Part 3 (1/2)

Joe and Pete hurry after him. ”You guys will never catch that thing,” says Peter.

The south wall is faulted and boulderish, and they zig and zag from one small shelf of snow to the next. They grab outcroppings and stick fists in cracks, and strain to push themselves up steps that are waist-high. The wind peels across the spine of the wall and keeps them cool. They breathe in gasps, stop frequently. Brian pulls ahead, Peter falls behind. Brian and Joe call to each other about the bighorn.

Brian and Joe top the spine, scramble up the decreasing slope. The ridge edge-a hump of shattered rock, twenty or twenty-five feet wide, like a high road-is nearly level, but still rises enough to block their view south. They hurry up to the point where the ridge levels, and suddenly they can see south for miles.

They stop to look. The range rises and falls in even swoops to a tall peak. Beyond the peak it drops abruptly and rises again, up and down and up, culminating in a huge knot of black peaks. To the east the steep snowy slope drops to the valley paralleling the range. To the west a series of spurs and cirques alternate, making a broken desert of rock and snow.

The range cuts down the middle of it all, high above everything else that can be seen. Joe taps his boot on solid rock. ”Fossil backbone, primeval earth being,” he says.

”I think I still see that sheep,” says Brian, pointing. ”Where's Peter?”

Peter appears, face haggard. He stumbles on a rock, steps quickly to keep his balance. When he reaches Brian and Joe he lets his pack thump to the ground.

”This is ridiculous,” he says. ”I have to rest.”

”We can't exactly camp here,” Brian says sarcastically, and gestures at the jumble of rock they are sitting on.

”I don't care,” Peter says, and sits down.

”We've only been hiking an hour since lunch,” Brian objects, ”and we're trying to close in on that bighorn!”

”Tired,” Peter says. ”I have to rest.”

”You get tired pretty fast these days!”

An angry silence.

Joe says in a mild voice. ”You guys sure are b.i.t.c.hing at each other a lot.”

A long silence. Brian and Peter look in different directions.

Joe points down at the first dip in the ridge, where there is a small flat of granite slabs and corners filled with sand. ”Why don't we camp there? Brian and I can drop our packs and go on up the ridge for a walk. Pete can rest and maybe start a fire later. If you can find wood.”

Brian and Pete both agree to the plan, and they descend to the saddle campsite.

Two men ridge running. They make swift progress up the smooth rise, along the jumbled road at the top of the range. The bare rock they cross is smashed into fragments, splintered by ice and lightning. Breaking out of the blackish granite are k.n.o.bs of tan rock, crushed into concentric rings of shards. They marvel at boulders which look like they have sat on the range since it began to rise. They jump from rock to rock, flexing freed shoulders. Brian points ahead and calls out when he sees the sheep. ”Do you see it?”

”Sure do,” Joe says, but without looking up. Brian notices this and snorts disgustedly.

Shadows of the range darken the valley to the east. Joe hops from foothold to foothold, babbling at Brian all the while from several yards behind him. ”Name it, name it. You name it. Naammme. What an idea. I've got three blisters on my feet. I named the one on the left heel Amos.” Pause to climb a shoulder-high slab of granite. ”I named the one on the right heel Crouch. Then I've got one on the front of my right ankle, and I named that one Achilles. That way when I feel it it's not like pain, it's like a little joke. Twinges in my heel”-panting so he can talk-”are little h.e.l.los, h.e.l.los with every step. Amos here, hi, Joe; Crouch here, hi, Joe. It's amazing. The way I feel I probably don't need boots at all. I should take them off!”

”You'd probably better keep them on,” Brian says seriously. Joe grins.

The incline becomes steeper and the edge of the ridge narrows. They slow down, step more carefully. The shattered rock gives way to great faulted blocks of solid mountain. They find themselves straddling the ridge on all fours, left feet on the east slope and right feet on the west. Both sides drop sharply away, especially the west. Sun gilds this steeper slope. Joe runs his hand down the edge of the range.

The ridge widens out, and they can walk again. The rock is shattered, all brittle plated angular splinters, covered with lichen. ”Great granite,” Joe says.

”This is actually diorite,” Brian says. ”Diorite or gabbro. Made of feldspar and darker stuff.”

”Oh, don't give me that,” Joe says. ”I'm doing well just to remember granite. Besides, this stuff has been granite for a lot longer than geologists have been naming things. They can't go messing with a name like that.” Still, he looks more closely at the rock. ”Gabbro, gabbro... sounds like one of my words.”

They wind between boulders, spring up escarpments. They come upon a k.n.o.b of quartz that rises out of the black granite. The k.n.o.b is infinitely cracked, as if struck on top by a giant sledgehammer. ”Rose quartz,” says Brian, and moves on. Joe stares at the k.n.o.b, mouth open. He kneels to pick up chunks of the quartz, peers at them. He sees that Brian is moving on. Rising, he says to himself, ”I wish I knew everything.”

Suddenly they are at the top. Everything is below them. Beside Brian, Joe stops short. They stand silently, inches apart. Wind whips around them. To the south the range drops and rises yet again, to the giant k.n.o.b of peaks they saw when they first topped the ridge. At every point of the compa.s.s mountains drop away, white folds crumpling to every horizon. Nothing moves but the wind. Brian says, ”I wonder where that sheep went to.”

Two men sitting on a mountaintop. Brian digs into a pile of rocks, pulls out a rusty tin box. ”Aha,” he says. ”The sheep left us a clue.” He takes a piece of paper from the box. ”Here's its name-Diane Hunter.”

”Oh, bulls.h.i.+t!” cries Joe. ”That's no name. Let me see that.” He grabs the box out of Brian's hand and the top falls off. A shower of paper, ten or twenty pieces of it, pops out of the box and floats down to the east, spun by the wind. Joe pulls out a piece still wedged in the box. He reads, ”Robert Spencer, July 20th, 2014. It's a name box. It's for people who want to leave a record of their climb.”

Brian laughs. ”How could anyone get into something like that? Especially on a peak you can just walk right up to.” He laughs again.

”I suppose I should try to recover as many as I can,” Joe says dubiously, looking down the steep side of the peak.

”What for? It's not going to erase their experience.”

”You never know,” says Joe, laughing to himself. ”It very well might. Just think, all over the United States the memory of this peak has popped right out of twenty people's heads.” He waves to the east. ”Bye-bye...”

They sit in silence. Wind blows. Clouds pa.s.s by. The sun closes on the horizon. Joe talks in short bursts, waves his arms. Brian listens, watches the clouds. At one point he says, ”You're a new being, Joseph.” Joe c.o.c.ks his head at this.

Then they just sit and watch. It gets cold.

”Hawk,” says Brian in a quiet voice. They watch the black dot soar on the updraft of the range.

”It's the sheep,” says Joe. ”It's a shapechanger.”

”Nah. Doesn't even move the same.”

”I say it is.”

The dot turns in the wind and rises, circling higher and higher above the world, coasting along the updraft with minute wing adjustments, until it hovers over the giant, angular knotpeak. Suddenly it plummets toward the peaks, stooping faster than objects fall. It disappears behind the jagged black teeth. ”Hawk,” Joe breathes. ”Hawuck divvve.”

They look at each other.

Brian says, ”That's where we'll go tomorrow.”

Glissading down the snow expanse, skidding five or ten feet with each stiff-legged step, the two of them make rapid progress back to camp. The walking is dreamlike as they pump left... right... left... right down the slope.

”So what about that bighorn sheep?” says Joe. ”I never did see any prints.”

”Maybe we shared a hallucination,” says Brian. ”What do they call that?”

”A folie a deux.”

”I don't like the sound of that.” A pause while they skid down a steep bank of snow, straight-legged as if they are skiing. ”I hope Pete got a fire going. d.a.m.n cold up here.”

”A feature of the psychic landscape,” Joe says, talking to himself again. ”Sure, why not? It looks about like what I'd expect, I'll tell you that. No wonder I'm getting things confused. What you saw was probably a fugitive thought of mine, escaping off across the waste. Bighorn sheep, sure.”