CHAPTER ONE
MATEO
DAMON IS BREATHING PRETTY HARD when he says, “Gummy bears?”
I get a minute of vertigo. We’re on the north face, on a ledge that’s no wider than a bookshelf. The wind keeps kicking. The hike here was tough — I’m breathing almost as hard as Damon, and he’s nearly thirty years older than me — but right now I’m most aware of the need to not plummet to my death.
I’m an experienced climber, but this shit is scary. It has to be a three-hundred-foot drop, and instead of being geared up, I’m in a pair of athletic shorts and tennis shoes, with no harness or helmet. There are bolts in the rock like any ascent route, and there are even quickdraws — two carabiners with strong webbing between them. But the second carabiner isn’t being threaded with my climbing rope. There’s just a thin cable — a makeshift handrail. If I let go, I’ll end up broken on the rocks below.
“I’m sorry?”
I look back at Damon, sure I must’ve misheard. If he said anything it was probably, “Hold on tight!” or, “Shit, we’re going to die!”
But Damon doesn’t seem mildly concerned. The mountain I want to buy has been in the Frasier family for generations. Damon probably grew up walking this path before the railing was added. He’s spry for an older guy, trim and distinguished. Even in the rare places I’ve slipped, Damon is as sure-footed as a mountain goat.
“People don’t really put gummy bears on pizza, do they?” Damon says.
I take a few more steps. Whore’s Leap, where we are now, is the only truly perilous part of the Bulldozer trail. It’s about fifty feet long, where you need to weave past a big out-jut in the rock. Before and after, the path is technical but safe for all but ankle sprains. If Damon doesn’t mind, I’d rather be on the more solid ground before answering.
But Damon’s just hanging out, not past the end of the ledge himself. His salt-and-pepper hair stirs in the breeze. He’s even less appropriately dressed than me. I came dressed to explore, but I caught Damon leaving a meeting. He’s in khakis and loafers.
“Sometimes.”
“No shit?” He laughs. “What else?”
“Did you build this railing yourself?”
Damon looks down like he forgot he was holding it. When he notices, his hand moves. Which shakes the railing in my hand, since it’s little more than a rope.
“Yep!” he says brightly. “When I was a kid, my friends and I used to run back and forth on these ledges, but Elizabeth said it wasn’t safe. She made me do it.”
“Your daughter?”
“My little girl, yep.” Damon points at me as if I’ve reminded him of something. He frees his railing hand as if to prove that a real man doesn’t need something to hold. “Hey, she’s only been out of college a handful of years. Didn’t you say most of your PEZA shops were on college campuses?”
“A lot of them are.”
“I wonder if she’s ever eaten at one of your restaurants.”
“Maybe.”
“I never have, myself. I hear the buzz about them, but I’ve never eaten much pizza, yours or anyone else’s. I’m a little lactose intolerant. People seem to like it, though.” He laughs again. “Gummy bears? Seriously?”
“We can put just about anything you want on a pizza,” I say, looking down at what would probably be a beautiful view if I had a harness and a rope. “That’s our promise.”
“What else?”
“Do you mind if we move ahead a bit?”
Damon looks around. “I figured you wanted a rest.”
Here? Seriously, Damon?
“I’m good,” I say. Though honestly, I’m a bit south of “good.”
Damon shrugs, and then moves ahead. Two minutes later we’re on a trail that’s more or less normal, and even as an experienced outdoorsman and climber, I’m relieved.
I sit on a stump. Damon makes himself comfortable opposite me, perched on an outcropping, legs swaying like a toddler.
Damon is edging sixty and looks forty. He’s adjusted to the altitude, so he doesn’t huff and puff like I do. It’s humbling. It’s not just Damon, either. The resort staff — the sole commercial enterprise on Damon’s mountain — is the same. It’s something in the air up here. It keeps people young.
I assume he’ll ask me more about my business, so my favorite anecdote is queued: We built the first PEZA shops on college campuses due to the munchies factor. It’s not strange to order all sorts of stupid shit on a pizza when you’re baked harder than burned cookies.
“This race you have in mind for my mountain. Tell me more about it,” he says.
Damon has been tough as hell to convince on the matter of selling, but people usually fold quickly around me. It’s not that I’m swaying anyone, or using any other voodoo. I just make friends easily, and they come to see my way.
“It’s like a Spartan Race. Only much harder.”
“I don’t know Spartan Race. You just told me it’d be a rough endurance thing. Man versus the elements.”
“Or woman versus the elements. Maybe your daughter could compete.”
Damon laughs at this. Hard. I don’t get the joke, except that I gather Ms. Frasier wouldn’t be interested.
“It’s pretty simple. Competitors would climb up one of the faces on the north side, then run down the south. Then they’d turn around, make an ascent on the South, and clamber down the north.”
“You can’t exactly ‘clamber down’ the faces here. They’re sheer.”
“Then whatever this is. A path like we’re on now. The place has enough diversity.”
“In my experience, the climbers who come to the nearby peaks aren’t exactly runners. And vice-versa.”
I lean forward, finally more engaged than distracted. I’m passionate about my business, but with all the people under me, it runs more or less without my help these days. Today’s brightest passion has shifted to building something new, in a different realm. I’ve always been attracted to shattering thoughts around human potential — testing the limits we all believe we have, then growing with the discovery that those limits are shadows. This race is one thing to explore. One aspect of a larger vision that requires this mountain to bloom.
“That’s just the thing, Damon,” I say. We’ve talked endlessly these past months as I’ve tried to convince him to sell. We’re friends from afar, I suppose, and his footing only makes me respect the man more. “Climbers aren’t usually runners, and runners aren’t usually climbers. Powerlifters tend to be neither, but there are parts of my challenge where I’d like to incorporate brute strength too, like a section where you have to move boulders. People get into perceptual ruts. They come to believe things that aren’t true just because someone said they used to be.” I spread my arms, puffing my chest a little. “Look at me. Do I have a climber’s build?”
“I don’t know,” Damon says. “Do you?”
“There are tall climbers. Strong, bigger climbers. Look at Chris Sharma or Dani Andrada, for instance. Or Alex Puccio, on the women’s side. But they’re rare. Most of them look like Adam Ondra. Skin and bones.”
“I don’t know who those people are,” Damon says.
“I’ve been talking to a lot of guys. You met some of them when I came up with Hampton Brooks. They’re big. And on the other side, I’ve talked to powerful runners — people from a sport that’s mostly legs, but these people have muscular forearms and backs. Weightlifters who look little and light — easier for climbing — but who are strong as hell. Do you see what I’m saying?”
Damon has heard parts of this before. It’s clear he doesn’t get it, but he always plays along. Or maybe he gets it fine, and his passion is a only pebble to my boulder. He’s smiling, teeth bright against tan skin.
“Not really, Mateo,” he says.
“I just don’t understand why people tend to decide they’re one thing, then never try anything else. A person will say she’s an intellectual, then never try a sport — especially after thirty. I’m a businessman, and people are surprised that I’m an athlete. Why is that?”
“Folks just specialize, I suppose.”
I shake my head. “They settle. Then they wonder why life doesn’t seem to have lived up to their childhood expectations. The sky’s the limit when you’re young. I told my parents I wanted to fly fighter jets when I was a kid. Hell, I thought I could grow up to be Batman.” I laugh. “Everyone indulges kids because that’s just how kids are. They believe in things.” Now I half-scoff. “How foolish of them.”
“This race of yours, it makes them believe in something?”
“People come out of near-death experiences with renewed vigor. They’ll endure something awful and emerge triumphant, thankful that they went through it. We’ve heard stories about old men and women who’ve lifted impossibly heavy objects to save people they love, without even thinking about it. The limits were only in their heads.”
“Look. I get that the best climbers aren’t likely to be the best runners or vice versa. But the people you let me bring out over summer? They’ve helped me scope a lot of the rock. Sure, I see the potential for some punishing routes. But there are plenty of scrambles that will likely be graded as ‘advanced beginner’ climbs. Anyone who trains a bit can climb them. Same for the running parts of the race. I wouldn’t pick long, straight stretches where only elite trail runners could succeed. I’d pick technical paths, hard to navigate and long as hell, but do-able by any non-runner who puts in the time. We want to take people who think they’re tough and make them cry. Let them emerge victorious and see themselves in a whole new way. It’ll carry over into everything else they do. I’ve seen it happen. Personal relationships will improve after they’ve tackled the mountain. They’ll get better at their jobs or leave bad ones behind them.”
I’ve fallen into waxing philosophical. It happens when I discuss this stuff. I get so fucking sick of people telling each other what they can’t do without so much as trying.
Damon absorbs for a moment, then frowns and nods. Maybe he’s getting this more than I imagined.
“It’s not a bad notion,” he says. “I’ve thought about letting guests climb here, but I didn’t want to mess with the insurance. And we’ve intentionally kept things small. There are the homes you’ve seen, and some larger buildings. Most of it is legacy. From my father’s days. We’ve kept up some, let others go. I never wanted to run a resort, so I more or less didn’t. But I like what you see here, Mateo. It’s better than mining or cutting trees for lumber.”
We’ve had that discussion before, too. It’s something I’ve used to prod him. We both know he inherited this land and, after thirty years owning it alone, has tired of the burden. Deep down, I know he wants to sell. I’ve been trying to show him that it’s right to do so and that I’m a buyer who will respect the land rather than raze it down and exploit his legacy.
I wait, letting silence bargain for me. Then Damon sighs.
“I like you, Mateo,” he finally says. “I think you’d be a good father to my granddaddy’s mountain, and I think it’d suit you. I believe in what you say you want to do, and I believe in all I think you want to do here, along with all you haven’t told me because you think I’d find it boring.”
I open my mouth, but Damon raises a hand.
“I’m getting older. I have other things I want to do, too, and it includes more than running along ledges and cutting dead trees. I’m game. For the right price, under the right terms, you’ve sold me. Except for one thing.”
I already know what the “one thing” is. I make my face neutral, so I don’t react in a way that’ll offend Damon when he says it.
“Elizabeth loves this place. She wants to take it over, and keep it in the family.”
Time for a direct talk. I try to be respectful and not overstep my boundaries, but this trip has, from the start, felt like my last good push. I won’t get another chance if I lose him now. And of all the land I’ve looked into, Damon’s mountain is the only spot for sale that’s close to what I need.
“Damon,” I say in my let’s-be-honest voice, “you said yourself that your daughter isn’t an outdoorsy type. What will she do with a mountain?”
“She has her plans.”
“But are they just plans? Will they ever take shape?”
Damon’s eyes tick away. He sighs again. And in that, I think I have my answer.
And as a two-in-one, I also get an idea for my way to end this. To solve the problem, once and for all. Because although I’ve never met Elizabeth, I’ve gotten what I think is a fair picture of her through some things Damon has said. I know Damon is wealthy thanks to his inheritance, and he has been since his twenties. Elizabeth went to a college so exclusive and snooty they don’t even have to teach you anything. I looked it up; the place costs a hundred grand per year. She drives a BMW M4; I took a ride in it with Damon once when he explained she’d swapped it so she could borrow his truck. I doubt Damon has ever denied his princess a thing. I’ve even seen her handwriting and could smell pretense and privilege in every paragraph.
Elizabeth doesn’t want a mountain. She wants to keep Daddy’s property close because she dislikes the thought of losing an asset and isn’t the one who has to work up here every damn day. It’s selfish. But fortunately for Damon and me, I know how to wedge a crowbar under just about anyone.
“Let me talk to her.”
“Talk to Elizabeth?” He says this as if it’s amusing.
“Sure. Let’s be honest. I want this mountain and you want to sell it. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong. But—”
“I just want a chance to try,” I say, holding up a hand. “For both of us.”
After a moment, Damon shrugs. He seems a little amused, then serious. We stand as if to continue our hike — the last leg of my new owner’s tour, if I play things right.
“All right,” Damon says. “I’ll set it up. But I just want to warn you. Because I like you, kid, and you should be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
The almost-smile becomes a laugh.
“I love my little girl very much,” Damon says. “But she can be difficult.”