The Ascent(52)

“No running,” he said, his voice impossibly calm. “There may be more traps. Watch your footing.”

“Holy f*ck,” Curtis breathed, moving past me as quickly as I had been moving a second earlier, and approached the hole in the ground without trepidation.

I shrugged off Petras’s grip and was at Curtis’s side an instant later.

The hole in the ground was no wider than a manhole and equally as dark, an optical illusion to stare into. I couldn’t see the bottom—I could only see a narrow shelf perhaps thirty feet down protruding from the wall of the shaft on which Hollinger’s body lay slumped and motionless.

“He’s there!” I called out to the others. Then I directed my voice into the shaft, shouting Hollinger’s name over and over again. But he didn’t move. I thought I could see blood on the shelf, and his hair looked matted with dark fluid.

“Keep your voice down.” Petras gently set down his pack at his feet. “The smallest vibration might break the ledge out from under him.”

“I’m goin’ down,” Curtis volunteered, sliding off his pack.

“No,” Petras told him. “Who’s lightest?”

“Me,” I said. “I’ll go.”

“The f*ck does it matter?” Flecks of spittle shot from Curtis’s mouth as he spoke. He and Hollinger had become good friends during the course of our journey.

“You know it matters,” Petras said.

I climbed into a harness, while Chad and Andrew secured anchors in the ice. Curtis lowered a second line into the shaft.

Grabbing me by my waist, Petras spun me around like a rag doll and buckled the harness. “Watch yourself, Tim.”

“Hurry,” I urged him. Sweat was suddenly cascading down my shirt, soaking the waistband of my underwear.

Holding on to the line, I eased myself backward into the opening as Petras held me by my forearms. The opening was tighter than it looked; I just barely made it through, the shaft seeming to narrow as my shoulders passed through it. As my head sunk into the opening, I looked up and saw Andrew’s face blotting out the sun. I slipped into darkness, the shaft closing in all around me like— 2



BLANKETS FORMING A TUNNEL AROUND US. THE

bed creaked as she rolled on top of me and kissed my chin.

“You smell like dust,” she whispered into the hollow at the base of my neck. “I can smell the powdered stone all over you.”

“I showered twice.”

“It’s not enough.”

I pulled the blankets off our heads so she could smell the salty bay air coming in through the open windows. “Better?”

“Not really.”

The fishing boats moored in the harbor underscored our love-making with blasts from their air horns as morning broke and they were piloted out into the bay. Afterwards, my eyes grew heavy, and I danced in the place halfway between dreams and wakefulness—the place where I’d entertained my most vivid dreams ever since I was a child.

Hannah’s soft voice in my ear, not quite ready to let me drift off to that vivid dream place: “Will you look handsome tonight?”

Eyes still closed, I smiled. “Hmm.”

“Will you wear the tux?”

“Hmm.” I could barely remember where I was, whom I was with …

“You look so handsome in the tux.”

“Yes …”

“And you look so peaceful when you sleep. Do you dream of sculpting?”

Strangely I didn’t. I was dreaming of just the opposite—of smashing things, letting the debris shower me while I stood in the middle of a vacant highway and laughed and laughed and laughed …

“Do you care if I put some of your work on display tonight?”

“I thought you said that would be too malapropos?”

“I did say that, didn’t I? Well, I’ve had second thoughts. You don’t think it would be malapropos, do you?”

My eyes still closed, I stroked her hair and said, “I don’t even know what malapropos means.”

“I can’t believe I’m finally opening this stupid gallery.”

“It’s not stupid. You’ve wanted to do it since before we were married.”

“I know it’s not stupid. But maybe I’m stupid for wanting it. It’s a lot of work, a lot of time. We hardly see each other as it is, with you always traveling and sculpting and being famous and all.”

“It’ll be fine.” I kissed her shoulder, then rolled out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

“The studio. I need to get some work done today.”

“I thought you weren’t going in today.”

“Not all day.” I tugged on a shirt and watched my reflection in the beveled mirror run fingers through my hair.

“Will you pick me up for the opening?”

“I’ll be just down the street from the gallery. I’ll meet you there.”

Pouting, she sat up in bed, the sheets piled into her lap, her small, white breasts prickled in the cool breeze coming in from the open windows.

I kissed her forehead. “No pouting.”

“Just don’t be late, Tim.”

I promised I wouldn’t be, but I was. I’d spent the remainder of the day at my M Street studio working on one of the New York projects—a pricy marble piece commissioned by an actor and devout scientologist—and when it began to get too difficult, I broke into one of my bottles of Compass Box. By 6:00 p.m., I’d gone throughhalf the bottle and accidentally lobbed off the upper portion of the sculpture, a section I’d spent the past three days trying to perfect. The chunk lay at my feet on the powder-covered floor like something incriminating left behind at a crime scene.