Free Solo Faces by James Salter Page B

not the tiniest movement, not the barest hope. There is only a line, finer than a hair, that must somehow be crossed.
    The emptiness of space was draining his strength from him, preparing him for the end. He was nothing in the immensity of it, without emotion, without fear and yet there was still an anguish, an overwhelming hatred for Cabot who hung there, unwilling to move. Don’t give up here, he was thinking. He was willing it, don’t give up!
    When he looked, Cabot had taken another step.
    That evening they were on a ledge far up the face. The overhangs barring the top were above. They had not noticed, until late, the arrival of clouds.
    The first gusts blew almost gently but with a chill, a warning of what was to come. In the distance, the crackling of thunder. Rand waited, hoping it would fade. It came again. It was like an air raid drifting closer but still it might pass them by. The clouds were more dense. The Charmoz was disappearing, going dark. Lightning, brilliant in the dusk, was hitting the Brévent. The face of the Dru was still clear, softened by the late hour. The thunder crackled on.
    Rand felt helpless. He saw the storm approaching, coming up the valley like a blue wave with scud running before it. He sat watching it fearfully as if it might notice him, veer his way.
    Then he heard it, a strange, airy sound all around them. He recognized it immediately, like the humming of bees.
    “What’s that?” Cabot said.
    “Hold on,” he warned.
    They were in clouds. In a matter of seconds the Dru had gone. They could see nothing. The sound seemed to come from directly overhead and then from closer, almost inside their ears.
    “It’s getting louder.”
    Rand did not reply. He was waiting, barely breathing. The mist, the coldness, were like a blindfold. He listened to the eerie, growing hum.
    Suddenly the dusk went white with a deafening explosion. Blue-white snakes of voltage came writhing down the cracks.
    Lightning struck again. This time his arms and legs shot out from a jolt that reached the ledge. There was a smell of burning rock, brimstone. Hail began to fall. He was clinging to his courage though it meant nothing. He could taste death in his mouth.
    Cabot was huddled at his side; he had ended the day moving even more slowly than before. Corpselike in darkness he sat, the earsplitting claps of thunder like the end of the earth itself not even stirring him, a dead weight that was dragging Rand down. There was another flash of lightning. The pathetic figure was clearly visible. Rand stared at it. What he saw he never forgot. It reached across ghosted days to haunt him forever. Half-hidden beneath the bandage, open and gazing directly at him was an eye, a calm, constant, almost a woman’s eye that was filled with patience, that understood his despair. Is he alive, Rand wondered? The eye shifted, gazing slightly downward.
    An immense explosion. He trembled. There were nine hours until dawn.

15
    T HE STORM STOPPED AT midnight. Afterward it froze. Their clothes were wet; the hail had turned into snow. From time to time there came breaks in the cloud when it was possible to see a little, even in darkness, and then the thick wave returned, in absolute silence, sweeping in as if to bury, to obliterate them. Rand was shivering. It was an act of weakness he told himself, but he could not stop.
    Finally the sky grew light. There were storms still hanging in the air. Their gear was frozen, the ropes stiff.
    They managed to make some tea. In the distance, like hostile armies, an endless line of black clouds was moving. If the weather held, they might try to reach the top. Rand sipped the tepid, metallic-tasting liquid. He had no resolution, no plan.
    For an hour they moved dazedly among the heaps of gear. To straighten it out required the greatest effort. The temptation to sit down and rest was overwhelming. There was snow on every bit of rock, in every crack. The sun was hitting the ridges to the west. Rand was