Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery Series) Read online

  “Hear that, Carm?” Rosie said. “That should be your nickname—Cat Girl.” She scratched the air in front of her with her fingers. “Meow, meow!” she yowled, arching her back, her face to the sky.

  Janelle wrapped her arm around Carmelita’s shoulders. “What in the world made you go up there?”

  The onlookers waited with Janelle for Carmelita’s response.

  “I . . . I . . .” Carmelita began, her voice barely audible. “I asked Uncle Clarence if we could come over because there was another kid climbing on the rock.”

  Among the spectators, a boy of no more than fourteen, as slight as Carmelita, glanced her way. A lock of black hair swooped low over his forehead, covering one eye.

  “You were talking,” Carmelita said to her mother, “so I grabbed my shoes.”

  “The three of us came over together,” Clarence said, his hand on Rosie’s shoulder. “When Carm kept going higher, I got people to come help, to make sure we could catch her.” He pointed at the two nearest campsites, empty of people. Laundry lines, hanging low with worn jeans, flannel shirts, and white housekeeper aprons, ran from tree trunk to tree trunk along the edges of the sites.

  The YOSAR team member said, “We hustled over, too. Man, am I glad we did. That was so freakin’ cool.”

  A rush of pride surged through Chuck. He asked Carmelita, “How’d you do it, anyway?”

  She lifted one of her bony shoulders. “I . . . I just kept going.”

  “The overhang didn’t scare you?”

  “A little. But everybody started coming.”

  “We tell her, ‘Go, go, go,’” a stout woman said. Streaks of gray highlighted her charcoal hair. She pointed at the boy. “My grandson, he get only a little bit off the ground. But the girl? ¡Dios mío!”

  Janelle pressed Carmelita to her side. “Gracias,” she said to the woman.

  “Por nada,” the woman replied. “Tienes una muchacha talentosa.”

  Janelle lowered her head in acknowledgment. “I agree. She’s pretty talented.”

  “Pero,” the woman continued, a twinkle in her eyes, “es porque ella no tiene bastante peso.”

  “You think Carmelita’s too skinny?”

  The woman aimed a stubby finger at her grandson. “Él, tambien.” Her wrinkled face cracked open in a smile, revealing a row of stained teeth. “Y tú, lo mismo,” she said to Janelle.

  The woman left the group and headed for the unattended campsites. “Plátanos,” she said over her shoulder to those gathered at the base of the boulder. “¡Plátanos para todos!”

  Chuck turned to Janelle. “Did she just offer plantains to everybody?”

  “That’s what it sounded like.” Janelle looked down at Carmelita, still pressed to her side. “Like your abuela makes.”

  The onlookers followed the woman, but Carmelita drew in her shoulders, looking up at her mother. “I’m sorry I came over here. I didn’t mean for you to get mad at Uncle Clarence.”

  “You don’t need to apologize,” Janelle told her. “It’s just, I want us to stick close to one another.”

  Clarence aimed his head toward the park worker campsites and said to Carmelita, “You’re a rock star now. You need to put in an appearance with your fans.” He looked at Janelle. “We’ll all go together. Juntos.”

  “Yeah,” Rosie told Carmelita. “Come on, Cat Girl. Let’s go eat some bananas.”

  “Plantains are different, remember?” Janelle said to Rosie. “They have to be cooked. They’re not as sweet.”

  Rosie rubbed her belly. “As long as they have lots of honey, like Grandma puts on them, they’ll be grrrreat!”

  Taking the girls’ hands, Clarence walked with them toward the park worker campsites.

  “Don’t eat too many plátanos,” Chuck called after Carmelita. “You don’t want to overdo it before the Slam tomorrow.”

  Janelle gripped his wrist. “How well she does tomorrow doesn’t matter.”

  Chuck shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It might matter to her.”

  “Or to you.” Janelle’s gaze was penetrating.

  “As long as we’re staying in the valley, I see nothing wrong with Carm’s taking advantage of the opportunity to be successful tomorrow.”

  “How well somebody climbs or doesn’t climb up a fake cliff isn’t exactly my idea of success.”

  Chuck aimed his chin at the group now gathering in the nearer of the two campsites, where the grandmother fired up a campstove and centered a skillet over one of its burners. “Those folks would beg to differ. You heard that YOSAR guy refer to Ron Kauk like he was some sort of a god. To a lot of people in Yosemite, that’s exactly what he was, along with others, like Jimmy and Thorpe, who sent routes on El Cap and Half Dome and all the other faces in the valley that, until they climbed them, people had thought were impossible.”

  Janelle’s mouth turned downward. “They climbed rocks. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.”

  “Not to you, maybe.” Chuck eyed Kauk’s pioneering route up the overhanging face of the boulder. “Most people have no idea what draws climbers like me to Yosemite to spend weeks or months or, in the case of Jimmy and Thorpe, their entire lives climbing cliffs around the valley. A few years ago, two of the best climbers in the world, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, sent the Dawn Wall route on El Capitan for the first time ever without any aid—that is, without using nuts or cams or pitons to help their ascent. They spent an entire month on the wall, working their way upward little by little, while supporters resupplied them from below. They ripped their fingertips to shreds, hung out in their portaledges until their fingers healed, then inched higher. The media got hold of the story and reported on their progress day after day. The coverage drew all sorts of criticism from people who thought what they were doing was a total waste of time.”

  “Which it was, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Chuck closed one eye as he looked at Janelle. “You’re right that there’s no obvious value in rock climbing per se. But what Caldwell and Jorgeson were attempting on Dawn Wall is what the valley is all about. Places like Yosemite let people challenge themselves in the outdoors to whatever degree they want. Caldwell and Jorgeson did exactly what Jimmy and Thorpe and the rest of us did twenty years ago, and what climbers and hikers and backpackers have been doing here in the park for more than a century—they challenged themselves to the furthest extent of their abilities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion.”

  Janelle’s eyes went from Carmelita’s route on Columbia Boulder to the high cliff faces of the valley, visible through breaks in the trees, then back to Chuck. “I don’t want to let you off so easy, but . . .”

  “But I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Every now and then,” she admitted. She slid her fingers from his wrist to his hand. “Come on. Let’s go keep an eye on the girls.”

  “And eat some fried bananas.”

  Half a dozen children, Rosie among them, chased each other through the campsites. The grandmother tied an apron over her skirt and flipped sliced plantains in a cast iron skillet in front of her. The sweet, smoky smell of the sizzling fruit filled the air. Clarence, other campers, and YOSAR team members piled paper plates with grilled chicken, potato salad, and cookies laid out on the picnic table in front of the camp stove.

  The woman set down her spatula next to the skillet and stood with her hands behind her back as everyone dove into the food. Janelle approached the woman, who resumed flipping the plantains on the stove. The two fell into conversation, speaking Spanish.

  Chuck wandered over to where Clarence and Carmelita stood with several middle-aged men in worn jeans and denim work shirts. The men’s caramel-toned faces were weathered and wrinkled, like that of Janelle’s father.

  “Hola, jefe,” Clarence said to Chuck, lifting a drumstick in greeting, his loaded plate balanced in his free hand. “La gente aquí know what they’re doing when it comes to food.”

  Carmelita scooped a strip of fried
plantain from her plate and took a big bite. “Mmmm,” she said. Then she looked at Chuck and froze, her cheeks bulging.

  Chuck raised a hand to her in apology. “Eat as much as you want. You’ll do fine tomorrow no matter what.”

  Clarence said to her, “Food this good is magical, niña. It’ll help you fly up the tower tomorrow.”

  She smiled and took another bite, then closed her eyes and moaned in delight as she chewed.

  “It’s that good?” Chuck asked her.

  “It reminds me of Grandma.”

  One of the campers held out a calloused hand, indicating the food-laden picnic table to Chuck. “Por favor, señor. Help yourself.”

  “Gracias,” Chuck said. “But I have to save myself for dinner over there.” He pointed at the reunion campsite, where Mark moved between the stew pot, still bubbling on the stove, and steaks, sizzling on a freestanding grill.

  “Ah,” the man said, nodding. “Your friend here—” he pointed at Clarence, who gnawed on his drumstick “—he say you come here much times.”

  “Every summer for five years or so,” Chuck said. “A long time ago.”

  “Is my third summer here.”

  “Do you always stay in Camp 4?”

  “Some of the time. We take turns standing in the line to get our fourteen days máximo for each of us. We stay here much of the summer that way. There is no place else to stay in the valley, and apartments outside the park are far away and cost much money. The camping is very cheap.” He grinned as the youngsters ran by. “And good for the children.”

  From the reunion campsite, Caleb waved a beer bottle at Chuck. “If you’ll excuse me,” Chuck said to the man and Clarence, leaving them.

  “Not so fast,” Clarence said, hurrying after Chuck.

  They stopped at the edge of the campsite, alone together.

  “I need to know what’s going on here,” Clarence said. “Janelle tells me you found clear evidence somebody knocked that boulder down on us, but here we are, hanging around like nothing happened.”

  “It’s not me. It’s your sister.”

  “You mean your wife.”

  “That makes her both your problem and mine. She said she won’t run. More specifically, she said Ortegas don’t run. But maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

  “Not me. You know good and well by now, Ortegas don’t run from nobody or nothing.”

  Chuck rolled his eyes. “You, too?”

  “Look around us. We’re in the middle of the valley with millions of other people. Ain’t nobody gonna be able to do anything more to us.”

  Chuck groaned. “That’s exactly what Janelle said.”

  “She’s right. We just gotta figure out who it is that tried to scare us off.”

  “That’s what she said, too.”

  Clarence grinned. “Mi hermana, she’s one smart cookie, ain’t she?”

  Chuck couldn’t find it in himself to return Clarence’s smile. “I’ll need your help. Anything you see, any ideas you have.”

  “Sure. But you’re the one who signed the contract. You know the players involved. I’m just here for the chicken and plátanos.”

  Clarence headed back to the park worker campsite. Chuck walked toward the reunion site, asking himself who possibly could have something against looking into what had happened to the prospectors 150 years after the fact. Had the person who toppled the boulder been waiting, expecting Chuck and Clarence to show up based on the posting of their plans on the Indigenous Tribespeople Foundation website? Or had the person watched them from the campground, setting off to the drainage only after Chuck and Clarence set out across the valley with Janelle and the girls?

  Chuck studied the campsites around him. If the latter was the case, then someone around here was keeping a close eye on him and Clarence. Who might that someone be?

  Caleb waved again from the reunion campsite. Chuck continued toward him, lifting a hand in response.

  “We should tie one on,” Caleb urged after dinner. “Get hammered and go for a midnight swim in the river, like the old days. That’s what Thorpe would want us to do. Jimmy, too.”

  Despite Caleb’s suggestion, however, the evening’s somber mood prevailed. The guys drifted off to their tents one by one, their stomachs full of Mark’s New York strip and Italian pasta, until Chuck sat alone in the dark in front of the glowing red coals of the dying campfire.

  He upended his bottle, finishing his beer, and rose from his seat. Snores from the tents in the reunion campsite filled the night air as he made his way through the darkness to the campsite next door, where Janelle and the girls were already in their two-room family tent.

  He slipped inside and found his way to his portable cot using his cell phone light. The narrow bed creaked as he sat down on it. He set his cell phone on the floor, its light shining up, and leaned forward to unlace his boots.

  Janelle rose on an elbow on the cot beside him, her face lit by his phone.

  “Long day,” she whispered. She rested a hand on his knee. “How are you doing?”

  “Better than I’d have thought,” he whispered back, “thanks to having you and the girls here. I’m worried, though, for the same reason.”

  “The boulder was meant to send a message to you and Clarence. All we have to do is figure out who’s trying to scare you off and why, and stay away from the survey site in the meantime.”

  “The boulder was only part of it today. You saw some pretty grim stuff up on the ridge.”

  “We both did.”

  “Not to mention being questioned by Owen.”

  She flicked her fingers as if shooing a fly. “He’s nothing. As for what we saw on the ridge, I just kept trying to imagine it as pictures in the books for my classes.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less gruesome.”

  “If I get on with Durango Fire and Rescue—”

  “When you get on,” Chuck broke in. “You will get on with them, and when you do, you’ll do great.”

  “Okay,” Janelle assented. “When I get on with Durango Fire and Rescue, I’ll be seeing a lot more of that sort of thing.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “After today, I know I’m going to be okay with it.”

  “That’s my babe.”

  “Hey,” she warned, a teasing lilt to her voice. “I’m nobody’s babe.”

  “Sure you are,” he said with a smile. “You’re all mine, mine, mine.”

  He thumbed off his phone light, lay back, and ran through the day’s events in his mind—Thorpe’s death, Jimmy’s accident, and, over and over again, the boulder rumbling down the drainage. Eventually, he fell asleep to the reassuring memory of Clarence’s outstretched hand pulling him to safety, with Janelle and the girls already shielded by the nose of granite.

  He awoke when his phone beeped. Janelle rolled to face him, her eyes questioning, as he peered over the edge of his cot at the phone, alight with an incoming text.

  First, he checked the time. Four in the morning.

  Then he checked the text. We need you, it read.

  14

  Chuck drove out of the valley in response to Bernard’s text, after Janelle insisted she and the girls would be safe staying in camp with Clarence.

  Chuck followed the snaking highway westward along the Merced River, descending out of the mountains. Two hours later, he turned the pickup into the drive leading to the front entrance of Mercy Medical Center in north Merced. He braked to a stop, the crew cab’s headlights shining on Jimmy and Bernard. Jimmy balanced on crutches outside the hospital, the left leg of his jeans scissored to his knee. Bernard gripped one of Jimmy’s elbows, supporting him.

  Teaming with Bernard, Chuck helped Jimmy slide sideways across the truck’s rear bench seat until his left leg, encased in a soft, velcro-strapped cast to the top of his shin, rested lengthwise on the seat.

  “Go, go, go,” Bernard said to Chuck, slamming the back door and hopping into the front passenger seat.

  Chuck climbe
d behind the wheel, threw the truck into gear, and accelerated. Visible in the rearview mirror, Jimmy leaned the back of his head against the side window and said, “It’s not a prison, B.”

  “We’re going AWOL,” Bernard countered. “What do they call it? Leaving against medical advice.” He tapped his fingertips on the dashboard and counted the taps beneath his breath in varying beats, like a jazz drummer. “One, two . . . three, four, five . . . six, seven . . . eight, nine, ten—”

  “I’ll be back after the weekend,” Jimmy said over Bernard’s whispered count. “I’ll ask for their forgiveness then.” He closed his eyes.

  The truck lurched as Chuck negotiated a gutter between the hospital parking lot and street, provoking a groan from Jimmy.

  Bernard withdrew his hands from the dashboard and turned in his seat to face Chuck. “I know we shouldn’t be doing this, but he insisted.”

  From the back, Jimmy said, “You haven’t changed a bit, B, you know that? I swear to God, you’re more of a chicken-shit now than you ever were.”

  Bernard squeezed his hands together in his lap, stilling his fingers. “You just got out of the operating room a few hours ago.”

  “They didn’t even do any surgery. No pins or screws or anything. They just put me under long enough to pop my foot back into place. There’s a non-displaced fracture at the base of my ankle, but nothing else. They said I’ll be good as new in a few weeks. Besides, I’m not about to miss the Slam. I want to start it off with a memorial to Thorpe first thing, while everybody’s there.”

  Bernard said, “He’s been on the phone nonstop, with the rangers, YOSAR, the whole world.”

  Jimmy caught Chuck’s eye in the mirror. “I keep thinking I should have done something. Anything.”

  “If it helps, everyone else feels the same way,” Chuck replied.

  He piloted the truck through Merced’s quiet streets. Above the crest of the Sierra range to the east, the horizon was gray with the coming dawn.

  “We hadn’t seen much of each other lately,” Jimmy said.

  “He got himself a woman in Fresno,” said Bernard. “That’s what he posted, anyway.”