He was sitting on a cedar log, resting, absentmindedly plucking pieces from its thick layer of moss, when he first saw them. They were standing on the narrow bridge above the waterfall. When they realized he had noticed them, they laughed, looked at each other, then turned their backs. In a moment, the short, dark-haired one turned around to stare at him again. His companion flicked a cigarette into the creek.
Bikers, he thought with a mixture of contempt and fear. He had seen others like them, often a dozen at a time, muscling their way along the road. These two had their hair chopped off just above the shoulders, and from where he sat, it looked greasy and hung in tangled strands. They both had strips of red cloth tied around their heads. The dark-haired boy, he thought, then corrected himself, man, not boy, for he had to be in his middle twenties, was so short and stocky that he might have been formed from an old-fashioned beer keg. They both wore black leather vests, jeans and heavy boots.
He was sorry that they were there, but he considered their presence only a momentary annoyance. They had probably parked their bikes at the pull-off below the waterfall, walked up for God knows what reason—he could not imagine them being interested in the scenery—and would shortly leave again. He would be happy to see them go. He was still only able to work part-time and had carefully arranged his schedule so that his Wednesdays were free. He didn’t want anything to interfere with the one day he had completely to himself.
The tall blond man turned, leaned against the railing and stared up at Harold. He jabbed his companion with his elbow and laughed. Then he raised his right hand, pointed two fingers like he would a pistol and pretended to shoot.
The action, childish as it was, unsettled Harold, and he felt his stomach knot with anxiety. He wished that he were on the other side of the bridge and could simply pick up his pack and walk back to his station wagon. The only way across the river, however, was the bridge, and he had no desire to try to force his way past them. They reminded him of kids from his public school days who used to block the sidewalk, daring anyone to try to get by. He had been in grade two at the time and had not yet learned about fear. When he had attempted to ignore them and go around, they had shifted with him to the boulevard, then to the road and, finally, to the back lane. As his mother was washing off his scrapes and bruises and trying to get blood off his shirt, he had kept asking her why, why did they do it? Beyond saying that they were bad boys and that she would speak to the principal, she had had no answers. Only later, when he was much older, had he understood that their anger was not personal and, so, could not be reasoned with.
Every Wednesday for the last six months, he had hiked to the end of this trail and then used his rope to lower himself to the riverbank. Before the winter rains began and flooded the gorge, he wanted to do as much sniping as possible. The previous week, he had discovered a crack in the bedrock that looked promising, but before he had a chance to get out all the gravel, the day had started to fade and he had been forced to leave. The gorge was no place to spend the night. Even at noon, the light was filtered to a pale grey. He dressed warmly, wearing a cotton shirt, then a wool shirt and, finally, a wool jack-shirt; yet within a few hours, he was always shaking with cold. As strenuous as the panning was, it could not keep him warm. The air was so damp that when he took a handful of rotting cedar and squeezed it, red water ran like blood between his fingers. On the tree trunks, hundreds of mushrooms grew. At first, because of their small size and dark grey colour, he thought they were slugs, but then he pried one loose with his fingernail and discovered its bright yellow gills.
Although he had been nowhere near the bottom of the crack, he had found a few flakes of gold, which he meticulously picked out of his pan with tweezers. Panning in the provincial parks was illegal, so he always went right to the end of the path, then worked his way along the river for another hundred yards. Once, he had taken a quarter-ounce of dust and small nuggets out of the river and he wondered if someone had found out, but he immediately dismissed the idea. Only his psychiatrist knew. When they met each Thursday, he always showed Conklin his latest find. As far as his friends and colleagues were aware, he spent his days off hiking, getting himself back into shape after having been ill for over a year.
As he studied the two men below, he told himself he was letting his imagination run away with him again and to get it under control. There was no good in borrowing trouble. He stood up, swung his pack onto his shoulders and, being careful not to look like he was running away, resumed his hike.
From this point on, the trail was a series of switchbacks. If the two on the bridge were planning on following him and stealing his equipment or wallet, they would probably give up after a short distance and wait for easier prey. Unless they were in good condition, the steep climb would leave them gasping for breath.
Large cedars pressed close to the path, blocking out the light. Old man’s beard hung from the branches. The ground was a tangle of sword fern, salal and Oregon grape. In a bit of open space, an arbutus twisted toward the sun. Its bark, deep earth-red, hung in shreds. Here and there, the new pale green bark was visible. That was the way he felt, like a snake or an arbutus, shedding his old skin for a new, better one. The previous year when nothing else had seemed to work, he had taken his pack and hiked from sunrise to sunset, exhausting himself so completely that he could not stay awake. The sniping, looking for gold in cracks, under rocks, among the roots of trees, had come when he had started to feel better.
At the next bend, he stopped and hid behind a rotting stump. In a couple of minutes his pursuers—he told himself not to be foolish, not to be paranoid—appeared. They were walking surprisingly fast. If the trail had been even slightly less steep, they would have been running.
He wished there were a cutoff that would allow him to circle back. He could, he realized, use his equipment, if necessary, to lower himself to the river, but to do so he would need to gain enough of a lead to have time to untie and uncoil the rope, to set it around a tree, to climb down and then to pull his rope down after him so that it could not be taken away or cut. He then would be faced with the problem of finding a route up. He had to be back by seven. It was the agreed-upon time. Since their mother had been killed, the children became upset if he was even a few minutes late.
He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. It was a two-hour hike to the end of the trail, but he could hike out in an hour and a half. That did not leave him much time. First, he wanted to clean out the crack and, if possible, begin undercutting a large rock that sat in the centre of the river. Undercutting was dangerous. It would require that he move rocks and logs to divert the shallow water to either side of where he was going to work. Then he would need more logs to prop up the rock. He didn’t want to get the work partly done and have half a ton of stone roll onto him. The nuggets that might be clustered around the base were worth some risk, but there was no sense in taking more chances than necessary.
Ahead, through a gap in the trees, he saw the railway trestle. The two behind him would, he told himself, stop there. Hardly anyone went farther. The trestle was an inexplicable focal point. Every weekend, dozens of people hiked to it, then dared each other to cross over the gorge. Many, terrified of heights, balked after the first few steps and stood, rigid, unable to force themselves to go farther.
That, he reassured himself, was what those two were coming for. They would cross the trestle and scare each other by rough-housing like a couple of adolescents.
He had hoped, unreasonably, that there would be hikers or a railway crew on the tracks. Normally, it was a relief when there was no one there. Hikers were inclined to talk about their experiences, and in the past, he had been afraid that if he was frequently seen on the same trail, his weekly visits might come to the attention of the park warden. To avoid that, he had deliberately arranged to come when the park was empty.
He did not stop but crossed over the tracks and entered the forest on the far side. The path dwindled to a narrow line of crushed ferns. The trees were shagged with windblown moss and deadfall was everywhere. It was old forest, and in all the time he had come, he had never seen a bird or animal. As a child he had dreamed of living in the forest. In his dreams, his hunting had always been rewarded with game. The discrepancy between what he had hoped for and reality still astounded him.
While he was able to see the railway tracks, he stopped and waited. His legs had begun to tire and cramp. He stretched them, then kneaded his right calf with his thumb and forefinger. Always before, he had valued the silence and isolation. Now, however, as he watched the two bikers look up and down the roadbed then cross the path, Harold felt the forest close around him like a trap.
He hurried away. Even as he fled, he reassured himself that they had done nothing. Anyone was free to hike wherever he wanted. If he just stopped, they would catch up and pass him by without paying any attention to him.
He kept his eyes on the path. He had no intention of tripping over a vine or slipping on a log. His fear, he chided himself, was not rational. If a Mountie suddenly appeared and asked him what was the matter, what could he say? That he hadn’t liked the way they had looked at him earlier? That they had threatened him? And how was that, sir? He could hear the question. And the answer? The blond one pointed his finger at me. Any Mountie would think him mad.
The moss was so thick that his feet made no sound. There was only the creak of his pack, the harsh sound of his breathing. He would, he decided, abandon his plans, and when he got to the end of the granite ridge that ran along on his left, he would double back through the narrow pass on its far side. People don’t assault other people without good reason, he told himself, but it did no good. His panic fluttered like dry leaves in a rising wind.
He wished that he had brought a hunting knife. It would have made him feel better to have a weapon. His mind scurried over the contents of the pack as he tried to determine what he could use in a fight. The only possibility was his rack of chock nuts. It wasn’t much. A dozen aluminum wedges, even clipped together on a nylon sling, would not be very effective.
As he came to the end of the ridge, he turned abruptly to the left. The pass was nearly level and, unlike the area around it, contained only a few scattered trees. There were, he remembered, circles of stones where people had made campfires. One day he had poked about and discovered used condoms, some plastic sandwich bags and four or five beer bottles. A broken beer bottle, he thought, would serve as a weapon. He was just beginning to search for one when he saw a movement at the far end of the pass.
He became absolutely still. He felt so weak that he thought he was going to fall down. He craned his neck for a better look. If there were two of them, he could circle back the other way. In a moment, he realized that there was only one. That meant the other was on the path he had just left. He spun on his heel and ran back to the fork. No more than a quarter of a mile away the path ended. At that point, there was nothing to do but return the way he had come or descend to the river. In either case, he was trapped. His mouth, he realized, was so dry he could not spit.
Behind him, he heard someone ask a question that sounded like “Where did he go?” and a muffled reply, but he could not be sure of the words. The ground was nearly level. He was running when he burst out onto an area where the rock fell from the side of the trail like a frozen set of rapids. There were few places here for trees to root. Leaves and pine needles were swept from the pale green lichen by the winter rains. Rather than continue to what he knew was a dead end, he clambered down the slope. He had not explored this area. In the back of his mind was the hope that the rough rock continued all the way to the river. By the time they found out he was no longer on the path, he could have climbed the other cliff. All at once, he stopped. The rough black rock turned into sixty feet of smooth slab.
There was no time to go back. He glanced over his shoulder, then at the slab. It was, he realized, deceptive. It angled down toward the river, then stopped at a ragged edge. No steeper than a roof at the outset, it curved just enough that every few feet the angle increased. Patches of lichen and the smooth texture of the stone guaranteed that anyone who ventured out on it would be engaged in a test of balance.
There was a chance, because of his friction boots, that he could work his way onto the steepest part of the slope. If the two behind him were not pursuing him, they would pass by and he would never see them again. If they were, for whatever reason, meaning him some harm, they would have great difficulty reaching him.
Quickly, he unzippered the right-hand pocket of his pack and pulled out a section of three-millimetre rope. He tied a figure-eight knot in both ends, wrapped the rope around his left hand, then crept down to a small evergreen. Ten feet to the right, in a completely exposed area, there was a gnarled bush. Here and there, stunted trees, their trunks nearly as hard as the rock itself, protruded from cracks.
There was little room for error. If he began to slide, it would be difficult to stop before he went over the edge. Ät this part of the river, the fall would not be great, but height would not make any difference. Even a twenty-foot fall onto the scattered boulders of the riverbed would certainly be fatal. He leaned out, brushed away some dust that had collected on the rock, then took his first step.
Above him, someone whistled sharply. It startled him, but he kept his eyes fixed on the surface of the rock. He fitted the toe of his boot onto a small nubbin, then his other toe onto a seam of cracked quartz. The greatest danger was that, for even a split second, he would allow himself to be distracted. For his next move, he chose a pebbled area no bigger than a silver dollar. From there, he moved to a depression that was only noticeable because of its slight shadow. He had crossed more difficult areas than this but always with the security of a harness and rope and a belayer he could trust. A fall in those circumstances meant no more than some scraped skin and injured pride.
When he was within two feet of the bush, he felt a nearly overwhelming urge to lunge forward. He forced himself to stay where he was. On the rock there could be no impetuous moves. Patience, above all else, was to be valued. There seemed to be no place for him to put his foot. He scanned the surface. Just below him there was a hairline crack. If he pressed down hard on it, it would hold him long enough for him to step to the side and up and catch hold of the bush.
Slowly, he pirouetted on his left foot, then brought his right foot behind it. He took a deep breath, forced the air out of his lungs, then in one fluid movement, stepped down, up and across. Even as his hand grasped the wooden stem, he felt his feet begin to slide.
While he unwrapped the three-millimetre rope from his arm, he sat with his legs on either side of the stem. He fitted a loop of rope around an exposed root, then slipped the second loop around his wrist. Unless the root gave way, the farthest he was going to fall was a couple of feet.
Only then did he allow himself to look back. There was still no sign of anyone. The area of tumbled rock ran on for a fair distance and, he realized, would take a while to search. He cursed himself for not taking a chance and running back the way he had come.
He hooked his pack to the bush, took out the sling with the hardware on it, then eased himself out onto the steepest section of slab he could reach. Here he crouched, with his back to the trail, his hands splayed against the rock.
There was a sharp whistle above him. It was immediately answered from some distance back toward the trestle. With that, he realized that they had split up. One had blocked the trail while the other had done the searching.
He looked back again. Thirty feet behind him was the dark-haired biker. His blond companion was swinging down from the left. Both of them, Harold could see, were tired. He had, he thought, with a distant kind of pleasure, given them a good run for their money. If they had been carrying packs, he would have outdistanced them.
They both stopped at the rough edge, some ten feet apart, looked at each other and smirked.
“Did you want something?” he asked. He had meant to make it a casual question, even offhand, as though he had no idea they had followed him, but panic sharpened his voice.
They both laughed as if at a joke.
“What do you want?” He was no longer sure that what he had planned would work.
The blond man had a small leather purse attached to his belt. He unsnapped it and took out a bone-handled clasp knife. He pried out a wide blade.
“Are you crazy?” Harold cried. “What’s the matter with you? I don’t even know you.”
They both grinned foolishly and studied their boots. They looked, he thought wildly, like two little boys caught in the middle of a practical joke.
Panic made him feel like he was going to throw up. “Are you nuts?” he shouted. “Are you crazy or something?”
Their answer was to start down the slab, one on each side of him. Their first steps were confident, easy. The surface of the rock was granular and bare at the edge and provided plenty of friction. He could see that neither was experienced. They both came down sideways, leaning into the rock, one hand pressed to the surface. He gripped the nylon sling in his right hand and concentrated on keeping his balance.
The dark-haired one was closest. He was coming down between the tree and the shrub, taking little steps, moving his left foot down, then his right foot, then his left, dangerously pressing all his weight onto the edge of his boot and, even more dangerously, leaning backward, throwing off his centre of balance. Suddenly, a piece of lichen peeled away and his left foot slid out from under him. Instead of responding by bending out from the rock and pressing down with his toes, he panicked. He was sliding faster and faster. His body was rigid, his face contorted with fear, his eyes, instead of searching for a place he could stop his slide, were desperately fixed on the safe area he had just left behind. He made no sound. When he was finally even with Harold, he reached out his hand as though expecting it to be taken. There was, Harold saw, on the back of the hand, a tattoo of a heart pierced by a knife. A red and blue snake wound up the arm and disappeared beneath the sleeve. It was only by luck that his one foot struck a piece of root and he stopped. He was no more than a foot from the edge.
The blond man had come at an angle, picking his way along by fitting his knife blade into a crack. Just before his companion lost control, the blond man had started to work his way across an area where there were no cracks. He seemed frozen into place.
“Why?” Harold shouted at him.
The sound seemed to wake the blond man from a stupor. He turned his head slowly to look at Harold. He squinted and formed his mouth into a small circle, then drew his chin down and ran his tongue along his lower lip. For a moment, Harold thought the biker was going to turn and leave.
“Get me out of here,” his companion cried. Fear made his voice seem as young as a child’s.
The blond man shook his head, then half-snarled, stood up and tried to walk across the intervening space. It was as though momentum and will held him upright; then Harold swung the nylon sling over his head, lunged forward and struck his opponent on the upper arm. The blow was not powerful, and normally, it would have been swept aside. But here, as they both teetered on the steep surface, it was enough to knock them both off balance.
As the blond man skidded down the rock, he jabbed at it with his knife, trying to find an opening. Six feet from the edge, he managed to drive the blade into a crack. The knife held. He jammed his fingers into the crack.
Harold had slipped, fallen, then been caught by the rope around his wrist. He pulled himself back to the shrub and knelt with his knee against the stem.
“Help us up,” the dark-haired man begged. He looked like he was on the verge of weeping.
Harold loosened the rope, then untied it. Carefully, giving his entire attention to the task, he retraced his original route. Once at the evergreen, he knew he was safe. His sides were soaked with sweat and he could smell his own fear, bitter as stale tobacco. The two men never stopped watching him.
When Harold reached the top of the slab, the blond man called, in a plaintive voice, “For God’s sake, don’t leave us here.”
Fear had softened their eyes and mouths, but he knew it was only temporary. If he drew them to safety, they would return to what they had been.
“Pull us up,” the dark-haired man whined. His red headband had come off and was tangled in his hair.
Around them, the forest was silent. Not a bird called, not an animal moved. The moss that covered the rock and soil, the moss that clung thickly to the tree trunks, the moss that hung in long strands from the branches, deadened everything, muted it, until there were no sharp lines, no certainties. The silence pressed upon them. Harold had, for a moment, a mad image of all three of them staying exactly as they were, growing slowly covered in moss and small ferns until they were indistinguishable from the logs and rocks except for their glittering eyes.
“Tell somebody about us,” the dark-haired man asked.
The words tugged at him like little black hooks. He looked down. Their faces were bleached white with fear. He could tell someone, a park warden, perhaps, but then what would happen? If he could be certain they would be sent to prison, he might dare tell somebody, but he knew that would not happen. If charges were laid, he would have to testify. They would discover his name and address. And from then on, he would live in fear. Afraid to leave his house. Afraid to go to sleep at night. Afraid for his children. And what if they denied everything, turned it all around? He had had the necessary equipment to rescue them and had refused. What if one of them had fallen by the time someone came? He could be charged with manslaughter and the children would be left without mother or father. No matter how he tried to keep his psychiatrist out of it, Conklin would become involved. Harold knew how people thought. His short stay in hospital for depression, his weekly visits to a psychiatrist to siphon off pain and, automatically, he was crazy.
“You bastard,” the blond man screamed. “You bastard. Get us out of here.” He kept shifting his feet, trying to find a purchase where there was none. “If you don’t, our friends will come. They’ll get us out. Then we’ll start looking for you. There’s thousands of us. We’ll find you.”
The screaming startled him for a moment, but then he thought about how soon the little warmth from the sun would disappear, of how the fog would drift down with the darkness, of how the cold would creep into everything, of how few people came this way.
He wondered if his wife had screamed like that. Six of her fingernails had been broken. Unto the third generation, Conklin had said. His children, and his grandchildren should he have any, would feel the effects. Alone in a dark parking lot, desperately fighting for her life, and he had been sitting in his study, reading. “Help never comes when it’s most needed.”
Then, with real regret for the way things are, he hefted his pack so that it settled firmly between his shoulders and returned the way he had come.