“Mitch Ahearn was critically injured by falling rock while climbing on Painted Wall in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Rangers joined with members of the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team to save his life. He underwent surgery yesterday for a skull fracture and a broken clavicle. He is in stable but critical condition in the ICU at Denver Medical Center. We appreciate your support and concern and ask that you respect our privacy during these difficult days. I will update you as I am able. In the meantime, remember to wear a helmet. If Mitch hadn’t been wearing his yesterday, he’d be dead.”
Within seconds, her posts began getting responses, but she didn’t stick around to read them. Instead, she muted her phone, set it aside, and settled down once again with the recorder and Mitch’s journal.
She glanced at the next entry and smiled. It had been a day that made climbing history, though no one had understood that at the time.
Mitch spenthis morning bouldering with the boys at The Crystals. He, Gridwall, Accardo, John Baker, and Ron Cook took turns spotting each other on a few complex routes. Meanwhile, Ken Yoder, Gene Lewis, and Billy Ansel monkeyed around on the easier stuff for strength training.
Mitch battled a route someone had named Pride—probably because it stripped a man of his pride pretty quickly. He got a little closer to making it to the top each time, his body learning the moves. But it wasn’t easy to focus with Gridwall there, tripping on acid and having conversations with birds.
“Fly, man! That’s what you weremeantto do. Fly and be free. The whole sky belongs to you, man. The whole fucking sky.”
On the way back to camp, the guys decided to try their luck again with White Lightning, a route on Columbine Boulder. Close to Camp 4, this monster of a boulder was thirty feet tall with a nasty overhang that had defied everyone. Dean said it was unclimbable, and Mitch thought he was probably right.
One by one, they tried and failed, none of them clearing that damned overhang. There were no holds they could use to pull themselves over the top.
The sound of an engine turned his gaze toward the road. Megs drove up and parked, Janis Joplin’sMe and Bobby McGeeblasting out of her open windows.
Everyone looked her way, except for Accardo, who was climbing.
“She looks like a schoolgirl.” Gridwall watched her as she crossed the campground, walking toward her tent.
Jim might be tripping, but he was also right. Shedidlook like a schoolgirl—blouse, skirt, knee-high socks, real shoes. She glanced their way and then disappeared inside her tent. When she stepped out a few minutes later, she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, climbing shoes in one hand.
Accardo struggled with the overhang, tried to reach a crimp to pull himself over the top, and fell, skinning his elbow on the way down. “Shit!”
“She’s coming this way. Does she think she’s going to climb?” Gridwall shook his head. “That would be a joke.”
Gridwall went next, reaching the overhang just as Megs joined them. She watched, her gaze moving over the route as if she were studying it.
Mitch walked over to her, hoping she wouldn’t get the wrong idea. He wasn’t trying to hit on her. He just wanted to say hello. “I’m Mitch Ahearn. I’m a friend of Dean’s, too. Good to meet you, Megs.”
She looked up, her gaze meeting his, eye contact sending a jolt of awareness through him. “I’m … I’m Megs.”
It was the first time he’d gotten a good look at her face and…
Damn.
Big gray eyes. Long lashes. High cheekbones. Clear, tanned skin. She was a foot shorter than he was, only an inch or two above five feet. Her body wasn’t just slender but also strong, with well-defined muscles, her breasts small, her waist narrow. She looked so young, like a kid not even out of high school. But here she was, alone in Yosemite, driving a car. She couldn’t be much older than eighteen.
She was so pretty that it took him a moment to realize that he’d left her flustered. He knew her name. He’d just used it. Still, she had repeated it.
That was interesting.
“You were all dressed up this morning.” He spoke before he could stop himself.
“I got a job at the cafeteria.”
“A job?” None of them had jobs.
“Yes, a job. You know—gainful employment. Don’t you have to eat to climb?”
He did, but he got by on instant oatmeal, canned food from home, and expired items from the Village store. One time, he and the guys had brought back an expired case of canned dog food and fried that up. But he wouldn’t admit that, not to her.
He lowered his voice. “Sorry about Gridwall. He isn’t a bad guy. He’s just—”
She shifted her gaze back to the boulder. “A chauvinist pig.”
Mitch couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah. A chauvinist pig.”
