Lessons In Gravity

by Megan Westfield

  Her stomach churned uneasily. She didn’t even know the guy, but the intensity of his sadness was speaking directly to the hard place in her heart she kept so carefully locked down.

  Madigan and Theo waved good-bye to Josh. His frown relaxed as he nodded to them, but by the time he’d reached the exit and glanced at April once more, the sorrow was even more deeply rooted in his eyes and etched in the lines around his mouth. Goose bumps popped up on April’s arms. This time, she couldn’t look away.

  Chapter Two

  April and Madigan climbed into the avocado-green Walkabout van parked in the campground lot. The van, though rusty on the outside, was completely refurbished on the inside, designed to store equipment, charge batteries, and manage footage downloads and backup.

  Madigan started the van and eased it through the parking lot’s deep potholes and onto the main road. Within a minute, they broke through the shadows of the forest into a breathtaking meadow surrounded by cliffs as tall as skyscrapers. April was transfixed.

  Rounding a corner, they came face-to-face with a cliff so massive that she gasped before she could stop herself. The monolith jutted into the meadow like the curved bow of a ghostly Titanic returned to this world even larger than it had been in real life.

  “That’s the captain,” Madigan said. “El Cap-e-tan.”

  She followed the edge of the buttress from the ground, up, up, up to where its angular profile met the cloudless sky.

  Madigan watched her reaction. “Amazing, isn’t it? That’s a lot of granite. Look behind.”

  Through the side mirror, there was a clear view of the head of the valley: a supernatural amphitheater of warm gray cliffs, with one particularly remarkable, sheer-sided dome perched high above it all. To complete the panorama, there was a shimmering waterfall dropping from the tops of the cliffs to the valley floor.

  Now, this was sublime.

  Ahead, the meadow was wider, with a creek running through the center and a deer and fawn grazing along the banks. The sun was still behind the rim of the valley, but its rays were beginning to separate and bend over the cliffs.

  “Stop!” April cried.

  As Madigan pulled onto the shoulder, she unzipped her camera bag and unbuckled her seat belt. She threw the door open and raced into the meadow, only vaguely aware of the muddy water flying up and soaking through her jeans in icy little pinpricks.

  In the middle of the meadow, she halted and lifted her camera. Slowly, she turned in a circle, holding her breath to steady the shot. Sunbeams poured over the rim, fanning into a thousand rays of golden light that reached down into the meadow. Her mind was going to explode from the beauty of it.

  She completed the pan as the top of the sun itself appeared, thrusting the valley into a gorgeous patchwork of shadows and brights that would be too much contrast for her camera.

  “Sorry,” she said when Madigan caught up to her. “I got a little excited.”

  “No—that was awesome! Did you get the shot?”

  “I think so,” she said. She replayed the footage for him. “It would have been better with a Red Dragon.”

  “Looks great to me,” he said.

  They sloshed back through the meadow, toward the van and the base of El Capitan.

  “There are some climbers up on Pacific Ocean Wall.” He stopped and pointed.

  All April could see was rock, rock, and more rock.

  “They’re like pinpricks. Look for shadows. See there—right above the tree line?”

  April stood behind Madigan’s pointing arm, straining her eyes to pick out a miniature human. She couldn’t see anything.

  “Try your camera,” he said.

  Even zoomed in all the way, she couldn’t see any people on the wall. Then, in a sunny patch, she spotted a hair-thin black bar that didn’t look quite natural. There was a crumb-size lump on top of the bar and a black speck no bigger than a newborn spider hovering on the rock above it.

  “The belayer’s still on the portaledge,” Madigan said. “It’s probably their first pitch of the day.”

  “They spent the night up there?” She squinted. “On that little thing?”

  “It’s actually eight feet long. Yes, it’s small, but when you’ve been standing on buttonheads all day, it feels pretty big.”

  “You’ve slept up there?”

  Madigan laughed. “No, not on El Cap, but on other climbs. Theo’s climbed it twice.”

  April watched the climbers through her camera. When she’d accepted the internship and found out the subject of Walkabout Media & Productions’s next film was rock climbing, the company’s secretary assured her that she would be doing interviews, not filming up on the rock. Faced with the dizzying height of the granite in front of her, she was thankful her feet would stay firmly planted on the ground during this internship.

  For interviews, though, she still needed to know a lot more about rock climbing. She had wanted to study up on it before she left L.A., but it was her last quarter at school and she was too busy wrapping everything up. One of her film school friends worked at an indoor climbing gym, and he had stockpiled a bunch of video clips and back issues of rock-climbing magazines—all of which were waiting back in her tent, unwatched and unread.

  “El Cap is twice as high as the Empire State Building,” Madigan said. “Took forty-five days the first time it was climbed. That was in the late fifties. Strong aid climbers do it easily in a day now.”

  “I’m assuming Josh Knox is one of them,” she said, thinking of the power in his grip when they’d shook hands.

  “Josh doesn’t do much aid climbing. He doesn’t need to. He can free-climb routes that even the best climbers need aiders on.”

  “So free-climbing doesn’t use gear?”

  “Well, free-climbing uses gear, but it’s just for protection if they fall. Aid gear is used for climbing past the hardest parts. We use aid gear a lot with filming, actually.”

  “Sorry you have to explain all of this to me. I don’t have any experience with rock climbing.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually a good thing.”

  She raised her eyebrow dubiously at him.

  “This isn’t a climbing flick,” he said. “Vera—the woman financing the film—was very specific about that. This is a film about climbing and about Yosemite, for a general audience. And think about it—I climb, Theo climbs, and even Danny climbed when he was younger. Danny wanted a filmmaker on our full-time team here, not another climber. Believe me, we had plenty of those apply.”

  “So you’re saying I’m an asset because I’m a climbing idiot?” She smiled.

  He returned her smile. “Precisely. Danny picked you for your people skills.”

  “For interviewing?”

  “Yep. You’re the lens we need for focusing on telling the story while Danny, Theo, and I are absorbed in getting what we need from up there,” he said, gesturing to the lofty heights of El Capitan.

  The sample movie she had sent in when she applied for the internship was just one of her student film assignments, but like most of her assignments, she was so excited about the project that she went way beyond what was asked. As in, all-night editing sessions, living and breathing the project for weeks on end. In this case, all that extra time and effort had paid off. And if Danny had chosen his intern based on interviews, then her movie—featuring seven tight-lipped homeless teens dependent on the dumpsters behind UCLA’s dorms—had been the perfect submission choice.

  When they got back to the van, Madigan spread a map of Yosemite Valley on the hood and pointed out the major features to April. The high, curved cliff at the head of the valley was Half Dome. The gorgeous waterfall was Bridalveil Fall. The sharp, twisting tower was Sorcerer Spire.

  “That’ll be Josh’s big climb for the film,” he said.

  Like El Capitan, the Sorcerer rose from the valley floor to the sky in an uninterrupted swoop. But unlike El Capitan and the other formations, the rock of the Sorcerer was nearly black.
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br />   “It’s so smooth that there’s only one route that can be climbed without aid gear,” he said.

  The top of the spire was incredibly sharp. Something about the jagged profile of the shadowy hulk was distinctly sinister. She turned away from it.

  “Josh was the first one to climb it free,” Madigan said. “That was five years ago. Now, for the film, he’s going to solo it.”

  “As in, without a partner?”

  “Yeah. And without a rope.”

  She thought about Josh on the boulder earlier that morning. He hadn’t been very high off the ground, but he didn’t have a partner or rope then, either. “Is it normal to climb ropeless?” she asked.

  Madigan laughed. “No. It’s not normal. Only the crazies and the insanely good do it. When you climb without a rope, it’s one wrong move and you’re toast.”

  She knew more than anyone should about “one wrong move and you’re toast.”

  “Technically, he’ll be free BASEing. Climbing with a parachute in a backpack. It could save him if he falls from high enough, if he pulls the cord fast enough.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs.”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty much free soloing.”

  She wasn’t liking the sound of this. “Does he ever climb with a safety rope?”

  “Not ‘safety rope.’ Just ‘rope.’ And, yes, most of the time, I think. Definitely with his new projects. He’s just doing the one free solo for the film.”

  She looked at the gnarled spire, imagining someone being on its great height without a rope. Suddenly, it was like she was a mouse in an open field with an owl circling overhead. She quickly got in the van and shut the door. The feeling was just the hypervigilance that had plagued her ever since the crash, but that knowledge didn’t do anything to slow her pulse.

  Although she knew rock climbing was dangerous, she didn’t know there was a death-defying extreme to the sport—or that Walkabout would be involved in documenting one such feat.

  …

  It was nearly dusk by the time April and Madigan got back to the campground. The day had been exhilarating and the temperatures warm, but cold was filling in behind the fading light, renewing her dread of the coming night. The caffeine from the morning’s coffee had worn thin, and her sleep deprivation hangover had returned.

  Madigan pulled into a parking spot next to Theo, who was unloading the back of a beat-up station wagon that Danny Rappaport had driven down from Seattle.

  “Danny’s meeting with the public information officer right now,” Theo said. “I’m going out to pick him up when we’re done unloading.”

  The three of them grabbed boxes of food to carry back to the campground.

  “Group dinners are a Walkabout tradition when we’re on location,” Madigan said as they walked. “We all take turns cooking and cleaning.”

  “The talent, too?” April asked.

  Theo cleared his throat.

  “No, we don’t make the talent cook,” Madigan said, as they returned to the station wagon for another load, “but they usually eat with us.” He glared at Theo. April glared at Theo as well, and he shrank back with a pleased smile.

  “So Josh will be coming tonight?” She thought of his tan skin that glowed with the sun despite the gloominess hovering around him this morning.

  Theo gave her an odd look, like she’d shown too much interest in Josh. “I don’t know a single climber who would turn down a free meal,” he said. “But with him, you never know.”

  At the campsite, Madigan handed April a five-gallon collapsible container. “Mind getting the water for dinner while I start a fire?”

  April took the container across the campground to the bathrooms, where she recalled a small, scullery-like room with a deep sink. That’s when her eye caught the big metal sign on the backside of the building.

  On it was an enormous bear with Freddy Krueger claws prying the door off a car. The hairs on her neck rose.

  odors attract bears to parking lots, picnic areas, and campgrounds. never store food, garbage, or toiletries in a tent.

  Her toiletry bag—with winter mint toothpaste, pomegranate shampoo, and sunscreen that smelled like coconuts—had spent the night two feet from her head.

  bears can be anywhere in the park at any time. allowing a bear to obtain human food, even once, can result in aggressive and dangerous behavior.

  Her face went numb. She’d spent all that time last night thinking about movie monsters and an accident that happened almost three years ago when there were actual bears roaming free out there. Now she really wouldn’t be able to sleep.

  She filled the water container in the utility sink and hauled it back to camp.

  “There’s a spigot right there.” Madigan pointed to the neighboring campsite.

  “Now you tell me,” she said, massaging the crease where the handle of the heavy container had left an imprint in her palm.

  He laughed. “Danny just texted. Should be here in a half hour. It’ll be perfect timing with the food.”

  April unpacked the boxes of food into the metal storage cabinets, which she now understood from the Freddy Krueger sign were actually bear-proof lockers. She grabbed the toiletries bag from her tent and stored it inside a locker alongside Walkabout’s cases of Mexican beer.

  By the time she was done, Madigan’s fire was already raging in the twilight. She approached cautiously, her pulse quickening as she got closer to the flames. She told herself to be rational. This fire smelled nice, like pine pitch. It was bright orange and homey, the kind of fire that belonged in a brick hearth with a happy family gathered around.

  Madigan squatted to blow on the fire, making it flare. She flinched and stepped back, but relaxed as the fire settled into a comfortable burn.

  He stood up next to her. “Cold?”

  She didn’t realize that she was trembling, let alone trembling hard enough to be noticed by someone else.

  “You might want to put on a jacket before we start dinner,” he said.

  “I am wearing a jacket.”

  “That’s not a jacket. That’s a windbreaker. Temps will drop a lot by the time we’re done with dinner. Did you bring anything warmer?”

  “No. This is plenty of jacket for where I’m from.”

  “Los Angeles?”

  “Yeah, and Arizona. That’s where I grew up.”

  “Okay. I get the picture. Wait here a second.” He disappeared into his tent and came out holding a puffy down jacket.

  “Thanks,” she said, slipping it on. Her body heat was reflected back like a mirror in the sun. A down jacket: it was the magic solution to keep her from freezing to death during her first job in the film industry. She liked that Madigan wasn’t aloof like the assistant directors she’d worked with occasionally for school assignments. He didn’t seem like a boss at all, actually.

  “So, uh, if you thought that windbreaker was sufficient for Yosemite in March, maybe we should talk about the rest of your gear,” he said. “What’s your sleeping bag rated?”

  She shrugged. She’d borrowed it from Sophie, who, like her, had only ever been RV camping.

  “That’s not good. You must have been cold last night.”

  “It was pretty chilly.”

  “Okay. You’re going to want to get a better bag. And probably some other gear. What kind of air mattress do you have? What kind of layers did you bring? You’ll want some good polypropylene long underwear for our early morning work. And, of course, a warmer jacket.”

  Poly-prop-a-what? From a financial perspective, it would be better to quit the internship, charge a plane ticket to Tucson, and beg for her high school job back at Kids Are Wee Videography.

  Madigan caught the concern on her face. “Walkabout has some pro deals with a couple of companies, and between Theo and me, we have more than enough gear to get you through until everything is delivered.”

  She wanted to throw her arms around him. Tonight—and for the rest of their time in Yosemite—she would be comfortable, whi
ch meant there was hope of not descending into complete incompetency from sleep deprivation.

  “We were really lucky the Park Service agreed to give us a camping permit for so long,” he said as they watched the flames. “And being here before the tourist season makes it all the better. Come June, this place will be crazier than spring break in Mazatlán.”

  After a few more minutes next to the warmth of the fire, they went over to the picnic tables to start dinner. The sky was nearly black beyond the silhouettes of the pine trees. Madigan lit an old-fashioned lantern that made the whole cooking area glow brightly.

  Despite the primitive kitchen, the spaghetti they were making was far from just tomato sauce and noodles. They sautéed ground beef, onions, and green pepper for the sauce, then wrapped a loaf of garlic-buttered French bread in foil and left it to warm by the fire. Even the dinner table was fancy, with a red-checked vinyl tablecloth, metal silverware, and blue enamel camp dishes.

  Theo swept into the campsite like a tornado, going straight for the cache of beer.

  “Beer, Hollywood?”

  “Where?” She backed into the picnic table, scanning the darkness for beady animal eyes.

  Theo howled. “Not a bear, a beer!”

  Sticking to her resolution of no liquids in the evening, she said no.

  A short, muscular black man carrying an enormous backpack stepped into the circle of lantern light. He had a neat beard, a shiny bald head, and wore thickly rimmed eyeglasses.

  This was Danny Rappaport.

  “April Stephens,” he said, gripping her hand firmly. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  She was too starstruck to find the words for a polite response, but it didn’t matter because he was already over at the tent the guys had pitched for him, putting his backpack inside. Which made sense, because Madigan and Theo had both described him as hyperactive.

  The four of them filled their plates and sat down. “Where are the candles?” Danny asked.

  Madigan hopped up and dug through one of the bags in the bear lockers.