Outward Bound, page 5
Mr. Green shook his head. "Nah. Let's go take a look at it." They got up and strolled over to the base. Green stood for a minute or so looking up and surveying the choices. Then he moved forward, reached up to find handholds, and stepped up, wedging one foot into a crack and finding purchase with the other on a rock flake just above. Moving smoothly and maintaining a perfect coordination of tension with balance, he quickly reached the top of the crack about fifteen feet up and paused on a corner to plan the next stretch. The chatter below died as others noticed what was happening and began following with interest. Some stood up to watch. Mr. Green moved out onto a slab, climbed it deftly on tiny finger- and toeholds to an overhang—not large, but awkward-looking—where he had to try several different moves before pulling himself around it. From there he finished easily to the ledge, where he turned to sit straddle-legged on a rock at the top of the shelf in front of the gully.
"Not bad, Chief," one of the Hut 3 complement shouted up at him.
"Your turn," Mr. Green called down to Ms. Blue.
She followed the same route, obviously competent but taking it more cautiously. The overhang proved difficult, yet she managed it with the help of a hint or two offered by Mr. Green from above. Finally, she joined him at the ledge by the gully. Scattered but genuine applause went up from below.
"Okay, who's next?" Mackerel challenged, looking around. "We're not gonna let 'em get away with that, are we, guys?"
There was a short silence. Up above, Mr. Green and Ms. Blue had both disappeared from view and were coming back down the gully. Finally, a small but pugnacious kid called Todd, about Linc's age, stood up and crunched over to the base of the wall. "Sure, I can do that," he told the others.
Although he tried, he couldn't make the first foot jams in the crack to get started. Mace had a go, made it to about six feet, but then lost his footing, clung for a second, and had to jump, landing heavily with a yell and crashing onto a pile of dirt and rock debris.
"Are you okay?" Mr. Green asked, grinning as he appeared over the mound below the gully.
"Jeesh. I think I cut my knee." Mace inspected the damage. "My pants are torn pretty bad."
"You'll live."
Angelo moved past them to the starting point at the foot of the crack. "Here, let me have a try," he said.
"It's not as easy as it looks, Ange," Mace warned, wincing as he flexed his knee.
Ms. Blue arrived over the mound and joined Mr. Green. "Let one of us take a safety line up first," she suggested.
"I think I can handle it," Angelo said. Mr. Green shrugged and nodded in a way that seemed to say, Okay, if that's what you want to do . . .
Angelo started out splendidly up the crack to the point where Mr. Green had paused, and he too took some time there to consolidate. He began the move out onto the slab, and shouts of encouragement followed him. But then his movements slowed. Linc could see his fingers curling to find chinks to grip into, his head turning desperately, searching for a more secure stance.
"Don't hug the rock," Mr. Green called up at him. "Push out, and stand up straight on your feet. Balance with your hands—don't try to hang on them."
But Angelo had frozen. He was high enough now that a fall would be serious. Animal survival had taken control and wouldn't let him move from the position he was in.
"Keep him there," Mr. Green murmured to Ms. Blue, and went back to his pack to collect ropes and slings.
"Okay, Angelo, don't try to get any farther," Ms. Blue called up. "Stay right there. Relax, and keep your weight on your feet."
"Relax, she says!" floated down on the wind. Someone laughed nervously.
Mr. Green came back wearing a waist harness and carrying a lightweight nylon line with one end clipped to the harness. He also had a second line coiled around his neck. With Ms. Blue feeding the running line from below, he retraced his climb until he was alongside Angelo. He rigged a loop of line around Angelo's waist, then anchored a sling with a snap link a few feet above so the line ran up from Angelo, through the link, and back down to Ms. Blue. "Okay, Angelo, you can't fall," those below heard him say. "Now try and climb slowly back down. Ms. Blue will catch you if you slip."
But getting back down was a lot harder than getting up. Angelo came unstuck trying to regain the crack, and Ms. Blue had to lower him the rest of the way to the ground. By this time Mr. Green had repeated the climb and was back at the ledge by the gully. He straddled the edge again, secured himself to a sling passed around a knob of rock, and cast down one end of the extra line he had carried up with him.
"The lesson for today is: One, know your limits. Two, don't rush into things. And three, prepare adequately," he called down. "Okay, people, if you want to learn to climb we'll start again, but this time we're going to do it right. Ms. Blue will tie you on one at a time and go through the basics. I'll protect you from up here. Okay, let's get to it."
Most of them gave it a try. When Linc's turn came, he was one of the few so far who managed to make it past the first crack and onto the slab. As he continued to move outward, he became acutely conscious of his exposed position and the drop below, even though it couldn't have been more than twenty-five or thirty feet. Suddenly, he felt very precarious, as if any move at all would cause him to lose what fragile hold he had. Even though he knew the line was there to catch him, instinct overruled reason and made his body want to refuse to move. His hands were sweating and starting to slip on the rock. His feet began trembling under the protracted strain of balancing on his toes. Now he had an idea of how Angelo must have felt with no protection at all.
Ms. Blue's voice came from below. "You're doing fine, Linc. You have to make a long step with your left foot now. Go for it. You'll be okay if you come off."
Linc took a long breath, tensed, and made the move without really being conscious of it. Somehow, moving more automatically than by deliberation, he got to the top of the slab . . . but then came off at the overhang. Still, he was the first to have made it that far. Hoots of approval and slaps on the back greeted him as he arrived down at the bottom, bouncing down the rock on his feet as Mr. Green paid out the rope above. He found he was shaking as Ms. Blue untied him.
One of the girls also reached the top of the slab, and she made a spirited attempt at the overhang. However, her strength was gone, and she too had to return via the short way down. Her name was Julie. Although Linc had been aware of her presence in the group on the trek up, he hadn't gone out of his way to talk to her, although he had noticed she seemed popular with the other girls. Now he looked at her with a new curiosity. She was medium to tall in build, with black hair tied back and tucked inside her collar, and an attractive face tapering from high cheekbones to a narrow chin. Her eyes, a kind of icy blue-gray, returned his stare evenly as he stood watching her, his head cocked to one side, while Ms. Blue clipped the line to another of the girls waiting to take a turn.
"Not bad," Linc conceded finally, putting some effort into sounding as if he meant it. "Where did you do this before?"
"Nowhere . . . I just couldn't let you get away with it completely."
Linc nodded slowly, all the time staring at her. "The overhang gets you. Whatever you try to do, you've got an elbow or something in the way."
"There has to be a way, I guess. They did it."
"I figure you have to straddle the corner wide, come right out of it."
"Let's see how Sal does." Julie looked away. "Okay, Sal? Yeah, right—that's the way I had to start . . . " Linc watched along with the others, but he was more conscious of Julie a few feet away from him.
Sal didn't make it past the crack. Angelo had another try, this time with the rope, and reached the overhang; but he came off trying the same move that had defeated Linc. The only other one to get that far—to the openly expressed surprise of some—was Arvin. Huffing, grasping, pulling, he did it with no finesse or style at all—just brute strength, determination, and a total disregard for odds. At the top of the slab, he hurled himself around the overhang without even resting, as if even solid rock wouldn't dare oppose such a concentration of pent-up fury. But gravity refused to be repealed, and thirty seconds later he was back where he had started. A few voices gave him the credit that was due, and Flash helped get the harness off him. But Arvin's attention was all in the look he gave Linc. Anything you can do, buddy, the eyes said.
That, Linc saw then, was what the whole thing had been about. And just for a moment, when he looked at the fleshy features and the yellow waves of hair, he saw not Arvin looking at him so satisfied, but Kyle. All at once, the bitterness he had been suppressing through those weeks—or had simply been too busy or exhausted to think about—came flooding back in a rush. He turned back to Ms. Blue. "One more time," he said curtly. "Tie me on again."
It took Linc all his nerve and determination, back at the overhang, to force himself to do as he had said, and push himself out from the corner instead of hugging securely into it, and then to straddle the gap wide, feeling nothing below him but void. Yet it was the only way to reach the handhold vital for the next move. And this time he made it—all the way.
Mr. Green clapped him on the shoulder as he completed the final steps and hoisted himself onto the ledge to the accompaniment of cheers from below. "Did you ever do this before?" Mr. Green asked. Linc shook his head. "Then you're a natural. How would you like to try some more advanced stuff sometime?"
"Why not?" Breathless, Linc wiped his palms on his thighs and mopped the perspiration from his forehead. His hands were shaking, he realized. "There can't be much more of California left to walk over."
To one side of the throng below, Arvin, Flash, and Vie were not cheering.
The confrontation came that night, in front of the others, by the fire that had been lit for the evening meal. The two wardens had retired to Mr. Green's tent to check E-mail on the computer, get tomorrow's weather, and input the day's log.
"So how's the big hero?" Arvin sneered. Flash and Vie were flanking him a short distance behind. He thrust his face close to Linc's. "You might have fooled them, punk, but you didn't fool me."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Linc said.
"Oh, you know what I'm talking about. That little stunt up on the rocks today to make you look so good. You didn't do that on your own. We saw your friend Green giving the little bit of help with the rope—huh?" A hush had descended around them.
"If that's what you want to think . . ." Linc started to turn away, but Arvin caught him by the arm. Linc looked pointedly down at Arvin's hand yet held back.
"Who told you to leave? I didn't say you could leave." Arvin went on, "I say you set it up to try and make me look stupid."
Linc shook the hand away. "You manage that pretty good without me." Someone in the darkness guffawed. Arvin's face became ugly in the firelight.
"Okay, let's see how good you are without your friend around. Just you and me, out behind those rocks—right now." He jabbed a thumb, indicating several large boulders behind him. "Huh, punk?"
Linc sought frantically for a way out. He didn't want to get sent down over something like this, not after he'd come this far. But what kind of future would he be facing if he backed down? Arvin had the advantage in that at the moment he was driven by one single purpose, wasn't thinking, didn't care.
And then, without saying anything, one of the figures from the side stepped up alongside Linc to stand facing Arvin defiantly. Linc glanced at him. It was Angelo. A moment of stillness followed. Then Big Mac joined them on Linc's other side, followed by Mace, holding a brand taken from the fire. Mackerel, Kew, Rick, and others added themselves on either side, some also taking up sticks.
Behind Arvin, Flash, and Vie exchanged uncertain looks. This wasn't supposed to happen. "Ease off, Arv," Flash muttered. "I'm not about to get RPO'd over this."
Now Arvin's manner became less sure. He turned his head to look at Vie. Vie had raised a hand and was shaking his head. Suddenly, Arvin was on his own. He glowered back at Linc. Linc stared back expressionlessly. The others around him remained unmoving. Arvin could go for him now if he wanted—and maybe he'd get all of them sent down. However, the one certain thing was that if he tried it, the only way he'd be going back to his place of origin would be on a gurney.
"Okay," he growled. "So this time your luck's in. But don't think this is over." And he turned away and headed for the tents. Vie and Flash looked at each other, hesitated, and followed.
Linc stood, blinking dazedly. He'd won. He had been the one who was supposed to back down. Yet the solidarity the others showed had turned it around. And they had done it not because of something they stood to get out of it, or because they were bought or intimidated . . . but because of how they felt toward him. They had done it out of loyalty and respect for him. Never before in his life had he known a feeling like that.
Angelo was grinning in the firelight beside him. "Congratulations," he said. "I guess that makes you the boss around here now, doesn't it?"
Another figure had remained also while the others dispersed. It was Julie. Linc frowned, searching for something appropriate to say, then offered, "You didn't have to do that."
"I figured you'd earned it. It seems a few other people did too." She revealed the rock she'd been holding and tossed it down beside the fire.
"Well, I guess . . . Thanks." Linc had to work to get the word out. It wasn't one he had practice enough with for it to come easily.
"Well, just keep it in mind. Maybe I'll need a favor too one day," she said.
"You've got it."
Linc watched her as she moved away to join the other girls, heading for the tents. She turned and sent him back a wave with her fingers.
"Hmm. Quite something. I don't know that I'd want to risk getting RPO'd, though," Angelo commented.
Linc continued staring after her. "Don't worry, Ange. I've decided that whatever this thing is that we're on, I'm gonna see it through," he replied.
All the same, Julie was more fascinating than anyone he could remember meeting in a long time.
Chapter Twelve
TO accommodate the social self-organization that was appearing within the camp's population, each hut was divided into two teams, designated simply X Team and Y Team. Heading and seconding the teams provided roles for emerging leaders and gave the others a structure in which to seek niches suited to their temperaments. As a general rule, the authorities tried to preserve the relationships that had come about spontaneously when naming the leaders, But they also intervened with judgments of their own where they saw fit. The original assignments of individuals to huts had been somewhat arbitrary, and the assigning of the two teams was used to move cases of obvious misfit and incompatibility to different locations. Every hut changed its bunking arrangements to separate out the X Team and Y Team along opposite walls. An additional dimension of rivalry within huts thus added itself to the rivalry among huts, although it tended to be of a more friendly sort. The other team, although obviously there to be bettered, was still "us"—an ally and a source of support in the greater enterprise—whereas other huts remained definitely "them."
In Hut 3, Linc became undisputed leader of the X Team and opted for Angelo as his second. But this was overruled, and Angelo was instead made the leader of the Y Team. This posed problems of divided loyalty among some of the hut's remaining occupants, who were given a first-preference option as to which team they wanted to be in. Linc had a suspicion this was deliberate—to confront them with having to make a difficult decision that couldn't be evaded. In the end, the majority, including Mace, Rick, and both Macs, came with him on team 3-X. Todd, and also Kew, unexpectedly, went with Angelo and 3-Y, which also received most of the transfers from other huts. Julie, to no one's amazement, was made leader of one of the Hut 8 teams, 8-Y.
Some had expected Arvin to disappear from the scene after the incident at the campfire. But as others pointed out, he had never actually done anything that the rules said warranted his removal. And as Mr. Green observed, staying at Coulie evidently meant a lot to him—people of Arvin's outlook didn't take lightly to losing face. He was moved out of Hut 3, however; and then, to the astonishment of practically everybody, it was learned he'd been appointed the 7-X Team leader. Hut 7 seemed to have collected most of the problem cases—the troublemakers who created discord wherever they were put, but never quite enough to get RPO'd. Unruly and continually squabbling among themselves, they were generally written off as far as chances in the team stakes went. But as time went by, and after a spate of bashed heads and discolored eyes that the wardens seemed disinclined to question, the Hut 7 teams began turning in some quite creditable performances. Perhaps Arvin's brand of talent had its usefulness after all.
Vie, who had the kitchen chopping-and-dicing skills, was separated from Arvin and went to Hut 6. Flash, to the surprise of many, including Linc, stayed with Linc's team in Hut 3—after checking privately with Linc that there would be no objection. Flash was good with maps and figures, which was not one of Linc's strong points, and usually took care of the route planning and orienteering during expeditions. Reacting to Flash's obvious desire to mend bridges, Linc requested him as his second. Mr. Green promptly assented. Linc got the feeling that Mr. Green had been hoping for just that decision.
