Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery Series) Read online

  At Chuck’s side, Janelle shivered. “Don’t get any big ideas, niña.”

  Chuck relaxed his grip and lowered Carmelita, the rope running through his palm. “I’m glad I belayed her,” he said to Janelle as Carmelita walked backward down the wall while he played the rope past his brake hand. “As light as she is, I wouldn’t have wanted to trust the auto-belay to kick in and catch her.”

  When Carmelita reached the ground, the tower attendant, blond haired, thickly bearded, and in his mid-twenties, approached from where he’d been talking with a female climber his age. The attendant’s broad shoulders extended from his tank top straight as a crossbeam. His powerful quads filled the legs of his shorts. The woman climber, waiting her turn on the tower beyond the line of waist-high boulders between the parking lot and campground, wore a magenta bikini top and shiny black climbing tights cut low across her hips. Her bare stomach was tanned and flat. A gold ring sparkled where it pierced the skin above her navel.

  At the foot of the tower, the heavily muscled attendant untied the rope from Carmelita’s waist. “Good going,” he praised her, offering his meaty palm for a high-five.

  Carmelita slapped his hand and pranced over to Janelle and Chuck, a grin plastered on her face. “That was a blast.”

  “You made it look easy,” Janelle said.

  “It was easy.”

  Chuck lifted an eyebrow at the bright-eyed youngster before him. “Not for mere mortals.”

  He freed the climbing rope from his harness, allowing the attendant to set about reattaching the rope to the cylindrical auto-belay mechanism at the tower’s base.

  Carmelita’s white teeth flashed in a smile. “When can I do it again?”

  Chuck cocked his head at the climbers grouped and waiting behind the line of boulders separating the parking area from Camp 4. Jimmy O’Reilly stood at the front of the group, deep in conversation with Bernard Montilio, the two men clearly enjoying the opportunity to catch up with each other this morning, as the planned reunion of old climbing buddies, including Chuck, got underway.

  With Jimmy and Jimmy’s longtime climbing partner Thorpe Alstad as their unofficial leaders, the other aging climbers attending the reunion this weekend had spent entire summers and significant portions of falls, winters, and springs at Camp 4 twenty years ago. They’d teamed with each other in twos, threes, and fours to put up ever-more-challenging routes on the valley’s towering walls, all the while bickering like family over who among them was the most talented climber and whose completed routes were toughest.

  “The line got pretty long behind Jimmy while you were up there,” Chuck said to Carmelita. “I’m glad we came over first thing this morning.” He hesitated, avoiding Janelle’s gaze, the idea coming to him even as the words formed in his mouth. “The only way you’re going to get to climb any more this weekend is if you enter the Slam.”

  “The what?” Carmelita asked.

  Janelle stiffened beside Chuck as he continued. “The Yosemite Slam, Camp 4’s big climbing competition. It starts tomorrow and runs for two days, through Sunday. That’s why the tower’s here. Jimmy started the Slam a few years ago to raise money for his nonprofit organization, the Camp 4 Fund, which supports the campground. The competition has gotten bigger every year. Once it begins, entrants will be the only ones allowed on the tower.”

  The reunion was Jimmy’s idea, timed to coincide with the Slam. Chuck had scheduled his Yosemite work, which called for him to explore a pair of confounding 150-year-old murders in the valley, to overlap with the get-together, too.

  None of the reunion attendees had taken Jimmy up on his suggestion that they sign up for the Slam. In declining Jimmy’s offer, the climbers, all well into their forties, cited creaking joints and declining fitness. Chuck cited, as well, the tight timeframe he and Clarence faced to complete their work in the valley.

  Carmelita begged Janelle. “Can I do it, Mamá?”

  Janelle turned to Chuck, her smile replaced by a wary frown. “A climbing competition? Aren’t those for adults?”

  “The best sport climbers in the world these days are teenagers. Their strength-to-weight ratios are off the charts thanks to the fact that—” he encircled Carmelita’s upper arm with a finger and thumb “—they’re so skinny.”

  “But that’s teenagers you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll be thirteen in December,” Carmelita reminded her mother.

  “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Uncle Clarence said I’ll be driving in two years, with my learner’s permit.”

  Janelle glared at her brother, who ducked his head, hiding a grin. She turned back to Carmelita. “Remember what we always say, m’hija. Cars are weapons. You have to be very careful with them. And two years is a long time. A very long time.” She shot another glowering look at Clarence, her brows furrowed.

  He raised his hands in defense. “Carm’s getting to be a big girl. Like it or not, hermana, two years from now, your daughter’s gonna have a steering wheel in her hands. She’s gonna be one weaponized young lady.”

  When the furrow between Janelle’s brows deepened, Clarence raised his hands farther, his palms out. “Just talking the truth to you.” He lifted his shoulders close to his ears in an exaggerated shrug. “What can I say?”

  Janelle turned her back on her brother and crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Carm was a natural up there,” Chuck told her.

  She shifted her elbows, loosening her arms. “Do they actually have a kids’ section?”

  “Maybe. Either way, though, I’d say she should enter the open division. The way she climbed that tower just now, you never know.”

  Carmelita’s face glowed, but Janelle pursed her lips. “You mean, where she’d be going up against anybody and everybody?”

  “All the other female climbers, anyway.”

  “But that was the first time she’s ever climbed anything in her whole life. You just got her the helmet and climbing shoes last week.”

  Chuck glanced up at the tower. “This is why we got them for her. Besides, I can’t imagine she’d have any chance of winning. Although I will say, climbing isn’t as much about experience and repetitive practice as other sports. It’s a matter of body control and sense of balance—which, clearly, Carm’s got by the bucketful. From what I just saw, I don’t think she’d have anything to be ashamed of.”

  Carmelita beamed at him. “Really?”

  Chuck cupped the back of her head in his hand and looked into her luminous, hazel eyes. “Really.”

  “Cool,” Rosie declared. She jigged at her sister’s side, her arms swinging. “You should do it for sure, Carm.”

  Janelle rested her hand over Chuck’s at the back of Carmelita’s head. “You really think you want to try it?”

  Carmelita nodded, bouncing up and down on her toes.

  “You won’t be sad when you lose?”

  “If she loses,” Chuck said.

  “No,” Carmelita told her mother. “I won’t. I promise.”

  Rosie chimed in. “But I’ll be sad for her. Would that be okay, Mamá?”

  The corners of Janelle’s mouth ticked upward and her face softened. “Okay,” she said. “You guys win.”

  At the base of the tower, Jimmy tied a re-woven figure eight into the end of the climbing rope with a well-practiced flip of his fingers. He clipped the loop into his harness. Still exchanging small talk with Bernard, he gave the rope a tug, assuring it ran from his waist, up through the pulley at the top of the tower, and back down to the auto-belay mechanism.

  Faded tattoos purpled Jimmy’s sinewy forearms below the short sleeves of his plaid, cotton shirt. A long, braided beard, cinnamon cut with silver, curved outward from his jaw like a scorpion’s tail. Stringy, gray-streaked red hair fell to his shoulders from the back of the battered straw cowboy hat he wore low over his eyes like a country singer. His brown canvas carpenter pants clung to his narrow waist, and the top buttons of his shirt were undone, r
evealing a thick nest of chest hair. A red bandanna—his signature style statement for as long as Chuck had known him—was knotted around his neck.

  “Show us what you can do, Jimmy,” Chuck called to him.

  “You’re the man,” Bernard cheered from behind the line of boulders. He tapped the sides of his legs with his hands, a quick rat-a-tat beat. “Let’s see how much gas you’ve got left in the old tank.”

  Bernard’s pasty face and jowly cheeks spoke of his current life as an office-bound attorney for a downtown San Francisco law firm, as did his trendy, turquoise-framed glasses. His ample waistline pressed at his pleated khaki shorts and short-sleeved dress shirt, while his short brown hair showed only a hint of gray.

  He turned to Carmelita. “And you’re the climbing-est girl of them all,” he congratulated her. He continued to tap his legs with his hands and counted off in time with the taps, “One . . . two . . . three, four, five. You’re the girl who’s got the jive.”

  Jimmy settled his fingertips on two holds above his head. “You guys are next,” he called over his shoulder to Chuck and Bernard.

  “Not me,” Chuck said. “No way.”

  “I’m ground-based these days,” said Bernard.

  “You’re scared you can’t do it anymore,” Jimmy chided.

  “You got that right,” the two of them said in unison.

  Jimmy tightened his grip on the holds at the base of the climbing tower and lifted himself off the ground. He ascended the large, easy-to-grasp holds on the lower portion of the tower smoothly, the belay mechanism automatically taking up the slack in the rope as he climbed. Each of his moves was precise, his fingers set, his feet poised on holds beneath him. He angled left and right, scaling the wall with no apparent strain, his decades of climbing experience evident.

  He passed the halfway point on the tower and reached above his head for a small hold thirty feet off the ground. Only two of his fingertips fit atop the tiny protrusion, which sloped outward, providing little purchase.

  He grunted as he transferred his weight to the hold, revealing his first sign of effort. His knuckles turned white as he clung to the tower. Then his fingertips slipped from the hold and he fell.

  The ratchet in the auto-belay mechanism should have kicked in, catching him when he dropped no more than a few inches. Instead, he cartwheeled away from the wall and plummeted toward the ground, his arms and legs flailing.

  He screamed as he fell, the climbing rope zipping unimpeded through the mechanical belay device bolted to the base of the tower.

  2

  Jimmy’s scream echoed across the parking lot as he plunged headfirst toward the ground. Chuck charged forward with Janelle at his side, but they were too far back to reach Jimmy in time to break his fall.

  At the last possible second, Jimmy spun himself upright and struck the gravel parking lot feet-first. The sharp crack of breaking bone echoed off the tower wall, followed by a howl of pain from Jimmy. He crumpled on the gravel at the base of the tower, the rope still attached to his waist. He gripped his left leg with both hands, his face contorted.

  Janelle knelt at Jimmy’s side while Chuck slid to a stop in the loose rocks and stood over them. Clarence and Bernard and the other onlookers formed a circle around Janelle and the fallen climber. Carmelita and Rosie peered around Chuck from where they pressed at his back.

  Jimmy took quick, gasping breaths. He moaned, the sound coming from deep in his throat. Janelle slid his jeans up his leg. Chuck bit his knuckles to keep from gagging at the sight of Jimmy’s foot turned sideways from his ankle at a ninety-degree angle.

  “Ouch,” Rosie said.

  “Rosie!” Janelle scolded without looking up. Then, to the group, “Someone call 911.”

  Clarence plucked his phone from his pocket. “I’m on it.”

  “Goddammit,” Jimmy muttered. He grimaced, his eyes squeezed shut.

  “Appears to be a fracture and dislocation of the ankle,” Janelle said. “No way to reset it here.”

  She shifted to put her knees on either side of Jimmy’s head, bracing his neck. “Do you hurt anywhere else?” she asked him.

  “I think my leg took all my weight,” he said through clenched teeth. He exhaled, his breath morphing into a groan.

  “Good.”

  “Good?” His pupils glinted between his slitted lids as he squinted up at her. He breathed hard and fast, chuffing like a steam engine.

  Clarence jabbed at the face of his phone. “I can’t believe it. No service.”

  “That’s not a surprise,” the climbing tower attendant said as he arrived from the tiny A-frame building set between the parking lot and campground that served as the Camp 4 office. “It’s okay, though. I called in on the campground radio.”

  The shriek of a siren sounded from up the valley in the direction of Yosemite Village. The number of gawkers around Jimmy grew as campers arrived from their sites beneath the firs and black oaks towering over the campground.

  Members of the Yosemite Search and Rescue team, stationed in a ring of canvas tents west of Camp 4 in the heart of the valley during the park’s busy summer climbing season, arrived at a jog. They wore T-shirts, shorts, flip-flops, and ball caps bearing the YOSAR logo. The rescuers were in their twenties and early thirties, tanned and buff, mostly males with a smattering of females. They elbowed their way to the front of the circle as an ambulance turned from Northside Drive into the Camp 4 parking lot. The vehicle braked to a stop next to the climbing tower, raising a cloud of dust.

  From where she knelt at Jimmy’s head, Janelle reached to rest a hand on the storied climber’s tattooed forearm. “They’re here.”

  “Thank God,” Jimmy said through compressed lips. Sweat beaded his brow.

  The onlookers fell back as a pair of attendants approached from the ambulance.

  “I’ll go with him,” Bernard told Chuck.

  “Where will they take him?”

  When Bernard shrugged three times in a row, raising and lowering his shoulders in quick succession, a YOSAR team member said, “He won’t go to the valley clinic, that’s for sure. I bet they’ll take him straight to Merced. Believe me, they know the way.”

  “His foot sure was twisted,” Rosie said thoughtfully, a finger pressed to her chin.

  She walked with Chuck, Janelle, Carmelita, and Clarence on the gravel path through the middle of Camp 4, returning with them to their campsite from the climbing tower. West of the campground, the wail of the ambulance siren died away, marking the vehicle’s departure as it bore Jimmy and Bernard down the valley.

  “That is so gross,” Carmelita told her sister.

  “But true,” Janelle said. “One of the things I’ve learned in my classes is that the human body can get really pretzeled in an accident.”

  Picturing Jimmy’s injured ankle, Chuck clamped his jaw, his muscles growing tense. Thank God he’d belayed Carmelita himself; the thought of her leg mangled like Jimmy’s, or worse, made his stomach queasy.

  Their campsite came into view through the trees ahead. Camp 4 offered only walk-in tent sites, with vehicles restricted to the large parking lot at the campground’s front entrance. Campsites were arranged side by side in long rows, accessed by pathways linking the sites to the parking lot and central bathroom. Beneath the tall pines and oaks looming overhead, the campground was open and dusty, the only ground cover a few hardy bunches of buffalo grass, with campsites in full view of one another among the tree trunks.

  Chuck had erected their two-room family tent in the dark last night at the edge of their reserved research-team site, while Janelle wrestled the half-asleep girls into their pajamas, and Clarence set up his own small, solo tent. Early this morning, Chuck had hauled the last of their supplies from the pickup truck via the graveled footpath past the other campsites to their assigned site, using one of the oversized wheelbarrows provided by the campground. As his family slept, Chuck had propped open his multi-pocketed gear duffle, the words “Bender Archaeological, Inc.” stenc
iled on both sides, and double-checked its contents for the week’s work to come. He also had opened the cookstove on the picnic table and connected it to its propane tank, and had assured the latch was fastened on the metal cabinet next to the table that contained their food, as required to keep the park’s notoriously nosy black bears at bay.

  Carmelita had spied the climbing tower at the edge of the parking lot when she’d stepped out of the zippered family tent that morning.

  “Can I climb it?” she begged Chuck, eyeing the tower through the trees. “Pleeeeeease.”

  He gaped at her. Carmelita rarely made such requests, particularly with such ardor.

  She added, “That’s why you got me my new climbing shoes, isn’t it?”

  He studied the fiberglass tower, rising beyond the trees at the front entrance to the campground. Only a few campers waited their turn to climb it this early in the morning. But the line was sure to grow as the day wore on and more climbers arrived in the valley for the start of the Slam tomorrow.

  Janelle ducked out of the tent. “Are you okay with it?” Chuck asked her, warming to Carmelita’s interest in the sport that had consumed him as a young man.

  Janelle stood at Carmelita’s back and combed her fingers through her daughter’s long, sleep-tangled hair. “You want to be like Chuck, do you?” she asked Carmelita.

  “Like me a long time ago,” Chuck clarified.

  Now, as Carmelita reached the campsite with the others in the wake of Jimmy’s fall, she spoke while looking at her feet, her voice soft but firm. “I still want to do it,” she said. “I still want to be in the Slam.”

  Chuck took Janelle’s hand in his and gave it a squeeze. Carmelita’s first year of middle school hadn’t been all they’d hoped. Shy and reserved, Carmelita had made few friends and refused entreaties from Janelle and Chuck to try after-school clubs and sports. The good news, at least, was that she’d done well in her classes. Very well, in fact. But she’d spent a lot of her free time alone.

  “You’re crazy, Carm,” Rosie declared. She swung her hiking boot at a stone, kicking it from the path. She teetered at the end of her kick, her foot nearly as high as her head. Only Clarence’s quick grab kept her from tumbling backward to the ground.