D. Thomas - Backlash

Samantha was clearly hoping for something more. “I don’t see how that is going to help us,” she said dryly before a spark of excitement suddenly lit up her eyes as she guessed at Lewis’s intentions. “Do you think you can lasso one of the branches?”

Lewis smiled at her enthusiasm. “Unfortunately: no, there aren’t any branches that are even close to within range.” He then patted the scuba tank he had packed along and said, “But, I do have an idea for this.”

Samantha shook her head. “Not another rocket ride I hope.”

Lewis’s smile widened. “It is your turn,” he joked before explaining his real idea. “Actually, nobody is going to ride the tank this time. I think we can use the pressure in the tank to shoot a homemade spear into the tree. If we tie the rope to the spear, I think I can climb the rope then haul everyone up.”

Lewis got right to work. First, he opened the knife blade of his Leatherman and sliced through the regulator hose from the scuba tank. Next, he removed the thick straw from one of the water bottles, confirming that it slid almost perfectly into the open end of the regulator hose. “Time for our first test,” Lewis said as he taped off the exposed end of the straw with a piece of athletic tape from the first-aid kit. Pointing the hose down the passage, he gave the tank’s valve a quick twist. Even Lewis was shocked when the straw flew all the way back to the rock pile and shattered on impact.

“You must have been a true neighborhood terror growing up,” Gonzalez said with a large smile.

Lewis smiled back. “I must admit, more than one parent banned their child from playing with me.” He waved the hose around like a cowboy in a shoot-out. “If we loaded this thing up with firecrackers, we’d really have something!”

Lewis retrieved a new straw and taped his open Leatherman to the end, choosing the serrated blade to form a sharp spearhead he hoped would grip the tree. Gonzalez found a pack of dental floss in the first-aid kit. She handed it to Lewis, who looped the entire 100 feet of floss through the keychain loop on the end of his favorite multi-tool. The titanium keychain had seemed like a gimmick when he purchased the knife, but its added strength was about to be put to the test. Conceptually, this would be similar to the log-spearing endeavor at the beginning of their expedition: the floss would be light enough to leave the spear’s trajectory unaffected, but strong enough to pull the climbing rope through after the spear was lodged in the tree. Lewis looked over the strange contraption then asked Pierre, “Are you up for one more climb?”

As he rubbed his hands together, Pierre said, “As I believe you once said, ‘Easy squeezy cheese!’”

Laughter erupted from everyone but the confused Frenchman. Lewis gave him a hard pat on the back. “I don’t think that’s quite what I said, but I like it! I think you just discovered yourself a catchphrase.”

Lewis took up his position at the cave mouth while Pierre clipped back into the rope and moved to the start of his runway. Once again, the others helped by organizing the rope as they got out of the way. With renewed focus, Pierre counted himself down then ran towards Lewis at top speed, his eyes constantly focused on his target on the other side of the approaching shaft. Lewis mentally willed the leap to work as Pierre passed him and rocketed skyward. As on the previous attempt, Pierre soared across the gap and latched his strong fingers into the small crack. It was now only a matter of a few seemingly easy moves to get back up to the remaining cam, locking in the rope once again.

Less than a minute after he jumped from the mouth of the cave, Pierre was back by Lewis’s side, the rope now ready for the next phase of the operation. Pierre removed his climbing harness and passed it to Lewis, who had to lengthen the straps but eventually got it on. He tucked his new spear launcher under his arm before asking, “Everyone ready?”

“All we have to do is hold the rope,” Gonzalez replied.

The next part of the plan required the others to hold the end of the rope while Lewis swung across to the other side, where he would attempt to harpoon the trunk of the pine tree. Seeing that everything was ready, he stepped to the edge, pausing for a couple of seconds before gingerly stepping into the void.

Everyone held the rope tightly as Lewis swung towards the other wall, raising his legs in preparation for the upcoming collision. He bent his knees as he reached the other side, smoothly decelerating from the swing as he came to an easy landing. Lewis then leaned forward, grabbing the narrow crack to climb upward as best he could, relying heavily on help from the others. “How in the heck did you climb this?” Lewis asked Pierre through gritted teeth, knowing this was the easy part for the amazing climber.

Once he was high enough, Lewis clipped his harness directly to Pierre’s cam. Gripping the tank between his legs, he pointed the homemade spear launcher at the tree above, being careful to let the attached dental floss hang freely where it wouldn’t get tangled. He held still, waiting for the swaying to stop. A quick turn of the tank’s valve sent the spear flying towards the tree, miraculously remaining right on target despite its poor aerodynamics. The spear hit the tree trunk dead on, but the knife simply bounced off, flying a few feet higher before the floss got tight.

“Watch out!” Lewis warned as the spear sped downward, following the wall towards where the others were watching. Everyone ducked back inside in time to avoid being impaled. Lewis reeled the spear back in and inspected it for damage. Everything looked fine for another try.

“What happened?” Gonzalez asked from the tunnel.

Lewis looked up to the tree before answering. “I think the angle is too steep from here, the blade glanced off. I need to get higher.” The problem was he was already hanging about as high as he could go — Pierre required wild acrobatics to climb further, which wasn’t a realistic option for Lewis. He gripped the narrow tip of the crack with his fingertips, carefully pulling himself higher as he stretched to get his left foot into the cam’s loop of nylon webbing. Slowly extending his leg, Lewis fought his body’s tendency to topple over backwards as he stood up, directly facing the sheer wall. This was as high as he was going to get while maintaining a direct path to the tree.

Lewis had been sent to the corner many times in kindergarten, but that did little to prepare him for aiming a homemade spear at an unseen target while his nose was firmly pressed into the cold corner where the rock walls met. Still, he did his best, extending the hose as far over his head as he could before giving the valve a sharp twist, launching the spear towards the tree once again. The shot caused Lewis to lose his balance, sending him tumbling towards the bottom of the shaft. His mouth formed a wide smile as he fell, hearing the loud thud of his knife stabbing solidly into the tree above.

Craig and the others kept their tight hold on the rope, stopping Lewis’s fall just a few feet below the cam where he once stood. The violent halt ripped the tank from under Lewis’s arm, sending it crashing onto the rubble below. “Thanks,” Lewis offered as he hung upside down, peering up between his legs to the tree above. “I think we got a direct hit that time.”

Pierre tossed Lewis some of the slack at the end of the rope, allowing the group to winch him back into the cave like laundry on a high-rise clothesline. Everyone eyed the dental floss with excited eyes, the thin minty string representing their lifeline out of this whole ordeal.

Next came the most straightforward part of the plan: using the floss to pull the climbing rope up. The only tricky part was that the rope wasn’t long enough to make the whole loop and there wasn’t anyone up top to tie it off to the spear. Lewis’s idea was simple. He tied the floss to one end of the rope, and tied a large knot in the other end, hoping to pull the rope up and through until the knot got stuck at the keychain loop. The plan proved to be as successful as it was simple.