Stealing Home (8 page)
Authors: Todd Hafer
“Nah, I’m okay and everything. Not hurt, only tired. This is just harder than I thought. Way harder. But if I slow down, I think I’ll be all right.”
“Good strategy. And you remembered to refill your water bottles at Barr Camp, right?”
Cody swallowed hard. “Uh—”
“Dude, if you’re not too far beyond the camp, you need to get back there, okay? You don’t want to be getting dehydrated at fourteen thousand feet!”
“B, you’re right that I should go back. Sorry. I just forgot.”
Cody clicked off the phone. “There’s no way I’m going back,” he muttered. “I can’t go backward at this point. Besides, I still have almost a bottle and a half left. And, who knows, maybe it’ll rain.”
As Cody climbed toward the A-frame lean-to that marked the ten-mile point of his journey, he encountered a series of switchbacks again. They seemed endless. Every time he crested one of them, hoping for a section of level ground, he rounded a corner, only to find another steep climb ahead, taunting him. The increasingly rocky terrain added to his woes. His feet ached from traversing the sharp, unforgiving rocks that jutted from the trail.
He guessed he was about a mile from the A-frame when, for the first time, he found himself gasping desperately for breath. Each time he inhaled, it was like taking a gulp from a canteen—and finding it held only a drop of water.
Finally he saw the A-frame, perched at the edge of Dismal Forest, so named because it was littered with bristlecone pine trees that had been struck by lightning.
Well,
Cody thought, trying to reassure himself,
at least I haven’t seen any lightning
.
I might suffocate, but at least I won’t get fried by a lightning bolt.
As he left Dismal Forest behind, he noticed light fog settling in around him.
No problem,
he told himself.
It’s windy. That’ll blow this stuff away.
However, just as he dribbled the last few drops of water bottle number two into his mouth, he found himself engulfed in fog so thick that he had to stop. It reminded him of when he took a hot shower after a workout and filled his small bathroom with so much steam that he had to feel his way to find the sink or the towel rack.
Cody narrowed his eyes, straining to see the trail ahead of him—and which way it would bend and climb next. Carefully he began walking in what he felt was the right direction. He knew he had failed when his right foot slid off some scree at the trail’s edge and he tumbled downward. He felt himself roll three times before a large boulder, which he smacked into with his left side, stopped him.
Hmmm,
he thought grimly.
And here I thought my bruised ribs were all healed. Apparently not. Or maybe it’s “not anymore.”
He rose slowly to his feet. He reached for his third water bottle—and felt cold panic slither up his spine when he discovered it wasn’t there. He would have swallowed hard, but he couldn’t muster up enough saliva.
“This is not good,” he admitted aloud, gasping.
I still have three miles to go,
he thought,
and I’m getting dehydrated. Man, I can’t believe it. Here I am, trying to carry Mom’s ashes to the top of the mountain, and I just might die in the process. That would be just too—What was the word? Ironic
. “Yeah,” he whispered hoarsely. “Ironic.”
Cody grabbed his cell phone. Holding it inches from his face, he struggled to discern the numbers. He wasn’t sure if it was due to fog or fatigue. He slid his fingers along the keypad, dialing by feel more than sight. Pressing the phone to his ear, he waited. He heard nothing.
Maybe I can’t get a signal,
he reasoned.
Or maybe I broke the phone when I fell. Oh well, at least there’s someone I can always connect with.
“God,” he pleaded, “I’m scared. I admit it. Please help me. I know I need to go up, but I’m not sure where up is.”
He waited for a few moments, leaning into the wind and staring hard at the milky fog in front of him. For a moment he caught a glimpse of a sliver of trail. Energized, he began walking again. Soon his eyes fell upon a trail marker.
Cool,
he thought.
The marker will point the direction of the trail and maybe tell me how far I have to go. Thank you, Lord!
He reached the marker and stopped, waiting for his eyes to focus. He heard himself laughing grimly as he read the brief tribute to G. Inestine Roberts, who had died near this spot during her fourteenth ascent of the peak.
Well,
he told himself,
that’s encouraging.
He prayed again,
Oh, Lord, and to think some people don’t believe you have a sense of humor! But if it’s all the same to you, I really don’t want to meet the same fate as G. Inestine Roberts, please.
Cody left the Roberts memorial behind him, his hope growing as he realized he could now at least make out small portions of trail ten to fifteen feet in front of him. He knew he was in the bleak, barren landscape above timberline now, and this brought him another encouraging realization—
At least if I wander off the trail, I won’t smack into any trees.
Cody tried to laugh but found he couldn’t. He inhaled deeply and suddenly found himself coughing.
Okay,
he thought, assessing the situation,
there is no discernible oxygen here. And I can barely see where I’m going. And I’m dehydrated and have nothing to drink.
The word
drink
flipped a switch in his mind, and he realized that he did have another energy bar. “At least that’s something,” he gasped. He began eagerly shucking the wrapper off the bar.
When he took his first bite of the bland rectangle, he learned something he hadn’t known before—you can chew food all you want, but you can’t swallow it when your mouth is as dry as dust.
As he stuffed the energy bar back into his waist pack, Cody chuckled to himself. “This will be a funny story, if I live to tell it,” he whispered.
Eventually the fog began to thin out a bit more, just enough for him to realize he had reached the sixteen Golden Stairs, a brutally steep series of thirty-two staircase-like switchbacks
. I don’t know why they call ’em sixteen Golden Stairs when there are thirty-two of them,
he thought.
Maybe people can’t do math very well up here in the thin air.
As he began his assault of the first section of “stairs,” Cody found that his quadriceps ached so badly that he had to concentrate on each step.
Left foot,
he would tell himself.
Okay, now right foot—
He figured he was halfway up the stairs when he saw faint light above him, straining to break through the clouds. He wasn’t sure if it was actually sunlight or just a hallucination caused by exhaustion, but he trudged toward it nonetheless.
Cody felt his legs buckle a bit and began to use the “four-wheel drive” technique that Drew had taught him. He placed a hand on each knee and pushed his way up the remaining Golden Steps. He could see
now that the light was no illusion. He was leaving the clouds behind him. Sunlight was ahead.
When he reached the long final slope leading to the summit, 14,110 feet above sea level, Cody began to run again, bounding up the trail with long, ground-gobbling strides.
He reached the top and sank immediately to his knees.
Lord,
he said,
I have to admit, I just hit my knees from exhaustion, not religious devotion, but since I’m down here—Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”
He stood and began to search for a place to scatter his mother’s ashes. A marmot peeked around a rock, chirping cheerfully at him. Cody smiled and reached into his waist pack. He found the energy bar and lobbed it to the animal. The marmot fell silent in mid-chirp and scurried away.
“The way those things taste, I’d be afraid, too, little fella,” Cody said, laughing. “But maybe you’ll get brave and try it later.”
He slowly turned his body 360 degrees. His eyes immediately found the right spot, to the right of the Summit House. He walked to it, alternately gazing in wonder at the cloud cover below and the bright sunlight above. Then he carefully opened the bag and poured its contents into his cupped right hand. He felt a gust of wind kick up behind him, and he held his
hand high, letting the breeze take the ashes. Then he tossed the remaining heavier “stones.”
“Goodbye, Mom,” he said quietly. “You made it to the top. Finally. And I want you to know that to me, you’ll always be the best mom a kid could have. Thank you for everything you did for me. And that’s a big ‘everything.’”
Beth had insisted on slipping Cody a twenty-dollar bill just before he left the house. He thought it a stupid idea at the time, but now, sipping on a bottle of sports drink he purchased in the Summit House, the restaurant and tourist gift shop atop the Peak, he was grateful for her foresight. One of the paramedics stationed at the top of the mountain told Cody that the Pikes Peak Highway was closed due to the fog, so Blake wouldn’t be able to pick him up.
“You can either ride the cog railway down the mountain, or I’ll take you when I get off work, but that’s a few hours from now,” the paramedic told him.
Cody began sorting the change from the twenty dollars. “Well,” he said slowly, “can I get a one-way cog ticket and buy a few famous Summit House donuts for a friend of mine for eighteen bucks?”
The paramedic smiled. “Yeah. You should be able to cover that.”
“Good,” Cody said, smiling back. “This friend, I’m sure he’s disappointed right now. I think the main reason he offered to come along with the guy who was supposed to pick me up was to taste one of the legendary high-altitude donuts.”
U
nder normal circumstances, the robust hugs Cody received from Blake and Pork Chop at the cog railway station would have made him feel awkward. But he found he was too tired to care.
“So,” Blake said as Cody slid into the backseat of his car and lay down, “were you scared when you got lost in the clouds up there?”
Cody raised his head. “Uh,
yeah!”
“Well,” Blake said, “we were praying for you.”
“We?”
Pork Chop bit into his third donut, pausing a moment to savor it. “Yeah, we. I’m allowed to pray,
dawg. Just because I’m not a church boy like you doesn’t mean I don’t pray. My people, you know, we’re very spiritual.”
Cody let his head fall back onto the seat. “Some more than others, I guess.”
“Anyway,” Pork Chop said, apparently ignoring the jab, “thanks for the donuts. Man, these boys are tasty.”
“Well, thank you for praying for me. It worked. Hey, Blake?”
“Yeah?”
“You know what was weird about today? When I couldn’t see where I was going, it was so hopeless. I felt like I would never see light again. But when I finally climbed above the clouds and left them below me, there was the sun, shining just like always.”
“Yeah,” Pork Chop said, puzzled, “the sun does tend to shine. That’s kinda what it does.”
Blake chuckled. “True enough, Chop, but I think Mr. Martin has a deeper point here.”
“Yeah,” Cody said. “I think I do, anyway. See, when I got to the top, I started thinking about how high I was up on the mountain when the fog first engulfed me. I think it was around ten thousand feet. And I didn’t get above it till near the summit, at above fourteen thousand. So I realized that at the
time when I first got lost in the fog, I was actually closer to the sun than I’ve ever been in life.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Blake said. “Maybe closer to the Son, S–O–N, too, eh?”
“Yeah,” Cody said quietly. He listened for a few moments to the hum of the tires on the highway. Then, surprised that Chop hadn’t weighed in on the subject, he asked, “Chop, you okay? I don’t even hear eating.”
“The donuts are all gone, my brother. I’m just thinking right now.”
“About what?”
“About what you said. About the sun being close, even when you felt like it was far away. That’s kinda cool.”
Cody smiled and closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “it
is
cool.”
As the miles rolled by underneath, Cody felt fatigue wrapping itself around him. He tried to resist it, thinking of how high school would start in two weeks, football camp in just one. But sleep was inevitable. There was time for only one more quick prayer.
Father God, I don’t know what’s ahead for me this year. I don’t know if I can compete in high school sports. I don’t know if I can pass high school classes. I don’t know how I’ll handle it if Dad and Beth
decide to get married or something. But whatever the future brings, help me to remember today. How you can’t get too discouraged by the clouds that surround you. How you gotta keep thinking of what’s shining above ’em. Amen.
Goal Line Stand
(Book 1)
Full-Court Press
(Book 2)
Second Wind
(Book 3)
Three-Point Play
(Book 5)
Cody’s Varsity Rush
(Book 6)
ZONDERKIDZ
Stealing Home
Copyright © 2004 by Todd Hafer
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