One
Sierra
No one is holding the rope.
It takes me a second to register what’s happening. Everything else feels perfect for my climb. Wind whistles past my ears, harmonizing with the sound of the soft limestone crumbling under my feet. Warm sunshine kisses my bare shoulders and arms. Beneath my fingertips, the dry rock feels sharp but comforting. Solid.
Everything feels right, except for the suddenly slack rope.
I call out to Dave, who is belaying for me, to tighten the rope. “Up rope!”
Nothing happens. I peer down. Instead of standing directly underneath me, my climbing partner has walked away. I see the outline of his tall, lanky form out of the corner of my eye. Dave lifts his water bottle and takes a nonchalant drink.
The asshole unclipped himself from the rope in the middle of my technical sport climb.
Angry heat flashes through me, but I tamp it down. I rarely have the luxury of being angry. This time, even less so. I’m clinging to a forty-foot ledge up a limestone wall in a canyon miles away from civilization. Dave is an experienced enough climber to know that this goes beyond any safety mistakes a belayer can make. It isn’t quite attempted murder, but not far off. A forty-foot fall will kill me.
I decide to give him one more chance to stop fucking around. “Don’t leave me hanging here, Dave,” I say jokingly. “Up rope!”
“Like you’ve been leaving me hanging, Sierra?” His voice sounds a little bit breathless, like he’s been gulping his water. He gulped his beers the same way last night too, getting tipsy and handsy in a way that still makes me shudder. “I don’t appreciate how you’ve been leading me along.”
“Leading you along? In our lead climb yesterday?”
There’s a pause. I can’t risk another look down and mess with my already tenuous balance.
“You invited me out here, just the two of us,” he finally says. “I thought it was pretty clear what you wanted from me.”
I decide to reapply chalk to my hands to give myself time to think about how to react. Left hand first. Reach behind my back, dip fingers into my chalk sack, and back to the hold.
A thread of exasperation breaks through my concentration. Of course I invitedjust himout here—climbing alone with a man is, unfortunately, a risk I have to take if I want to climb ever. Options for trustworthy, skilled climbing partners are limited to begin with—female ones especially so. You take what you can get, and to me, the rewards of climbing are greater than the risks.
Besides, that is part of the whole unpredictable, adrenaline-filled life of Sierra Howard that I’ve embraced. In today’sepisode, will Sierra be murdered, or will she fall during a climb? Or in this case, a little from column A and a little from column B? Stay tuned.
“I thought my expectations were clear when I invited you out here,” I say. “I wanted a climbing partner.”
I thought Dave—a competent climber I met a few weeks ago at Queen Creek Canyon—was okay because we have a mutual friend in Travis. I belayed for him, complimented his climbing technique, and then we exchanged info since neither of us had a consistent, permanent climbing partner.
But then, last night, after his fourth gulping—it seems dishonest to refer to the way he treated those beverages asdrinksin any way—Dave tried to kiss me. I wasn’t surprised that Dave would expect sex—unfortunately, men almost always do. But usually, gentle redirection and a hasty skedaddle deter them. I must have made my rejection a little too subtle with Dave.
The rope continues to swing loosely against my hip. Clearly.
Right hand next. My left thigh shakes a little as I adjust my balance and reach behind to the chalk. Hand back on the ledge.
My left thigh continues to shake. Another climber at Queen Creek Canyon commented that I rely more on my right leg than my left. I should have listened to him and worked on strengthening my left leg.
“Travis said you use your partners for both climbingandsex,” says Dave. “That you slept with him when he partnered with you.”
Another flash of surprise, followed by anger. Travis, you lying son of a bitch.
“Come on, Dave. You know you can’t believe half of whatTravis says. Remember when he claimed he climbed El Cap faster than Alex Honnold, but the only reason he doesn’t get the glory and documentaries is because he’s not a showoff?” My laugh sounds forced, but I hope he won’t notice from so far away. “Can you re-clip the rope, please? My arms are getting pumped.”
“I drove all the way out here in good faith, Sierra.”
I turn my head down and to the left to see if there’s anyone in the nearby area. No one.
To the right is equally desolate of human life. Jacks Canyon is not a popular destination, despite sounding like a dream—a beautiful, remote, limestone canyon with well-protected sport routes on high-quality rock. Dave’s car is the only other vehicle I’ve seen for the two days we’ve been here.
It’s okay. It’s okay,I tell myself again more firmly as my arms begin to pulse.
