Rise (14 page)

Clara peered over the cliff. Only the top of Helene's head was visible now. She'd pushed back against the front of the rock, trying to stay as far away from the edge as possible. “Why does it have to be you?” Clara held open her hand, gesturing for me to give her the rope. “You shouldn't.”

Bette and Sarah inched forward, trying to get a glimpse of Helene on the ledge below. “Hurry,” Bette said. “She could fall.”

Clara took the rope, yanking the end from my waist. “You can't,” she said. “You're the only one who knows where we're going.” Her eyes held mine for a moment too long, and I knew what she wouldn't add—that I was pregnant. That there was more risk for me than there was for her.

Beatrice grabbed my arm. “Let Clara go,” she said. “We'll hold the rope for her. We can anchor it back there.” She pointed to the low railing on the other side of the road. It was corroded from the sun, the metal now covered in a bumpy white film that looked like barnacles. It seemed flimsy, but the bottoms of the metal poles were still rooted to the ground, buried in a few feet of solid concrete.

I examined the railing, kicking the bottom pole to make sure it wouldn't give. Then I lashed the plastic rope around it, using the same knot I'd used months before as we secured Quinn's houseboat to the dock in Califia. I leaned back, letting it hold my full weight, the plastic threads tightening under my grip.

Standing there, looking at the valley below, I remembered the unmistakable pull I felt in the Palace whenever I was just inches from the tower windows. A dizziness set in. I felt like at any moment I could tumble forward, the great expanse capable of swallowing me whole. “You have to show me how to tie it,” Clara said from somewhere behind me. She handed the rope to me, and I noticed then that her hands were shaking, her fingers bloodless and pale.

“Let me go,” I said. But Clara just pressed the rope into my hands.

Bette and Sarah stood on the pavement beside us, Sarah holding Bette's arm. Bette wiped at her face, trying to dry it. “You have to do something,” she said. “She's in pain.”

I moved fast, securing the rope around Clara's waist, just below her ribs, double-knotting it to make sure it would hold. “We could first try to lower it down to her,” I said, when I was sure the other girls couldn't hear. “You don't have to do this.”

Clara's face was wet and pale. Her hands moved erratically, first grabbing the rope, then her waist, uncertain where to put them. “No, I'll do it,” she said. She nodded. “I will.”

I ordered the girls to line up. I stood right behind Clara, Beatrice behind me, and the girls held the rope behind us. “Now lean back—put your full weight against it,” I said. “Whatever happens, don't let go. There are enough of us that we'll be able to bring them up.”

Clara looked at me, each of her breaths slow and deliberate, cutting the silence. “If you lean back, you can walk down the cliff front,” I explained. I'd seen Quinn do it twice, trying to reach one of the narrow, secluded beaches on the east end of Marin. “Keep your hands on the rope.”

“Right,” she said. “I'll be fine.” I pulled some of the rope in, so it was taut, and she started backward, glancing to the spot where the pavement turned into rock. As she got to the cliff's edge, she leaned back, her eyes meeting mine for a second as I let out the line. She squeezed the tears away.

I watched as she slowly stepped down the front of the ledge, finally dropping out of view. There was the quiet falling of pebbles, skittering down the cliff front, heard each time she pushed off. Behind me, Bette's breaths were choked and wet. “She has to get her,” she said. “She can't die.”

“No one is going to die,” Beatrice snapped. It was the closest thing I'd ever heard to anger in her voice. It startled even the girls. They all grew silent, letting the rope out only when I told them to.

Clara was saying something, whispering to herself as she went down, though I couldn't hear what. Every doubt I'd pushed aside in the past days crowded my mind, closing in on me. I'd been foolish to think I could bring the girls with me, that we wouldn't all be captured or die from starvation. Even if Helene could be brought up, her leg was likely broken or sprained. How would she be able to keep pace? We'd be on the road another two weeks, at least, as we headed for the coast.

The rope burned against my palm. I could feel all of Clara's weight straining against it, pulling back and away. I let some of it give, and after a few minutes it loosened as she hit the outcropping where Helene was. “I've got her,” she yelled, her voice small and distant. “She's okay. I'm bringing her up.”

I RESTED MY HAND ON HELENE'S FOREHEAD, JUST ABOVE HER
brow. “It'll sting,” I said. Her tiny black braids were caked with dried blood. The three-inch gash was still split open. I breathed through my mouth, trying not to give in to the sick, sinking feeling in my stomach as I poured the vodka over the cut. She winced, her body tensing against it. I brought one of the towels to the side of her head, catching the rest of the liquid, careful to keep the cloth away from the wound. “It's done now,” I said. “It's over. Try to get some sleep.”

Helene didn't look at me. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears caught in her lashes. Color had come into the bruises on her arms, the blood crusted black beneath her fingernails. I looked down at her leg. Beatrice had fashioned a splint out of two branches we'd found, tying them together with rope. I had held Helene's hand as Beatrice pulled her heel, setting the bone in place. Now the area from her knee to her ankle was swollen, the skin stretched and red. We'd given her some of the vodka for the pain, but it was hard to know how bad the break was. The bone didn't come through the skin—Beatrice had said there was hope.

I turned away, stepping around the girls who'd settled beside her. Bette and Sarah had fallen asleep. The blankets we hadn't used for Helene were shared among the others. Bette shifted on the hard earth, struggling to get comfortable. As the wind came through the valley, I pulled my sweater closer, trying to steel myself against the cold, but it ripped right through me. The temperature had dropped ten degrees since the sun disappeared from the sky.

We'd found camp as soon as the road flattened out, setting up behind a cluster of high rocks. Bette and Sarah had pulled Helene behind them in the sled. Even after we'd given her as much of the alcohol as she could take down, she still sobbed, the pain coming and going in waves. I'd spent nearly an hour sitting beside her, occasionally listening to the radio, trying to get news from the Trail.

I looked out at Beatrice and Clara, their silhouettes just visible beyond dry, withered shrubs. As I approached, I caught snippets of their conversation, a few sentences carried in by the wind. “If it's infected, we don't have a choice,” Clara said. “I just don't see how she could survive otherwise.” Beatrice was at her side, the two of them hunched over, bracing themselves against the cold.

“It's not infected, though—not yet,” Beatrice said. They turned when they saw me coming.

Beatrice shook her head. “You haven't heard anything new from the radio?” she asked. “There are no stops on the Trail nearby? If we could find somewhere to rest . . . even just a week or so . . .”

“Most of the rebels left for the City. The ones outside the walls have been quiet,” I said. “The only messages I've heard have come from survivors inside. The public executions have stopped, but others are being taken from their homes for questioning. The colonies have been silent—if they haven't come yet, it seems unlikely they'll come at all.”

“And my mother . . .?” Clara asked.

I shook my head. I hadn't heard anything about my aunt Rose since the siege had ended. I had to hope that she and Charles were still alive, though I knew at least Charles was implicated in our escape.

We sat down in front of the low row of shrubs, our shoulders pressed together, trying to keep warm. Clara let out a long, slow breath. Her knees were scraped and bloody from where they'd bit into the cliff's face as she'd tried to hold on to Helene. “What if Helene's leg gets infected?” Clara asked. “In the City there'd be ways to treat her, but out here . . . she could die. What are we supposed to tell the girls then?”

Beatrice rubbed her forehead. “People did survive these things in the years after the plague. She's not the first person to break an arm or leg in the wild. We have to wait and see.”

“You should send a message out on the radio,” Clara said. The moon cast strange shadows on her face. Her skin looked so pale, almost gray, in the light. “We should see if the rebels could send help.”

“Only as a last resort,” I said. “It's too dangerous. Moss told me about a stop on the map—it's not more than a day's walk. Some of the rebels used it on their way to the City, but it's abandoned now. We could camp there for a few days to rest.”

Beatrice nodded. “Stovepipe Wells? The place you mentioned?”

“Exactly,” I said. “We just need to get there.”

“We'll have to carry her the whole way,” Clara said. “If she survives.”

“She will,” Beatrice said. “I hope she will.”

Behind us, there was a cracking sound, the dry shrubs breaking under new weight. I turned, noticing the figure standing in the bushes. It took me a moment, studying her features in the moonlight, to realize who it was. “What are you doing up?” I asked.

“What do you mean, you
hope
she will survive?” Bette asked. “You think she might die?”

Beatrice stood quickly, going to Bette's side. “No, she's not going to die,” she said. She held Bette close, trying to calm her. “Don't worry. We're taking care of her. We've set her leg; we're doing everything we can.”

Bette didn't move, even as Beatrice pulled her closer, cradling her head with her hand. She didn't take her eyes off me. In her gaze was a quiet accusation.

“So we'll go to Stovepipe Wells tomorrow morning,” Clara said, stepping past me. “As we agreed.” They started back to the dark campsite, moving across the valley floor without me.

Bette was the only one who turned back, our eyes meeting. “She's going to be fine,” I said. But they were already a few yards ahead, moving farther into the darkness, beyond where my voice could reach.

“I GOT IT!” SARAH YELLED AS SHE CROSSED THE DOORWAY INTO
the motel lobby. “I win!” Three girls darted after her, realizing they were a second too late. Sarah held the stuffed mouse in the air. It had only one eye, its red shorts missing a yellow button. The other girls tried to grab it out of her hands, but she stood on her tiptoes, holding it above their heads.

“They're in better spirits,” Beatrice whispered to me. She folded a few of the shirts we'd found, pressing them into a duffel bag. “I don't think I can take much more of that screaming, though.”

“Why don't you guys call it a night,” I said, glancing outside. The sky was already a deep reddish pink, the sun sinking low behind the mountains. “You've got about fifteen more minutes of light. You should get your beds set up.”

Sarah wandered down the hall, some of the girls following her, leaving to retrieve the blankets from the room where Helene slept. We'd been at the motel in Stovepipe Wells for four days, staying in the back section of the building that was set off from the road. The girls had made up a game that involved kidnapping, then hiding, a tattered stuffed animal they'd found. The first one to cross through the front door with it in her hand won. What exactly the prize was never was clear.

Clara stood behind the front desk, lining up a row of glass bottles on the counter. “There's ten in all,” she said. “Should we leave some in case more people pass through?”

I went beside her, peering into the cabinets below the front desk. We'd found the supplies the rebels had left. There were bottles of water, dried fruit and nuts, and some clean towels and bandages. It couldn't have been more than three or four weeks since they'd stopped here on their way to the City. There were little signs of them still. Fresh footprints in the dirt, trailing around to the back houses. Someone had left a comb by an old mirror in the hall, the plastic clear of all dust. There was a gold locket I'd discovered, tangled in one of the towels, a tiny piece of red paper folded inside,
my love to carry
scrawled across it. I kept it with me, the chain rattling in my pocket. I couldn't stop wondering whose it was, where they were now, if they had been killed inside the City.

“Two bottles and some of the dried food,” I said. “Now that the siege is over, I doubt anyone will use this stop. But better to leave some just in case.”

Sarah and a few of the girls came back into the lobby, dusty blankets in their arms. They threw some down on the old couches, the cushions sunken in. Lena, a quiet girl with scratched black glasses, lay down on one, pulling the blanket over her legs. She reached for the plastic container of wrinkled pamphlets labeled
HIKING IN DEATH VALLEY
and
WELCOME TO STOVEPIPE WELLS
. She always read them before she went to sleep.

Bette pulled Helene along in the sled, moving a little too quickly through the narrow hall. “Careful,” I called out. “Watch her leg.”

Bette glared at me. “I
am
watching,” she muttered. She helped Helene up, resting her bad leg on the piles of flattened pillows at the end of the couch. The swelling had gone down, but the skin was still bright pink. The bruising made everything look worse. Purple welts covered one shoulder. The side of her face was swollen, the gash on her forehead still raw.

“Do we have to leave tomorrow?” Helene asked, wincing as she lowered herself onto the couch.

Beatrice set down the folded clothes and pressed her palm to Helene's forehead. “You'll be thankful when we're finally in Califia. You'll have a real bed to sleep on and can rest all you like.” She turned to me and nodded, as she had each time she'd checked Helene. These last few days she'd done it every few hours, making sure she hadn't gotten a fever, that the leg hadn't swelled any further, that there were no signs of infection. We were hopeful that the worst had passed.