Wood’s rose. It couldn’t be missed. They left the trail and thrashed through serviceberry and oak brush, following broken limbs left by others as they penetrated the thicket. Poor slobs—they’d been carrying full packs with heavy gear.
Johnny charged across the steepening slope, brush high above his head.
“Careful,” Jack said.
The thicket opened up.
“God,” Johnny gasped, and jumped back.
Jack grabbed his pack, steadying him. The wall across the canyon, beyond the void, faced them down. Never had it seemed so massive.
Perched between strata—sheer wall above them, sheer wall dropping away below—they stared out into the canyon. Faintly, from somewhere, came the distant sound of crashing waters. Jack stepped around Johnny, eyes to the ground. He weaved through boulders and talus, avoiding the distraction of the canyon. The drop was too sheer, too disorienting, the edge too close for mistakes.
They waded through another patch of serviceberry. Ahead were the others, in climbing helmets, green uniform jeans and T-shirts—except Foss, still in his yellow, nomex fire shirt. Perched on a slope twenty to thirty feet wide, one man worked near the edge, seemingly oblivious, fearlessly reaching around the trunk of a piñon pine. The others stood back, appearing full of trepidation.
The person at the edge turned—it was Luiz Archuleta. The law enforcement ranger, in T-shirt and minus his bullet proof vest and service belt, looked more lanky and muscular than usual. He sidestepped over to another piñon, stretched a piece of red webbing between it and the first, tied it in, then tested and tethering himself in with a runner clipped to his climbing harness. He turned to the others. “Listen up. No one, and I mean no one, steps past the red webbing without being tied in. Either to it, or another anchor. Got it?” He waited for head nods, then turned and gave a hard look at his new arrivals. “I need you two to put on climbing helmets.”
In a canvas bag they found the helmets. Jack pulled out a yellow one, slipped it on, and plopped down near the wall to wait.
He glanced at Foss, sitting twenty feet away.
The big man scowled. “Yeah, glad to see you, too.”
Jack ignored him, and watched as Luiz methodically chose what would be used for anchors. A ponderosa pine near the wall. A table-sized boulder just below it. An old piñon, off to the left. Pointing, Luiz directed others to put wraps of webbing around each.
With webbing double-wrapped and knotted around each anchor, locking carabiners clipped in, and kern-mantle climbing rope ran between them, Luiz now took over. Jack watched him lace together a complicated configuration of knots and carabiners—the self-equalizing anchor. The runs of rope would shift dynamically with the load and the line of decent, keeping weight evenly distributed on the anchors.
Luiz knew what he was doing. It was a redundant system. Nothing attached to only one anchor or only one piece of rope or webbing. All knots and carabiners were backed up with a second. If anything failed, another part of the system would take over. In theory.
Luiz stepped back and gazed over the system. He moved forward and tugged at a rope, then another. Suddenly, he stopped and abruptly turned. “Okay, which one of you has rock rescue experience?”
Jack raised a hand. “That would be me.”
“Figured as much. Trained in all facets of this kind of rescue?”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you operated a z-rig raising system?”
“Oh . . . maybe ten years ago. Maybe fifteen. Somewhere in there.”
“Were you an expert at it?”
“It’ll come back to me.”
Luiz’s eyes sank deep in their sockets. He faced the canyon and rubbed his eyes. He spun around. “Okay, you’re at the end of the rope.”
“But . . . ,” Jack said, looking toward the edge. It fell away to nothing. “Luiz, I’d be better on the raising system.”
“Ever been rescuer on a big wall rescue?”
“Not as big as this!”
“But you have?”
“Long time ago. Max of about two hundred feet, maybe three.”
“Not important,” Luiz muttered. “Two hundred, two thousand, it’s all the same.” He dug into a green canvas bag, pulled out a climbing harness, and walked it over. He held it out.
“Luiz, I’m not the right guy.”
He sighed. “You are. Only two of us have any experience whatsoever. One of us has to go over that edge. The other has to stay up here and run the lowering and raising systems. The more complicated job is here. The guy who goes down on that rope has to know he can trust the other guy to get him down there and back. You can trust me.” Luiz smiled. “No offense, but I’m sure as hell not trusting you.”
Chapter 3
Luiz tugged at the rope and groaned. “This isn’t right.”
The words sank in and Jack turned, suppressing a shudder.
Luiz probed at the knot. It came easily undone. “Who did this?” No one answered. “Who tied this knot?”
Foss raised a hand.
“Get your head out and get over here.”
Foss picked his way across the slope.
“Watch. This is how you tie a bowline.”
Foss watched him methodically retie the knot and hold it out for inspection. No time for reassurances, Luiz turned his attention to the knot at the end of load rope.
“Looked good to me,” Foss said, in Jack’s direction. He flashed a smile, turned, and worked his way back to where he’d been.
“Inspect all you want, Luiz,” Jack said, laughing nervously. “No rush.”
“That’s not what the guy over the edge is thinking.”
Jack watched his fingers trace the rope through knots, then thumb knots, and then on to equalizing ropes and anchors. He rechecked everything. No one seemed to take it personally. Only Foss saw humor in it.
Jack let his eyes fall on the caver’s rappelling rack, sitting ready to lower him down the cliff face. The rope wove in and out, around the cams on the device. His eyes widened. It’s wrong. It looked right only a moment ago. He closed his eyes and looked again, following the rope as it went around one cam, disappear behind the next, then emerge before the next, feeding in and out. Okay, it’s right. It’ll work. Quit looking.
“Listen up,” Luiz shouted. “Everyone has their role. Take your positions.”
Half the team moved into the shade of the wall, out of the way. They would not be needed during the first part of the operation, the lowering. During raising, everyone would be needed. All four of the others, all their muscles.
Foss plopped down at the lowering station, reached around and clipped himself into an anchor. Johnny settled in at the belay line.
“Luiz,” Jack shouted, and then waited as he made his way over. He whispered, “I’d rather have Johnny on the load rope.”
“Foss is bigger. He’s the bulkiest guy we got.”
“Let’s just say I trust Johnny’s training, even though it might not be much.”
“Foss said he had a little training and we’ve got Johnny on belay, but it’s up to you. You’re the man on the rope.”
“Johnny on the load rope.”
“If we need more rope and need to pass the knot, Foss will be on belay, holding everything, at least for a moment.”