Solo Faces Read Free Page B

plunged into the forest had vanished. Only a few of them, the lowest, could be seen.
    Rand uncoiled the rope. He wrapped it twice around the boy’s waist and watched as the knot was tied. The other end he tied to himself.
    “You want to go first?” he said.
    It was easy at the start. With the unschooled agility of a squirrel, Lane moved upward. After a while he heard a call,
    “That’s a good place to stop.”
    Rand began to climb. The rock felt warm, unfamiliar, not yet giving itself over. Lane was waiting in a niche forty feet above the ground.
    “I’ll just go on,” Rand said.
    Now he went first, the boy belaying. As he climbed he put in an occasional piton. He hammered them into cracks. A metal link, a carabiner, was snapped to the piton and the rope run through it.
    Far below was a small upturned face. Rand climbed easily, assured in his movements. He looked, felt, tried, then without effort, moved up.
    The rock is like the surface of the sea, constant yet never the same. Two climbers going over the identical route will each manage in a different way. Their reach is not the same, their confidence, their desire. Sometimes the way narrows, the holds are few, there are no choices—the mountain is inflexible in its demands—but usually one is free to climb as one will. There are principles, of course. The first concerns the rope—it is for safety but one should always climb as if the rope were not there.
    “Off belay!” Rand called. He had reached a good stance, the top of an upright slab. There was a well-defined outcrop behind him. He placed a loop of nylon webbing over it and clipped to that. He pulled up what free rope there was, passing it around his waist to provide friction if necessary.
    “On belay!” he called.
    “Climbing,” came the reply.
    Lane had watched him carefully, but from below he could not tell much after a while. It seemed, in places, there must have been some trick—there was no way to climb—but with the rope tugging gently at him, he managed. It was steeper than it looked. He was slight, flylike. He should have been able to cling to the merest flaws. His foot slipped off a tiny hold. He somehow caught himself. He put his toe back where it had been, with less confidence. This part was very hard. He stared up, his legs trembling. The slabs above were sheer, gleaming like the side of a ship. Beyond them, a burning blue.
    He was forgetting what he should do, struggling blindly, in desperation. His fingers ached. There was resignation heavy in his chest.
    “Put your right foot where your left is!”
    “What?” he cried miserably.
    “Put your right foot where your left is and reach out with your left.”
    His fingers were losing their grip.
    “I can’t!”
    “Try.”
    He did as he was told, clumsy, despairing. His foot found a hold, his hand another. Suddenly he was saved. He began to move again and in a few minutes had forgotten his fear. Reaching Rand, he grinned. He had made mistakes. He’d been leaning too close to the rock, reaching too far. His moves had not been planned. Still he was there. A feeling of pride filled him. The ground was far below.
    To the left, on a more difficult route, smooth, exposed, were two other climbers. Rand was watching them as he straightened out the rope. They were on an almost blank wall. The leader, hair pale in the sunlight, was flat against it, arms to either side, legs apart. Even in extremity he emitted a kind of power, as if he were supporting the rock. There was no one else on all of Tahquitz.
    Rand turned from watching them. With a movement of his arm, he commented, “There it is.”
    The forest was falling beneath them, the valley. Though still far from the top, they had entered a realm of silence. There was a different kind of light, a different air.
    “The next part is easier,” Rand said.
    The mountain had accepted them; it was prepared to reveal its secrets. The uncertainty was gone, fear of poor holds, of places where a toe