Nevada Barr - Blind Descent

"You've never been to Tinker's Hell?"

"Nope. Neither of us. Just got to pore over the surveys. Might never have gotten to go either. The chief-Iverson referred to his boss, George Laymon, Chief of Resource Management for Carlsbad Caverns-"has been keeping a tight lid on who goes in here. After the big push in the 1980s they closed the cave to all but scientific research and restoration-"

"And anybody who knew somebody they could lean on," Holden put in, and Anna was reminded of the usually friendly but still existing rivalry between federal land management agencies, in this case the NPS and the Bureau of Land Management. Ostensibly the Park Service was dedicated to total conservation. The BLM espoused a more commercial view, leasing and exploiting some of the resources of public lands.

"Hey, it's who you know," Oscar said equitably.

The closing of Lechuguilla was an old bone of contention. "How do we know where we're going?" Anna asked, bringing the conversation back to a subject nearer her heart.

"If you don't know where you're going, you're liable to end up someplace else," Holden said philosophically. Anna heard telltale crackling as he unwrapped a Jolly Rancher.

"House rules," Iverson told Anna. "You survey as you go: maps, sketches, measurements, the whole enchilada. No scooping booty."

"It happens," Holden said. "Somebody gets excited and boldly goes where no man has gone before. But it's severely frowned upon."

"Do they lay orange tape like we've been following?" Anna asked.

"Them's the rules," Holden said, and she found herself immeasurably relieved, though she knew the tape was laid more for the cave's protection than that of the cavers. If each expedition followed precisely the same trail, never veered from between the lines, a majority of the cave would remain untrammeled. Oscar looked at his watch. "Seven p.m.," he said. "We've been on the go just over two hours. With luck we'll be there by midnight. Everybody holding up okay?"

"Okay," Anna echoed.

"The Wormhole," Iverson said. Clicking on his headlamp, he ran the beam along the traverse to where it was anchored on the far side. Below the jug handle securing the line was an irregularity in the stone about the size and shape of an inverted Chianti bottle. The opening was flush with the wall: no ledge, lip, or handholds; no nooks or crannies to brace boots in.

"You're kidding," Anna said hopefully.

"I'll admit it looks tricky," Iverson said. "You want to go first, Holden?"

"And rob you of the glory? No indeed."

Iverson peeled off his pack and began strapping on ascenders.

The one time Anna had been on a tyrolean traverse it had been a simple horizontal move over a river valley under kind blue skies with the music of frogs to keep her company. They'd not used ascenders, just strung the traverse line through a trolley on the web gear and scuttled across with much the same movements used when shinnying along a rope. Because of the steep tilt of this traverse-close to forty-five degrees-ascenders were needed.

Mechanical ascenders were a relatively simple invention that had revolutionized climbing. A one-way locking cam device about the size of a pack of cigarettes and shaped like a tetrahedron was strapped to the right boot above the instep. An identical device was attached to the left foot but on a tether that, when pulled out to full length, reached the climber's knee. This ascender was tied to a thin bungee cord and hooked over the shoulder. Once this awkward arrangement was complete, the rope to be climbed was hooked through both ascenders and a roller on the climber's chest harness. Thus married to the rope, it was a not-so-simple matter of walking, as up an invisible ladder. Raise the right foot; up comes the Gibbs ascender. Put weight on the right foot; cam locks down on the line. The foot is firm in its stirrup, and the body is propelled upward. This movement tightens the bungee, which in turn pulls the second ascender up along the rope. When the left foot steps down, the cam locks and another "stair" is provided.

Anna had used Gibbs ascenders enough that she was proficient, but she always enjoyed watching a master. The ascenders, so arranged, were called a rope-walker system. On the right climber that appeared literally true. Anna had seen men walk as efficiently up two hundred feet of rope as if they walked up carpeted stairs in their living room.

"Croll," Iverson said as he rigged a third ascender into his seat harness. "Ever used one?"

Anna shook her head.

"Like falling off a log," he assured her.

Rotten analogy, Anna thought, but she didn't say anything.

"Get the packs ready," Iverson said to Holden. "Once I get settled, I'll bring them across with a haul line."

"We'll use the haul line, too," Holden told Anna. "Ever so much more civilized."

As Iverson rigged himself to the traverse, Anna watched with a keen interest. One lesson, then the test. It crossed her mind how much better a student she would have been if in school the options had been learn or die.

Crouching on a thumb of rock as big around as a plate, eighteen inches of it thrust over the chasm, Oscar attached his safety, clipped his Croll into the rope, wrestled his two foot ascenders onto the line, then pushed till his torso and buttocks hung like a side of beef a hundred twenty feet above God knew what.

Anna kept her headlamp trained where he would find it useful, kept the light steady and out of his eyes. It was all she could do. There was no room for a second pair of hands to help him.

Holden was occupied with the business of tying the packs into trouble-free bundles that could easily be hauled across. Along with personal gear were medical supplies requested by Dr. McCarty, among them oxygen. In the case of a head wound it might be the only thing that could keep Frieda's brain tissue from permanent damage.

Iverson finished and snaked an elbow over the line so he could hold his head up. "Check my gear?" he said to Holden.

"Right-o."

Having been checked out by a fresh pair of eyes, Oscar began rope-walking over the rift. Suspended at four points along the line, his body was nearly horizontal, spine toward the center of the earth. As always in a traverse, there was an element of sag. It made the operation of the ascenders inefficient, and progress was measured in inches. As the line began to angle, rising steeply toward the Wormhole, the slack was taken up. After a few strangled kicks to get the cams to lock down, Oscar climbed like a pro, covering the last thirty feet in as many seconds. The rig was a work of art; not so much slack that he was head-down at the bottom, but enough so that he was standing upright when he reached the hole.

In the scattering light, Anna could see his skinny arms weaving some sort of magic near the top of the traverse, where his shoulders blocked her view.

"That's the tricky part alluded to earlier," Holden said. Anna was startled at the nearness of his voice. She could feel his breath against her cheek. In their absorption, they'd knelt shoulder to shoulder on the edge of their limestone block like a couple of White Rock fairies in a troglodyte nightmare.

"What's he doing?" The words gusted out, and Anna realized she'd been holding her breath.

"There's no place to be, and the Wormhole's so tight it's sort of pay-as-you-go. He's changing ropes. Hooking onto the rebelay. He'll let himself loose a little bit at a time as he gets that part of himself into the hole. The hard bit is feeling for the Gibbs down at your feet. Sort of like tying your shoelaces when you're halfway down a python's throat."

Iverson squirmed a moment more, Anna and Holden so entranced they forgot to talk. Then it was as if the rock swallowed his head. It was gone, and only the body remained, twitching with remembered life. The shoulders were next, melting seamlessly into the cliff, the pathetic stick legs kicking in short convulsive movements. Hips vanished, and Anna and Holden's lights played over a pair of size-thirteen boots flipping feebly. The image was ludicrous, but Anna didn't feel like laughing. Hands reappeared, only the hands, gloved and bulky. With no assistance from a corporeal body, they fussed and fluttered and danced like a cartoon drawn by an artist on acid.