“You guys sure you can lift me up there?” he called from below.
“Sure, how heavy can you be, Ray? Two-thirty?” Mary called back.
“Yeah, pretty damn close. Okay, the bags should be good to go.”
We all grabbed the rope and moved hand over hand, pulling the gear up slowly but firmly. It would have been much easier if we’d had some sort of a pulley, but the rope looked like it was holding up nicely. Leave it to Mary to have brought a rope. It was sure nice to have her along. I watched her arms tense as she stood in front of me, pulling with fluid motions and ease, like she did this type of thing on a daily basis. Vanessa brought up the rear and she smiled slightly when I gazed back at her. Her coughing fit seemed to be a thing of the distant past, and soon the gear was over the edge and accounted for.
“Okay, Ray. We’re going to toss the rope back down. I’ve tied it in a loop at the bottom. Jump into it like it’s a hula hoop and sit your butt on the bottom of the circle. We’ll pull you up, no problem.” Mary sounded so sure of herself, I didn’t think we would have a problem.
“Good to go,” he called.
We started to lift, and it wasn’t much worse than all the gear we had moved. We only had to lift him around thirty yards, so I figured a couple minutes. The pulls were getting a little heavier, and I heard Mary mutter something under her breath. Carey barked a few times and wagged his tail. Then I saw what had Mary reacting like that. The rope was coming to our hands frayed.
“Mary, are we good still?” I asked.
“Should be. I grabbed this rope from a hardware store, because I forgot the good stuff at the base. Damn it. I should have known it would be cheap. Probably made for tying up a gate or something, not pulling a grown man up a cliff front,” she said through her teeth.
It was becoming more frayed with each pull, and I was getting worried. Ray hadn’t seemed to have noticed yet, and we kept pulling, trusting it would hold.
We stopped when Mary did. The rope snapped slightly, and we were forced forward by the pressure change.
“What the hell was that?” Ray yelled up, alarm in his voice.
“Don’t panic. The rope is starting to give. We almost have you,” Mary told him.
“How far down is he?” Vanessa whispered over my shoulder.
“Only about ten feet, but this thing is almost ready to snap. We have to pull smoothly and quickly. Once he’s close, I’m going to grab his arm,” Mary said.
We hefted him, and soon Mary was letting go and diving to grab him, just as the tension on the rope eased as it snapped. Vanessa and I fell back in a heap and I quickly scrambled back to my feet and toward the ledge, where Ray was almost howling. Carey was running back and forth as I made my way over. Mary had him hanging there by his left hand.
“Ray, toss your right hand up and I’ll help,” I yelled. Mary’s grip was lessening as the large man’s weight was taking its toll on her small frame. She was strong, but there were limitations to everyone.
“I can’t! I’m going to slip!”
“Mary, we have one chance at this. Try to swing him over. Ray, reach out to me with your right hand!”
Mary swung him, and I could see his hand slipping away. Everything seemed to slow down, and I could see the sweat beading off Ray’s head. Carey’s barking was slow and low, a background noise I almost didn’t recognize. He came back toward me, his right hand rising up to me. I clasped his hand and arm with mine, and together Mary and I pulled him up and over the ledge. We lay there in a pile of stress and relief.
Then came the laughter and the tears.
“I’m alive! Holy mother of God, I’m alive! Thank you, guys.” Ray’s eyes were wet.
I was still on my back staring up at the clear sky, breathing hard. “Well, we may still need you and I’m not great with computers, so that’s your thing.”
Vanessa was passing around a water bottle, and for a minute, it just felt good to be alive, and for us all to still be together. Then reality set in and we started to look for a suitable car for the next part of the trip.
“What do you think about that big SUV? Maybe we should just pile into one vehicle from now on,” I suggested as I walked toward one that looked like it would do the job.
“Perfect. I used to have one of these bad boys,” Ray said, his voice still shaking a little bit. I didn’t blame him. “Not the best mileage, but it’ll get us where we’re going in comfort and still with plenty of room in the back for our gear.”
“Then it’s settled,” Vanessa declared, and we put our things inside. I turned the ignition to make sure the thing started fine and was happy to see a three-quarter full tank. Soon we were cruising down the highway on the way south. We could only hope there weren’t going to be any more road-blocks along the way.
The I-95S ate up the rest of our light and by the time we were three hundred miles down the road, the sun was creeping down below the horizon, making us decide where to camp for the night.
“You know, at some point, we’ll need camping gear. Once we land in South America, there aren’t going to be hotels on every corner any longer,” Ray said.
“Do you think anyone ever camps in Miami? Could you imagine waking up down there in a canvas tent? It would be pure torture, sweat pouring out of every orifice. I just can’t picture it,” I said, laughing at the image of us all camping on the beach.
“Don’t laugh. I’m sure you’ll have your share of sauna moments coming up. I know it’s getting cool here, but down there, it’ll still be in the high eighties. And that’s if we’re lucky. Until we get to the mountains at least,” Vanessa quipped.
We decided to keep going, sans headlights, in an effort to gain some miles. It was still early after all and we needed to get as far as we could. We couldn’t risk the ships seeing us, so we traveled by the moonlight, which, lucky for us, was out in full force that night. We passed a few clusters of cars, but for the most part, we managed quite well at a smooth fifty-five miles an hour pace.
It was almost midnight when Ray pulled over at a roadside motel. Vanessa was sleeping away in shotgun; Mary and I were in the back seat with Carey snoring between us. He was leaving small drool spots on my leg.
“Let’s stop here and get some shut-eye. We can pound back a granola bar in the morning and get moving. I think we can get to Miami by tomorrow if we leave by six.” Mary was already leaving the vehicle, her knapsack slung over her shoulder. We were standing outside when she came back and tossed us some room keys. “Enjoy,” she said, and headed into the closest room, just beside the SUV.
“Well, I’m tired. You guys all sleep well. I’ll take Carey out and then it’s off to bed.”
Dog and man, we walked behind the hotel, and under any other circumstance, I would have been worried for my life in the middle of nowhere, in the dark night of Georgia, but here it was peaceful and actually relaxing. No crazed serial killer was going to jump out and swing a chainsaw at me, but I supposed an alien might try to beam me up or dissolve me to nothing using a large red beam of death. I wasn’t sure which way I’d prefer to go. Carey walked forward, his head low to the ground in smelling mode.
I heard the crunch of a twig behind me, and I spun to see a shadow coming close to me.
“It’s just me,” Mary said quietly. “I just wanted to talk to you in private about something.”
“Sure. What about?” I asked.
“You did a great job today. You were quick to act with Ray, and you have great ideas. I may be trained by the US Air Force, but I think an outside mind may be just what we need. I don’t know how to say this without it sounding strange, as if all of this isn’t strange enough.” Her voice was firm, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear what she was going to say.