Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself: A Man and His Dog's Struggle to Find Salvation

by Anderegg, Zachary

  As much as I remained concerned and worried that the dog still might not make it, I felt something else happening now inside of me—a sense of pride, perhaps. I knew I was doing something I could be proud of myself for, which is always an ego booster. But more than that, I felt an odd sense of gratitude, though I couldn’t say to whom I was grateful. In ancient times, I might have been grateful to the gods or maybe the Fates, thinking some supernatural force had brought me here. I don’t believe in supernatural forces, but I was glad, all the same, to think I’d been given this opportunity—that I knew what I was doing, that I was young and strong enough to do this, and that I was altering this poor animal’s destiny, intervening in its fate. We probably all alter each other’s destinies a hundred times a day without knowing it, but this time, I knew it.

  “Time to get you out of here,” I said.

  At the top of the chute, I turned to hoist the crate hand over hand, leaning out as far as I dared and fully extending my arms to raise the crate up vertically, rather than drag it up the slope. I wanted to lift him at a slow, steady rate. In no time, the crate felt like it gained ten pounds every time I switched hands to hoist him up. Two feet off the ground, the crate banged against the rock, and I cursed, because that was exactly what I was trying to avoid. I leaned out even further, and for a second almost lost my balance and felt myself slowly tipping forward, about to dive headfirst fifteen feet down, which might not sound like much, but it was still enough to kill me. I threw my head back and then braced my right knee against the canyon wall to stabilize. I was more secure, but the crate banged against the rock again, and I became angrier and angrier at myself for allowing it to do so. But . . . the anger helped me. It pushed me forward. When the crate was five feet off the ground, I rotated to my left and swung the crate into the chute, which let me bring my arms in closer to my body. My arms and shoulders were burning, but then, suddenly, the crate was out of the pothole, and I was able to set the crate down in the sandy wash and rest, out of breath.

  “Let’s hope that was the hardest part,” I said, looking into the crate. The dog was either asleep or unconscious. “Oh, really? I’m saving your life and you’re going to sleep through the whole thing?”

  But I knew that his state at that moment was better than if he were awake and panicking. I paused for a minute and shot a brief video of him, as if I could show it to him later. As much as I like being alone, this was something I wanted to share with someone. The puppy was out, asleep, or else he’d simply resigned himself to whatever it was I was doing with him.

  I waited another moment or two for my arms to recover—even in my most brutal workouts at the gym, lifting weights straight up with my arms fully extended was not something I’d ever done—and then I moved to my rappel line to rig my ascenders. I moved the crate to a position directly below my rappel line, which also served as a plumb bob marking the spot directly beneath the upper anchor; it wouldn’t do to lift the crate from the canyon floor and have it start to swing from side to side as a pendulum. I double-checked the webbing around the crate, and the knot I’d used to tie on the tether, and then I double-checked my own gear and my climbing harness. One word that might be used to describe my mindset is “fastidious.” Another might be “obsessive” or maybe even “maniacal,” but to me it was just what I’ve always done, planning ways to be safe, paying attention to all the details and troubleshooting what could go wrong—the same mindset I had when I was waiting for the bus, or entering the school cafeteria, asking myself, “Where are the threats located? What’s most likely to go wrong? What will I do if X happens, or Y, or Z?”

  When I was satisfied that I’d thought of everything, twice, I began my ascent, stepping into my loops and pulling the straps tight to lock them around my foot like stirrups, then raising my left hand and left leg first in a movement that must be coordinated but is slightly counterintuitive, since when we walk, or run, we usually swing our right arm while stepping with the left foot.

  I left the crate on the canyon floor and climbed quickly to the ledge approximately one hundred feet up, glad that I’d thought of the pulley system the night before when I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. I used two short pieces of webbing to set friction knots on my rappel line, above my ascenders, then used carabiners to set my pulley and, below that, the Gibbs cam, and then I untied the tether from behind my back and fed the line through the cam and the pulley. Now I could pull down on the line to raise the crate, and if I were to let go for some reason, the Gibbs cam would serve as an emergency brake.

  I raised the crate in a slow but steady motion, until, no worse for wear, I had the dog at my feet. I picked the crate up and walked up the slope to where the ledge met the wall. When I tried to look in the crate, I couldn’t get a good look at the dog because of all the towels I’d packed in to keep him from sliding or rolling around inside the crate. This was no place to untie the package to check on him, so all I could do was cross my fingers and hope he was okay.

  I undid my pulley system and packed it away, then retethered the crate to my harness using the adjustable daisy chain, leaving enough length that I wouldn’t kick the crate each time I took a step. Matching adjustable daisy chains attached my harness to the upper grips of my ascenders, which would allow me, if I got tired during the climb, to take my hands off the grips and “sit” in my harness to rest.

  “Now comes the fun part,” I said to the dog, once I was rested, but I sensed my ironic tone was lost on him.

  With the crate tethered to hang about three feet below me, I returned to my rappel line, leaned back to absorb the slack, and took three steps up. When I tested the crate, it seemed relatively light. I would be free-hanging for the next 125 feet or so, in some places as close as eight inches from the rock face, but still too far off it to use my feet for purchase or relief.

  I started up and soon realized I was going to need to change my approach; usually I climb in large powerful steps, and the fewer of them the better, but now when I did, the crate below me swung wildly with each step, and worse—I was still close enough to the rock that when the crate swung, it banged off the wall. I found I had to take short baby steps and push away from the rope with my arms to keep the crate, which was going to sway no matter what I did, from banging. I’ve never taken a yoga class, but I’m sure there’s some sort of yoga exercise that involves holding your arms out in front of you for as long as you can, and then holding them out longer, and then holding them out until you feel like they’re going to spontaneously combust. I was doing that, but I was also lifting weights with both my arms and legs.

  Fifty feet above the ledge, I bonked. I couldn’t push any farther. I let go of my ascenders and sat back in the harness, spent and out of breath, my arms screaming with pain, my shoulders hot and knotted. The air here was warmer, and I was working in sunlight, leaving me drenched in sweat. I’d drunk my entire water bottle at the bottom, to lose the weight, which might sound like it doesn’t make sense because the weight would be inside of me instead of in my backpack, but the backpack was making me top heavy and adding to the strain on my arms. By now I’d probably sweated off more water than I’d taken in anyway.

  I didn’t feel fully recovered, but I remembered I was racing the clock. The idea that I might leave the canyon floor with a live dog but reach the top with a dead one was too much to consider, so I started up again, less concerned now with jostling the dog and focused more on just making it out of the hole, which was now, as I neared the top, wide and gaping. When I glanced down, the two canyon walls converged to create a sort of false vanishing point, an illusion of distance supplemented by the lack of any frame of reference to confer scale. For a brief moment, I felt like I was a mile high.

  Perhaps seventy-five feet above the ledge below and the same distance from the top, I bonked again. My legs were okay, but my arms and shoulders were aflame with pain, and despite the generous padding, my harness was biting into my waist. It was like sitting on a sling made out of piano wire
rather than three-inch-wide nylon webbing. The crate, which seemed so manageable at first, felt like it weighed five hundred pounds. I needed help, but help was nowhere to be found. My cell phone was in my backpack, but being below the rim of the canyon meant I had no reception. I’d worked out for years in weight rooms, so I’d been here before—that point where you think you want to just call it a day, a bad day, and try again tomorrow.

  In fact, I’d been to that point before I ever started working out in weight rooms.

  It’s seventh grade. Two days before Christmas, I’m walking to school and I find myself passing a row of cars where a group of older kids, the ones popularly dubbed “The Burnouts,” are parked. I assume my nemesis Ben is among them. I’d say chief nemesis, but on any given day, it feels like the rankings change, and it’s hard to keep track.

  When I realize where I am, alarms go off. I should know better than to walk past The Burnouts, but I’m in a hurry. I’ve been careless. I’ve let my guard down. Usually if I know they’re there, I’ll make a detour. They generally sit inside their cars before the bell rings, smoking cigarettes and listening to heavy metal music, bobbing their heads, either stoned already or getting there. Most of them are older than me, and even the ones who are my age seem older somehow. I’m not small of stature, but inside, I am in many ways still a little kid, and these schoolmates seem like grown-ups, and hostile ones at that. They know things I will never know, and they’ve done things I will never do. They are bad enough, taken individually, but when they gather in groups, they take strength from each other and dare or goad each other on.

  When I realize what I’m walking into, I have about three seconds to decide whether to reverse course, which will make me look like a coward and invite being abused as such, or keep walking with my head down and hope they’re too busy doing whatever it is Burnouts do to notice me.

  I keep walking, trying not to attract attention. In my head, I’m screaming at myself, saying, “Stupid stupid stupid—why weren’t you paying attention?”

  For a while, I think I’ve almost made it. I’d walk faster, but I don’t want to create the appearance that I’m running. I don’t want to look like I’m afraid, which in a way doesn’t make sense since I’m pretty sure they all know I’m afraid.

  I reach the last of the Burnout cars, staring straight ahead to avoid eye contact. As I near the last car, the car door opens and a short blonde girl wearing blue jeans and a scruffy jean jacket gets out with a cigarette in her hand. Her name is Leona. She’s skinny—a lot of the girls in the Burnout crowd are skinny from doing drugs—and she is wearing too much eye makeup. She is two years older than me. She has no reason to know who I am, except as “that kid who nobody likes.” Behind her is a kid in my grade named Jerry, her boyfriend, who I know for a fact doesn’t like me, though, again, I can’t say why. He picks on me constantly. He must have said something to her about me in the car. Something like, “There’s the kid I pick on, Leona—why don’t you give it a try? It’s really fun.”

  “Hey!” I hear her call out. “Hey—don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you.”

  I keep walking.

  “Hey, you little shit,” she says. “So you don’t like people who smoke. You think smokers have a problem? Jerry says you don’t like smokers.”

  It’s nothing I actually said, only an excuse to attack me, as if they need an excuse.

  Leona strides up to me aggressively. My first thought is that she’s mistaken me for someone else, because I’ve never said anything about her to anyone—who would I say it to when no one talks to me?

  Suddenly, she begins to slap me and pull my hair. I am overcome with fear. This is exactly the scenario I’ve lost sleep over and made myself sick over, but I’m in shock all the same at the sheer senselessness of it, the utter confusion of it. Someone I’ve never spoken to, never met and don’t know, who doesn’t know me, has decided to attack me. All my nightmares are coming true.

  I fall to the ground, covering my head with my arms and rolling up into a ball, taking the blows. The girl is absolutely enraged, screaming at the top of her voice about what a “f—ing little shit” I am. She’s self-righteous and entitled, as if I’ve wronged her in some terrible way and deserve all her abuse. I can hear her screaming. I can hear myself crying, and I can hear Jerry and the others cheering her on, but I don’t understand anything. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced, and it goes on and on and on. . . .

  Then the bell rings. Jerry pulls her off me. I look up to see them all heading into the building.

  I stay down as long as I can, letting them get as far away as possible before picking myself up, still sobbing, my face wet. I need to get to homeroom. I lower my head, embarrassed, and walk toward the school, only to raise my eyes and see the girl coming at me again. I turn away and again cover my head with my arms. I’m not sure how long the second attack lasts, but it’s the same basic moves, slapping, hair pulling, probably kicking, I don’t know.

  Finally, she’s finished. I stay where I am until they’re gone. The fear I’m experiencing is greater and more intense than anything I’ve ever known, almost beyond description.

  Angry, I decided the fatigue I felt was mental, or if it wasn’t, the solution was. I don’t know if adrenaline is something anybody can consciously summon, but I’d learned that determination is something anybody can draw upon. I wasn’t going to fail, so I started up again, grunting and shouting at myself with each step I took, not cursing because I was frustrated or tired, but to cheer myself on.

  Maybe a minute and a half later, I’d put the last of the sheer vertical behind me. I had another hundred feet up an angled wall, but I could use my feet. The problem now was that I was dragging the crate up the wall, but even walking with an exaggerated bow-legged duck-walk, I still kicked it a few times.

  The cushioning worked, and the straps held, and then I was back at my ATV, where I unclipped the crate from my harness and collapsed next to my ATV. I chugged a bottle of water and then moved the crate out of the shadow of the ATV and into the sun, thinking the dog probably hasn’t seen sunlight in who knew how long—maybe the warmth or the bright light burning red through his closed eyelids might have some sort of regenerative effect on him. It did on me. I felt a sense of accomplishment, but more than that, I felt a sense of triumph. We were 350 feet above the pothole and, for the dog, 350 feet above certain death. I was tired, but I felt an energy I’d never experienced before. I felt a qualified joy, knowing I’d gotten the dog this far, but mindful that although we were out of the hole, we weren’t out of the woods.

  It took me fifteen minutes to haul up my rope and pack away all my gear, and another fifteen to drive the ATV with one hand and steady the crate with the other to get back to my truck, where I found I had enough reception on my cell phone to send a text. I sent it to Michelle, saying simply, “We’re out.”

  And I knew, because Michelle is someone I can count on and trust, that she would call the animal hospital and tell them to be ready for us.

  The wind had picked up, and in a half dozen places, shallow sand dunes had blown across the road, but I kept the truck in four-wheel drive because nothing was going to stop us now. Driving back to Page, exhilaration gave way to fatigue, and fatigue reminded me of depression, and I started to think again of that day in seventh grade.

  The day Leona attacked me was a Monday. That Wednesday is the last day before Christmas break. All morning after the attack, I’m too distraught to pay attention in any of my classes. Other schoolmates laugh at me and mock me, word quickly spreading as to what happened in the parking lot before school.

  “He got his ass kicked by a girl.”

  “Hey Zak—I heard you got bitch-slapped.”

  When Jerry says, between morning classes, “Leona beat the piss out of you,” I try to dismiss it and say she hadn’t hurt me.

  “Are you trying to dis my girlfriend?” he says. He tells me that, at lunch, he’s going to really beat the
shit out of me, to show me what it feels like. At lunch, I know I have to get away from school as fast as I can. Just as he said he would, Jerry tries to chase me down as soon as I step foot out the door. I run, crying, and make it to my front door. I don’t go back to class that afternoon.

  The next morning, I lie in bed, and I can’t think of how to go forward. My life was barely manageable before, but now the fragile system of coping I’d had in place has crumbled. It’s like I can’t think of how to get out of bed.

  I tell my mom I’m sick, which in a way is almost true—my gut is so twisted, my heart so broken, my psyche so damaged that I want to throw up and can hardly move. My pain is obvious, and I am a terrible liar, but my mother is nevertheless too oblivious to notice anything is wrong. It’s not that I expect her to be a mind reader, but it seems absolutely clear that she doesn’t care, or can’t be bothered, and I know that even if I spell it out for her, nothing will be gained. If she walks me to school again, it will only get worse. She tells me if I’m sick I should stay home, though she has to go to work, so I’m alone all day, which is fine with me.

  For the first half of that Christmas break, I stay in my house, since the girl who attacked me lives down the street, and I can see her and her friends occasionally gathering outside her house. The first half of the vacation, my anxiety levels decrease. The second half of the vacation, I feel my dread increasing daily as the vacation draws to an end, a knot in my stomach getting tighter and tighter.

  When school starts again, I synchronize my watch with the school bells and time it so that if I wait thirty seconds after the first bell, I can run as fast as I can from home and make it to school about forty-five seconds before the second bell, thus avoiding running into anybody outside of school. My first day back, in gym class, Ben sees me and his face lights up with excitement as he says, “You are screwed—we’ve been waiting for you.”