"In a few minutes, I'm going to need to let you down."
Each of his deliberate steps followed much poking with the staff. The flat mountain surface ahead lay less than a stone's throw away. She longed to lie on it, touch it, kiss it. It was so massive, not nearly so steep as the ridge on which Kier now balanced. And it had trees, blessed trees. In front of them, she could just make out a tree near a large, dark area, like a cave. Actually, it appeared that the mountainside had an overhang. It was as if she were looking down the tube of a giant, curling wave. Ice and snow in the moonlight were the foam atop the breaker.
"There," he said, running his staff into a spot in the snow that seemed to have no bottom. "How would you feel about my loosening the rope and your getting down?"
"Not good. But I'll do it."
Slowly she slid from his back, letting her feet sink into the snow until she found a foothold on the rocky surface. Removing the pack, Kier pushed it down into the snow like a candle in a cake. He motioned for her to sit on it.
"Have you ever seen that?"
She knew exactly what he meant. On the horizon a planet shone jewellike. She threw her head back, staring. Bright stars and lesser stars occupied every tiny patch of black, and the Milky Way was a shimmering cloud of light. Her cold fear mixed with awe. She looked into eternity. And it was so quiet. There was not a sound.
"It sounds really corny, but I feel like I'm part of God," she said. "How could I ever describe this?"
"What are you feeling?"
"Peace, I guess. This is all so crazy. We're dead meat. There's no peace for us. I wonder if the men who hunt us could ever feel this. God, when I look at this… all this… I have never seen a sight to match it… But it is not just in the seeing… it's… " She didn't know what to say.
Kier tried. "It's the experience of a spirit-a very thirsty, parched spirit-that wants to touch another. Grandfather says that by knowing your own smallness you can find a way to the whole. Under these stars you are finding your smallness. You touch the whole."
They both fell silent. She let her gaze trail along the length of the Milky Way and pick among the stars.
"Grandfather brought me to this place."
"I must meet your grandfather."
''He was on the mountain today. Not half a mile from you."
"An old man, with a bag around his neck. A leather bag and a heavy green coat."
"That's him. Where did you see him?"
"I didn't, I dreamed him. When I was sick and passed out. I dreamed he came. He told me to crawl. Begged me, really. So I crawled to a stream and drank and drank and drank." Kier didn't stop her. "It was a dream, wasn't it?"
"There were no tracks near you. It was a dream. On my wall at the cabin I had a picture of him in that green coat. You would have seen it."
"And the bag?"
''No. It wasn't in the picture. A great-grandchild was holding the bag."
"I saw him with the bag."
"Your mind supplied the bag. It's something that used to be common for Indians."
"Do you realize you always have an explanation for everything? It sounds like you believe in nothing but molecules."
"I don't know what I believe. I just keep going."
"Since you went off to college, right? You always quote your grandfather. You don't state your own convictions."
"You felt what you felt. That's real." Kier pulled out two coiled lines, one of which he cut to make a third.
"I need to show you a knot."
"Why?"
"We're going to do some mountain climbing and you're going to need it."
She studied while he wrapped one line around the other. All the while her sense of foreboding grew. When she could do it, he nodded. Getting down on his hands and knees, with the guns still on his back, he felt around in the snow. After a while, he grunted what sounded like approval.
"Did you find something?"
"Oh, yes," he said, sounding relieved. "A piton."
She knew what that was. It wasn't good. It was a device used by people who climbed cliffs. It would be anchored to the rock and mountaineers would dangle from it.
"Do we need a piton?"
"Maybe I could offer a suggestion."
"A suggestion? Here we are in the middle of the night on a freezing precipice with one lousy piton? I just met God, and I'm still scared, and you think with a few words, you can just… " She hesitated. What was she trying to say? "Just get on with it. I'll be fine. Just fine."
It was night. Dangling at night was almost unthinkable. It seemed to Jessie that where they stood the ridge's top wasn't more than a couple feet wide. Covered with snow, it created the illusion of a knife's edge. To the left, the down slope appeared walkable, if dangerous, but to the right it fell away almost vertically for several stories. Kier reached down with the line and pulled it as if he were running it through the piton. Just next to him was a sheer drop created by a massive split in the granite right where the ridge joined the shoulder of the mountain in front of them. It was as if a giant had pulled lengthwise along the ridge neatly severing it from the mountain and leaving a straight-walled, U-shaped, vertical fracture.
"Perhaps you could go first, and I could help lower you down. What do you think?''
She was determined to show him no more of her fear, although she hadn't a clue as to how she would do what he asked. Kier wrapped the line around her thighs and waist, then passed it between her legs.
"Have you ever rappelled?"
"At the academy we did it a couple of times. But that was in broad daylight on an artificial rock wall. We had equipment. I had eaten. I hadn't been deathly sick. I had strength. I'll manage."
"Okay. Well, this will be very similar, only I will lower you. But if I slip or let go, this safety line, which you will pay out, will also be through the piton to stop your fall. You must hold the safety line and not let it slide through your fingers, except when you want to go down. Now lean back and I'll hold your weight."
She stood with her back to the sheer drop. Kier held the main line a foot from her chest. It went around his shoulder, across his back, down to the piton, then to her waistline.
"Go ahead and squat down."
Warily, she lowered on her haunches.
"Now lean back and let the rope take your weight."
She froze.
"Go ahead, just lean back."
God, dear God, she prayed. Her heart pounded and her hands shook. She felt humiliated. She was not a weak person and what was being asked of her was not extremely difficult.
She continued trembling. It was getting worse. By now a minute had passed. Kier squatted down close to her. His light illuminated their faces.
"Let's rest a minute. Just sit." He pulled her back from the cliff to sit on the pack. "I remember when I was a kid, I saw this movie on TV about Cheyenne Bodine, a man who was sent to a forest to hunt a creature that was killing people in the night. These guys would sit around the campfire and something-before it attacked-would throw dirt out of the bushes. It scared me bad… had me shaking under the covers. Turned out it was a bear."
"I'm trying-" she said.
"There's time," he continued firmly. "I'd lie in my bed, scared out of my mind. Now, I know what you're thinking. It's in your head that I was just a kid, that you're an FBI agent, and this story is demeaning because-"
"The story is about normal childhood fears,'' she interjected sharply. "This is about two adults on a mountain. If you'll shut up, somehow I'm gonna do this."
Gritting her teeth, she stood, went to the ledge, and held the rope in her left hand.
"Well, pull on the rope, give me some resistance."
He pulled firmly. She clamped her jaw, willing herself to lean back, trusting him to hold her. She took one baby step down the rock face. He played out a few inches of line, and she took another. The first few feet were not as frightening as she had expected. She was near him, and she could see. As she descended, though, the shadows deepened, and Kier became a monolith in the soft glow of the penlight that he held in his mouth. It was like descending into a well. By thinking about the smooth rock and occasional bush she passed, she did not dwell upon what might be coming.