David Dun - Necessary Evil

"I can't," she called.

"When you throw again, think only of the tree."

As he said it, she realized that she had been thinking of the rope, not the tree. With nothing to lose and a sense of wild abandon she threw the loop as hard as she could. To her amazement, it fell neatly over the treetop.

"Very impressive," Kier said. "In a minute we'll have a bridge line."

She felt a surge of satisfaction.

From his higher angle, Kier shimmied and shook the line down past the first stubby branch and pulled it tight, catching the main trunk.

"Grab this," Kier said as he dangled another length of line until she had it firmly in her grasp. "This is the swing line. Pull the bridge line taut and tie this swing line to it the way I showed you. Tie it as close to the tree as you can."

She tried it three times before convincing herself that she was doing it right. Then Kier took the belly out of the bridge line, pulling it taut to the piton, forming a single line bridge across the chasm on a steep angle from the cliff top down to the treetop.

The swing line was attached to the bridge line at about the middle of the chasm and was now well above Jessie's head. She would have to push off the rock wall and, in a pendulumlike motion, reach the tree.

"Okay. There should be a ledge there. Stand on it."

She did as he said, clinging to the rock wall.

''I'm going to loosen the line that holds you so I can let it out as you swing yourself across. If you don't make it, you've got to turn feet first to this side so you can push off again."

There was silence. If the tree on the opposite side gave way when Jessie swung, she would slam back against the rock face, dangling from her safety rope.

Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the swing line.

"Ready?"

She hesitated. Could she make herself do it one more time? The black of the abyss below engulfed her.

"Look at the stars."

She did and drank them in. Something in that vast beyond made the chasm less important, her own mortality more acceptable. She pushed off into the jaws of her terror, leaving her spirit in the arms of the universe.

Swinging easily she covered the eight feet to a branch.

"Pull yourself in."

She grabbed the branch like a cat over water, hauling herself to the tree. For a moment, she laid her cheek against the trunk of the pine, concentrating on the rough texture of the reddish brown bark, its sharp scent.

Her eyes cast about for a way to get to the cave. Using her light, she could see that the rock surface was indented with small but numerous hand- and footholds. A large branch just above her looked to be the best bet. Then she saw another branch, less stout but closer, that would take her nearer to firm footing. She tested it and it seemed to hold her weight. With one step on the branch and a hop she could make it to a man-size, two-foot-deep pockmark in the rock wall, then climb to the cave. Feeling confined in the rope harness, she decided to remove it. After a brief straggle she was free of the lines.

She placed her foot on the branch and reached for the rock. The snap was so abrupt she had no time to react. She dropped as if through a trapdoor. Her gloved hand caught a branch as she went. The spindly wood slowed her, then strained downward. As it broke, she got an arm over the bend in the tree where the trunk made its L-turn at the cleft in the rock. Twisting wildly, she eventually wrapped both arms around the base of the trunk and hung there.

She heard the sounds of a child crying, then realized it was she who was crying in ragged breaths. Air sucked into her lungs in great gulps. Her head spun. Something was terribly wrong.

"Don't breathe so hard!"

Kier was shouting at the top of his lungs. Why was he doing that? She took a deep, slow breath.

"Get your feet on the rock."

She felt with her left toes and found a small ledge. It seemed too narrow to support her weight.

The tree is solid, the trunk thick and strong, she told herself. She could count on it. It was her muscles and mind that were jelly. She would use her legs, the strongest part of her. She searched around with her right foot. In seconds, she found a secure shelf. After her right toe was well placed, she lifted her body with both arms and the strength of her right leg.

Gripping branches in her hands like the rungs of a ladder, she worked her way above the base of the trunk and climbed up the tree, regaining the dozen or so feet that she had fallen.

The cave beckoned, only a couple body lengths higher than her head. "Have you no suggestions?" she called out.

"Love the mountain. Remember the stars and the feeling you had."

Was he out of his mind? She would never love this cold son-of-a-bitch rock.

"This mountain is killing us. It's freezing. It has cliffs. It hates all civilized people." She risked letting go with one hand to lift her middle finger and aim it at Kier. ''I suppose I could be more one with the sucker if I let go and went splat."

She hung her head, too tired to shout anymore, and regarded the dim outline of the rock. Okay, you solid son of a bitch. She crouched down on a stout branch. Crawling forward, she reached out a hand and touched the rock. She concentrated on the granite, putting her other hand out.

Now her knees were on the branch and her hands firmly clinging to the mountain. She would need to drop a foot and find a ledge on which to park her toe. As she reached out, she glanced down. Cold blackness greeted her. To put a foot down into the unknown, to teeter on that branch, seemed a thing too hard to do. Yet if she could do this one last thing, she could rest. In a cave. On a flat spot.

"I love you, you solid son of a bitch," she whispered.

Her boot shot down in a smooth motion and found a foothold. In less than two minutes, she clambered up into the cave, where she knelt and kissed the rock. Grateful.

Until she looked at her watch, Jessie had no idea that dawn was still two hours behind the mountains. The solid flat ground on which she lay was a balm to her frazzled nerves. Kier still had not come in.

"There may be a roar," he called.

"Okay," she muttered to herself. What now?

She didn't move as it started, first with some solid knocks of rock on rock, then a clattering, followed almost immediately by a rumble that sent vibrations through the stone under her fingertips. Thunder filled the cave. After a minute of what sounded like the mountain ripping open, the sound stopped.

"Throw down the rope," she heard Kier call out.

She wanted to sleep, not move. She felt as if she had been drugged. Forcing her eyes open, she crawled the few feet back to the cave entrance and the tree.

"The rope?" he called out again. He was at the bottom of the chasm, she realized.

"Just a minute," she said. The rope was hanging from the tree. "Kier."

"Yes."

"The rope's in the tree and I'm in the cave. It'll take me a minute." She knew how weary her voice sounded.

The next thing she knew, his hand was gently shaking her shoulder.

"What time is it?" she asked. "Did you get your rope?"

The roar had been an avalanche. It would look as though they had been sucked away in the flow of rock and ice, he explained as she stretched herself awake. He had lain beside her and let her sleep for sixty minutes or so, but now they needed to move deep inside the innumerable passageways of the cavern where it would be impossible to track them.

Near the opening a wide fire pit had been used many times by the youth groups that he took on wilderness excursions. In the circle of his light beam it appeared full with fine gray ash and the remnants of blackened wood chunks. Beside it was a small pile of rough-barked logs, neatly stacked and split and ready to burn. He could tell that no one had used the place since his last visit.