Thirty One
Forget climbing El Capitan, surviving a day in the service industry was what was going to do her in. Especially since she’d been up all night, making out with Walker. Rilla’s stomach rolled with excitement at the fresh memory of his hands on her.
“Do your hair,” Allie said, her messy top-knot bobbing.
They stood in the warm laundry room—the machines all quiet. The sun had not yet risen. Rilla buttoned the skirt of the uniform and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I know how tips work.”
She stood on her tiptoes to use her reflection in the small, dark window to do her best old-people makeup—a nice pink lipstick, mascara, and blush. Her concealer didn’t work anymore because of her tan, and her hair had gotten so long she had to ask Allie for scissors to cut off six inches of straggly ends, but finally she turned from the window, slipped on the borrowed flat dress shoes, and waited for Allie to approve.
Allie shrugged. “It’ll do. I’m going back to bed.” She handed over her badge. “Don’t get me fired.”
Rilla threw on a sweatshirt and headed across the Valley, her bare legs pricking with the chill. She’d never been inside the big hotel, and her heart beat a little faster as she crossed through the meadows and headed up the paved and landscaped drive.
In the lightening purple dark, the sleep-hazed faces of Braeden and Christian stood by the entrance’s stone columns—still fixing their uniforms. She’d hung out with them often around HUFF, but had never seen them at work.
“What you doing here so early and so dressed?” Braeden asked as Rilla came up.
“Taking over for Allie today.” She smoothed her skirt.
“Ugh. Allie is smart. Can you get us coffee?”
“I have to clock in first,” Rilla said. “Where’s the coffee?”
“Go to the kitchen and ask Darien to make it,” Christian said. “Please.”
She nodded and headed inside.
“You’re the best,” Braeden called as the door swung shut behind her.
Inside was a whole new Yosemite. Freshly polished wood floors stretched under her feet, and the weak light of new dawn filtered in the southwestern patterned stained glass windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. Leather couches were arranged around solid tables in the lobby. Giant copper pots held succulents and ferns. Above it all, the coffered ceiling was trimmed in southwestern painted designs and from the beams, lights made to look like candles on circular wooden chandeliers hung, giving the whole room a warm, cozy glow.
It was the nicest building she’d ever been in, except for a field trip to a museum once.
Rilla tried not to look out of place, practically tiptoeing down the quiet corridor to find the employee room and the kitchen.
At the end of a hall, past the bathrooms, she found it—using Allie’s card to open the locked door. Inside, she breathed with relief. The hotel lost its veneer, going back to linoleum and dingy painted drywall. An old-fashioned punch clock sat on the wall, with a hanging file of cards. Rilla found Allie’s and punched it in.
The timestamp read 5:59 A.M. Just in time.
She relaxed and stuck the card back in. A notice on the bulletin board beside it caught her eye and she looked closer.
Shit.
REWARD: $1,000 FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST AND RECOVERY OF STOLEN HISTORIC AWAHNEE HOTEL PLAQUE.
Pictured was the plaque she stole with Caroline and Petra.
Her stomach dropped. Ranger Dick Face. At least he couldn’t possibly know it was her. Right? She rushed away from the bulletin board, feeling like her guilt was written all over her. Unless someone talked to a ranger, they probably wouldn’t find out. It was fine. She’d just make sure to tell Caroline and Petra.
It was a good thing Adeena hadn’t come with them after all.
Back in the hotel, she found her way to the kitchen through the massive dining room, already bustling for breakfast and the few early risers sitting at tables. After delivering coffee, and getting one for herself, she found Allie’s supervisor—Tammy—and began.
Tammy was also a temporary employee and liked Rilla, so she’d been fine with her switching out with Allie. With minimal instructions she sent Rilla wheeling a room service cart and taking the stairs to deliver whatever the guests kept calling down to the desk for. In between calls, she restocked housekeeping carts, watered plants, swept the lobby, and dusted off the tops of doors.
Allie would keep her day’s wages, but Rilla kept the tips.
She shoved fives and ones into her pockets and ran back down the stairs for the next call, trying not to think about the stupid stolen plaque.
After Allie’s shift ended, the sun was low in the sky. Rilla changed in the employee locker room, took the uniform back to Allie, and immediately went to the outdoor store and pushed over all her tips and collected wages from the last week, in exchange for a shiny cam.
It was fuchsia and silver, and glinted in the evening sun, glimmering without a scratch. She couldn’t wait to get it dirty.
Running back to the house, she burst in to find Thea sitting at the table, filling out paperwork.
“What’s that?” Thea asked, staring at the shiny cam.
Rilla looked down. “Um.” Rilla hadn’t talked to Thea about climbing, and even now she was afraid if Thea found out how much time she’d been spending on the rock, she’d be forbidden from it. The last thing Rilla wanted to do was start that fight. Casually, she moved the cam behind her back and changed the subject. “I want to take a GED test.”
“You want to drop out of high school?” Thea said.
“Not drop out. Just . . . finish differently.”
Thea frowned, looking between Rilla and where the cam had been. “Where did you get the cam?”
“I bought it.”
“With what money?”
Rilla bit her lips. “I’ve been working.”
“You have a job?”
“No. I . . . I do odd jobs for other people,” Rilla said.
Thea’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“Like, today I worked at the hotel.”
“In that?” Thea took in her ratty shorts and tank top.
“Uh. No.” Rilla looked down, her cheeks warming. “I had to return the uniform.”
Thea sighed and rubbed her temples. “Rilla . . .”
Rilla didn’t move.
“You can’t do that.” Thea put her head in her hands and groaned.
“Why not?”
“You’re not trained. You’re a liability. It’s illegal.”
“It is not illegal,” Rilla said. “You’re a cop, not a lawyer.”
“I’m not a cop,” Thea yelled.
Rilla rolled her eyes.
“You want to take the GED, huh?” Thea said. “Let me ask you this. How’s your schoolwork?”
Rilla gulped. “It’s fine. But why do it, if I can just take a test?”
“It’s not just taking a test,” Thea said. “You can’t use this as a Get Out of Jail Free card just because you’re behind on your schoolwork. You need to spend less time playing and on the work you’re actually supposed to be doing.”
“Pretty sure it is just a test,” Rilla said.
“And you still haven’t answered about the cam,” Thea said. “I don’t want to hear you’ve been spending all the time I’m at work playing instead of doing your work, and now that’s why you think you can take a test and make it all go away.”
Rilla stilled, her face burning. “I’m . . . I’m . . .”
“I’m what? And who taught you to use that? That’s for experienced climbers. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I am experienced,” Rilla shot back.
Thea rolled her eyes. “A month of playing hooky to climb does not make an experienced climber.”
She was right. She was . . . Rilla gulped and looked down at her hand. What was she doing? Thea was right.
“You are not allowed to climb. Not until you are caught up and enrolled in school. You can’t afford to risk your future for a little fun. And you aren’t responsible enough to be climbing with stuff like that.”
Any argument got choked in Rilla’s throat. No climbing? She stared at the cam, tears burning her eyes.
Thea straightened. “I’m done.” Grabbing her hat, she stormed down the hall and slammed her bedroom door.
Done?
Rilla glared at the door. Done done? “Of course you are,” she yelled, before stomping outside. She kicked the dirt all the way through the meadow. Hating the gear and all it represented—not her hard work anymore, but the things she’d never be able to climb beyond. Thea was unfair—but she was right. A month of climbing wasn’t anything. She’d give it all over just to have her sister not think she was a useless annoyance. To have her not be done. And what was she going to do about climbing now? The Nose?
The Nose!
If Thea found out about The Nose, she’d send her back to West Virginia for sure.
The grass was dry and dead at the edges of Camp 4, and on her first walk through the camp, no one was there. She sat at the picnic table at Tam’s empty campsite, waiting for someone to show up. The afternoon light shifted through the trees and Rilla put her head in her arms and sank into the heaviness in her chest.
Someday she was going to go so far away no one would know who she was or where she came from, and she could start over with no memory of her mistakes.
Rilla kept expecting someone to show up. But no one did. She glanced at the SAR site, but no one was there either. It was sunset now, the tourists had all lit fires and climbers and hikers she didn’t know were beginning to come back to camp. She pushed off the table to go find Jonah, still carrying the cam with her.
On her way across the Valley, she caught sight of the old man at the SAR site who’d fed her the morning she’d climbed with Caroline—hustling somewhere in his fluorescent T-shirt. She wanted to ask where everyone had gone, but his face was set in a grim line, and he seemed not to notice anyone or anything except the place he was trying to be. Her chest tightened and she picked up her pace. Something felt wrong. She felt wrong. Her stomach churned, hating that she’d made Thea mad, hating that Thea was right, and hating Thea for being unfair. The temptation to message Curtis hit her in the gut, and then she only hated herself for having to fight so hard against it. Rilla couldn’t go back—not when she kept screwing things up like this.
Rilla found Jonah in the cafeteria. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
He looked confused. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said with a shrug. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“Run later?”
“Yeah, sure.” Thanking him, she left the building and wandered back outside. The crowds seemed on edge too—people talked with each other in urgent, curious tones. She wanted to stop and ask everyone what was going on, but didn’t know how to intrude. Maybe it was all in her head.
There were no sirens, but she followed a passing ambulance anyway, out of the woods and into the meadow below El Cap. The massive cliff stood in shadows. Only the tip-top of Half Dome held light now. And a dark haze seemed to creep out of the trees.
She edged to Lauren. “What’s going on?” Rilla asked. Even Ranger Miller was there, looking like he was actually doing work as he talked with other rangers and then spoke into the radio.
“They’re doing a rescue.”
Rilla looked up. The dusty orange-and-cream granite was darkening and if she squinted, she could spot tiny stars of light beginning to dot the cliff—they were each climbing teams, she knew that. But which one . . .
“Where is it?” Rilla asked.
Lauren pointed. “See under that big shadow.”
Rilla put both hands on her forehead, straining, trying to see. There was nothing but dusky granite.
Her pulse raced in her neck. Who was on the wall? And who had been sent to get them?
“Everyone’s gone for this? What happened? Do you know who?”
“I don’t know. We have a broken arm from a dropped haul bag. Half of us are here. Half are split between some hikers missing in Tenaya Canyon. And a turned ankle on Four-Mile Trail.”
“Shit,” Rilla breathed.
“When it rains, it pours.” Lauren’s radio bleeped. She turned away and answered. “Thea’s coming over,” she said. “Hang around. We might need bodies for Tenaya Canyon.”
Rilla startled, but Lauren didn’t seem to notice. Hang around? As in, to be useful? She wasn’t useful. To anyone. But suddenly, she wanted to be. Her pulse pounded in her neck and she nodded to Lauren, a sense of purpose flooding her body and rooting her to the meadow.
Rilla moved in the grass, pushing through the dry stalks until she came to a man with binoculars. “Can I borrow those for a second?” It was nearly impossible to spot climbers on the wall without binoculars.
The man pulled the glasses away and blinked, but he handed them over and pointed at the wall. “Right there, below the big flake.”
Rilla’s hands shook as she put the binoculars to her eyes and blinked. The wall came into focus. Empty. She moved it, slowly, scanning, straining her eyes in the fading light. With every second she couldn’t find them, it felt as if the possibility it was someone she knew increased.
“Here.” The man moved the glasses.
A thin trail of rope came into focus. At the bottom, two figures in shadow.
She couldn’t tell who it was.
Overhead, a chopper thumped. She pulled down the binoculars and handed them back to the man, tipping her chin to watch the chopper fly overhead. Its belly was white and the grass shuddered around her.
“Rilla,” Thea called.
Rilla turned and headed back through the grass to her sister, standing in a sloppily tucked shirt and a ball cap. Lauren was beside her.
“What were you doing today? Any climbing? Hiking?” Lauren asked.
Rilla gritted her teeth. “No,” she seethed.
“She can come with me,” Lauren said to Thea.
Thea blanched.
Go where?
“She needs to go home and do her homework,” Thea said.
“I’ll watch out for her,” Lauren said. “It’ll be good.”
Thea softened. “Well, okay.”
What? Thea just gave in like that? Rilla had never seen that happen. Ugh.
“Rilla,” Thea said. “You can go with Lauren, Walker, and Kamika. They need a body. Listen. You do what they say, okay? If you don’t, you’ll put everyone’s lives in danger.”
Rilla glanced between Lauren and Thea. “Okay?” She’d heard of climbers who were around Yosemite being used as volunteers in SAR events when they needed extra help, but she’d never thought she’d be included in that.
“Go get some boots on, and pack a daypack for yourself,” Lauren said. “Pack a rain jacket, food, water, headlamp, extra batteries, and a basic first aid kit. Go as fast as you can and meet me at the trailhead for Mirror Lake. We’re just going to hike up to the start of the canyon, but it’ll be dark and tough terrain.”
“Okay!” Rilla turned and ran off across the Valley.
Within twenty minutes, she’d changed, packed her bag, and started running through the early twilight to meet Lauren.
“There you are,” Lauren called as Rilla huffed to a stop. Walker stood behind her, and a young ranger whom Rilla only knew as Kamika. “Okay. We’re looking for a hiker, male, age twenty-five. Medium height. Name is Mike. He was wearing . . .” Lauren peered at her notebook in the last bit of light. “Ugh. Red shirt. He left Olmstead Point yesterday.” Lauren flipped over her notebook. “He was last seen leaving the Olmstead Point trail to head into the canyon. Rangers have entered from there, but so far haven’t found anything. We’re basically doing a containment search. We’re going to be hiking up to the entrance to the canyon—only a few miles past Mirror Lake, but a talus field they might have gotten stuck in. After that, we’re going to hold tight at the canyon output and wait for the rangers from Olmstead Point to join us.” She flipped her notebook closed and pulled her headlamp onto her forehead. She glanced at the group. “Ready? We’re in teams.”
Rilla’s heart thumped in her throat, like the first time she’d started across the Valley for Half Dome. And the first time she’d gone with Caroline on lead. She tightened down the straps of her backpack and slid her headlamp on her head.
“Walker, you’ve got Rilla,” Lauren said. “And I’ll be with Kamika.”
Rilla swallowed and looked to Walker, but his face was serious, watching Lauren. “We going off the trail at all?”
“No. Just sweep the left and we’ll do the right side. We’ll take turns calling. When we get to the talus field, we’ll spread out a little more.”
“What do I do?” Rilla asked quietly.
“Just walk in front of me,” Walker said. “Make sure you look into the woods to your left and on the trail in front of us for the hikers. Go slow. That’s it.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
He turned and looked to Lauren. “We good?”
She put her thumbs up. “Let’s do this.”
They started into the woods, on the wide path leading to Mirror Lake. Tourists were still out and walking, and Rilla scanned every person on the path and the stands of trees and looming boulders for anyone who might have wandered into the woods.
Lauren called out their names occasionally, especially when big clumps of people came by. But by the time they hit Mirror Lake and Half Dome rose straight above them, there were only a few tired-looking stragglers, and none of them were the hiker they were looking for.
“All right, we’re going off-trail,” Lauren said, veering off into the brush in the twilight. She radioed a similar update.
Rilla followed Lauren’s pace—slowing down when she found herself a few steps ahead, picking up when she fell behind. At first, it felt as if she’d surely miss the hiker—it’d be just her luck. But she fell into a rhythm and soon there was nothing but the dim trail. Walker’s body moved behind her. Lauren and Kamika to her right. They moved as one unit, as a team, as the trail ended and they began picking their way through the rocks and brush—slowing even more to carefully sweep the rocks and call out.
“Listen,” Lauren ordered them as they broke out of the woods. A river bed opened wide before them. It was almost dark—that deep purple haze of evening and all the light gone from Half Dome.
Perched on a boulder in the dry riverbed, Rilla stopped with the others and tilted her head to the wind. Straining to hear its cries.
Nothing came.
“At least the sky is clear,” Walker said.
“One less thing to worry about,” Lauren agreed.
They crawled around a boulder bigger than Thea’s house, breathing hard, but quietly sending their headlamps around them.
“Canyons have their own strange forces,” Lauren said. “I never like a call into Tenaya. To me, it means I’m going after a body.”
Rilla tried not to shiver in the dark as they worked their way to the far edge of the Valley and the walls of granite began to close in on them. The night became darker. The stars were only a strip above them. A faint trickle of water caught on the wind, and by the time Rilla was certain they had to be halfway through the canyon, they stopped at the edge of a dark pool. “Well, we’ve reached the start,” Lauren said.
Rilla tilted her head and the small burst of light of her headlamp swept up a wall of granite with a dark, narrow gash in the middle. From the darkness, a strange sound came—water, but water as Rilla had never heard before. It echoed, like the sound was liquid and dark.
“He has to come out somewhere along here,” Lauren said. “If he’s coming out.”
It wasn’t wide—just a rocky sweep between the big walls of granite on either side and the rocks rose higher in front of them. A thin waterfall poured over and pooled in the middle.
Rilla sat and clicked off her light, relieved after her long night and long day to be sitting. Her gaze flickered to Walker, in the dark. He’d spent most of the night with her, knowing he’d have to do something like this.
“Are we still supposed to be looking?” she asked him quietly.
He turned off his light. Lauren had a large flashlight sweeping across the narrow valley as she talked on the radio, but the darkness seemed to suck it in, not illuminate anything.
“We’re at a choke point,” Walker said. “It’s narrow enough here if anyone comes through, we’ll see.”
Lauren nodded. “Most people only think of something like a grid search—which is actually the most ineffective way of searching. In all the places between here and Olmstead Point, the only way they can come through this point is by coming right here.” She swept her light across the waterfall and the rocky hillside between the granite cliffs. “So, we send a group of searchers on the other side. Experienced canyoneers. They sweep the inner canyon and we make sure no one leaves.”
“It feels weird,” Rilla said. “The canyon is there.”
“Some people say it’s cursed,” Lauren said. “The army killed the son of Chief Tenaya to incentivize the Ahwahnechee from the Valley. And the story is, he cursed the canyon. But I think the earth just hangs on to the memory of injustice and revisits it on people. No one can escape the past, not even the land.” She flicked on her headlamp. “All right, you guys stay here. Call if you see anything.”
Lauren and Kamika disappeared across the tight gorge, but their lights bobbed along. If she strained, she could just make out their shadows.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said to Walker. Hating herself even more that when someone else’s life was on the line, she was still thinking about her fight with Thea.
“Shoot.”
“Am I . . . Am I . . .” She swallowed, trying to find the courage to ask. “I know I’m out of my league. I know I’m new. But am I still . . . a gumby?”
He laughed. “No. You’ve been new, but you’ve never been that. You’ve always been smart and careful. Even when you had bad habits from Petra, you fixed it right away, Caroline said. You are trusted.”
“Am I inexperienced?”
This time he didn’t answer right away. “Yes and no. But I think we all have to nurture a feeling of inexperience. It can keep us safe and cautious. But without letting it make us overly afraid. I think. And yeah, you haven’t had as much experience as some. But more than others. Most people would not have progressed as fast as you have.”
She nodded. It didn’t really help like she thought it would.
In the quiet, the day and her fight with Thea come roaring back to her. She couldn’t give up climbing. Climbing had given her everything else. It had brought her here, helping, useful. It had left her beside Walker, as something like an equal. It had even pushed her to do the homework she’d gotten done—not enough, but something.
She’d have to disobey Thea and continue to climb. She’d have to keep it a secret. But she didn’t see any other way. Losing climbing felt like losing the only thing about herself she liked, the only thing that had value.
Rilla pulled her knees to her chest and stared into the dark, waiting and hoping that the lost hiker would emerge out of the night.