The Lost Island

48

As the earth darkened into night, the rain lessened into a fitful drizzle. Amiko’s fever remained high. Gideon hoped that when she woke up, she’d be stronger, but as the night wore on and her fever only got worse, he realized this wasn’t going to happen.

Only one possible solution presented itself: he would have to finish the climb solo, rig a line, and then come back for her and try to haul her up somehow. He could call Glinn from the top, but a rescue would take a few days at least and by then, jammed in this crack, exposed to the elements, she’d be dead. He had to get her to the top, into some kind of shelter, with a fire.

He went through both drysacks and combined the ropes. By measuring them out, he figured there was about a hundred feet. It wasn’t climbing rope, but it was sturdy marine nylon and it seemed like it would hold the weight of a human.

He racked his brains, trying to figure out just how this would work. Amiko was now beyond doing much for herself. He couldn’t just drag her up the rough rock. He had to make a sling of some kind, like a seat, and pull her up that way. He would have to climb to the top, estimate how far it was, fashion a sling, set up a top-rope, climb back down and put her in it. Climb up, haul her up.

Emptying one of the drysacks, he packed it with the rope and essentials and strapped on one of the headlamps. The battery was good, the light bright. Amiko was still sleeping. He decided to let her sleep, wake her up on his return. He quickly scribbled a note, I’ll be back, and tucked it in the crook of her arm.

He took a deep breath. He hoped the note was true — that he would be back.

Loaded down with the single drysack, he edged out of the crack and looked up. In the darkness and rain the headlamp could only illuminate about ten feet, but he picked what looked like the easiest route, mentally registering the hand- and footholds and pre-visualizing the climb. Then, with another deep breath, he pushed his way out onto the cliff face.

In the dark and the rain, without Amiko, it was more terrifying than ever. The wind roared up from below, carrying with it the sound of the surf. Confused raindrops lashed about in the beam of his headlamp. The worst was not knowing how far he had to go — one hundred feet? A thousand?

The rock was crumbly, friable, and wet. He lost his footing at one point and ended up dangling in space, holding on by his hands alone. He got a foothold back just as one of the handholds gave way, a bunch of rocks peeling off from the cliff, and he swung by a hand and foot for a moment as the rubble plunged down. He recovered his grip — and then, distantly, heard the clatter of the falling rocks as they struck far below. The near-fall left him utterly paralyzed with fear, clinging to the cliff. He couldn’t move. His heart was galloping, he was hyperventilating, and his head seemed ready to explode in the storm of terror.

Ride it out. Get yourself under control.

Slowly, he came back to himself. Staying put was not an option. He had to go up. Up, up, up. He repeated it with each breath. That was the only way he and Amiko would survive. But the fear was still with him, like a monkey on his back now. And he was going to have to come back down, and go up again.

Don’t think about that now.

He resumed climbing. Shift a hand. Then a foot. Transfer weight. Detach the other foot. Find a new foothold. Move the other hand. Begin again. It was like a slow mantra.

The rock was becoming increasingly rotten. Another foothold gave way as he transferred his weight and he dangled again, his arm muscles screaming with the effort before he found a new purchase. This could not go on much longer. And then — just when it seemed he could go no farther — he came through a notch in the lava and saw just ahead a mass of dripping vegetation. He pulled himself up, seized a tree trunk, and scrambled into the welcoming cocoon of the forest, throwing himself down on the forest floor — blessedly, wonderfully, safely flat.

He lay there for a while, trying not to think about what he had to do. First, the good news: that last climb had been no more than a hundred and fifty feet. If he could somehow lengthen his rope with vines, he could haul up Amiko. And the jungle around him looked rich with hanging vines and creepers.

He sat up, breathing hard. He didn’t have time to waste. She was soaked, she was jammed into that crack, she had a fever — but she was, he hoped, conscious. It would be infinitely worse if he had to haul up an unconscious body.

Rising to his feet, he took off the drysack and carefully marked where he had come up over the edge. He would need at least two hundred feet of creeper rope.

He cast about and noticed a number of very thin, whip-like creepers hanging down from the branches of nearby trees. They were only about an eighth of an inch in diameter, but they could be woven into something stronger. He began pulling them off the trees, shaking and yanking them down, until he had dozens of varying lengths. Laying them side by side, but staggered, he created a length of some two hundred feet. And then he started at one end, twining them together in a double braid, six strands’ worth. When one strand ended he wove the loose end in tight where it wouldn’t slip and continued with another.

It took about an hour to finish the makeshift rope. Then he carefully tied the actual rope around his legs and waist, making it into an improvised sling for Amiko. When it was done, he stepped out of it, leaving it intact. He would have to get it around her. She could help. Maybe.

He lashed the end of the makeshift rope around a tree trunk and lowered its full length over the edge of the cliff. Praying that it would be long enough, he began the descent.

The descent was another level of difficulty from the ascent. But he had one advantage — he had one hand on the rope. With every downward step he prayed it would not part or break.

In half an hour he reached the crack. He had thirty feet of rope to spare. Amiko was there, awake, sitting up, her face pale. “Where have you been?”

He briefly explained his plan.

“You climbed to the top…and back?”

“Yes.”

She sagged back, confused. “Why?”

“I’m going to haul you up.”

He pulled on the loose end of the rope and brought up the makeshift sling. Amiko stared at it. “That’s no good.” She pulled it in, quickly untied it, and then — staggering to her feet and standing with much difficulty at the very edge of the crack — lashed it in a sling around herself. “We call that a Swiss seat,” she said when she was finished, her breathing hard and flushed.

“How do you feel?” Gideon asked.

A silence. “I’ll make it.”

“Sit down. I’ll climb back up, haul you up.”

She nodded, sat down.

He positioned her in a safe place. Putting everything into the other drysack, he shrugged it onto his back. Then he began climbing again, using the rope as a guide. This time it was easier and he was on top in another half hour.

He took off the second drysack and placed it on the ground. Now, using two trees as friction brakes, he started to pull Amiko up, slowly, slowly. His greatest fear was that the rope would snag up somewhere on the jagged lava rock. And, after about fifty feet, it did. No matter how much he maneuvered, moved this way or that, it was caught.

He heard a feeble shout from below. Tying off the rope, he went to the edge of the cliff. He couldn’t see Amiko but could hear her voice.

“It’s caught!” she said.

“Where?”

“About twenty feet above me.”

There was only one option: to descend and work it loose.

He went back down yet again, following the rope, until he reached the snag. The vine rope was hooked under a jagged, projecting rock. Examining the problem, he realized he would have to get beneath it and unhook it from below. Twenty feet down, Amiko was dangling in free space. She looked awful, her face gray, translucent.

“Gideon, that’s too hard a maneuver…”

He ignored her. Climbing down slowly, he managed to work his way underneath. The handholds were very poor. Clinging to the rope with one hand and the rock face with the other, he edged out under the overhang, and reached out to unsnag the rope. He grasped it, tried to shake it loose.

Stuck.

He shook harder, and then harder still. It suddenly came free, the rope jerking, causing him to lose both footholds. As his body came off the rock, he grabbed the rope with both hands, sliding and burning, splinters from the vines going deep. He was able to arrest his fall. Now he, too, was dangling in midair.

“Gideon, swing!”

With a terrific effort he swung his body, once, then again. The improvised vine-rope groaned under the weight of them both and, with a sudden jerk, dropped a few inches, starting to unravel.

Gideon threw himself onto the rock face, grabbing at a single pocket handhold, taking the weight off the rope. In a panicked scrabble he managed to find a hold for his feet. He looked back at the rope. With the excessive weight gone, the unraveling had stopped.

He climbed back up, the muscles of his arms jerking and quivering with both strain and anxiety. Making it to the top — just barely — he rested only a moment, then resumed the slow work of bringing up Amiko and the sling. Finally, just as dawn was breaking in the east, he managed to haul her up over the lip of rock and into the protection of the jungle.

Amiko stumbled over and collapsed on the ground. She tried to sit up, coughed, lay down again. “You…saved my life.”

“That makes us even,” he gasped. “Rest. Don’t talk.”

She lay back, her breathing shallow, her face pale and bathed in sweat. Gideon looked around the dripping jungle, so thick it enveloped them in twilight despite the rising sun.

He would have to build a shelter.