Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery Series) Read online

  “He’d come up to the park every week or two. He’d hang around with the other fliers out at Wawona on the way to Glacier Point, do his flights, and head right back down to her.”

  Bernard faced forward in his seat. Unclasping his hands, he rat-a-tapped his thighs with his fingers. “What about his van?”

  Chuck glanced at Bernard. “The one with the shag carpeting and the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror? He still had that thing?”

  “He got a new one a little while ago. He posted all kinds of pictures of it online. It was one of those fancy camper vans with a high roof and polished wood finishes inside. It even had a bathroom, which he made a big deal about, like indoor plumbing was this new thing in the world. I bet it’s still parked up at the point.”

  “I’m sure it’s been towed by now,” Jimmy said from the rear seat. “The rangers wouldn’t let it sit there for long.”

  Chuck steered the truck onto the interstate at the edge of the city. Ahead, pink and orange mixed with the gray on the eastern skyline. “The Slam’s supposed to start at nine, right? We won’t get there much before that.”

  “I talked to Alden after I came out of the OR. He’ll have everything ready to go.”

  Chuck raised his elbows, widening his shoulders, his hands still on the wheel. “That guy?”

  Jimmy chuckled. “That’s him. He works for Sacramento Rock Gym, hauls the tower up to the valley for me every year. He’s helped with the Slam since the start. He checks everyone in, keeps the brackets updated, frees me to do the announcing. Not sure how much of that I’ll be able to do this year, though.”

  “You think you’ll be able to pull off the memorial for Thorpe, at least?”

  “That’s non-negotiable.”

  “People were climbing on the tower again yesterday, not long after they hauled you away. Alden said he was going to replace the auto-belay.”

  “He told me he couldn’t find anything wrong with the one that let me fall.”

  “Either the ratchet’s broken or the switch is faulty or it got turned off. Something.”

  “He said he changed it out regardless.”

  “The ranger was all over it—Owen Hutchins, Jr. Old Ranger Hutchins’ son, did you know that?”

  “Of course. He’s had it in for me since the first day he put on his badge.”

  “He picked up right where his dad left off, seems like.”

  “He’s pretty much alone with his hard-ass routine at this point. Things have really calmed down between the rangers and climbers these days. The Sunday morning coffee at Columbia Boulder has helped. Plus, lots of the current rangers are climbers themselves. Several were YOSARians before they joined the ranger ranks. There are more and more women rangers, too. By and large, the rangers nowadays are good people. But with Owen, Jr., it’s as if nothing’s changed. Everything is still us vs. them. It’s like he’s still in the trenches and the war never ended. The first few years after he rangered up weren’t so bad. They had him stationed on the outskirts, in Wawona or Tuolumne Meadows, with the other rookies. Now that he’s built up some seniority, though, he’s worked his way into the valley. This year, he got Camp 4 as part of his beat.”

  “He raked me through the coals yesterday. Twice. Once because of your accident. Then on account of Thorpe.”

  “You and Ponch found him, didn’t you?”

  “Along with my wife. When we got up there, he was hard to miss.”

  “You did a good thing, finding him. Better to know right away.”

  Chuck set the cruise control. The truck sped across the panflat expanse of California’s Central Valley. The highway was quiet. Farmhouse lights speckled the landscape in the gloom of the fading night. The mountains rose where the farmland ended thirty miles ahead.

  “Junior didn’t think so,” Chuck said. “He claimed we should have let YOSAR take care of it.”

  “That’s Owen for you. Just like his dad. He thinks every park visitor should stay on the roads and buses and never leave the pavement. I’ve noticed the other rangers tend to keep their distance from him.”

  “He seems to get along pretty well with your tower attendant, Alden.”

  “Everybody gets along with Alden. Thorpe liked him, too.” Jimmy paused. “Thorpe,” he said softly. “All these years, no accidents for either of us.” In the rearview mirror, he shook his head, his braided beard sweeping back and forth. “I just wish he could’ve been with everybody this weekend—finally, all of us together.” He sighed. “How does everyone look?”

  Chuck hooked his thumbs over the bottom of the steering wheel. “About what you’d expect. Receding hairlines. Some gray hair, including mine. Plenty of pudginess, but Mark’s the only one who’s really gone overboard. Dale’s in good shape. He was wearing a marathon T-shirt.”

  “Those gay guys,” Jimmy said. “They’re all about their bodies.”

  “I don’t think he’s as fit as you, though. The way you were climbing before you fell, it was like you hadn’t aged a bit.”

  “I just work hard not to show it. Thorpe, though? He ran his butt off, never stopped doing sit-ups and push-ups and pullups. It was all I could do to hang in there with him all those years.” Jimmy stroked his beard. “You’re looking pretty good yourself, Chuck.”

  “I spend a lot of time with a shovel in my hands. Keeps the pounds off.”

  “I checked out your website. You’ve done all right for yourself, I’ll say that. All your discoveries—man, you’re big time. I remember when you rattled into the valley in your beater car every summer, living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  “It took a while to break in, but I’m doing all right now.”

  “Good for you, seeing’s how you’ve got those extra mouths to feed these days. Your wife, what’s her name?”

  “Janelle.”

  “Yeah. Janelle.” Jimmy whistled, low and ribbing. “I’d work pretty hard to keep her fed if I was you—not that she eats much, from the looks of her.”

  Morning sunlight flooded the Camp 4 parking lot as Jimmy crutched his way to the foot of the climbing tower. He turned to face the several dozen climbers and spectators gathered behind the waist-high boulders lined at the front of the campground.

  Chuck stood with Janelle, the girls in front of them. Carmelita rolled her shoulders and swung her arms, her eyes on other climbers doing the same to loosen up among the onlookers in advance of the competition.

  Ponch, Bernard, Dale, Mark, and Caleb stood together in the crowd. Bernard drummed his legs with his fingertips, keeping time with a beat only he could hear. Ponch’s shoulders sagged. Dale stood straight beside him. Mark’s stomach was corralled by a large, plaid shirt tucked into equally voluminous shorts. Next to Mark, Caleb studied the tower with eyes that were bright with either curiosity or some form of artificial stimulation, Chuck couldn’t tell which.

  Alden made notes on a clipboard as he stood in the crowd with several of the fit, twenty-something climbing contestants. The competitors were discernible by their brightly colored nylon shirts and tights, which hugged their lean, muscular bodies, and the bottles of water in their hands. Non-contestants in jeans and T-shirts rubbed the necks and shoulders of a number of competitors, who bowed their heads and closed their eyes as if they were prizefighters preparing to enter the ring.

  Among the spectators, Chuck spotted the platano-serving grandmother and several other campground-resident park workers from the previous day. The park workers shot supportive glances Carmelita’s direction.

  Owen Hutchins, Jr., looked on from one side. He was dressed the same as yesterday, in dark green ranger slacks and a crisply pressed uniform shirt.

  A sheet of billowy gray nylon draped the climbing tower. The length of fabric hung a few feet out from the wall on aluminum stanchions, hiding the tower and its holds from view.

  Alden lowered his clipboard and spoke into the ear of the female climber who’d commanded his attention the day before. This morning, the climber wore black t
ights and a form-fitting tank top in bright magenta with spaghetti straps strung over her tanned shoulders. Twice as he spoke into the woman’s ear, Alden’s eyes strayed to the sheet-draped tower.

  Jimmy began his remarks by thanking the climbers for their participation in the Slam. Then he pushed himself upright on his crutches. “Yesterday, we lost one of our own,” he told the gathered crowd. “Thorpe Alstad was a fixture here in the valley, a one-man institution. I’m proud to have shared a rope with him for many, many years.”

  Jimmy briefed the spectators and climbers on Thorpe’s history in the valley, from his early climbs and run-ins with park authorities to his later arrests as a wingsuit flier.

  “For far too long, Yosemite Valley was a place of contention, of threats and counter-threats,” Jimmy said. “I’m glad we’ve moved beyond those days. In fact, I don’t think it’s too much to say that Thorpe’s death yesterday represents the end of an era—and the beginning of a new and better one.”

  Jimmy lowered his head. A few onlookers clapped uncertainly. When Jimmy said nothing else, Alden walked to his side and faced the crowd, clipboard in hand. He wore a seat harness over khaki slacks. His cotton, button-up shirt, though heavily wrinkled, lent him an air of officialdom.

  “I believe all of you know the rules,” he said to the competitors, his voice raised, “but I’ll run through them just to be sure. First and foremost, at the beginning of each round, all contestants will wait in the parking lot, behind the tower, so no one sees the route until it’s their turn to climb. I set the route last night, in Jimmy’s absence, so any complaints are on me.”

  Jimmy said to Alden, beside him, “I’m sure you put up a solid first-round route.”

  “We’re about to find out,” Alden responded. He again addressed the climbers, scattered in the crowd: “This is an on-sight competition. You’ll be allowed five seconds to study the route before you begin climbing. After your climb, you, of course, will not be allowed to go back around to the far side of the tower, to avoid sharing any beta with those still waiting their turn.”

  “This is a top-out tourney, right?” a climber asked from the crowd.

  “Yes, it is,” Alden answered. “Only those who reach the top of the tower will move on to the next round of the competition. I’ll reconfigure the route after each round, increasing the degree of difficulty. We’ll hold three rounds this morning, then finish up tomorrow morning with as many more rounds as necessary to crown a winner in each division.”

  Another climber raised a hand. “Any word as to why the auto-belay failed yesterday?”

  “Nothing yet. But I changed out the device that failed with a new one, and we used it yesterday with no problems. Just to be absolutely safe, our one and only super lightweight climber will be belayed by her father.” Alden’s eyes came to rest on Carmelita for a moment. “Okay, I think that’s everything,” he announced to the crowd. He popped his hand against his clipboard. “Climbers, please move to the back of the tower, and we’ll do the unveiling.”

  The brightly clad competitors trooped past the climbing wall and gathered amid the parked cars in the gravel lot.

  In front of Chuck and Janelle, Carmelita didn’t move. She looked up at her mother with pleading eyes. “I have to go back there by myself?” she asked, her voice quavering.

  “Looks that way.”

  Chuck explained. “It’s so you can’t see the route when they take down the sheet.”

  “But . . . but . . .”

  “I’ll go with her,” Rosie offered.

  “Afraid not,” Chuck told her. “It’s climbers only back there.”

  Carmelita’s chin trembled and tears built in her eyes.

  “You don’t have to climb if you don’t want to,” Janelle told her.

  “I do want to,” Carmelita said. “I just thought . . .”

  “I know the other climbers are a lot older than you,” Chuck said. “But they’re nice people.”

  “Remember,” said Janelle, “this is all just for fun. It’s about raising money to support the campground.”

  “It’s about winning, too,” Chuck said.

  “It’s about fun,” Janelle insisted, shooting Chuck a look.

  “It is a competition, after all.”

  Carmelita looked from Chuck to Janelle and back. “I want to win,” she said resolutely. “Or, at least, I want to try.” She left them and wormed her way through the crowd.

  “Carm!” Rosie cried. She ran after her sister, bouncing off spectators, and caught up with her at the base of the shrouded tower. “Good luck,” Rosie said. Her deep, raspy voice carried through the crowd, eliciting grins from the onlookers.

  With a grave look on her face, Rosie held out her fist. Carmelita mirrored her. In rapid succession, the girls ran through a choreographed series of fist bumps, elbow knocks, palm slaps, and finger points that ended when they turned sideways and bounced their hips off each other.

  Smiling, Carmelita disappeared around the back of the tower, while Rosie skipped back to Chuck and Janelle.

  “What on Earth was that?” Chuck asked her.

  “We practiced it yesterday,” she reported, breathless, “but I almost forgot to do it with her. I made it up all by myself. It’s for luck—not that Carm needs any. She’s the best!”

  When Alden called Carmelita’s name during the initial round, Chuck tied her into his seat harness and belayed her as she moved with ease from hold to hold to the top of the tower. Every other competitor mastered the initial route, too.

  After the first round, Alden drew a rope attached to the aluminum stanchions at the top of the tower, lifting the nylon sheet back into place to enshroud the climbing wall once more. He disappeared behind the fabric. A crisp, metallic click sounded as he clipped the carabiner attached to his harness into the climbing rope to ascend the tower and prepare the route for round two.

  “They always make the first round easy,” Chuck reported to Carmelita, Janelle, and Rosie as they stood together in the crowd. “Alden will pull holds now and things’ll get interesting.”

  Carmelita rolled her shoulders. “I’m ready.”

  Alden reemerged from behind the sheet a few minutes later. “All set,” he announced.

  He again directed the climbers to the back of the tower. Like the other competitors among whom she walked, Carmelita’s hands were white to her wrists with powdered, sweat-absorbing chalk from the drawstring bag hanging from her narrow waist.

  When the climbers were gathered behind the tower, Alden dropped the sheet once more. Far fewer holds remained for round two, with a significant gap, free of holds, fifteen feet off the ground, and a second gap ten feet higher.

  The two blank spaces on the wall proved too much for a number of climbers, who fell away from the tower and were lowered to the ground by the auto-belay device. Still, more than three-quarters of the climbers made it past the gaps and topped out.

  When Carmelita came to each of the gaps during her turn, Chuck held his breath while he belayed her from below. He needn’t have worried, however; she hoisted herself past each blank spot without difficulty and reached the top within a minute of beginning her climb.

  After again resetting the route beneath the shroud, Alden announced to the remaining climbers as they trooped past him to the parking lot, “This will be our third and final round of the day. Good luck to all of you.”

  He offered a subtle tilt of his head to the female climber in the skin-tight tank top as she passed him. In response, she glanced away from him and straightened the spaghetti strap at her shoulder with a hooked finger, a quick, nervous gesture.

  15

  The spectators gasped when Alden lowered the sheet for the start of round three. In addition to the two previous gaps on the route, he had removed a number of holds to create an even larger blank space near the top of the tower. The distance from the hold at the bottom of the new gap to the nearest hold at its top was nearly three feet, and the hold at the top of the gap consisted of only
a tiny nubbin of molded resin.

  “Whoa,” a YOSAR team member muttered, looking up at the route.

  “No way, dude,” breathed another.

  Alden tensed and looked to Jimmy questioningly. Leaning on his crutches amid the onlookers, Jimmy raised a thumb to him in reassurance.

  At the foot of the tower, Alden raised and lowered his broad shoulders, loosening his muscles. “Okay, then,” he said. He cleared his throat and, referring to his clipboard, addressed the spectators with a raised voice. “First up for round three: Thomas Reynolds, Oxnard, California.”

  A male climber rounded the tower. He locked his eyes on the blank space near the top of the wall as he powdered his hands with chalk from his waist bag, then began to climb.

  Chuck leaned forward, anxious to see how the initial third-round competitor would cope with the tough, new route. The Oxnard climber had lifted himself past the two smaller blank spots on the wall with no apparent trouble during his second-round climb. He did so again this time. But when he came to the newly added gap near the top of the tower, he stopped, his fingers and toes perched on small holds beneath the bare section of wall. He leaned his head back, eyeing the tiny hold at the top of the blank space.

  “You can do it, Tommy,” a woman’s voice called from among the onlookers.

  The climber launched himself upward from the holds below the gap. He stretched his right hand high above his head, his fingers straining to reach the small hold, but his upward momentum stalled with his fingers an inch below the nubbin. He hung suspended in midair for a millisecond, then fell away from the wall. The auto-belay device caught him, halting his downward trajectory, and the automatic brake on the mechanism kicked in, lowering him down the face of the tower as he hung limply from the rope, his head down and his arms at his sides.

  As the third round progressed, a handful of climbers, all of them male, managed the powerful move required to overcome the uppermost blank space on the wall and secure a grip on the tiny hold above it. Each of the successful climbers continued onward after that, reaching the top of the tower to remain in the competition.