The Ascent of PJ Marshall Read online

  “He’s really scrambling now, isn’t he? That’s why you’re here, right?” Hackett was silent, his gaze trained on the vague silhouette in the mirror. A sigh from the back seat. “All right, then. Why did you come here?”

  Hackett swallowed.

  “I just…I needed to talk to someone.”

  “Uh huh. What about?” Hackett didn’t answer. The man pressed harder with his weapon. “Hackett?”

  “It was about…some work he’s doing. We’re having a…disagreement, and I came to…clear it up.”

  The man laughed, his breath cool against Hackett’s neck.

  “Must be some disagreement.”

  Hackett nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “And how did it go? Your meeting?”

  “He wasn’t home. So I left.”

  The man pushed Hackett down over the wheel with his weapon.

  “Liar.” Hackett tensed, his venomous gaze trained on the mirror as the man let off. “What does Ward want here?”

  “Nothing. I’m…like I said, I came here to—”

  Sliding his weapon down to the top of Hackett’s spine, the man pressed it hard into the bone. Hackett cringed, hissing through his teeth.

  “Just shut up, Hackett. Give me the keys.”

  “Okay.”

  Hackett slowly lowered his right hand onto the car key and turned it back. In the ensuing darkness and under the rattle of keys, he dropped his left hand onto the tire iron. The man pulled the keys from Hackett’s fingers and jerked the knapsack up and over the passenger seat. He pushed his weapon deeper into Hackett’s spine.

  “After I’m gone, you can start looking for these.” Hackett’s keys jangled in his ear. “Not before. Clear?”

  Hackett swallowed.

  “Yeah.”

  The man’s voice drew closer.

  “You should have stayed home.”

  Hackett’s fingers tightened around the tire iron.

  “Who—do you work for Hansen?”

  The man laughed.

  “Not too bright, are you?” The man backed off his weapon and leaned in, his mouth directly behind Hackett’s right ear. Warm breath tickled the hairs on Hackett’s neck as the man spoke in a murmur. “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is…with your little stunt down there…you and Ward are finished.”

  Hackett swung the tire iron hard over his shoulder, striking the top of the man’s head with a muted crack. The iron vibrated with a metallic hum and Hackett dropped it to the floor, clenching his stinging fingers into a fist. The man slumped forward between the seats, exhaling with a slow, agonizing hiss. Then he was silent.

  Hackett threw the door open and got out of the car. With a gasp, he ducked back inside to snatch the tire iron from the floor. He turned on the dome light and fell backwards into a sit on the wet grass, level with the man inside, his weapon raised. The camouflaged cap sat askew on his head, its faded pattern unmistakable.

  On his feet, Hackett crept to the back door and pulled it open. Butch’s arm hung at his side, his hand on the floor, bent severely at the wrist but still clutching a small, metallic flashlight. Hackett fell to his knees, holding onto the door for support.

  “You stupid son of a bitch.”

  Butch gasped with a raspy gurgle, his body lifting and then settling back between the seats, his breathing weak and shallow. Hackett stood and walked in a daze to the front of his car, pausing at the door to cock his head at the distant whine of an approaching siren.

  He reached under the dash and popped the trunk.

  chapter two

  PJ

  Butch stepped onto the snow bridge, probing it with the pick of his ice axe. In its final throes, the bridge was reduced to a narrow spit across the Gooseneck bergschrund, which yawned to the depths of the glacier on either side. Wedged between a pair of boulders on the far side, PJ drew up the slack in the safety rope, his fingers white, thighs burning.

  “I can’t believe you made me go first. That thing looks really iffy.”

  Butch stopped halfway across, smiling as he tucked the axe under his arm. He took a ball of string from his pocket and began to unroll it.

  “Good thing we have the rope then,” he said, motioning to the slope next to PJ. “Toss me a rock, would you? Not too big.”

  PJ cursed under his breath, easing off the leading end of the line and firming his grip on the anchor. He picked a stone from the surrounding scree and quickly threw it, again taking hold of the rope. The toss was low, forcing Butch to make a reaching grab and PJ shut his eyes, his body tensing as he waited for the scream and the jerk on the line that would blow his anchor and pull them both to an icy death. Nothing. PJ opened his eyes, finding his father at work securing the stone to the end of the string, studying the face of the Pinnacle beside them. PJ shook his head.

  “You could’ve had that ready before hand.”

  Butch glanced at him as he lowered the weight into the bergschrund.

  “Could have. But clearly, you need the throwing practice.”

  Shifting his back against the boulder, PJ adjusted his grip on the rope, his laughter dripping with sarcasm.

  “Yeah, okay. Hold still. I’m going to practice right now.”

  “Doesn’t exactly fill me with fear.”

  The string went slack, and Butch probed the bottom, raising and lowering the string, stopping at the faint echo of clattering rock. Sighting in several points on the Pinnacle’s face with his outstretched arm, Butch knelt in the snow and tied a loop in the string. PJ snickered.

  “Very scientific.”

  Butch rolled up the string and finished crossing the bridge, tossing the rock at PJ’s feet.

  “You volunteering to carry the sonar unit next time?”

  PJ unwedged the chock stone from the boulder behind him and stood. Unclipping its short length of webbing from his harness, he attached it to the back of Butch’s pack.

  “Sonar. Sounds expensive. How much do you get for doing this?”

  Butch turned to survey the valley below. Gooseneck Glacier was sparkling in the midday sun, its softening coat of snow beginning to reveal small, yawning crevasses beneath. It merged with the massive Dinwoody, and their combined runoff percolated through the talus moraine, splitting East and West Sentinel, the guardians of Gannett Peak. He turned back and looked up toward their prize, still concealed by false summits. He winked at PJ.

  “I get plenty.” They traversed the ice cap above the glacier and stepped onto the rocky spine on Gannett’s southern flank. Butch dropped his pack. “We should be done with the axes and crampons, so we’ll unhook here. It’s pretty easy scrambling for a while, but the summit ridge is a little intense. We can reattach then if you want.”

  “Okay. How much longer to the top?”

  “Depends. You keep lollygagging, stopping every ten steps to take a picture, could be all day.”

  “Okay. Without the lollygagging?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  They strapped their hardware to their packs and pushed on, climbing over truck-sized boulders and fields of loose scree. His head throbbing, PJ struggled to keep up. His chest stung and his legs threatened to buckle, but at the risk of quitting before a man twice his age, he hung on.

  They reached the summit snowfield and rested before the final push. Butch uncoiled the rope as PJ dropped his pack into the rocks and sat. PJ gazed up the mountain, pulling greedily between breaths from his hydration tube. The eastern slope of Gannett’s upper reaches was under a deep blanket of snow, extending from the knife edge on top down its leeward face to its abrupt end five hundred feet above the Gooseneck Glacier. A path was worn into the snow just below the ridge, connecting them to the rocky summit. Butch looked down, reflecting PJ in his sunglasses.

  “A lot of snow up here this year,” Butch said. “Good sign.”

  PJ cringed at his grizzled, distorted reflection and looked away as he got to his feet.

  “Should we put on the crampons?”


  “It’s up to you. I’m going to leave mine off. The path looks pretty solid, so we should be fine. Keep your axe handy, though. We’ll rope up again too.”

  PJ unhooked the ice axe from his pack and pushed its spike into the snow. He shifted his weight, tempering the burn in his legs.

  “How are we doing for time?”

  Butch handed PJ the end of the rope, checking his watch.

  “One forty-five. We’re good.” PJ began to tie on when Butch stopped him. “Try the one handed bowline.”

  PJ sniffed.

  “Always testing me, aren’t you?”

  “Could save your ass someday.”

  PJ began to tentatively weave his arm around the fixed side of the rope, threading and pulling its free end behind. He paused to inspect the knot, turning it over with a nod before pulling it tight.

  “My ass is in good hands.”

  Butch started up the snowfield and PJ waited as the slack paid out. He looked down, squinting at the faint, milky ribbon of Dinwoody Creek, sparkling through the haze at the foot of the glacier. Glacier Trail followed vaguely alongside, leading to their camp that lay swallowed in the valley beyond. He searched for their tent, ultimately surrendering to the landscape’s immense scale. Gooseneck had been miniaturized during their climb, oddly delicate and finite. He traced the thin line of their tracks across the snow. Crevasses littered the glacier’s surface like grass clippings on a sidewalk. There was a tug on the rope, and PJ turned, looking up the mountain. Butch’s arms were raised.

  “Well, get it over with. You know you want to.”

  PJ unhooked the chest strap from his camera. After shooting Gooseneck and the valley beyond, he continued to trip the shutter as he panned over Dinwoody and Bonney Pass to the south. He lowered the camera and shielded the display, checking the photos. He looked away, shaking his head. Butch called down from the ridge.

  “Not gonna work, is it?”

  “No.”

  Butch nodded, scanning the horizon.

  “Yeah, pretty hard to fit all this into a little rectangle.”

  PJ looked up. His father was perched on the crest of the ridge, framed by a cloudless sky, the summit hovering over his shoulder.

  “Don’t move,” PJ said, raising the camera. He took the shot. “That’ll work.”

  Smiling, Butch looked down the mountain, then up to the peak.

  “This is where I want to be.”

  PJ chuckled.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “No. You know what I mean.”

  As he secured his camera, PJ nodded thoughtfully. He pulled his ice axe from the snow.

  “Yeah. Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “God, you’re a morbid son of a bitch.”

  “You gonna hold up your end?”

  “Yeah. Of course I will. If that’s what you want. Can we not…let’s just do this.”

  “Okay.”

  They marched across the ridge, leaning upslope and thrusting their axes into the snow on the other side with each step. The snow thinned as they approached the top, quickening their pace. Suddenly, they could climb no more.

  They exchanged high fives and slaps on the back, neither of them able to contain his wide, toothy grin. PJ nodded with approval, taking in three hundred and sixty-five unobstructed degrees. The roof of Wyoming. The lesser peaks crowded Gannett like envious siblings, keeping their distance. On every side, glaciers methodically scraped the mountainside into a network of milky blue streams below. A cool, moist breeze blew off the snowfield, creating an eddy on the summit, encircling them in the smell of wet rock. PJ shook his head.

  “This is just…this kicks ass.”

  Butch laughed.

  “I think that’s what Hillary said to Norgay.” He shook PJ by the back of the neck. “Nice job, partner. Time to celebrate.”

  They set their packs in the rocks and sat back to back. PJ could hear his father rummaging in his gear behind him. Butch’s hand appeared next to PJ’s leg.

  “Hand me your cup, would you?”

  PJ pulled it from the side pocket of his pack and handed it over.

  “The moon should be coming up pretty soon,” Butch said. “You want to wait for it?”

  “Yeah, sure. How do you know this stuff?”

  Butch scolded him with a click of his tongue.

  “And you call yourself a photographer.”

  PJ looked to the east.

  “How many times have you been up here again?”

  “Fifteen. And this is by far the best weather I’ve ever had.”

  Butch leaned over and scooped two cups of snow from a crease in the rock. PJ watched several small clouds roll and build over the lower peaks and then disappear.

  “What was the worst?”

  Butch set the cups on the rock and was again searching his pack.

  “Two years ago. After I got to base camp, I had to burn two days in the tent waiting out the rain. The third day was cloudy and about twenty degrees colder, but it was dry. By then it was summit or go home, so I went for it. Everything was fine until I got back to Gooseneck and a snowstorm kicked up. Complete white out. Crossing the ‘grund was a nightmare. The rest of the glacier was pretty hairy too. Slept like a baby all night and the next morning.”

  PJ turned his head aside.

  “How would you have gotten out of a crevasse if you—?”

  “It was later in the year, so the crevasses were pretty exposed. Besides, they’re not real big out here. Just a nuisance mostly.”

  PJ resumed his watch of the horizon.

  “You’ve probably got more worries today. Dragging me up here.”

  “Stop it, you did great. Here, take this.” Butch handed back a cup of Kool-Aid flavored snow, raising his own in a toast. “To the best climbing partner, the best view, and the best snow cones in the world.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  They clicked cups and PJ took a bite off the top, looking down the mountain. He got to his feet for a better view of the cirques and valleys west of the divide. More glaciers. Gannett and Mammoth, even bigger than Dinwoody, spread north and south from the peak, with Minor holding the west. Somewhere, a rock slide clattered, its echo likely reaching them well after the fact.

  “How many glaciers are out here?”

  “Five just on Gannett. Over a hundred all together in the Winds.”

  PJ swallowed a mouthful of cherry slush. The cold raced down his throat, dissolving into the heat.

  “You’re gonna need more string.”

  Butch stood up, chewing.

  “Yeah. Definitely a big job,” he said, motioning to the expansive view. “You want to do the honors?”

  “Sure.” PJ set his cup on the rock and took his camera from its case. “You said fifty millimeters, right?”

  “Right. Just keep it there and blanket everything.”

  “Okay.”

  “And make sure you overlap the frames so they’ll stitch together.”

  “Got it.”

  “Oh, and don’t worry about exposure. This isn’t a work of art. Just make sure to get the detail.”

  PJ waited.

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yeah, do your thing.”

  PJ climbed onto a flat boulder and methodically photographed the scene, the crunch of Butch’s snow cone mingling with the click of the shutter.

  “Some might consider it art,” PJ said. “Fifty years from now, this could be worth a fortune.”

  Butch stopped chewing.

  “It already is.”

  “Right. So, fifteen times. You can tell just by looking, can’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “And…?”

  No answer.

  “Dad?”

  Butch sighed.

  “What do you think?”

  PJ lowered the camera. He watched Butch drain his cup and flick the residue into the air. They exchanged a brief glance and then PJ returned to his work.

  “Right.”

  “S
ometimes I wonder why I keep doing this,” Butch said. “I don’t know that it really matters.”

  “To who?”

  Butch was silent, and then cleared his throat with a chuckle.

  “Yeah. I’ll be dropping string from a wheelchair someday.”

  PJ took the last picture and stepped down, reviewing his work on the screen.

  “Damn right. This mountain’s your baby.”

  Butch smiled, gently patting the boulder as he sat on its edge.

  “My lady, actually.”

  PJ sat next to him and slung the camera around his back. He picked up his cup, throwing Butch a sidelong glance.

  “You’ve thought of this before?”

  Butch shrugged.

  “A little.”

  PJ stared at his father, chewing his snow cone with a judgmental shake of his head.

  “You need to get yourself a date.”

  Butch nodded.

  “I could bring her here. The ambiance is nice, and you don’t have to reserve a table.”

  “And you guys could join the thirteen thousand, seven hundred—what is it?”

  “Eight hundred and four.”

  “The thirteen thousand, eight hundred and four foot club.”

  They both looked to the eastern horizon, PJ swirling the slush in his cup. A puff of cool, moist wind.

  “So PJ…how is a mountain like a woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’re both really nice to look at, but even better to climb on top of.”

  PJ turned and shook his head, wrinkling his brow.

  “You make that up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just now?”

  “Yeah. What? No good?”

  “It’s not bad, I guess. How about…you have to do a lot of work before you can get on top of them?”

  Butch bobbed his head, considering his response.

  “Yeah, but not always. Sometimes they’re easy.”

  “Right, but still…you have to use all the right moves.”

  “Of course. And the conditions have to be just right.”

  “And your equipment needs to be up for the task.”

  “And you need to know how to use it.”

  “Exactly. You gotta strap into your harness before you start.”

  “And make sure you tie your knots correctly.”