Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

“Later, mates,” Hollinger said, moving up from the back of the queue. He proceeded to cross, both hands gripping the ropes. His steps weren’t as certain as Andrew’s, but he moved at a decent pace.

Moments later Chad stepped onto the planks. “I’m next.”

“Wait a couple seconds,” I told him. “Give Hollinger more space.”

“He’s got enough,” Chad said, seizing the ropes. He tested their bounce by shaking them, which caused the guide to scowl and wave his hands.

“Hold up.” Petras dropped a hand on Chad’s shoulder. The force must have been harder than it looked, because Chad swung his head around, his eyes wide as saucers. “Tim’s right. Wait a second.”

Chad slipped on his mirrored sunglasses and wisely kept his mouth shut.

“Okay,” Petras said once Hollinger had covered a sizable distance. “Go.”

Chad moved onto the bridge.

I glanced over at Shotsky. He was watching every step Chad took with mounting distress. You’ve got to be kidding me , I thought. I gripped a fistful of his parka. “You okay?”

His gaze bounced from me to the bridge, me to the bridge. “Doesn’t look too safe. I’m maybe the heaviest guy …”

“Here,” I said, setting my pack on the ground. I unwound a spool of line and ran it through one of the grappling hooks at my hip. I extended the line, latched it onto one of Shotsky’s hooks, and tied it off in a figure eight. I tugged on it and it was strong.

Shotsky laughed nervously. “So this means if I fall, you’ll fall, too, huh? Kill the both of us instead of just me, right?”

“You can go back,” I said, my voice low. “You don’t have to be

out here if you don’t want to do this.”

“Yes,” he said dryly, “I do.”

I was about to ask what he meant when Petras clapped my shoulder. As I turned, he intercepted the line from my hands and ran it through two hooks on his harness.

“Thanks,” I said, but Petras had already turned away.

Curtis followed Chad. We waited for Curtis to go beyond the bridge’s midpoint before Petras stepped onto the bridge. Shotsky may have been the most overweight of the bunch, but John Petras, with his massive frame and shoulder span, was by far the heaviest.

From where I stood, I could hear the planks creaking beneath Petras’s boots. There wasn’t enough rope length between us to provide the requisite fifteen feet, so as the slack on my rope picked up, I moved onto the bridge. I glanced at Shotsky over my shoulder and said, “Thirty-three.”

“Thirty-three,” he echoed and audibly swallowed a lump in his throat.

Beneath me, the bridge seemed to swing from one side to the other; I had to maintain white-knuckled grips on the ropes to prevent this, and I could feel my fingernails digging into the meat of my palms after only five steps. The groaning planks beneath Petras’s feet less than two yards ahead of me did not help settle my unease.

I closed my eyes and listened to the rushing water below, the sound of the wind rustling the palm fronds and the rhododendron leaves. Last night’s sleep was hard and dreamless: I dreamed now, imagining I was floating high above the earth, no bridge beneath my feet, just the air and the babbling river, white and frothing, and the swaying fronds that were so big they looked prehistoric—

The line at my back went taut. My eyes flipped open, and I told Petras to slow down as I glanced behind me. Shotsky, taking up the rear, was moving too slow.

“You gotta step it up a notch, man,” I called to him.

“This pace feels about right,” he said. I did not like the quakingin his voice.

“Shotsky, the slower you move, the longer you’ll be on this bridge. Do you understand?” I turned to look at him.

He nodded but did not increase his speed.

“Shotsky,” I said again, and that was when the plank beneath my foot snapped.

The world blurred as I rushed downward, feeling the jagged edge of the busted plank tear my cargo pants. Reflex caused my hands to spear out; I grabbed one of the vertical ropes, which briefly arrested my fall yet caused the bridge to pitch on its side. I heard Shotsky moan and saw John Petras bound toward me. The busted plank was at eye level. What looked like blood seeped into the wood. My blood? I had no idea.

“Hang on!” Petras shouted.

The rope was slick with moss; I lost my grip and felt the world pull me toward its center.

With all this gear on my back, I’m going to drown , I thought. A second later, I felt the concussion of striking the surface of the water. My bones rattled in my skin. For a moment, I thought I had somehow missed the river completely and hit the embankment, and I was now splayed out and broken on the jagged white rocks covered by a mat of fronds.

But then I felt the icy waters claim me, seeping into my clothes and attacking my flesh, and I couldn’t see a damn thing. I was fucking blind, and I was drowning, blind and drowning.

2

I AWOKE BESIDE THE RIVER. PETRA’S FACE IN MY

own. He had one thumb holding up my eyelid. I blinked, and he let go and took a step back.

Behind him, Donald Shotsky stood with his hands fumblingover one another, his eyes bugging out. “On his neck.” His voice sounded like it was issuing from the far end of a long, corrugated tunnel. “See it? What is it?”

“Leech. Big sucker, too.” Petras peeled it from my neck and briefly examined it between his fingers. It was the size of a man’s index finger. He chucked it into the underbrush.

Then the shakes started—the cold had permeated my clothes, freezing them to my body, the water causing them to cling like flesh.

“Can you hear me?” Petras asked.

I nodded.

To Shotsky, Petras said, “We need to get him out of these clothes.”

I passed out.

3

LATER. THE SKY A MISTY GARY AND THE SUN

veiled by long streamers of clouds, I sat before a blazing fire. I was dressed in Michael Hollinger’s clothes, which weren’t exactly a perfect fit, and my teeth chattered in my skull. We still had several hours of daylight left, and Andrew had wanted to put them to good use. He was irritated and anxious at the mishap on the bridge, and I watched him pace back and forth along the brush, oblivious to the rest of us.

Petras brought me some tsampa —roasted barley ground to sticky flecks—and hot tea.

“The hell happened, anyway?” I said, grasping the tin cup of hot tea in both hands, savoring its warmth.

“You must have hit a weak board in just the right way.”

“And I didn’t pull you two down?”

“I reached the other side and secured the line around a post just before you fell.”

“And Shotsky?”

Petras grinned wearily. “Lucky bastard got his foot tangled inone of the bridge’s suspension cables. Just like that story he told about the crabbing boat when Andrew saved his life.”

“Pudgy bastard’s got a flare for that,” I commented but with no disdain. “He’s okay?”

“He’s fine. How about you?”

“Never better.”

“Your head still hurt?”

I frowned. “My head?”

“Gashed it pretty good.”

I suddenly became aware of a dull throb at the center of my forehead. When I touched the spot, I felt the split in the flesh and the sting of my fingers upon it. “Nice,” I muttered.

Petras shrugged. “You were an ugly bastard before. Doesn’t change much.”

I nodded in Andrew’s direction. “He pissed?”

“Says we’re close to the Valley of Walls. If we don’t lose too much time here, we can reach it by nightfall.”

I rose with some difficulty. My body was sore and unsure of itself. “Then let’s go.”