The Mountain Story

by Lori Lansens

  I was standing there at the cliff’s edge when I heard a noise and turned, expecting to find a ground squirrel pawing at the earth. I was startled when a brown hand pushed through the brush to grasp a branch. Byrd, I thought—but it was Vonn.

  “It doesn’t look good,” she said.

  “We can’t get down,” I agreed, gesturing toward the canyon depths.

  “We’re trapped?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “It’s like a huge rock balcony.”

  “It is.”

  “Are we stranded?”

  “I’m just saying there’s no way down from here.”

  Vonn peered at the drop beyond her wool-socked, flip-flopped feet. “So we have to climb back up where we fell last night?”

  “Looks like.”

  “That was pretty steep.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the rocks were loose.”

  “They were loose.”

  “Mim can’t climb that. With her wrist …,” Vonn said. “And I can’t. Not in these.” She looked down at her flip-flops.

  We watched a red-tailed hawk soar past and again I thought of Byrd.

  “Are we in trouble, Wolf?”

  “Let’s look around some more,” I said. Together we scrambled over the rocks and through the trees from the stem to the stern of our boat-shaped outcropping, squeezing past branches, searching all the while for water, food, the blue mesh bag and, above all, a way off.

  At last, red-faced, we emerged at the rocky escarpment we’d fallen down, the wall (as we came to call it)—a steep drop about thirty feet wide and forty feet high. “Wow,” Vonn said.

  We stood before it for a long beat. I wondered if I should confess that I’d never climbed such a steep, unstable rock face, or any rock face for that matter. For all the talking Byrd and I did, we hiked more than we climbed. Even if I remembered the terms from the magazines and books we’d read, I didn’t have any rope to belay with, or carabiners or technique or experience for that matter.

  I tracked the ascent, which ended at the ridge where a cornice projected several feet from the rock wall. Even if I could make it up there I couldn’t see how I’d hoist myself over the cornice. “Easy,” I said.

  “Could you use that branch to help you get over?” Vonn asked, echoing my thoughts. She was staring up at an ironwood stump with a few long, slim branches that resembled a large hand, where I might be able to pull myself to safety.

  “Maybe there’s an easier way,” I said, leading Vonn through the boulders to the far side of the outcropping. We found another steep drop.

  The hawk soaring above us screamed, sounding strikingly like Bridget.

  “Maybe we’re near her nest or something,” Vonn said. “Let’s look at the other end.”

  We moved past the wall again and through a small area of brush to discover another rocky balcony next to ours, attached to a slope that appeared, farther up, to connect to the ridge from where we’d fallen.

  “Look!” I said, pointing. “If we could hike up that slope there we can reconnect with the ridge. Get right back to where we were last night.”

  There was, however, the insuperable problem of a fifteen-foot-wide chasm separating us from the slope, and a deep, dark crevice below. “We could jump it,” I said, half-joking, staring into the deep, dark void.

  Vonn looked down, blood rushing to her cheeks. “Maybe you could,” she said. “But I couldn’t, Bridget wouldn’t and Mim is in her sixties, for God’s sake!”

  “Devine Divide,” I said. “I think I could jump that.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “That would not be ideal.”

  “Mim.” Her face fell. “She looks bad.”

  “Was she awake when you got up?”

  She shook her head. “She looked so pale …”

  We moved closer to the edge to stare down into the depths. The wind came rushing at our backs and I caught a whiff of camphor and began to sneeze.

  “You all right?”

  I moved to stand upwind of the sterasote bush in my periphery.

  “I can climb back up where we fell,” I promised Vonn. “I’ll climb the wall and find the way back and get help. Mountain Rescue will have ropes and whatever else. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “Even if you can climb up all that loose rock, are you sure you can find your way to the Mountain Station?” Vonn asked.

  “Of course.” I couldn’t fault her for being skeptical.

  “Yesterday …”

  “That fog was dense. And it got dark fast. Look at the sky today. This is excellent visibility. I know how to get to the Mountain Station from here. Come on,” I said, “let’s see if we can find Bridget’s bag.”

  Vonn burped behind her palm. “Sorry. The tram made me motion sick and it’s not going away.”

  “Maybe it’s altitude sickness,” I said. “Tell me if you feel dizzy or faint.”

  “It’s my stomach,” she said, gingerly touching her abdomen.

  It was possible that Vonn had sustained an internal injury in the fall. One more thing to worry about.

  As we started back toward the cave, we looked for the bag, but I kept my eye out for edible plants too. “Look for berries,” I said. “But don’t eat anything unless you show it to me first.”

  “What else?”

  “Acorns. Pine cones. Flowers. Sometimes you find wild apricot bushes. We’re pretty far below the Mountain Station. The fruit would be gone probably, but one time this guy said he got lost out this way and found the apricots dried on the branch.”

  “Mim makes apricot preserves.”

  “Why do you call her Mim?”

  “It’s how Bridget said ‘Mama’ when she was a baby. And my grandfather was Pip. It just stuck.”

  “Why do you call her Bridget?”

  “Instead of Mom? I don’t know. I don’t know anything according to my mother.”

  “Did you always call her Bridget?” I didn’t tell her I called my father by his first name.

  “When I was little I called her Mama.” She shrugged. “She knows nothing about me.”

  “So you don’t hang out in Tin Town?” I was hung up on the idea that Vonn knew Yago. He was popular with women. Vonn was his type. The thought of my cousin Yago with Vonn Devine sickened me but I had to know.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so,” I said, trying not to sound relieved.

  “Once,” she clarified. “One party.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was my birthday. Labour Day. We’d lost Pip just a few weeks before. A friend, not a friend, just this girl I barely know, dragged me to this party in Tin Town, then ditched me. The party was outside. People had little fires going everywhere. It was crowded. I drank too much wine. No big deal. Turning eighteen is supposed to be cool but I don’t remember much about that night.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you spend your eighteenth?”

  I didn’t tell her that my eighteenth birthday was yesterday and that she and her mother and grandmother had foiled my plans to leap to my death. “Nothing special.”

  Vonn stopped behind me, pointing up. “Look!” she whispered.

  I’d hoped to see Bridget’s mesh bag caught on a low hanging branch. Instead, I saw a falcon—an enormous taupe-and-brown raptor with a creamy speckled breast, the largest I’d ever seen. I was pretty sure that it was a gyrfalcon, although none had ever been sighted on the mountain as far as I knew. I wished like hell that Byrd could see that great, winged beast, gripping the pine bough with such swagger.

  “I think that’s a gyrfalcon.”

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  “You don’t see them outside Alaska.”

  “Alaska?”

  “He’s lost. Wonder how he got here.”

  “I didn’t know birds got lost.”

  In unison, Vonn and I said, “Wish I had my camera.”

  The bird flew away. We smiled and walked on, scrambling over boulders,
Vonn’s borrowed wool socks wedged into the thongs of her green flip-flops, which were, lucky for her, made of sturdy foam.

  “Bridget used to be into photography. She has an amazing camera.”

  “Should have brought it,” I said.

  “Her new boyfriend borrowed it. I hate him.”

  “The realtor/triathlete?”

  “She’s into body fat and curb appeal now. One of her boyfriends before this managed dog shows. Guess what?”

  “She bought a dog?”

  “She bought a dog salon with the money from her settlement from the plastic surgeon, which she’d planned to put toward nursing school because before that she was obsessed with dating …”

  “A doctor?”

  “A sick rich guy,” Vonn said.

  “Okay.”

  “What about you?”

  “My father’s in jail.”

  “For?”

  “A long time.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  “When did he go to jail?”

  “Halloween night.”

  “A few weeks ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry. Scary story?”

  “The worst.”

  “Mother?” she asked.

  “Died when I was little,” I said, wishing I’d used the word young instead.

  “You have no one else?”

  I shook my head. There were a few employees at the gas station who would notice I was gone, but none would miss me. Besides, I’d left a staff schedule on the door and a note saying I was going on vacation. Even Harley didn’t check on me much anymore, since I’d told him to stay away. “You? Father?”

  “Stepfather. Three of them. Second was the cosmetic surgeon who started that whole train in motion. Third left her for a much younger woman. Bridget just told me about my biological father last year.”

  “Thought I recognized you,” I said. “Don’t we have Misery 101 together?”

  “Second period with Mister Yurfukt,” she said.

  The screaming eagle sound we heard next was not the gyrfalcon—it was Bridget, calling, “VONN!”

  We charged through the brush to find her, ashen in the granite cave, pointing at Nola’s injured arm, which now we could see had swollen grotesquely in the night.

  “What a nuisance,” Nola said.

  Vonn bent to look at it. “Let me loosen the bandages a little.”

  I barely had the stomach to watch.

  Nola was in surprisingly good spirits, even as sweat pilled on her forehead. We gathered around staring at her massive forearm. “I feel like Popeye. I yam what I yam.” No one laughed.

  “That looks bad, Mim,” Vonn said.

  “Not the best,” Mim agreed.

  “I went with Wolf to look around and where it seems like we could walk down into Palm Springs? There’s a ridge and it’s not just steep, it drops off, like a thousand miles down.”

  Bridget clapped her hands, getting our attention. “I have good news. I have to share this with you.”

  “Here we go,” Vonn muttered.

  “I had the most vivid dream last night.”

  “You and your dreams, Bridge.”

  “I dreamed we were rescued.”

  “You’re absolutely certain we can’t climb down?” Nola asked, turning to me, ignoring Bridget.

  “Did you hear me, Mim?” Bridget asked. “I had one of my future-dreams.”

  “Future dreams?” I had to ask.

  “Because she’s clairvoyant,” Vonn reminded, then resumed our discussion. “The problem is that where we fell last night, there’s this wall of rock. It’s steep. You can’t climb it,” Vonn said to Nola. “And Bridget can’t. And I can’t. Wolf is going.”

  “He’s leaving us here?” Nola looked worried.

  “He’ll get help.”

  “Listen.” Bridget raised her hand.

  We could all hear the approach of the staccato motor and the distinctive whirring blades. We could hear it clear as day. We leapt to our feet, scanning the horizon, zigging this way and zagging that, jumping on boulders, climbing onto the roof of the cave, straining for a better view.

  “Helicopter!” Bridget hollered, jumping up and down and shouting. “Helicopter! HELICOPTER!”

  At first it sounded like it was just beyond the neighbouring peak. When it didn’t come into view right away, Nola shouted, “I think it’s coming from that way!”

  Bridget waved the red poncho at the blue sky.

  “Over there,” Nola pointed.

  “No! This way!” I shouted, waving my arms along with the women as we waited to spot the rescue helicopter.

  All this, in spite of the fact that I knew that helicopter searches of this part of the mountain were rarely possible due to the unstable air. Byrd’s uncle Dantay had told us sobering stories about a few dramatic mountain rescues from Devil’s Canyon, some successful, most not, never by helicopter. Dantay had warned us against exploring this part of the mountain.

  Minutes passed and the sound grew closer and we jumped and shouted at the unseen aircraft. “Over here! Please!” The wind became a swirling vortex and I wondered if we’d be sucked up into it, but then it stopped. The sound of the helicopter disappeared, not gradually—it was just gone. We watched the sky a good while longer but eventually Bridget dropped the red poncho and Nola sat down to rest on a stump.

  “Just the wind,” I said.

  Bridget clapped her hands to get our attention. “He’ll come back!”

  “There is no he,” Vonn said. “It wasn’t a helicopter. You heard Wolf. It was the wind.”

  “I don’t care what you and Mim think, Vonn. I know what I know. I dreamed about our rescue. It was the most vivid dream I’ve ever had. I’m telling you. We are going to be rescued.”

  “Dreams are just dreams, Bridget.”

  “Unless you’re me.”

  “Unless you’re crazy.”

  “When I was pregnant with you I dreamed that you were going to be a girl. And you were.”

  “Fifty-fifty,” Vonn said.

  “I dreamed that we’d get that house by the water. And we did.”

  “You and Carl put in the only offer,” Vonn pointed out.

  “I dreamed Carl was going to leave me. And he did.”

  “Everyone predicted that one, Bridget.”

  “I dreamed I’d get that job at the Four Seasons.”

  “You also dreamed Mim and Pip were going to drown on that cruise.”

  “We almost didn’t go!” Nola said.

  “And you dreamed you were going to marry that Norwegian guy from LensCrafters.”

  “It’s true, Bridge,” Nola said. “Remember the Norwegian guy?”

  “This one is different,” Bridget said. “The feeling. It was … I’m standing there and there are rescue men with the orange vests and I know without a doubt that we are going to be saved and it feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It’s the greatest moment of my life.”

  “I’m sure it will be the greatest moment of all our lives, Bridget,” I said. “But forget about helicopters. Not with this wind.”

  “We should put my poncho on the top of a bush or hang it from a branch like a flag or something,” Nola said. “Just in case there’s a plane. Maybe they could see it—even from high up?”

  “Good idea.” I picked up the poncho, and Vonn and I stretched the red plastic fabric over some cottonwood, though I worried it’d blow away.

  “Use the hand grips to secure it. See—they sew grips on the inside so you can hold onto it and it doesn’t blow around in the wind,” Nola instructed.

  I looked at the sky. “I’m going to climb that wall and hike back and we’ll have some rescue guys back here with baskets and ropes in no time.”

  “I do like a man in uniform,” Nola joked.

  “See, Bridget, we don’t need a helicopter rescue,” Vonn said.

  “Imagine being buckled into one of those baskets,” Bri
dget said.

  “Screamer suits,” I said. “That’s what Mountain Rescue call them.”

  Bridget took offence. “Because people scream? Do they think that’s funny? People scream because they’re afraid. Anyway, in my dream there were no screamer suits. And I wasn’t afraid. I was the opposite of afraid. There was no screaming. Besides, I would not let them buckle me into one of those. You would not like to see them try.”

  I glanced up, checking the sun, and guessed the time to be around seven a.m. I was determined, if not confident. “Let’s go.”

  Vonn and Bridget helped Nola to her feet and together we made our way through the brush to the spot where we’d fallen.

  Nola manoeuvred slowly around the trees and bushes. The pain in her wrist must have been awful.

  We found a collection of large, smooth boulders in the shade of some pines where she could rest her back and keep her injured arm still. “I’m fine,” she said. “You don’t need to fuss.”

  “You both should search for Bridget’s bag,” I urged Vonn and Bridget. “Be careful. The cliffs come up on you fast.”

  “Maybe you should wait, Wolf. Drink some water and have some granola bar before you climb,” Nola said.

  I dismissed the idea of waiting for the recovery of Bridget’s lost bag. I had no doubt that I would climb the wall on my first attempt and return with help within hours—by lunch, I remember thinking. I figured we’d be on the tram heading down to the desert by noon.

  Making my way through the debris, kicking the scree and scrambling up the larger boulders, I finally met the wall.

  “No problem,” I said, and was immediately sorry.

  The boulders near the bottom were the least stable, and I made several comic missteps before I found my footing. “All good,” I shouted back to the women.

  The wall was shot with vertical and horizontal fractures, and bands of white feldspar and rusty manganese, like an abstract painting. I could feel the Devines holding their breath as, with sweat gathering on my upper lip, I prodded with my fingers and toes to test the stability of each boulder. One felt looser than the next, but eventually I began to pull myself, inch by inch, up the steep face toward the ironwood stump near the overhang.