The Day After Tomorrow

151

OSBORN’S FACE and shoulders were flat against rock. The toes of his Reeboks dug in tight to what seemed little more than a two-inch ledge in the stone. Beneath him was cold, empty darkness. He had no idea how far he would fall if he slipped, except that a large stone above had somehow come loose and bounced past him. He’d listened but he never heard it land. Looking up, he tried to see the trail, but an icy overhang blocked his view. The crack he was standing on ran horizontally across the face of the rock wall that he clung to. He could go either left or right but not up, and after moving several feet in both directions he found the ledge to the right opened up more easily. The ledge widened and there were jagged pieces of rock overhead he could use as handholds. Despite the cold, his right hand, where the skin had pulled off as he’d torn free of the icicle, felt like someone was pressing a hot iron against it. And it made closing his fingers over the rock handholds excruciating. But in a way it was good because if focused his attention. Made him think only of the pain and how best to grasp onto a knot of rock without losing his grip. Hand right. Grab on. Foot right, slide, find footing, test it. Weight shift. Balance. Left hand, left foot the same.

Now he was at the edge of the cliff face, where it bent inward toward a kind of steep ravine. A chute, they called it in skiing. A couloir. But with the snow and wind it was impossible to tell if the crack kept running or simply stopped. If the crack stopped there on the edge, he doubted he could go back and reverse the moves he’d made to get here, Osborn stopped and put a hand to his mouth and blew on it. Then did the same with the other. His watch had somehow worked its way up inside his sleeve and would be impossible to get out without severely testing his balance so he had no idea how long he’d been out there. What he did know was that it was many hours until daylight and if he stopped moving, he’d die of hypothermia within minutes. Suddenly there was a break in the clouds and for the briefest instant the moon came out. To his immediate right and down ten or twelve feet was a wide ledge that led back toward the mountain. It looked icy and slick but wide enough for him to walk on. Then he saw something else. A narrow trail winding downward toward the glacier. And on it, a man with a backpack.

As quickly as the moon appeared it vanished and the wind picked up. Blowing snow stung Osborn’s face like shards of shattered glass fired from a high-pressure hose, and he had to turn his head back into the mountain. The ledge is there, he thought. It’s wide enough to hold you. Whatever force has brought you this far has given you another chance. Trust it.

Inching to the edge, Osborn put out a foot. There was nothing but air. Trust it, Paul. Trust what you saw. With that, Osborn pushed off into darkness.