posted.
"Karma. What's that?" Pete ridiculed. "It's nothing." John listened. They'd been talking. Or at least formulating explanations. What was in the air was fear, not anger.
"Kreski said it was bad karma, too."
"Great," snorted Pete. "The latest bozo theory. Bad karma. If you went to the lake and scored some smoke, you're fucking doomed. People are even collecting proof. Tucker got wiped out.
Some dude from Sacramento totaled his brand new Z on 101. One of those Santa Cruz dudes drowned surfing. Hank Jones slipped in the john last night and snapped his ankle. And now Page 136
Bullseye. So that makes it final. Bad karma."
"Yeah," added one of the front voices, mistaking Pete's intent. "And you didn't say about Katie stepped on a cactus down in Joshua Tree and about died from allergies."
"Katie went down to Joshua Tree?" said John. He'd seen her only a couple of days earlier, and Joshua Tree was an eight-hour drive south.
"She said we were full of shit and kissed us off," said Pete.
"She'll be back, though," a voice asserted.
"And what about Hoag?" They were fired up now. "He popped out both knees stemming on Outer Limits. Grody."
"Wasn't Outer Limits," someone corrected. "It was Juicy Fruit."
"See," said Pete. "Fact is, you didn't even have to be at the lake to be doomed.
Remember that guy with the van at the roadhead, the guy everybody was selling to?
Kresinski's candy man. His apartment caught on fire in Berkeley. He went up in flames. All you have to do is touch the stuff and you die. Or break. Or step on cactus."
He paused. "Bullshit."
"Explain it, then," a forward voice growled.
"We're gettin' killed and hurt. We're takin' a beating. That's all I know."
"Karma."
Suddenly a terrible, echoing shriek cut into the music and speculation and silenced them.
"No," breathed John. He'd never heard such pain.
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"Bullseye," said Pete.
John looked high upslope and saw the mouth of the Amphitheater. It was a small black crevice in what appeared to be a solid hundred-foot-high wall of stone. Few visited up here, but everyone knew that on the inside of the formation was a natural amphitheater open to the sky.
From down here, the entrance looked like the front of an Egyptian tomb with massive, toppled lintels on either side of the doorway. Then
John saw Kresinski watching him from the corner of the entrance. They were too far apart for him to distinguish any expression, but the moment their eyes met, Kresinski turned and disappeared through the crevice. It never failed to astonish John how the man's very manner spoke possession. The screaming kept on, then abruptly quit.
Next to that agony, the heavy metal music seemed silly and pretentious. There was nothing more to be learned down here, John decided.
"Want me to take some of your load?" he offered to Pete.
Pete heard the urgency in John's voice. "Guess not," he said. "We're about there."
They weren't, not by a half hour or so, and the load was heavy. But at least John had offered.
John waited until the group picked its way diagonally to the edge of the scree field and then resumed his steady loping trot up the middle. Rocks teetered underfoot.
Goat, his father used to call him. Joe, you and the goat, go show us how to run in them mountains. And he and his brother would tear off racing for the top of a mesa, hopping from rock to rock, drawn by the mountain and powered by the wind and their father's pride. See, he'd tell snaggletoothed roughneck compañeros over for a
Bud, that there's how Apaches used to do it. After about ten minutes he reached the entrance.
There was a small flat ledge like a porch at the mouth of the crevice.
Delwood was sitting there in the cool shade, dejected.
John didn't bother hiding his respirations this time. "Where is he?" he panted.
"In there," said Delwood. "I can't go back in again. I don't want to. Sammy kicked me out."
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More quietly, he added, "I barfed."
"The rangers inside?" John asked. He tried to think who would have come up.
Several of the younger rangers could always be counted on in emergencies. Besides Liz, two were trained paramedics, and that came in very handy for packaging and stabilizing fallen climbers.
"What rangers?"
"Nobody told the rangers?" said John. He was surprised, then angry. The pain he'd heard was begging for morphine, and if the injuries were half of what Pete had described, then it was going to take trained hands just to hold the pieces together.
"No. Kreski said we take care of our own. The rangers would just kill him."
"They'd do what?"
"You know, like bang the litter around. Or try a chopper extraction like that Teton rescue." The Teton rescue had entered local lore when an injured Wyoming teenager file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (163
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light was plucked from the saddle on the Grand, then got accidentally dropped. "It makes sense. The rangers don't give a shit. They can't even find Tuck. And after the lake...
maybe they just might kill him."
John looked out across the Valley. His thoughts were spinning. The center was no longer holding. They were out of control. Could people really be believing in ghosts and karma and killer rangers? The Valley was a place of illusions. With its gigantic curtains of stone and sunlight, it fostered illusions. Here you could believe life was a poem. You could close your hands on the rocky walls of the world and say, here is everything. But the illusions had come unfastened from their moorings and were crashing against common sense. Why should a ranger kill a climber?
They were practically the same species. Just another tribe.
"Yeah, well we need some rangers," he said.
Delwood looked up from the shadows. "Kreski said—"
"Get some rangers," John commanded. "Find Tip. Or Stammberger. They'll come."
"It's too late," said Delwood. "We'll have him down before—"
"Get the rangers," said John.
"Delwood clambered stiffly to his feet. "Okay, already. I got to get my pack first. It's—
in there."
"Don't bother. I'll bring it down."
"Okay." Delwood was not relishing the thought of having to descend quite yet. "Are those guys bringing water? I could use some water."
"Tell them Bullseye's dying," he said.
"Okay," said Delwood. None too vigorously, he moved to the edge of the porch. It took your breath away to look down the long, steep slope. It wasn't much different from standing on top of a Mayan pyramid and dreading the staircase down.
Delwood's hesitation made John realize how intimidating the hillside was going to prove, especially with six people and a litt
er.
"Tell someone we need more ropes," said John. "Lots more. And tell them bring the cable."
There was a five-hundred-foot spool of half-inch braided cable down in Camp Four that they sometimes used on big-wall rescues. Sideways, Delwood reached down with his left foot and tentatively found a rock. John debated racing down himself, but there was too much that needed doing up here. Among other things someone had to curb Kresinki's bird-brained tyranny and his "We take care of our own."
Delwood picked his way down another few yards. He was cowed by the loose rocks.
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He looked back up and grinned his embarrassment. "Downhill always kills me," he said.
John nodded indifferently. Chagrined, Delwood pushed himself to go faster. It was a mistake.
His foot released a stone. The stone triggered a small cascade of rocks that gathered size and power. In slow motion the effects immediately began to fan out, file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (164
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light creeping wider the farther down the rock slide progressed. He froze, stupefied by his error. Dust shot into the air. The mass of rocks snowballed larger and wider, and suddenly it appeared to be so sluggish that it would slow and even stop. But individual rocks had begun spitting loose of the slide, skipping downhill like big rubber balls. Two hundred yards lower, the rescue group was blithely unaware of any danger. They had their heads down and music loud.
"Rock," shouted John. He plundered a resonance that came up from the bottom of his rib cage and cast it across the Valley. "Rock," he shouted. He gave the syllable a moment to form, then released it again. "Rock."
One of the group stopped and looked up. An instant later the rest of the group halted, too.
Dozens of rocks were ricocheting toward them. Each rock had its own trajectory.
Several preliminary missiles whistled past them, and you could read their panic in the ways they ducked and gesticulated and tried to escape. Through the cloud of dust, John saw two climbers hit the release on their belly bands and dump their packs and hop toward the forest's edge.
Another of the climbers lay down and covered his head with his hands. The fourth man ponderously turned his back to the hillside and sat down, his pack effectively a shield.
Pete was the last in the line. He dumped his pack and simply faced the upper hillside.
It was classic balls-to-the-wall Petey. He crouched down in a high school wrestling stance and stared up into the face of disaster. He ducked one rock, then dodged a pair, then fended away one more with his open palm. Mouth open, John watched the bravura performance. He'd been in rockfalls before, every mountaineer has. The rocks buzz by like handsaw blades. The sole impulse is to ball up and close your eyes and ears until the sky quits falling. By not hiding, Pete pulled it off without a scratch.
Nearby the boy who had thrust his back to the danger like an armadillo wasn't so lucky. A volleyball-size rock struck him square in the middle of his pack and kicked him forward and down the hill.
Then the rockfall was over. John tried to account for everyone. Two of the climbers had reached the forest. Pete was threading downward to his stricken partner. The boy struggled to his elbows with the pack still on, then lay back down. Pete reached him, carefully lifted off the pack, and hunkered down at his head to determine the extent of injury. A minute later the boy was able to stand up. He left his pack where it lay and very slowly started back down to the floor, badly shaken.
"God," said Delwood. "I didn't mean to."
"I know," said John.
Voices raggedly drifted up to them.
"Fuck!"
"Is that Delwood? It is."
"Use a gun, Eddie. It's quicker."
"Stupid a-hole."
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light
"I'm leavin' the Valley," Delwood muttered. "Everything's fucked. Everything."
"It's not your fault," John soothed him. They needed rangers up here. They needed rope and more manpower. "Just be careful." He pointed to another part of the slope.
"Try it over there." Delwood angled over and started down again.
"See how it is?"
John turned. Kresinski was standing at the entrance to the tunnel. Behind him, on the other side of the tube of darkness, sunlight was streaming down. It looked like another world back in there, lush and green. With Delwood gone, John was alone with Kresinski.
"Somebody's got to stand up to him," Kresinski said. His tone was casual and yet conspiratorial, as if the two of them had been sharing this conversation for a long time.
"What are you talking about?" John decided it was just more of the man's manipulation. "Move,"
he said. "I want to see him."
"Don't worry, Bullseye's not goin' anywhere. Besides—"
"Besides, what?"
"I know who did it."
"Did what?"
"Booted Tuck."
John stopped and gaped. "Damn," he said. He was relieved and stunned in equal proportions.
"He's smart," Kresinski continued. "He's using us against ourselves." He gestured at the little figures on the slope below. "Shit like this. Chain reactions. He's hiding behind our own carelessness. He's there, but we just can't see him."
"What are you talking about? That rockfall was an accident." John wanted what he was saying to be true because it answered... much. Everything. And yet he felt compelled to call liar on him.
Even as Kresinski spoke, he disqualified his own words.
Above all, why had he waited until now to reveal what he knew?
"We're scared. We're fucking up. That's what he wants," said Kresinski. "We're down.
Any more down and there won't be anything left of us."
"Quit talking around," John snapped. "Say what you mean."
"Simple. What would you do if we had the motherfucker? Here. Now."
John didn't answer.
"You'd kill his ass," Kresinski snarled.
John kept staring at him, wary and still shocked. Disgusted by the silence, Kresinski sniffed. He flicked a rock at the wall. "You been wandering around lost ever since Tucker smoked. Your problem is you don't know what you're looking for. I do." He ducked and started back into the crevice.
"Wait," said John.
"I
been waitin'. It's time to move. Tonight. Before he gets to us."
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"What are you talking about?"
"You smell like pussy, sport. While your buddy's up here gettin' trashed, you were off dippin'
your stinger, weren't you?"
"Move," said John.
"After you." Kresinski moved to one side. "While you're looking, take a good look at the cuts on his wrists."
"I don't believe that. Bullseye wouldn't cut himself."
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Kresinski shook his head and smiled. "He didn't. That's what I'm saying. It was no knife that cut his arms. It was rope. Or wire."
"Wire?" John saw no significance in it.
"Come on, Johnny. Keep up with me." Kresinski crossed his wrists in front of him.
"His arms were tied together. He didn't jump. He didn't fall. Bullseye got trashed.
Just like Tucker."
"What?"
"I thought that's how you wanted it. A boogeyman on the prowl."
John peered through the tunnel at the far sunlight.
"God's truth, man. It's the way you said."
"How do you know?"
"I don't know his name. I don't know where he is right this minute. But he's out there." Kresinski paused. "I don't know why he's out there. But he is."
"What do you want, Kr
eski?"
"The question is what does he want?"
"All right—"
"I don't know."
"Come on."
"Remember that leather jacket Tuck brought down from the lake?"
"So?"
"There was some things in it."
"I saw."
"No." Kresinski's bleached-blue eyes didn't blink. "You didn't see it all. Because Tuck and me ran into each other the last night at the lake. He'd just come down from the cave. Before anyone else even knew he'd found the jacket, he gave me something."
He paused. "You want to know what the boogeyman really looks like?"
"Quit screwing around."
Kresinski lifted a folded photograph from his shirt pocket and opened it with the fingers of one hand. John started to reach for it, but Kresinski pulled back. "Ah, ah.
Look. No touch."
Fed up, John snatched the photo from Kresinski's fingers.
It was the dead smuggler and his mirror image in jungle fatigues. Behind them sat a military helicopter. The truth was too obvious. John had seen that singular face. But file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (167
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light seeing it duplicated side by side this way, he registered blank. "Who are these guys?"
Kresinski grinned. "Dead men."
There was the clue. "Oh, no," breathed John, digesting the implications and spinning out further implications. "His brother?"
"Yep."
John was fascinated by their similarity. What kind of a bond would you form with a person who looked exactly like yourself? In how many ways would the world seem that much more like a game of coincidences?
"What does he want?"
"His pot?" Kresinski shrugged.
"No." Something about that answer was too pat. Too explanatory. It had to be something else.
Perhaps, John considered, he wanted something as simple as revenge. Given the desecration of his brother's body with spray paint, that carried a fundamental logic. But why target Tucker?
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And why Bullseye? Neither of them had violated the corpse. His mind churned on, shuffling pieces and shadows of pieces.
There was so much to assemble. Suddenly he dropped his hand and looked at Kresinski.
