Except—he didn't move. He was too scared to move. He was screaming as loud as he could. "Daaaa-ddeeee!"
"Just hold on," I called. I was the closest. I looked back and Weird was just coming around the last switchback. What I really wanted to say to Stinky was, "This is your own fault. We told you not to go—" But I was close enough to see how scared he was and as angry as I was at him, I was even more scared for him. "Just don't move, I'm coming to get you—" If only I could figure out how.
Stinky had slipped about five meters down the slope. It was mostly dirt, with only a few little things pretending to be plants. He'd caught on a scraggly little bush that didn't look strong enough to hold him. It was already bending precariously, and I was certain it was going to snap before I could get to him.
The problem was that the slope was too steep for me. If I tried to go down it, I'd just go skidding all the way down to the bottom. And it was a long way down. There was that queasy sensation again. Heights. Open spaces. Holes. Everything. I couldn't explain it. And there was no way to get down underneath Stinky either, to catch him. I said a word, the one that Mom always tells me not to say.
"Charles! Go get him.'" That was Dad, always full of good advice ... from a distance.
I couldn't see how—the only thing I could think of was to lie down flat on the ground and try to inch my way downward, and even that seemed like a really stupid idea, because if I slipped, we'd both go rolling a hundred meters to the floor of the crater. Only it looked farther. I began edging myself down the slope, all the time muttering through gritted teeth, "Just hang on, Bobby! Just hang on—" I went from handhold to handhold. There weren't any rocks or weeds strong enough to hang onto.
I couldn't get close enough. I anchored myself as best as I could and unbuckled my belt, pulling it out of my pants as safely as I could. I let the end hang down toward Stinky. He could almost reach it, but it would have meant letting go. "No, wait—I'll try to get lower."
And that's when I froze. I realized I couldn't move either. Not up, not down. My mouth was dry and I couldn't swallow—and the great empty hole yawned beneath us. We were stuck on the wall, just waiting to slide down. I knew it then—we were both going to die here. And it really pissed me off. This was not how I'd planned my life—
"Chigger, wait!" That was Douglas, above me. I turned my head. He was just taking off his belt. He wrapped one end around his hand, then stretched out flat on the ground. He lowered his belt to me and I grabbed hold. There was just enough to loop it around my wrist and grab the buckle. I wanted to beg him to pull me up, but Stinky was starting to lose his grip below me. He was whining and crying the way that he did when all hell was threatening to break loose around him—all that somebody had to do now was tell him to shut up and he'd start flailing and screaming. It was very tempting.
"Okay, Stinky!" I said. "Look at me."
It worked; I got his attention. "Don't call me that!" he cried angrily.
"All right, but you have to look at me. I'm going to lower my belt. Don't reach for it until I tell you, okay? Because you're only going to get one chance. I'm coming down now—"
Still holding onto the end of Douglas's belt, I edged downward, just a little bit at first—I felt myself start to slide—and Douglas caught the slack instantly. Some rocks and pebbles rolled away around me. But I didn't follow them. I might live through this after all. "A little bit more, Doug. I'm almost there." I looped my belt around my other wrist, like Douglas had done, and lowered it to Stinky. It almost reached. I stretched as far as I could.
"Okay, kiddo," I said. "On three—"
"I can't do it!" he whined. "I can't!"
"Yes, you can," said Douglas. "Just listen to me—"
That wasn't going to work, Stinky never listened to anyone, "No, Doug, Stinky's right. He can't reach it. Stinky's just a little baby. He can't do anything—"
It worked. Before I'd finished the sentence, Stinky had swung and grabbed the end of my belt and nearly yanked me off the wall of the crater, he grabbed so hard. Without thinking, I pulled back in response, and Doug pulled on me, and Dad was there pulling on Doug, and somehow we all ended up back on the path, Doug against Dad with Dad holding him tight, and me against Doug with Doug holding me, and Stinky in my arms, hanging onto me like a human death-grip. The four of us just stayed like that for the longest time, all of us trying to catch our breaths at once.
I kept my eyes closed. Because when I opened them, all there was to see was how deep the crater was and how high we were—and all that empty space made me want to throw up more than ever now.
Eventually we untangled ourselves—very carefully. It would have been real stupid to fall down the hole now. Dad looked gray and shaken, but he waved me off when I asked if he was all right. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he looked like he didn't know what—finally he just waved his hand as if to erase everything and pointed back up the path.
Douglas took Stinky by the hand to follow him—and of course, Stinky tried to pull away. "Let me go!" he whined. "I gotta go to the bathroom! I gotta pee!" That was what he always said when he didn't want to cooperate. And it usually worked, because what if he was telling the truth?
But right now—Weird wasn't letting go.
"Go ahead," I said, coming up to block his other side. He wasn't running away again.
"Where?" he demanded.
"I dunno," I said in that really bland, passive-aggressive voice I'd learned to use on him. "Do you see a bathroom around here?"
He looked around. We were a quarter of the way down the wall of the biggest hole in the world, and we could see forever in all directions. There were no bathrooms, no water faucets, no elevators, no nothing. Stinky started crying, "But I gotta pee!"
"Well, then, just pee!"
"Where?"
"Here!"
"But everybody'll see!"
"There's no one to see! And besides we're so far away from everything, no one could see anything anyway. Just go!"
"I can't!"
"Then hold it till we get back to the top!"
"I can't! It's too far!"
"We told you not to come running down."
"But I gotta go!"
"Then go here!"
"I can't!"
The kid was paralyzed. No matter what anyone said, all he could say was "I can't!" So I said, "Well then, just pee in your pants and stop whining!"
So he did.
Now he was wet, uncomfortable, and smelled bad. But this wasn't as bad as when he threw up in the cooler and spoiled everyone's lunch, and at least now that we'd gotten Stinky's first accident out of the way, we could get on with the fun part of the trip. Ha ha.
By this time Dad had realized we weren't following. When he got back down to us, Weird was yelling at Stinky, "Why did you pee in your pants?" and Stinky was crying full blast that I'd told him to.
That's when Dad did something strange. Stranger than usual. He didn't say anything at all. He stopped where he was and sat down. He put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands and he just sat and stared and looked sullen in that way he gets when he's thinking real hard about something—like a bad decision. I was sure he was thinking about turning around and taking us all back to El Paso.
"Now look what you've done—" I began to say to Stinky, but Weird swatted me hard across the chest with the back of his hand and told me to shut up, which actually startled me into silence, because Weird almost never touches anyone, let alone me.