by Jeff Long
He changed position and lowered his boot to John's inside shoulder and shoved down. John budged. The extra weight forced him six inches lower. Grimacing, John replanted his feet. The boot nestled against his neck and shoved down again. John lost another few inches. He was afraid to resist the boot because the snow was barely glued to the ledge as it was. The boot shoved him down again.
"Fuck you," he said.
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light
"I know," said the smuggler. And he did know, John reflected. He'd practiced. First with Tucker. Then with Bullseye. Now with him. One thing the bastard must have learned: Climbers stick. You have to shove and kick and beat them before gravity gets her due. He couldn't fight back, but he could sure let the man work for his conclusions. The boot jarred him again, pushing the abyss that much closer. John grunted.
And suddenly the smuggler grunted, too.
John heard the snap of bone. It was distinct, a sharp cracking noise, like a baseball bat rapping a stone. There was only one thing it could have been. A rock had hit the smuggler. It had hit him square on the skull, the sound of cracking bone was unmuffled by clothing. He heard a body drop against the snow. Then the smuggler was lying there, upside down by John's side.
The man's face was indistinct, but John could see the black outline of a mustache. A dark pinkness was leaking in a widening patch from inside his dark hair. The man had fallen headfirst, faceup. One of his huge arms was lying off the ledge. If not for his enormous size, he would have slid off the ledge. But his weight had broken the crust, and just beyond reach he'd stuck the way John had stuck.
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"See, man. There really a boogeyman."
is
Kresinski was standing twenty feet overhead on a rocky shelf. John could just make him out.
He'd rappeled all the way down from the cave. Now he finished coming down to the ledge. His movements were ponderous, and that meant he was carrying the cocaine. The gigantic black pack on his back came into focus. He solidly rooted his feet in the snow with two powerful stomps. He stayed on the upper rim of the ledge.
"Sort of like a party, huh, John? Everybody showed up." With broad, careful motions, Kresinski off-loaded the heavy pack. John wiped his eyes, but the image stayed blurry. Kresinski sank the heavy pack into the snow by his legs and prodded it with a slap. It was firmly socketed and going nowhere. Ever the careful mountaineer, Kresinski started pulling one end of his rope through the final anchor in the col. John kept looking back and forth from the motionless smuggler to Kresinski's pumping arms. At least the other half of the rope pulled free, and the line came whipping down on top of them all.
Kresinski attached one end to his pack, then took his time looking for a crack to anchor into.
What John couldn't actually see he was still able to perceive with common sense. Of course Kresinski would try to anchor the rope. He would use it to secure the pack to the wall. Also, once anchored, the rope would eliminate
Kresinski's risks. He could tie himself into the rope and safely tidy up the ledge. But he couldn't find any adequate cracks for an anchor. Finally he gave up on setting an anchor. "Well, anyway, guys," he said and straightened up.
John knew what was coming. One finality was equal to another. But Kresinski's file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (211
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light appearance offered one hope. "Kreski," said John.
"Yo." Kresinski had begun coiling John's red rope, the one he'd rappeled down with.
John wondered what Kresinski would have done if he'd refused to lend him the extra rope.
Without the extra rope he couldn't have afforded to cut the yellow one.
"Liz is down there. He brought her in with him."
"Bullshit." Kresinski stopped coiling. Then he said, "Where?"
"I don't know. But we have to find her."
"We?"
John expected that. He didn't argue. At least Kresinski knew she was in need now.
Maybe his evil had a limit. Maybe he'd find her and save her. Probably not, though.
The coke was a demon riding him into the deep. He'd already sacrificed Tucker and Bullseye for the treasure. Liz was just as cheap. But maybe not.
"It's time to rodeo, John," he said. He finished coiling the rope and slapped it hard against the snow. It stuck there for a minute. Then the wind started hounding it loose. Snaky shanks started creeping down and across the ledge. Kresinski didn't bother recoiling it. "Tell you what, though," Kresinski said. "You did me a favor by helping me catch this sucker. I'll do you one.
You want to watch? How's that?"
Kresinski kick-stepped down from the wall and his pack. It was only ten feet or so to the smuggler. Since dropping by John's side, he hadn't moved. His bare hand hung over the ledge in the wind. Kresinski's rock must have killed him, thought John.
There was little left to do. All Kresinski had to do was shove on the man's boots and set him loose. The smuggler's head was only inches from the edge. It would take a few seconds. Then it would be John's turn.
Instead, Kresinski took a handful of the tangled yellow rope, his rope, and doubled a section.
He bent down and lashed the rope across the man's face. "Wake up, asshole,"
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he said.
John closed his eyes. He hunted for peace inside his mind. But even if the wind had permitted it, Kresinski wouldn't. He whipped the smuggler's face again. There was no reaction. The man was dead. If he wasn't yet, he would be in a minute or two. In an hour's time Kresinski would be down the ramp and traversing the lakeshore, homeward bound. The rest of the players would already be arranged down there, John and Liz and the smuggler, like mannequins on a stage. It would be a quiet stroll past the lake.
"Okay, sport," Kresinski mocked the smuggler's motionless body. "You want to jump? Or you want some help? Can you stand up?"
So, thought John. Kresinski had stood above and watched the smuggler invite him over the edge. Kresinski even had the man's odd, courteous tone down.
"Get it over with," John said with disgust.
"Be with you in a sec," said Kresinski.
Kresinski stepped in closer to the body, careful to jam his feet deep into the snow. He file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (212
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light bent to the task. With one hand bracing him above, he grabbed the smuggler's pant leg and tried to throw his leg up and over. The leg was enormous, though, and he barely managed to lift it.
"This sucker's even heavier than his brother was," he said. He sat against the slope of snow and placed one foot against the man's huge rib cage. He shoved once, got some downward movement from the body, and shoved again. The smuggler's head slid halfway over the edge.
"There he goes," Kresinski puffed. "You watching, Johnny?"
He pushed again. And again.
You must do something, thought John. Do something. It was an instruction. Now. It had the feel of a new thought. But it was an old thought, ancient. Your legs are your friends. Your eyes. Your hair. Your hands. Do something.
John filled his lungs twice, mainly to fathom the coming pain. He hugged his ribs and inhaled.
Then rocked forward over his legs. Behind him, Kresinski was busy with the smuggler.
Following through with the arc, John managed to stand up. The blood rushed from his head.
The sky jumped from gray to black, but he forced himself to brush the rope from his legs. He touched the snow with his left hand and took a step away from the edge. Kresinski noticed him.
"No good, man," he said, unconcerned with John's attempt. He was winded from kicking at the body. Doggedly he kicked at it again anyway. John wavered in place.
He looked around
, afraid Kresinski might come after him before he'd even had a chance. All he needed was a chance, he told himself. Disgusted with the slow labor of dislodging the giant smuggler, Kresinski stood up to catch some lighter prey. "Say good night, John," he said.
It was then that the smuggler came alive. Maybe he knew what he was doing. Maybe he just grabbed the first thing he felt. His hand closed on Kresinski's leg.
"Shit," barked Kresinski.
John saw what was happening and took another step away. But it was a feeble grip.
Kresinski pulled his leg from the grappling hand. He backed up, then decided to get it over with, and landed a terrific blow on the man's hip with his foot.
John took another step up and away from the execution. The horror of what Kresinski was doing—of what he had already done—flooded John with repulsion. He panicked.
His next step was too high, his next breath too deep. His body couldn't keep up with his will, and the injuries felled him. By wrenching his torso to the right, he barely managed to land against the steep bank of snow with his good side. As he did, he saw Kresinski hammer the smuggler one last time with his foot.
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There was no frenzy to the fall. Where there had been a man, there was now an empty trough of torn snow. John blinked. Snowflakes crashed down on his eyes. He gasped for air. Kresinski looked up at him. Even as they hung there, wordless, a gigantic rag doll was careening toward the lake. John gave it a few more seconds.
Then the image hit. It broke the ice, surely it would do that. It hung in the water, file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (213
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light head floating among the shattered plates of ice. Then it sank.
In waves, between nausea and the curtains of storm, John watched Kresinski's shape collect itself to resume the slaughter. There was no shame or doubt or pleasure on that approaching face, though the truth was John couldn't really see Kresinski's face.
He just read the story it had to tell, belonging to who it did. A new strength had cut into Kresinski's features. I chose, his eyes bragged. My will be done. John tried to dispel the perception, but Kresinski's desolation was radiant.
John pawed at the snow's crust. His bare hand touched a strand of rope. Instinctively he clutched at it and reached for more, rifling through the slack in search of rope that was taut and anchored.
He discarded yards and yards of coiled and serpentine line.
He flung the useless slack away from him into the wind. At last the rope came taut. It led upward. He pulled on it. The muscles of his back and chest snapped across his broken ribs, but he kept on pulling.
There was no thought of where the rope led to or what it was anchored to. Up was good.
Always had been. It lifted him. His legs pulled free of the snow. He kicked a step, stood, pulled.
Down and across the ledge Kresinski bellowed. John looked.
Lunging powerfully up and across the tilted ledge, Kresinski plowed through the snow and scattered rope.
"No," Kresinski howled. His voice should have rung with the mandate of his power.
Instead it sounded desperate and unbelieving. But what was there not to believe? It was all his.
All their rare, streamlined desires and sunburned ambitions reduced to now. Every mountain they'd ever climbed on or dreamed of reduced to this mountain. Every dragon was this dragon.
Too bad, thought John. All their collective ascents should have arrived on top of an almighty mountain, something grand and radically mythical like Bullseye's Martian Olympus. And yet here the struggle ended.
Beneath a backpack filled with nose candy. Kresinski had won. He was king of the mountain. It should have been John bellowing that Shakespearean "no" into the storm, but he had no air to yell with because he couldn't believe it was over, not so low, not so impoverished. He hauled down on the rope and kicked one higher footstep, scrambling to escape to nowhere. He was too slow, too fat with gravity.
There was no way this time around. The Lightning Man had got him.
At that moment the rope failed. Hope stopped. The mountain was coming apart in his very hands. He looked up just in time to see the dark angel spread its wings. Like a gargoyle, death took off from its white roost. It didn't leap grandly into space and gouge him from the wall with its talons. Rather it leaned out and lazily nodded off its perch and fell toward him like a fat, ungainly reptile.
"No!" echoed Kresinski's howl.
Entranced, John watched as the gargoyle became Kresinski's huge black pack. In another part of his mind it registered that the rope had been anchored to the pack and the pack had been anchored to nothing. John let go of the rope. He plunged his file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (214
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light arms into the snow. His hands struck the rock wall beneath the snow, and his fingers scraped for purchase. He embraced the mountain with his whole body.
The pack dropped from its roost in the snow. It glided with a hiss. A hundred pounds of deadweight fell and punched John like a fist. It struck him high on the back and drove his legs groin-deep into the snow. The buckles and straps clawed at him, wrestling for possession. The wind sucked to loosen him. His fingers lost touch of the rock. He dug at the crust and embedded himself all over again. He shrugged at the clawing weight.
Then the pack was past him. He heard the hiss of its glissade down the remaining few yards of ledge. Abruptly the hiss stopped. Still clutching two armfuls of snow, John cast a look over one shoulder. The immense black pack was gone. Less than a dozen feet away, Kresinski was standing stock-still on the empty white ledge.
Again John heard the sound of hissing. But this time it was a more delicate, slithering noise, barely audible beneath the wind. Snakes make that shimmering sound crossing silvery deserts at midnight. In the morning you find their beautiful sinuous signatures in the sand. John couldn't see it, but he knew the sound. It was the whisper of rope across snow. As the pack sailed toward the lake, it was carrying behind it a long, thin comet-tail of rope.
"Matt," warned John. Kresinski was standing in the rope.
"You're dead," said Kresinski. Then he gave a strangled, shocked bleat as the rope coiled fast around his legs. John heard the pop of bone unhinging. He caught a blurred, hangman's flash of color, and Kresinski was gone. The void plucked him away. There was no more drama than that.
John was alone.
Once more it was simple.
The world was his to create again. Memory would guide him through some of it, his failing knees through the rest. He picked his way across the ledge. Resting often, he descended the ramp. The lake spread to his right. It would hang in his mind forever, cupped at the chin of a mountain two cowboys climbed once upon a time using a knife and a lasso. He couldn't see very well, so he didn't look. But ghosts swam in the dark blue waters under the ice. And as he limped and crawled down the ramp, John thought he smelled cocaine in the wind, and that confirmed how the pack stood on top of the ice, leaking its white contents into the raging sky. There was bound to be a great calm behind this storm, there always is. The trick is somehow weathering the storm.
John had no sleeping bag or food. He had no shelter except for the primitive rock walls his tribe had once stacked against the wind. He had no weapon except for a pocketknife. It was cold and he hurt, and it was going to be a long journey out. He wanted to curl up and sleep and wake up in the Valley among thick beams of
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light sunlight. But that was impossible, of course. Somewhere out there in a wilderness of dead ends and wrong turns and circles without end, Liz was waiting for him.
Somewhere out there he had a descent to honor. And stories to tell. He had much to do before ni
ght came on.
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