'Here,' said Baedecker, unlashing the sailcloth-covered poles from the pack and helping him to his feet. 'You get the pack. I'll carry this.' Baedecker started uphill, surprised at how light the long poles were. Tom Gavin made a noise and moved ahead of them.
The incline became steeper, the trail narrower, the exposure more dramatic just below the summit. But it was the altitude that almost did Baedecker in during the last hundred meters. His lungs could not pull in enough air. His ears would not stop ringing. Baedecker felt his vision blur to the heavy throbbing of his pulse. In the end he forgot everything except the task of setting one foot farther uphill than the other and then lifting his weight against the terrible gravity that threatened to press him down into the rocky mountain-side. He had crossed a wide expanse of flat area and almost stumbled over the precipitous northwestern face before he realized that they were on the summit. He sat down heavily and lowered the poles just as Lude collapsed to a sitting position next to him.
Gavin sat on a wide rock nearby. He had one leg up and was smoking a pipe. The smell of tobacco was sharp and sweet in the clear air. 'Shouldn't spend too much time up here, Dick,' he said. 'We have to pack down to Henson Creek.' Baedecker said nothing; he was watching Lude. The little man was still pale, and there was a tremor in his large hands, but now he crawled over to the long carrying bag and removed sections of aluminum tubing. He spread out a square of red nylon, took a cloth tool case from his pack, and began laying out parts.
'Cable,' said Lude. 'Stainless steel. Nico swedged.'
Baedecker moved over next to him and watched as more bags and baggies were brought out.
'Prone harness,' said Lude. 'Knee hangers fasten with Velcro. Attached with this carabiner.' Baedecker touched the metal ring and felt the sun's warmth on the steel surface, sensed the colder steel beneath.
'Nuts and bolts,' said Lude, laying bags and pieces on the red nylon according to some prearranged pattern. His voice had taken on the cadence of a litany. 'Cable tensioners. Saddles, brushings, tangs, nut covers.' He removed larger pieces. 'Wingposts, noseplates, brackets, crossbar, control bars.' He patted the mass of folded Dacron. 'Sail.'
'We should be heading down,' said Gavin.
'In just a minute,' said Baedecker.
Lude had connected the long aluminum tubes at their apex and swung them out to an angle of a hundred degrees. Orange-and-white Dacron unfolded like a butterfly's wings opening to the sun. It took him only a few minutes to secure a vertical post and cross-spar. He began working on wires connecting the various components. 'Give me a hand, man?' He was speaking to Baedecker.
Baedecker accepted the tools and followed the young man's lead, securing eyebolts, attaching flying wires to the control bar, and tightening nuts. Lude inflated pockets under the leading edge of the wing and Baedecker noticed for the first time that the camber there was adjustable. Thirty years of flying advanced aircraft made him appreciate the elegant simplicity of the Rogallo wing: it was as if the essence of controlled flight had been distilled into these few yards of steel, aluminum, and Dacron. When they were finished, Lude checked all of Baedecker's connections and adjustments and the hang glider sat there like some bright, oversized insect ready to leap into space. Baedecker realized with a shock how large it was, spanning fourteen feet from noseplate to keel, twenty-nine feet across the delta wing.
Gavin tapped his pipe out against the rock. 'Where's your helmet?'
'Maria's got the helmet,' said Lude. He looked at Gavin and then at Baedecker. Suddenly he laughed. 'Hey, man, you don't get it. I don't fly. I just build them, modify them, and show the way. Maria's going to fly it.' It was Gavin's turn to laugh. 'Not today she isn't,' he said. 'She went down to our camp. She's in no shape to walk, much less fly.'
'Bullshit, man,' said Lude. 'She's right behind me.' Baedecker shook his head. 'Hypothermia,' he said. 'Maggie took her down.' Lude jumped up and ran to the southwest corner of the summit. When he saw the two figures just leaving the ridge three thousand feet below he grabbed his head with both hands. 'Damn, I don't believe it.' He sat down heavily, his long hair falling over his face. Sounds emerged which Baedecker first interpreted as sobs; then he realized that the man was laughing. 'Fifteen fucking miles with that thing on my back,' he said and laughed. 'All this way up and it's off.'
'Messes up your movie-making,' said Gavin.
'Screw the movie,' said Lude. 'It fucks up the celebration.'
'Celebration?' said Gavin. 'What celebration?'
'Come here,' said Lude, standing and turning to the west. He led Gavin and Baedecker to the edge of the precipice. 'Celebration of that,' said Lude and swung his right arm in an arc that took in peaks, plateau, and sky.
Gavin nodded. 'God's creation is beautiful,' he agreed. 'But it doesn't take a foolhardy act to celebrate either the Creator or His handiwork.' Lude looked at Gavin and slowly shook his head. 'No, man, you missed it,' he said. 'It ain't somebody's thing. It just is. And we're part of it. That deserves a celebration, you know?' It was Gavin's turn to shake his head, pityingly, as if at a child. 'Rocks and air and snow,' he said. 'It means nothing by itself.' Lude looked at the ex-astronaut for a long moment while Gavin shouldered his pack. Finally he smiled. His long hair was blowing in the gentle breeze. 'Your mind's really fucked, you know that, man?'
'Come on, Dick,' said Gavin, turning his back on the other. 'Let's get started down.' Baedecker walked back to the Rogallo wing, crawled under the leading edge, and lifted the harness. 'Help me,' he said.
Lude ran over. 'You sure, man?'
'Help me,' said Baedecker. Lude's large hands were already buckling, cinching nylon webbing, and securing waist and shoulder straps. The crotch straps and D-rings reminded Baedecker of all the parachutes he had worn over the years.
'You can't be serious,' said Gavin.
Baedecker shrugged. Lude fastened the Velcro leg straps and showed him how to shift forward to get into a prone flying position. Baedecker stood and took the weight of the glider on his shoulder at the apex of the metal triangle while Lude held the keel parallel to the ground.
'You're insane,' said Gavin. 'Don't kid around, Dick. You don't even have a helmet. We'll have to get a mountain rescue team to get your body off the cliff face.' Baedecker nodded. The wind was gusting gently out of the west at less than ten miles per hour. He took two steps toward the drop-off. The kite bounced slightly and settled on his shoulders. He could feel the play of wind and gravity in the taut wire and billowing Dacron.
'This is preposterous, Dick. You're acting like an adolescent.'
'Keep your nose up, man,' said Lude. 'Shift your body to bank.'
Baedecker walked to within eight feet of the edge. There was no slope; the rock dropped vertically for a hundred feet or more to terraces of jagged rock and then fell away to more vertical faces. Baedecker could see Maggie's red shirt a mile below, a small speck of color against the brown and white of the boulder-strewn tundra.
'Dick!' said Gavin. It was a barked command.
'Don't start any three-sixties unless you got a thousand feet of air under you,' said Lude. 'Away from the hill, man.'
'You're a goddamned fool,' Gavin said flatly. It was a final assessment. A verdict.
Baedecker shook his head. 'A celebrant,' he said and took five steps and leaped.
Part Four
Lonerock
The funeral is on New Year's Eve, the clouds are low, and the short procession of vehicles has driven the four-and-a-half-hour ride from Salem, Oregon, through intermittent attempts at snow. Although it is still morning, the light seems tired and desultory, absorbed by trees and stones and farmhouse wood until only gray outlines of reality remain. It is very cold. The white exhaust from the idling hearse flows over the six men as they wrestle the casket from the vehicle and carry it across a brittle expanse of frozen grass.