The Edge of Justice (19 page)

A few hours later I can see she is sweating under her jacket as the afternoon sun presses down on the dark colors. She has pulled her hair into a ponytail beneath and behind the bandanna to keep its tangled weight off her neck. I pause at the top of a rise and set down my pack by a fallen tree. She gives me a grateful smile as she drops her own pack and digs in it for the water.

It is only when she stands back up to take a swig that she sees the tremendous wall before us. “My God,” she says. “That thing's bigger than the Empire State Building!”

“Bigger. A lot bigger. It's called the East Face of Cloud Peak.” I say it proudly, loving this mountain and all its siblings.

For another few hours we hop over fields of talus toward its base. There is no sign of another camp on the talus. Heller and his friends must already be on the wall, where chimneys and overhangs would hide them. Every so often I pause to point at features of the face and offer her descriptions from past climbs I've done there. Rebecca follows my finger and stares at the wall, and then questions me, apparently puzzled as to why anyone would want to try to climb its dark, vertical mass. I try to help her imagine what it's like: climbing free with nothing but space below you and a nylon thread as your only backup in case of a fall. Studying her as I talk, I wonder if this sort of thing appeals to her, if she would be willing to let me teach her. Hook her.

Nearer to the wall, I begin scanning it with binoculars. I search the summit first, then the broken upper face, the middle, and finally the maze of haphazard ledges toward its base. That is where I spot a tiny line of orange. It trails from a ledge low on the face, swinging limply in the cool wind. I pass the binoculars to Rebecca and direct her where to look. “It must have been Brad, Billy, or Chris who left that rope there. I can't imagine there would be any other parties back here this late in the year.”

“Why would they want to leave a rope?”

“It's almost always a sign that something went wrong. No one would voluntarily leave a one-hundred-dollar rope.”

I take back the binoculars and again search the wall without success. Could they already be up it? If they were at Cecelia's store on Monday morning, the earliest they could have started the wall was twenty-four hours ago, yesterday afternoon. And I don't think even Billy Heller can climb that fast on the dangerous face. Either they are on it, hidden from view by a ledge or a chimney, or they have come off, I decide. The latter would mean there has been an accident.

Rebecca says, “We aren't going up there, are we?” Her voice doesn't sound as if it is out of the question. Maybe she does have the disposition, genetic or acquired, for an adrenaline addiction.

I smile and shake my head. “Unfortunately, I didn't bring any gear for this trip. This is purely reconnaissance.”

It is late in the afternoon when we are finally close to the wall. We have been in its shadow for a long time, but the sky above and around it is finally turning gray. From the summit of the wall thin-looking wisps of snow stream across the heavens far above our heads. They hadn't been there earlier. For me it is a telltale sign that the jet stream is lowering as the air pressure drops. It's likely a storm is coming.

Rebecca is clearly tired from our hike across the talus. She was all right when the scree was small and easy to walk across. But as it grew larger, when she had to leap from one uneven surface to the next, she began to falter. I'm impressed though that she has never once complained. Nor did she let me take her backpack when I offered.

I lead her to a small area of dried grass surrounded by piled rocks, and we drop our packs there. Instead of watching me or helping as I set up the tent, she fixes her eyes constantly up at the wall that looms above us like some monstrous wave. It seems to blot out the sky and threaten our existence.

Half the tent is rigid and the other half is fluttering in the breeze when we hear a whistling sound. It's high-pitched and alarming—it seems to be coming toward us. It sounds almost like the firecrackers called Piccolo Petes that I remember lighting as a child. “Rock,” I tell her just as the whistling stops and we hear cracks like gunshots. The faint smell of cordite drifts over in the air. I smile grimly and touch the scar on my cheek. “I hate that sound.”

I can see Rebecca is chilled by the time the tent is up and our gear is strewn inside. Although I encourage her to get in the tent, she can't take her eyes off the wall. Inside the tent I lay out three ensolite pads, two large sleeping bags, and a third that looks as if it has been cut in half. Oso promptly collapses on that one, which I had custom-made for him years ago. He is getting too old for these trips. He attempts to curl himself into a huge ball but his elderly bulk makes it impossible for him to jam his nose in his tail the way he did when he was younger. I'm saddened by the thought of leaving him behind on future trips, and then one day him leaving me behind altogether.

As I set up the stove on a rock outside, Rebecca finally ducks into the tent and changes into her new fleece tights. She slides into one of the sleeping bags and sits up Indian-style in the tent's open entrance, the hood of the bag pulled over her shoulders. The cold air and her exhaustion have drawn the white skin on her face tight against her cheekbones. Taking the bandanna off her head, she shakes her hair free, then combs at it for a minute with her fingers before giving up. Once again I find it hard to stop looking at her in the increasing darkness.

“How do I look?” she asks, catching me.

I smile at her and try an understatement. “Fine. Just fine.”

I find the leather bota in my pack, bite open the nipple, and take a long pull of the red wine inside. Its heat spreads through me like an electrical current. I feel so good it's hard to believe that we are alone in the wilderness with two or maybe three killers. It is more like a date that's going well. And I'm back to being the self-righteous, cocksure cop I was two years ago, made invulnerable by the badge and gun I carry. Then, as if to punish me, some brain cells flash to a memory of the shooting in Cheyenne. I almost lose the high. But I take control with another deep pull from the bag, which seems to drown the treacherous cells.

When I pass the bota to Rebecca she sputters at the leathery taste of the wine, then takes a second drink. Her teeth and the whites of her eyes flash at me.

I feed her rehydrated potato pasta with a thick red sauce and pan-fried turkey sausage. Oso rouses himself to eat a plate of his own, mixed with Purina, then licks the pot and bowls clean. It grows dark outside and the wind is increasing. I collapse the small stove and pull myself into the tent, where I light a small candle lantern and hang it from the tent's highest point. The nylon sides snap and the poles creak but the wind doesn't penetrate.

“I'm beginning to see why you do this.”

“This is home,” I say to her. “Maybe that comes from the way I grew up, always traveling. Except for my granddad's ranch, a tent was the most consistent home my family had.”

“I've never been comfortable out in the wild, on the trips I took with my dad. But those were tame compared to this.”

I tell her to close her eyes—that I'm going to change. She rolls to face Oso and pats his swollen belly. “If only it weren't so cold, or there was a hot tub.”

I slide into my sleeping bag and ask her, “Are you cold?”

“A little.”

I press my bag against hers, pinning her in the dead air space between the dog and myself. I can feel her hair on my face. She turns her head and kisses my nose. “Thanks,” she says. Oso passes gas loudly and lets loose a jaw-popping yawn. She laughs, telling us both good night. I lie awake for a long time. My skin tingles where her lips had touched it.

TWENTY-ONE

I
WAKE UP TO
the familiar smell of my own day-old sweat, the gunpowderlike scent of cold granite, and the damp odor of mildew from the condensation on our sleeping bags. The walls of the tent are still. I don't move for a while, listening to the labored breathing of my elderly dog and the beautiful woman who lies between us. When I finally sit up, Oso lifts his head and stares at me expectantly. Then he folds back his ears in a smile. I unzip one wall of the tent and the beast slips out into the sunlight where I hear the jingle of his collar as he shakes off his dog-dreams.

Outside, the orange glow of the sunrise is seeping into the blackness of the great wall. The air is moist and heavy; there is a tension in it. Around the sun is a blurry haze that displays the unmistakable sign of an approaching storm. We won't be able to spend another night out. Not without skis or snowshoes. I know I have to get back anyway, for both the hearing Thursday afternoon in federal court and to try to get the sentencing of the Knapp brothers postponed.

I crawl out of my sleeping bag and the tent as quietly as I can, put on my parka, and fire up the stove. When I hear her moving in the tent, I pass in a mug of hot tea without a word.

“Thanks, Anton.”

I stick my head in and surprise us both by kissing her sleep-swollen lips. After a moment she kisses back, then pushes me away. “I'm a mess,” she tells me and lifts the errant strands of hair back from her face. “But God, that was nice.”

Instead of replying I just smile.

When she comes out of the tent in her fleece and Gore-Tex shells, she finds me crouching over the stove brewing oatmeal. “I like a man who cooks,” she says, examining our breakfast, “but I prefer lightly poached eggs and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Do you have any of that?”

“I'll make you all that the next time I wake up with you,” I say.

She grins back and nods thoughtfully.

A half hour later I leave her half-in her sleeping bag, propped against a rock, with a full mug of tea and a paperback novel she brought in her pack. The binoculars lie within easy reach. We already discussed my opinion that Heller, Brad, and Chris are probably off the wall. If they were still anywhere on it, tucked out of sight, we would have heard them climbing by now. So either they have finished the climb and for some reason left the rope behind, or something has gone wrong.

Despite her comfortable position, Rebecca looks worried. She comments on the fact that I am taking only a camera and my climbing slippers in a small hip pack.

“How are you going to get up to that rope without any ropes yourself?”

“Very carefully.”

“What about the rockfall?”

I grimace and catch myself again touching my scarred cheek. “With any luck, that won't start till later, when the sun heats up the face.” Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my helmet.

“This doesn't sound like a good idea, Anton. Why not come back with some other climbers?”

I don't reply other than to shrug. No time, with the sentencing in just two days. There is something wrong with that discarded rope high above and I need to know what it is. “Are you going to be okay here, all alone?”

“I think so. Are there any bears around here?”

“Only Oso. There shouldn't be any up this high. Not much to eat but marmots and the rare pretty journalist. But if it makes you feel any better, there's a gun in my pack.”

It's her turn to grimace. “No thank you. Just be careful, please.”

I smile at her again and start picking my way over the field of talus toward the wall. When I turn back to look at her, she has put down her book and is watching me intently. Every time I turn around her eyes are following my progress, her stare interrupted only to glance up at the rope that is hanging from the ledge several hundred feet up the face.

My progress up the wall is initially easy. It begins by simply scrambling up the slope of loose scree to where the more solid granite starts. From there I follow rising ledges back and forth, occasionally finding a dead end and having to seek out a new path. I can't see the dangling rope above, but I had roughly fixed its position in my mind, using the tent in the talus behind me as a guide.

One narrow, crumbling ledge leads me higher than the others. It isn't wide enough to walk on—it is scarcely wider than my feet. Instead I find myself moving sideways, searching for handholds in the rock. Half of the better holds come free in my hands. I toss them off the growing cliff beneath me to hear them crash onto the talus seconds later, far below. The ledge ends near a rotten chimney.

Studying its walls, I can make out faint marks of fresh chalk on obvious holds. I'm on the right track. I find a spot on the ledge that is wide enough for sitting and change into my sticky rubber slippers while taking care not to drop my boots into the void below. Once the shoes are tightly laced, I start bridging my way up the chimney.

My bruises burn when I move. I suppress a groan when I brace my back against one wall and push my legs against its opposite. The moves are relatively easy, but one place makes me sweat from more than just pain. A large boulder completely blocks the chimney like a marble in someone's throat. I am forced to lean out backward over the enormous space below and behind, shoving my fingers into the cool creases where the stone has wedged itself against the chimney's walls. I'm suspended like this by my fingertips, leaning out, searching for better holds, when the boulder shifts slightly. The air leaves my lungs in a single whoosh. I frantically claw my way on top of the rock, suddenly endowed with greater strength and perception as the familiar adrenaline floods my system. Just a little ways above, I can see the rope swaying as a gentle breeze begins to rise.

Sitting on the chockstone, letting my pulse and lungs slow in their work, I see the glint of the sun on the binoculars Rebecca holds. By the way the light flashes, it looks like she is shaking her head. Far beyond her Oso's large black form is in stalking mode on a small ridge above the talus valley, undoubtedly in pursuit of a fat marmot.

The chimney leads only thirty feet higher before it opens out on a broad ledge. The platform is littered with shattered stones. Three enormous ravens there give me dirty looks. They are standing on a red parka worn by a very dead young man. Chris Braddock, I presume. My hope for discovering what happened to Kate Danning that night in Vedauwoo.

He is lying on his back, arched across a boulder, his inverted face pointed at me. If he had been wearing sunglasses when he fell, they are missing. Along with his eyes. I find the glasses a few feet away where they have been carelessly discarded either by the fall or the birds. The ravens lift off the body at my approach. I stop ten feet from the corpse and stare at it, trying not to look at the face, but those empty sockets tug at my vision like a magnetic force. I can't help but think about how they have been emptied by the hard, pointed beaks. His mouth is open in horror at what the birds have done to him. But the horror is inexpressible, as the soft tongue is gone too.

There is some primal fear that arises when you are alone with a murdered corpse, and I admit that it grips me there on the ledge. Going near, I half expect his arms to clutch at me, sightlessly and wordlessly begging for help. I find myself muttering at this corpse.

“My name's Anton,” I tell it. “I'm the one who's going to get the guys who did this to you.”

I gently pat the hip and chest pockets of the parka but feel no wallet. I don't expect to find one anyway—nobody climbs with his wallet. Most climbers I know prefer to climb without any ID whatsoever. It just seems like you will live a little longer if it takes more time to identify your corpse and notify your family and friends. When their tears begin, that's when you're dead.

The lead rope is still knotted to the harness on his limp body. From there it leads off the side of the ledge. I examine the knot and find that it is strangely loose in my fingers. If there had been any sort of a climbing fall where placed protection or the rope itself had failed, it should have been jerked tight by the attempt at belaying. I pull up the trail of loose line and see what I expect at the other end, fifty feet out. It isn't frayed from rubbing over a lip of rock and it isn't frazzled from a tension break. It's cut clean. The kind of cut only made by a knife. He was murdered and his missing tongue is nature's clue as to why—to keep from talking.

I loosen the harness buckle and carefully slide the harness off Chris's body, leaving the rope tied to it. Coiling the rope and attached harness, I sling them over my head and one shoulder. I take several photos of the body from different angles and then a few close-ups of the face. These I take without looking through the viewfinder—I just point and shoot, like the commercial says.

I don't notice any change in the weather until I'm done. The first wet sting of a snowflake brings it to my attention. The storm is moving in faster than I had expected. I look out and am barely able to spot the bright yellow walls of the tent through the swirling air, but can't see Rebecca. I hope she is warm inside. Oso too is nowhere to be seen.

I shimmy down to the chockstone and begin rigging an improvised rappel with the dead man's rope to get down and around the loose boulder. Halfway through the process, I hear a sharp crack. For a fraction of a second I almost instinctively shout, “Rock!” But there was no whistle preceding the retort and there is no one to warn anyway. Strangely, I find myself hoping it was a falling rock. Then a second crack dashes my hope.

The shots echo off the wall, making it impossible to determine where they come from. They sound more like a bigger caliber than the borrowed .32 I had left in my pack.

I stand with my feet frozen on the precariously balanced chockstone. Twin worms of fear twist in my stomach. For a moment my organs feel loose and weak. The muscles in my thighs and back go soft too. Rebecca, I think. Oso. The fear rears up in my mind like a great wave. A cool, damp sweat pours out of my skin and soaks my fleece underclothes.

After rappelling off the boulder in what is really a barely controlled fall, the rest of my scramble down the wall goes by in a reckless blur. I tug my boots back on, indifferent to the danger of the tiny ledge, my fingers clumsy with the laces. There are no other sounds but that of the rocks kicked loose by my feet. I restrain myself from calling out their names. The snowflakes continue to fall, fatter and wetter. I am running and sliding once I hit the scree.

The tent is open and empty amidst the full force of the snowstorm. I crouch in the fresh snow, staring inside as the flakes blow in and wet the gear there. My breath is coming in short, harsh pants. I can't seem to catch it. After a long minute I finally move, open the top of my pack, and see that Cece's pistol is gone. Then I hear her quietly call to me.

“Anton?”

Spinning around, I see her emerge from a shelter of boulders with her damp sleeping bag pulled over her shoulders. The gun is shaking in her hand. Her eyes are wide and her lips are trembling with cold and fright.

“Rebecca. Are you all right?” I ask, stepping quickly toward her and putting my arms around her back.

“I'm okay. What's happening? Who's shooting?”

“I don't know. Where's Oso?”

“About the time you reached the wall, he started to growl and ran off.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Which way did he go?”

She points in the direction of the ridge where I had seen him stalking from up high on the wall, but the storm impedes any vision more than one hundred feet away. I curse again.

“Listen, put on your warmest clothes right now. We're leaving everything else.”

She does as she is told while I put a bottle of water and a few candy bars into my pack. The cut rope and harness I stuff in the pack as well. I slip the gun into my parka's front pocket, leaving it unzipped.

“We're going to get out of here. But first I've got to find Oso, and I can't leave you alone. So follow me, move as quietly as you can. Don't say anything. Okay? Not a word.”

She nods.

I lead us into the swirling clouds of fat white flakes. They are quickly filling in the spaces between the rocks. Their wetness makes the talus slippery, and Rebecca falls again and again. I point for her to walk in my tracks. Through all her slips and trips she never makes a sound. I look back at her once and see her holding one wrist, the beginning of tears in her eyes.

A deeply ingrained lesson from my father to always be conscious of my surroundings and my remembered view from the wall brings us toward the small ridge above one side of the valley. Before stepping over each slick rock, I scan ahead and around as best I can, which isn't much. Visibility has dropped to maybe fifty feet and the storm is still closing in. I stop looking back each time I hear the sharp rasp of her nylon jacket on granite, not wanting to see the pain and fear in her eyes. She stays behind me, gamely not making a sound.

Coming on top of what I guess is the low rise I had seen from the wall, the boulders are more scattered and the ground more level. I spot a series of faint depressions that are being filled by the gathering snow. Maybe twenty minutes old. I scan 360 degrees around us, then kneel by the tracks, assessing their number and direction. I'm not surprised that there are two sets, walking together in a line toward the wall. And toward our tent. What is surprising is that we hadn't met the men who made the tracks on our way up the hill. We are very lucky. I silently lead Rebecca in the direction from which the tracks had come.

I stop again when I see the large black lump farther along the hillock. I stand still for a long, long time, staring at it, no longer feeling the wet flakes stinging my face. But I hear her gasp when she sees the dark mass and the bright cherry stain polluting the fresh snow around it.

“Oh God, Anton.” She clutches my arm from behind.

I pull away from her, stepping forward quickly. Then I'm running toward the bloody shape. I kneel in the red snow and lower my head to press my face into the mane of fur at Oso's neck. The flakes keep falling. They sparkle like diamonds on the black fur. My hands lift my dog's shattered muzzle and I see his lips are locked in a snarl where a bullet hasn't torn them away. I press my forehead to his, love and grief and rage exploding like dynamite in my head.