He kept a hand on the boy’s shoulder as he looked back down the mountain. There was not much to see through the fully leaved trees, but Ash could hear voices a long way away. Men were calling back and forth to each other, giving directions. He wondered if they were coming up the mountain after him. Dee had said to go fast. Ash got to his feet and pointed the boy up the mountain.
“You go first,” he said. “I’ll be behind you to catch you. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.”
Becker paused to catch his breath. He had been running when he could through the woods and up the increasing slope during his long spiral around the mountain. Now he was at the point he guessed to be opposite Lamont’s ascending path on the other side. From here on it was straight up. If he had judged correctly, Lamont would be coming down on a route close enough to Becker’s own that Becker would be able to see him, or at least hear him, when he crested the peak and started down. The peak itself was problematic at this juncture since Becker could see only a few yards ahead of himself through the trees.
Becker listened carefully, holding his breath a moment, trying to catch the sound of branches breaking, loosened rocks, heavy feet in the dead leaves and needles of the forest floor. Anyone coming from the top of the mountain would have to come the first third of the way down on the seat of his pants, clutching at handholds as he came. He would be as easy to hear as a small avalanche. If the man was not in a hurry, he could descend backwards, of course, picking his way carefully-and silently-but that would take time and Becker assumed Lamont was going to be traveling fast.
Hearing only the normal sounds of the woods, Becker started upwards, reaching for tree trunks and roots to propel himself forward up the ever-increasing slope. He had dropped to his hands and knees, digging for handholds in the rocky forest soil when the trees abruptly fell away entirely and he faced a sheer wall of stone. Becker stopped, his breath thundering in his ears from the effort of his climb, trying to assess his situation.
He had reached the point of some geologic accident where the steepness of the incline, the force of gravity, and the effects of erosion had conspired to rip away part of the mountain face and leave a cliff as sheer as if it had been sliced from a cake by a giant saber.
A few saplings had sprouted from crevices in the rock, jutting out at very shallow angles before curving almost perpendicularly and shooting directly skyward. Tufts of weeds and grass were scattered here and there upon the vertical face, and, most incongruously, several small clusters of flowers, their bouquets taunting anyone foolish enough to climb up after them; but for the most part, the escarpment was jagged, reddish-brown rock, high and wide and forbidding, filling Becker’s vision in either direction before it disappeared around the curve of the mountain. The crest of the mountain had split and crumbled like a rotting molar biting into a stone.
Becker tried to estimate how long it would take to skirt the cliff and come around it on either side. Too long, either way, and worse, he had no way of telling which side Lamont would choose for his descent If he struck off in the wrong direction, he could miss Lamont entirely.
As he pondered his choices, his breathing gradually subsided, and it was then that he heard the voice.
It was a high, piping squeak of alarm, almost a squeal, shut off in the middle of its sound and followed by a man’s deeper, startled tones. Looking in the direction of the sound. Becker saw a small shower of leaves and pebbles cascade down the escarpment. Something, or someone, had come very close to tumbling over the edge. Still on his hands and knees at the end of the tree line. Becker watched as a man’s head and upper torso appeared above the cliff edge. Becker drew silently back among the trees and observed the man as he peered downwards at the straight fall before him.
There was no mistaking him. It was the big man from the Restawhile motel. Becker remembered him sitting on the motel bed, looking stupid. Not nearly as stupid as I was, Becker thought. The man looked stupid now, too, his eyes searching the precipitous plunge as if hoping to see a magic staircase open before him. Another head appeared beside him. It was Jack, chastened by his near fall and crawling on his belly now to see what lay ahead. Both man and boy were panting heavily, sorely winded by their climb.
Jack’s eyes glanced in Becker’s direction, then flickered away. Becker did not know if the boy had seen him or not, but if he had he had shown the presence of mind to keep quiet about it. Becker prayed that the boy could retain his poise for the next several minutes. His life might depend on it.
It took Becker no time at all to make up his mind. He could not afford to guess which way to go and guess wrong; Jack would be lost and gone. He could not afford to wait and hope that Blocker had summoned help to back him up. There was no available help in the first place, not much chance Blocker had called for them in the second. To sit and wait was worse than guessing the wrong direction. If he stayed where he was, Lamont would evade him no matter which way he went. There was only one way to go, and it was forty feet straight up the cliff.
The big man turned away from the escarpment and looked back down the mountain in the direction of his pursuers. As Becker began his climb he could hear Lamont talking to the boy, but within seconds his ears were filled with the harshness of his own breathing as he hauled himself upward, hand over hand.
Ash could hear the men coming up the mountain, still calling to each other. Their voices were sounding winded now and they were stopping frequently to catch their breath. Ash had no choice but to wait until Tommy caught his breath, too. It was impossible for him to carry the boy along terrain this steep; he needed his cooperation.
“Are you ready?” Ash asked.
Jack breathed deeply, exaggerating his condition.
“Not yet,” he panted. “I’m so tired.”
Ash looked uncertainly at the boy, then back down the mountain.
“Okay,” he said. “But hurry.”
“I can’t breathe,” Jack panted. He was not certain if he had seen a man at the bottom of the cliff or not, but clearly there were men coming up the mountain behind them. Jack knew that running away would do him no good; the big man would catch him in a second and Jack was afraid of tumbling down the rocky slope. His only chance was to stall for time and he did not have to feign very much; he was genuinely exhausted. He resisted the urge to look back down the cliff to see if the man was really there.
From a distance of six inches the iron pyrite in the rocks looked fuzzily pink. Becker eased his way upwards, his face close to the stone, his vision focused only as far away as his next handhold. Under normal circumstances, it was a climb he would never undertake without equipment. He needed a hammer and pitons to build himself a ladder in the rock, a safety rope to keep a slip from becoming a fatal fall to the bottom. But these were not normal circumstances. He climbed faster than he knew was safe, but the result of delay seemed worse than the danger of a fall.
There were no ledges to sit on, no rifts in the rock wide enough for him to secure himself, no place to rest, no grips firm enough for him to even lean out from the wall and look upwards. He could not plan his ascent any further than one set of holds at a time because he could see no further up with his face so close to stone. He could not hear anything over the sound of his own breathing. He dared not look down to see how far he had come; he could not look up to see how far he had to go. Fingers scrabbling above him to find a ridge of rock that would hold his weight, toes seeking for the tiny outcroppings his fingers had left, he inched his way upwards.