[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
down, John made an excuse about his infected leg and lingered behind. When no
one was looking, he slipped back inside the Amphitheater and combed the ground
for further clues. Finding nothing of use, he climbed a corner of the
Amphitheater wall to the top and scoured the earth for whatever story it might
tell. In his heart he knew that Kresinski was right, the mayhem was man-made
and at the same time larger than life. The smuggler had killed Tucker, crushed
Bullseye, decimated their tribe.
And yet John found it difficult to hate the man because he was, after all,
just a concept. But then he found two imprints on the edge of the cliff that
confused him.
They looked like no prints he'd ever seen, rounded and long and deep. Careful
not to disturb the sign bracketing these strange, somehow precious prints, he
backtracked a
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm (172
of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52
Jeff Long - Angels of Light hundred feet down through the thick forest slope
and then followed the trail forward chronologically. There were two principal
sets of tracks, one made by Bullseye's bare feet, the other by a pair of
enormous Vibram-lugged boots. Here, John saw, Bullseye staggered. Here he fell
down and raised himself, but without benefit of his hands
there was no palm print in the forest loam under the pine needles, John
checked.
Page 146
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Mimicking the tracks, John replicated the event. Why no palm print? he asked
himself, and tried to raise himself without his hands. In that way he
understood that
Bullseye's arms had been tied not in front the way Kresinski had signified,
but behind him. He remembered the faint marks around Bullseye's neck and
understood that his friend had been led to his slaughter by a cord or wire
around his throat.
Arriving back at the strange prints on the edge of the cliff, John was again
consumed with curiosity. How had they been made? From the right and the left
and above and then with his head down at ground level for a side view, he
studied the two rounded tracks. Only when he lifted himself from his knees and
saw the imprint left in the dirt did he feel any real hate for the smuggler.
For now he saw it all. Here, two inches from the edge of the abyss, hands tied
behind him, Bullseye had been forced to kneel and contemplate his execution.
There, a few feet behind him, the smuggler had paced back and forth,
tormenting him with questions and demands. John looked out across the Valley.
Out there stood Sentinel rock. Closer, an ancient tree broke the skyline.
Bullseye must have attached his soul to these and other things in the last
moments.
And then his hands were untied John found two sets of knuckle prints on either
side of the knee prints and Bullseye had stood up and tried to escape. He
found the footstep where the smuggler had broken his pace to parallel the
break for freedom.
Here was Bullseye's final purchase with the edge, a gouge in the earth one toe
wide.
"Fuck," said John.
He started to follow the smuggler's tracks back down through the forest, but
what was the use? It would take hours to track him back to the floor, and
eventually the big ugly boot prints would turn into tire marks and the tire
marks would lead onto asphalt and that would be the end of it. Returning to
the lip of the Amphitheater, John searched for another five minutes. He opened
his mind to anything out of the ordinary the string or wire used to tie
Bullseye, bits of torn clothing, a splash of blood, maybe a piece of paper
dropped by accident or a last message scrawled in the dirt. The killer was
almost what Kresinski had said, a force of nature. His violence borrowed
ingeniously from what the climbers already risked their lives on: the void.
By simply tipping the balance in favor of the abyss, who but a climber could
say the killer wasn't that same gravity and ego that always had and always
would plague ascent? Except for some footprints and a few trivial marks on
Bullseye's racked, flayed body, what evidence was there he hadn't wandered up
here in a psilocybin haze and jumped?
Crouched, knees bent Apache-style, John hound-dogged the entire area, intent
on file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/HTML-Jeff%20Long%20-%20Angels%20of%20Light.htm
(173 of 216)19-1-2007 22:42:52
Jeff Long - Angels of Light the ground. Aside from the tracks, there was
nothing left, though. He was almost ready to down-climb the corner and exit
the Amphitheater and descend the scree slope to help with Bullseye, when his
eyes lifted from the ground and he saw the rag.
Almost out of reach, it was hanging stiff and pink from a branch, like a
tattered flag.
It should have been the first thing to catch his eye, not the last; indeed, it
was intended to be seen. But John had been so focused on what was at his feet
instead of the whole picture that he'd walked underneath it at least four
times. It had been tied to the branch not far from Bullseye's knee prints and
was obviously meant to be found. John had to stand on his toes to reach the
knot. Excited that here, at last, was a deliberate communication from the
smuggler, possibly a key to finding the barbarian, certainly proof of an
external, real malice, he opened the crusty rag. It was all that remained of a
Page 147
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
T-shirt. Originally white, the shreds had been dyed pink with blood and snow.
Before John's mind could catch up with the possibilities, he turned the rag
over. Printed across what was left of the chest shouted the slogan, "This
Ain't
No
*%&*!!
Wienie Roast." Even then it took him a moment, for this was more than a
message from the killer. This was Tucker.
Suddenly John knew where Tucker's body had gone. It hadn't whisked off into
the heavens or limbo or been dragged away by the animals. The smuggler had
taken it.
The climbers had desecrated the body of the dead pilot in the lake, and now
Tucker's body belonged to the darkness. In a way the idea relieved John
because now Tucker was partly found, even if more fully lost. Now he knew the
boy's disappearance had nothing to do with all those venial gods in the trees
and rocks and animals. Tucker's disappearance had nothing to do with sin, none
that he had committed anyway. The smuggler had killed Tuck and then descended
around to the base of Half Dome and laid hands on the thin, innocent, broken
body and stolen from it the ultimate decency
a place with a name.
Oddly, the thought of Tucker's spirit wandering forever without definition
relieved
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]