"There's a small knob," Mitch said.
Hannah looked again and shook her head. "I don't see it."
Mitch edged around her, his body pressing against her. "Here." He took her left hand in his and extended it. Hannah felt something hard pressing against her rear. Probably one of his snap links, she thought.
Her fingers felt the slightest protuberance from the rock. "You've got to be kidding me," she said. "I'm supposed to use that?"
"Try it," Mitch said. "Move your left foot up about eight inches. Push slightly away from the rock and let the rubber toe grip."
Hannah did as she was told and was amazed to find that she could actually move up the eight inches. Slowly, she continued up until she was in the middle of the twenty foot stretch. But at that point, the next hold was just out of her reach. Neeley with her extra height had been able to make it, but for Hannah, her fingers came up an inch and a half short, no matter how she stretched.
"Come on, Hannah," Neeley called out. "You can make it."
Hannah glanced down. Mitch was pulling out the protection from the place they had just left. Then her eyes traveled past him. The ground was suddenly a long way down. She had been so caught up in moving inches she hadn't realized that she was ninety feet off the canyon floor.
"Hannah!" Neeley called out, her voice concerned.
Hannah quickly looked back up. She wanted off this bare stretch. She looked at the small indentation in the rock that she knew was the next hold. Then she moved, pulling her right hand off, left hand extended, pushing up hard with her left leg, her right one dangling in space. And then she was holding nothing but air.
Hannah fell eight feet, then the slack in the rope was gone. She bounced off the rock wall and went down another six feet as the rope did as it was designed and stretched, keeping her from experiencing an instantaneous braking, which was as dangerous as falling. Hannah slowly bounced against the rock wall like a pendulum, almost twenty feet below Neeley. Mitch was to her right and slightly below.
"Hang on," Mitch said.
"I've got nothing to hang on to," Hannah shot back, her hands desperately searching for a hold.
Up above, Neeley could feel the pull through her harness, going out to the two pieces of protection. She glanced up. "Oh shit," she muttered. The nylon loop had popped up during the fall and was now hanging by just an inch, still caught at the very top of the spur. And that was taking all the weight of Hannah and herself. The nylon strap leading to the lower protection was slack since it was angled down. If the top loop went, Neeley wasn't sure the bottom nut could take the impact. She dug her heels in tighter to the small ledge.
"Come on, Hannah!" she called out.
Hannah shook her head to clear a lock of hair and the helmet slid down over her face. "Great!" her muffled voice came out through the small holes in the helmet. She felt a pair of hands grab her thighs, slowly pulling her to the right. Then the hands slid down her legs until they reached her feet. Mitch placed her feet on some small support and Hannah was no longer hanging.
Neeley breathe a deep sigh of relief. She leaned back against the rock and carefully snapped the slack in the upper nylon loop. It went back down over the spur.
"I'll give you some support with the rope," Neeley said. As Hannah traversed the rest of the bad pitch, Neeley left no slack in the rope. In fact she aided Hannah as much as she could, straining her arms to help pull her partner up. Soon Hannah was at her side and Mitch soon followed.
"I'd like to go down now," Hannah said.
"We're almost there," Neeley reassured her.
"The more we go up," Hannah pointed out, "the further away the ground gets."
"That's the concept," Neeley said and then she began the next pitch.
Before Hannah had completely recovered from her fall, Neeley was in place, beckoning her up. Hannah climbed.
Soon even Hannah could begin to see that they were going to make it. The top was only twenty feet away. Neeley climbed up and then disappeared over the top, the rope trailing her. Hannah followed, Mitch at her side. Then Mitch smiled at her. "Race you to the top." He unhooked from the tail end of the rope.
"You win," Hannah immediately said.
Mitch shot up and was over the top in twenty seconds. It took Hannah that same amount of time to find her next hold.
Finally, as Hannah pulled herself up the last overhang, she could hardly contain her enthusiasm. She slid over onto a rocky ledge, ten feet wide. There was another rock wall in front and the ledge disappeared to the left. To the right the ledge widened and a bunch of large boulders were tumbled there, caught from falling further. Neeley and Mitch were nowhere to be seen. Just the rope, locked in to several anchor points in the rock at the very edge and then disappearing behind the boulders to the right.
Hannah turned and looked back down the way they had come. "This is incredible. Wow, look at the view," she called out. "Hey, where is everybody?" she asked as she turned her attention back to her own altitude.
Hannah dropped her backpack and walked toward the boulders, following the rope. Neeley came from behind the nearest boulder, holding a small waxy packet. "Congrats on the climb, Hannah. Good news, bad news."
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked. "Where's Mitch?"
Neeley nodded. "Oh, the bad news. Mitch is right behind me."
Hannah saw the gun the same moment she saw Mitch appear and the nasty look that covered his face.
"Oh for crying out loud," Hannah muttered. "Where'd you get the gun, Mitch? There's barely enough room in your shorts for your testicles."
Mitch shook his chalk bag. He pointed at the rock wall and walked toward the edge. The maneuver got the sun out of his eyes and gave him a nice target of both the woman against the wall.
"Give me the package and I promise I won't kill you. A shot in the legs should do for now."
Neeley glared at him. "Who are you working for?"
Hannah snorted. "What a stupid question. He's working for the guy who paid him six hundred dollars, of course."
“Racine requires that I acquire the tape and papers. Beyond that, I am free to let you go.”
The gun focused on Neeley's left knee. She held up the package. "All right. It's yours." She tossed the package onto the rocky ground near the edge to Mitch's right.
"Nice try," Mitch said. "Pick it up. Give it to her," he said, gesturing at Hannah, "and she gives it to me."
Neeley stepped forward. She bent down to pick the package up, and then suddenly threw herself forward and off the ledge into space.
Hannah screamed and Mitch turned to follow Neeley with the gun. The rope that was tied around Neeley's waist quickly ran out of slack and snapped tight into Hannah's harness, in the process whipsawing Mitch in the thighs. He staggered and held against Neeley's weight on the rope for a second and then he was gone, tumbling out into space.
Hannah was dragged to her knees by the taut rope, sliding toward the edge.
"Hold on!" Neeley cried out from twenty feet down, where she was swinging back and forth on the end of the rope.
"Hold on," Hannah muttered to herself as she looked around.
"Grab the protection!" Neeley yelled.
Hannah looked at the anchor points that Neeley had put in. She reached out with her right hand and grabbed hold of a sling attached to cam jammed into a small crevice.
"Now what?" she gasped.
"I'm climbing up," Neeley said.
Hannah felt the weight lessen on the rope. Soon Neeley's hands appeared and then she was up. Hannah stood. They both looked over the edge. Mitch had fallen all the way to the bottom, his broken body lying on top of a boulder. She looked around; there were no other climbers in sight and no one on the ground in the immediate area.
Hannah shook her head. "That poor boy. What a waste."