Black Mountain Read Free

up his sleeve to check his altimeter and compass again. The dials were illuminated due to the poor light. He looked up and frowned: the sun hadn’t reappeared and the low cloud was darker than he would have liked. If it snowed, or got any colder, Amanda would kill him. The trek was turning out to be miles longer than he’d expected, and now he was thinking that they’d be trekking back in the dark for sure. He chewed his lip. If the advice he’d been given was right, it should be less than an hour now to the landslip that had created a short cut to the top of the Black Dome. Maybe he should lift the pace a bit.
    He hoisted the pack a little higher on his back and adjusted his belt. As he did, the gun he was carrying dug into his gut. The red crosses on the map indicated bear sightings. Seemed the large animals were on the move early this season. On the move away from where we’re going , he thought, which is good . He’d heard that even the wolves had been coming down off the mountain. Even better .
    Still, it was better to have a gun and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
    *
    They looked at the landslip – tons of rock and soil that had been shaken free from the side of the mountain and had settled to create an uneven path up the once inaccessible rock face. Normally this was the spot where hikers gave up and professional climbers took over, but now, even to Amanda, it looked . . . well . . . possible.
    Brad had picked up a stick about four feet long and was pointing it at a few places along the slip. ‘We just need to ease across that small gap at the start, then drop down onto the path and stay close to the cliff face – it’ll be a piece of cake.’
    He leaned in against the stone and hopped across the gap, then turned back to her and held out the stick for her to grab onto and follow. As Amanda leaped across, she noticed that the newly exposed rock was clean – the stark browns and grey of the gneiss and schist probably only laid open to the elements within the last few weeks. A fanciful thought crossed her mind: it looked painful, like a wound cut through to the bone.
    Amanda kept hold of the stick and used it as a walking staff. As she moved along the dry wall of stone, she observed crevices and holes in the rock face exposed by the loss of surface soil and debris. Some of them looked deep, and she bent down to peer into one. Even though she put her hands on either side of her face and squinted, it didn’t do any good; there was nothing to see but inky blackness.
    She wrinkled her nose. ‘Phew, smells like something died or pooped in there.’
    Brad looked back at her. ‘Maybe a falcon, they like to nest in rock faces. Come on, keep up.’
    Amanda turned to look out from the mountainside. At over 6000 feet and without the trees to block the view, it was spectacular. True to the name, the mountain looked almost black in the fading light. Low cloud vapour was snaking through the hollows and around the treetops, giving the whole place a primordial atmosphere. She lifted the camera from around her neck and opened the zoom – it buzzed and clicked as it took the snap, then tidied itself away.
    It was almost magical to be able to look down on the other mountains from this height. She leaned out towards the edge of the slip – it was a long way down, at least a 1000-foot drop before the slope became a little gentler and tree-covered again.
    ‘ Halloooooo ,’ she called.
    The word stretched out and she waited, but no echo came back to her. She sucked in a huge breath, preparing for an even bigger shout, when Brad swung around pulling a pained face. As he put his finger to his lips, a rock the size of a mailbox thumped into the dirt between them. They looked at each other with wide eyes . . . and waited. Amanda drew her shoulders up and gritted her teeth – she’d forgotten they were in a slip zone.
    Brad came back to her. ‘It’s pretty stable,’ he whispered, ‘but there could be loose