Deliverance

By S.L. Hughes

Outside Joe’s soccer-momvan, the snow has abated a little, though our tracks up to this locked gate have all but covered over. New Mexico hasn’t met our climatic expectations. Joe is gone. I sit here in the back of the van under a sleeping bag coveting the heat from a dying laptop. My conflict of attrition with Jasper, Joe’s wet dog, for space and alpha status continues in frustration. Laura sits in the front seat under her sleeping bag with a book. The driver seat awaits, empty with a noisy silence reminding us that this is Joe’s van, and it is he that is ultimately responsible for getting it past the chained gate.

Which was why neither Laura nor I were quick to offer to go out into the weather. Joe went, disappearing like a vapor into the white, wearing down booties.

We can’t go back the way we came — ten miles of four-wheeldrive up to nine thousand feet.

Yesterday, before the snow, it was necky enough, now we’re stalled — a vulnerable island awaiting mercy. I’ve always maintained a policy of pointing the car in a getaway position when camping with questionable legitimacy. Now we’re boxed in, and my limber imagination exercises all kinds of fantastic movie scenes, most of which orbit around the epidemic of unshaven, lumpy-mouthed hunters that seem to careen around this part of the world loaded on piss beer and spicy jerky.

Driving in from a raining Moab yesterday, the chances of climbing in New Mexico were continuing buoyant even under darkening skies. I wasn’t expecting to wake up last night with a foot of snow pressing the tent wall into my face. And the bleary, ah-fuck-it prospect of my draws hanging up there on a pocketed volcanic tower wasn’t particularly enthralling. I fell back asleep. I’m guessing that the legions of hunters out there were not expecting this weather either, judging by the dozen or so pickups at the gas station yesterday. I’m also guessing that this isn’t a big climbing destination going by the friendly but worrying gas station guy who hadn’t even heard of this crag, seven miles distant (by our information) from his establishment.

Rock climbing didn’t seem to be an oft-considered use of one’s time around these parts. Blasting cannons at helpless dumb creatures appeared to represent a far worthier pursuit of happiness. From the magazine rack, Joe handed me a copy of Extreme Wildlife, open to the centerfold of a not to shabby pouting woman in bikini and waders, knee high in a river cradling a sad dead pike. The magazine offered a hundred bucks for the readers’ wives in similar poses. Now my girlfriend’s not-too-shabby either, and she owes me a few favors; we could get all ironic and earn a hundred bucks to boot.

Outside the gas station, I did not want to bother the camouflaged men loading cases of beer into their trucks with inquires as to the whereabouts of the crag.

Anyone wearing neon orange vests over camouflage, armed and drunk, didn’t need to know where I might be camping. I just stepped around the pools of black tar spit and tried not to meet the tawny eyes of the younger rednecks.

Have you seen “Deliverance”? I asked Laura. She hadn’t. Joe had, and he rolled his eyes.

Back inside in the diner, I almost envied Laura’s Canadian well-being when she asked for an Americano. When she asked if they did veggie burgers though, I couldn’t help but scan the room from behind the menu to see if anyone had heard. We slunk out of there in Joe’s soccer-mom-van, with screaming B.C. tree-hugger plates and headed out to find the road to the crag.

We found the correct turn, but a sign informed us the road ahead was closed by a locked gate (the one we now, as I write, sit the wrong side of) and the alternative route was given. A truck stopped, and the occupants actually excitedly asked us if we’d seen any deer. The only one we’d seen was strapped to the hood of a big old Ford. Off in the distance, we could see a truck bouncing and crashing around as if it were chasing a marmot. Fucking rednecks everywhere. Was I to believe the stereotype? A poor Welsh boy like me — am I writing the black box here?

So, after nine miles of clutchburning terrain, occasionally passing hunters toasting us with beer cans, we arrived at the crag. An overhanging volcanic tower drew command of a narrow peaceful valley. There was no one around, but I mused that just maybe all those pockets in the rock were made by gun shots. We set to, hurling ourselves upward, pulling down on hero holds, all butch and extreme, like Masters of Stone. I left draws on a route that I was going to do in the morning. Instead, freezing, Joe held my ropes, stamping to keep warm while I dogged up through the swirling white to retrieve the gear.

That was then; this is now. Joe’s still gone. This laptop’s got to die soon. And would you believe it? Someone is coming up behind us. It’s a big dark truck, with spotlights blinding Laura and me. Buddy’s getting out. Oh god, please don’t let his first words be, “Wheeel, loookie here.We got us some Canadiens.”