Whether the lightning struck the boulder or not, Baedecker was never to know. There was no mark on the rock in the morning. When he could hear and see again, Baedecker realized that he had shielded Maggie with his body at the same instant she had attempted to do the same to him. They sat up together and looked around. It was pouring rain now. Only Baedecker's tent had withstood the storm. Tom Gavin was on his hands and knees, head down, panting, face pale in the retreating flashes of light. Tommy was shivering and curled tightly into a fetal position on the wet ground. His hands were clasped together tightly over his eyes and he was sobbing. It was Deedee who crouched above him, half-holding him, half-shielding him from the darkened skies. Her T-shirt was plastered against her back so that each vertebra showed. Her face was upraised and in the final flashes of lightning before the storm disappeared to the east, Baedecker saw the exultation there. And the defiance.
Maggie leaned toward Baedecker until the wet tangle of her hair touched his cheek. 'Ten point oh,' she said softly and kissed him.
The rain fell the rest of the night.
They reached the south ridge shortly before sunrise.
'This is odd,' said Maggie. Baedecker nodded and they continued to climb, staying ten yards behind Gavin. Gavin had been packed and moving before five A.M., long before the first, gray light of morning had penetrated the drizzle. He had said only, 'I came to climb the mountain. I'm going to do it.' Neither Maggie nor Baedecker had understood, but they had come along. Baedecker could see their two tents far below, still in the shadow of Uncompahgre. They had been able to repitch Gavin's tent in the night, but Tommy's had been a total loss with shreds of nylon strewn far over the tundra. When Gavin and Baedecker had gone out in the dark to bring back the boy's sleeping bag and clothing, they had discovered two more whiskey bottles in the debris of the tent. It was Deedee who mentioned that they had come from the bar that the Gavins kept stocked for company.
Now Gavin paused on the ridge as they caught up to him. They were well above twelve thousand feet. They had climbed directly east to the ridgeline, ignoring the easier approach from the south. Baedecker's heart was pounding and he was exhausted, but it was an exhaustion that he could deal with and still function adequately. Next to him, Maggie was flushed and breathing hard from the exertion. Baedecker touched her hand and she smiled.
'Somebody,' said Gavin and pointed far up the ridge to where someone was struggling on a steep section of trail.
'It's Lude,' said Baedecker. He could see the man slip, fall, and struggle to his feet again. 'He still has the hang glider.' Gavin shook his head. 'Why would anyone kill themselves to do something as useless as that?'
'How I yearn to throw myself into endless space,' said Maggie, 'and float above the awful abyss.' Both Baedecker and Gavin turned to stare at her.
'Goethe,' she said as if in self-defense.
Gavin nodded, adjusted his climbing pack, and moved on up the trail. Baedecker grinned at her. 'Can't memorize the first stanza of Thanatopsis, eh?' he said.
Maggie shrugged and grinned back. Together they moved up the trail toward the beckoning band of sunlight.
They found the tattered remains of the small backpack tent near the thirteen-thousand-foot level. A hundred yards farther on they found the girl named Maria. She was huddled against a rock, her hands clasped between her clenched knees, and, despite the direct sunlight now bathing them all in gold, she was shivering violently. She did not stop shaking even after Maggie wrapped her in a goosedown coat and sat hugging her for several minutes. 'St . . . st . . . storm t . . . tore the t . . . tent all to shit,' she managed, the words coming through clenched and chattering teeth. 'Got all w . . . w . . . wet.'
'It's okay,' said Maggie.
'G . . . got . . . t . . . to get up the h . . . hill.'
'Not today, young lady,' said Gavin. He was rubbing the girl's hands. Baedecker noticed that the girl's lips were gray, her fingers white at the tips. 'Hypothermia,' said Gavin. 'You've got to get down the hill as soon as possible.'
'Tell L . . . L . . . Lude I'm s . . . sorry,' she said and began crying. Her sobs were punctuated with fits of shivering.
'I'll go down with you,' said Maggie. 'We have hot coffee and soup down below.' The two women stood, the smaller one still trembling uncontrollably.
'I'll go down with you,' said Baedecker.
'No!' Maggie's voice was firm. Baedecker looked at her in surprise. 'I think you should go on,' she said. 'I think you both should go up.' Her eyes were sending Baedecker a message, but he was not sure what it was.
'You're positive?' he asked.
'Positive,' she said. 'You have to go, Richard.'
Baedecker nodded and had turned to follow Gavin when Maria called out. 'Wait!' Still shaking, she fumbled in her pack and came out with a rectangular plastic case. She handed it to Baedecker. 'Lude for forgot I was carrying it. He's g got to have it.' Baedecker opened the case just as Gavin walked back to join him. Inside the carrying case, set into niches in foam, were two disposable syringes and two bottles of clear liquid.
'No,' said Gavin. 'We're not carrying that to him.'
Maria looked uncomprehendingly at them. 'You've g . . . g . . . got to,' she said. 'He'll n need it. He forgot yesterday.'
'No,' said Gavin.
'We'll get it to him,' said Baedecker and put the case in the pocket of his flight jacket. He did not flinch when Gavin wheeled to confront him. 'It's insulin,' said Baedecker. He touched Maggie's hand again and moved ahead of Gavin up the narrowing ridge.
Lude had made it to within fifteen hundred feet of the summit before collapsing. They found him curled under the heavy pack with the long, sailcloth-covered poles across his shoulder. His eyes were open, but his face was parchment white and he was breathing in short, shallow gasps.
Baedecker and Gavin helped him out from under the unassembled hang glider, and the three sat on a large rock next to a two-thousand-foot drop to the high meadow below. The shadow of Uncompahgre reached well more than a mile now, touching the steep flanks of the Matterhorn. High peaks and snow-dappled plateaus were visible as far as Baedecker could see. He looked back down the ridge and picked out Maggie's red shirt. The two women were moving slowly but separately as they picked their way down the south ridge.
'Thanks, man,' said Lude, handing the canteen back to Gavin. 'I needed some of that. Ran out of water last night before the storm hit.' Baedecker gave him the syringe case.
The little man shook his head and ran a shaking hand through his beard. 'Hey, yeah, thanks,' he said softly. 'Stupid. Forgot Maria had that stuff. And all that crap I ate yesterday.' Baedecker looked away as the injection was administered. Gavin glanced at his watch and said, 'Eight forty-three. Why don't I go on up? You can help our friend down, Dick, and I'll catch up to you.' Baedecker hesitated, but Lude laughed loudly. He was packing away the syringe case. 'No way, man. I didn't come fifteen fucking miles to pack this stuff back down. Uh-uh.' He struggled to his feet and tried to lift the long bundle. He was able to take five steps up the steep and sandy slope before falling to his knees.
'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.