They gained the first rope not long after; a yellow coil of high-quality dry climbing rope proven effective against the weather. Fred knew the total length of the rope was sixty meters but that it ran a somewhat shorter run; its end was made fast to a large tree somewhere above their heads, and the knots they’d tied at regular intervals had cut down on the total length. He looked at the pile of rocks over which it ran, noting that the rope itself disappeared entirely in the darkness only a few meters up, and thanked God he didn’t have to trust it with his complete weight. He knew intellectually that it could hold far more than his and Wang’s combined mass, but the rope looked so damned flimsy. To Fred’s mind, it was good enough for the incline up the rock face; he would have begged off a straight vertical climb, never mind the fact the rope was too narrow and he too heavy for such an exertion.
He took the coil in his hands, yanked it a few times, and said, “How we doin’ back there?”
“So far so good. I’m not choking you, am I?”
“Not yet. Get situated, now. I can’t have you shifting around while I’m doing this.”
“Okay,” Wang said. He adjusted his grip and hitched against Fred’s back to reset his elevation.
“And keep that leg tucked up if you can. Don’t let it hang; it’ll be bad enough keeping from trippin’ on this damned rope.”
He felt the muscles in Wang’s thigh bunch against his hip. The action drew his body over to the right but he did manage to haul his leg up out of the way, so Fred decided it was an improvement overall.
He leaned into the rope and pulled.
Around the time Fred and Wang made their climb up the northwest wall, Brian Chambers engaged in preparations not dissimilar from those taken by Rebecca, though his were of a slightly different nature. Where her efforts were intended to enhance, his were designed to degrade. He jammed his knuckles into his eyes and corkscrewed for several minutes, stopping at intervals to look at himself in the mirror. The first few times he tried, he’d deemed his eyes weren’t red enough to be passable, and he went at them again, grinding fists into the lids until he hallucinated kaleidoscopic starbursts.
When this was done, he smeared a dollop of bear fat into his forehead and cheeks to give himself a greasy complexion. Then he bent over his washbowl and massaged handfuls of rum into his hair and spilled some over his shirt. He took in a mouthful, swirled it around like Listerine, and spat it into the bowl. He stared at himself a while in the mirror after this, shook his head, and spared a few seconds to check his pulse with two trembling fingertips. He pulled another mouthful of rum, swirled it, and swallowed.
He spent the next several seconds coughing violently.
When he was back under control, Brian wondered if he’d given Wang enough time to get into position, cursing the sad reality that he had no way to be sure. He paced back and forth in front of his door, trying to decide if he should get on with it, and then decided it didn’t matter if Wang was ready or not; the planning was such that the timing was, at this early stage, still forgiving. Cursing himself a coward, he took the washbowl out front, spilled its contents into the dirt, and then grabbed the bottle of rum and poured most of its remainder out as well.
He stepped outside wearing only his pants, his shoes, and a thin shirt, assuming that the average drunk wouldn’t trouble to throw on a jacket, and then instantly regretted his decision. His breath puffed in white clouds and he found it difficult to affect a passable stagger while shivering. His hand clenched involuntarily around the bottleneck.
He made for the tents, not having far to go, and when he rounded the corner on the way, he passed by Andrew’s old place. He was still afraid—his heart was pounding in his chest, in fact; he hadn’t been in a fight since middle school—but walking by Andrew’s home helped. It helped to remind him of the stakes, if it was at all possible he could forget.
The campfire came into view, and Brian attempted a rumbling grunt; a guttural expulsion in imitation of Gibs after the Marine had tied one on. His traitorous throat constricted at the critical moment and the intended grunt emerged a squeak. He cleared his throat and blustered like an old horse and then just gave up, figuring he sounded more like a clown than a drunk. The men standing at the fire heard him and turned in his direction.
“Is that Brian?” one of them asked suspiciously. “What are you doing out, man? It’s past curfew.”
“Didn’t seem to bother you when Rebecca came by…” Reza muttered into his sleeve.
“Quiet, you,” said Carlo. “That was different.”
“Different? On what grounds?”
“On what gr…? Are you kidding? What do you imagine she could possibly do?”
“Dude…” Reza whispered. “After this morning?”
“Exactly!” Carlo whispered back. “After this morning! How much fight do you imagine is left to them?”
“This one seems to have some yet,” said the third man. “That’s a sullen look he’s got…”
Carlo glanced again at Brian and found he was forced to agree. “Brian…” he warned. He glanced down and saw the bottle in the young man’s hand. “Brian?”
They saw Brian’s eyes flash—an expression of sheer panic—before he wound up and pitched the bottle at Carlo’s head like a baseball. It tumbled end over end, neck singing low whistles through the air, and clipped his shoulder.
“Jesus, Brian!” shouted Carlo as he flinched away.
“FUCK YOU!” Brian screamed at the top of his lungs. It was really the best he could come up with, given the circumstances. He rushed at Carlo, balled up a fist, and swung for the fences.
“Christ!” Carlo gasped. He dodged out of the way, watching in mounting fascination as Brian’s fist winded by in a wild arc. The others looked on in mild interest, and Reza noted, “There he goes; he’s gone batshit…”
“Now, hang on a minute, kid!” Carlo shouted. He put his hands up to fend off the wild swings. Brian yowled a string of frothing, unintelligible gibberish, staggered forward, and swung again, missing by a good foot. The others began to emerge from their tents by now, many of them batting sleep from their eyes. Others came running from their stations along the other points of the commune to see what all the noise was about.
Carlo ducked another swing, tripped over a log, and stutter-stepped several feet back, looking around wildly at the others. The expression on his face said, “Can you believe this idiot?” Some of the other men who’d gathered around enclosed them in a slowly tightening circle and one of them laughed, “Watch it, Carlo! He has the gleam of love in his eyes!”
Reza snorted laughter at this, and Carlo looked around the gathering in dismay. His honor had now been called into question, and his mental state soon began to boil over from surprise to mounting anger.
Then one of Brian’s swings connected, catching Carlo a fair clip along the chin and staggering him. The combined voices of the onlookers erupted in a sighing “Ooooooooh!”