Edge of Flight

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Copyright © 2012 Kate Jaimet

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Jaimet, Kate, 1969-
Edge of flight [electronic resource] / Kate Jaimet.

(Orca sports)

Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-4598-0161-5 (
PDF
).--
ISBN
978-1-4598-0162-2 (
EPUB
)

I. Title. II. Series: Orca sports (Online)
PS
8619.
A
368
E
33 2012      j
C
813'.6      
C
2012-902828-2

First published in the United States, 2012
Library of Congress Control Number:
2012938312

Summary:
Vanisha challenges her own fears and climbing abilities to help save her friend's life and discovers the strength to make some important personal choices about her future.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cover photography by
Dreamstime.com
Author photo by John Major

www.orcabook.com

15  14  13  12  •  4  3  2  1  

For my mum.

Contents

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

Glossary

Acknowledgments

chapter one

Edge of Flight. That's the climb that always defeats me. Seventy feet of hard sandstone up a perfect arête.

Tomorrow I'll be standing at the base of it, my harness weighed down with gear. I'm already running through the moves in my head. I'm already imagining Edge of Flight.

I raise my right foot to a tiny ledge just two inches off the ground, then reach for the first handhold—a hump of rock that fits in my right palm like a softball.

“Ready to climb,” I say over my shoulder to Rusty.

“On belay,” Rusty says. He tightens the rope in the belay device clipped to his harness.

I grip the arête with my left hand, then lean my weight to the right. I raise my left foot and place it on a tiny nub of rock so that I'm standing on my tiptoes on two square inches of stone. My fingers keep me balanced against the cliff face.

“Climbing,” I say.

“Climb on,” says Rusty.

It's all balance for the next forty feet up. Like most female climbers, balance is what I'm good at. The guys can crank the overhangs, but for me, climbing is a highwire act. I'm defying gravity on a vertical plane. I'm moving on an updraft of muscle tone and thin air.

On the ascent, I find the tiny chinks and cracks in the rock to lay my pro, otherwise known as protective gear. I clip the rope to my pro in case I fall. But I know I can make the first forty feet without falling. I've done it before.

Then I come to the crux.

That's where the microholds run out and there's nothing more to grab or stand on. Nothing to grip, to keep me moving up the flat, smooth rock face.

I perch on the ball of my right foot. There is no foothold for my left. So I hold it crossed behind my right for balance. My arms stretch wide on either side of the arête, gripping tiny nubs of rock. My cheek presses against the stone. I tilt my head to look up at a big pistol-hold grip far above. I know from watching Rusty climb that once I get to the pistol-hold grip, I'm home free. After that, it's all chunky handholds and footholds to the top. But how can I make it across the gap?

It's all technique, says Rusty.

Easy for him to say. He's six-foot-two and has arms like a monkey. I'm five-five and still working on my technique. But I've figured out a way to pull this climb.

I must let go with my right hand so that I'm touching the rock at only two points of contact
—
right foot, left hand. Then, I have to circle my right hand upward, while rising onto tiptoe with my right foot, like a dancer on pointe. But while I move—and this is the critical thing—I must hold my body perfectly balanced, like a ball poised on a juggler's fingertip. And when my outstretched hand reaches the very top of its arc, I must grab the pistol-hold grip and pull up. Pull up as hard as I can.

I know that's what I have to do. But every time I get to the crux, I lose my nerve. I'm standing forty feet above the ground, and my last piece of pro—a tiny metal nut wedged into a crack, with the rope clipped to it by a carabiner—is stuck in the rock five feet below me. If I lose my balance and come off the rock, I'll fall ten feet before the rope jerks me to a stop. But if the weight of my body rips the nut out of the crack, I'll go into an uncontrolled twenty-foot fall. A fall that will bring me dangerously close to hitting the ground.

So although I know I need to let go with my right hand, I can't do it. Instead, I always hesitate, chicken out, let myself slither downward in a controlled fall and bunny-hop into the safety of Rusty's belay. Then I shout for Rusty to lower me down.

But not this time, I tell myself.

This time, I will work up the nerve to pull Edge of Flight.

chapter two

“What can I git y'all?”

I look up to see the waitress standing beside our table. She's in her forties with dolled-up blond hair and thick black mascara. I haven't even looked at the menu. So I take a quick glance while Jeb and Rusty order chicken and grits.

“Could I get the soup of the day?” I say. “And the pecan pie, please.”

I try to pronounce it like they do down here—“p'kaahn,” not “pee-can.” But themoment I open my mouth, everyone in the diner knows I'm not from the South. The men at the other tables glance at us. They're not hostile, just fitting us into place in their minds.
Two high school boys from Fayetteville and their Yankee girlfriend
.

“Y'all goin' campin'?” the waitress asks.

“Climbin',” says Jeb. “Up at Sam's Throne.”

“Better be careful. It's huntin' season,” says the waitress. “Some a them good ol' boys'll shoot at anything that moves.”

She turns away from our table and crosses back to the lunch counter, flirting and joking with some of the good ol' boys. Then she disappears through the swinging door into the kitchen to place our order. This diner is the only place to eat in Mount Judea, two hours from Fayetteville and the last town on the map before driving into the woods of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains.

Judea—as in the land of the ancient Jewish tribes in the Bible. Only the locals here pronounce it Judy—as in Judge Judy, woman of snap decisions and strong-set opinions. There's no room here for weakness and doubt.

The waitress brings our order as a pickup truck pulls into the gravel parking space in front of the diner. The word spreads quickly that the hunter has bagged his game. Everyone goes outside to have a look at the dead bobcat lolling in the flatbed. I don't really want to stand there gawking at a dead bobcat. It's kind of creepy. But I don't want to be left alone in the diner either. So I follow Jeb and Rusty outside.

The men are all gathered around the pickup. The bobcat looks like a limp mound of black-and-tawny fur. Its head hangs off the end of the flatbed, and its tongue sticks out from between white, jagged teeth. I turn away, feeling sick.

In the opposite corner of the parking lot, a sheriff's deputy is talking to two bikers. They are big, beefy guys, who straddle their motorbikes and wear heavy boots, planted in the dirt. They lean forward aggressively on their handlebars. One has a leather jacket with a patch of the Grim Reaper on the back. The other has a muscle shirt on, with tattoos on his shoulders and down his arms. They both have black beards and long black hair in ponytails.

The cop finishes talking to them and strolls over to the men gathered around the dead bobcat in the pickup.

“Make sure you check his hunting license, deputy!” one of the bikers calls after him, jeering.

The deputy—a tall, lanky man—looks embarrassed. But he says, “Mind if I check your license, Bill?”

“Not a problem, Jim,” says the hunter.

The hunter opens the truck's passengerside door and reaches inside. When he comes back out, he's holding some paperwork in one hand and a rifle in the other. He gives the bikers a don't-mess-with-me look.

The deputy glances at the paperwork. “That's just fine, Bill. Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” says Bill. He stows the paperwork back in the truck. But not the rifle.

“I expect folks around here to follow the law,” the deputy declares, speaking to everyone and no one.

The biker in the Grim Reaper jacket laughs. “We'll sure enough follow you, deputy,” he says. “Y'all just lead, and we'll follow right along.”

The two bikers kick their motorcycles into gear and roar off. The wheels spray gravel on the men standing beside the truck. The hunter, Bill, raises his rifle in the air, like he's about to fire a warning shot. The deputy puts his hand on the muzzle. “That'll be enough,” he says.

I turn to Rusty. “Maybe we shouldn't climb this weekend.” My fingers itch for Edge of Flight. But I'm getting a bad feeling about camping out in the local woods.

“We're climbin',” Rusty says. He swings open the screen door and trots back inside the diner.

It's really only half a diner. The other half of the old wooden building is set up like a general store. It sells fishing tackle, guns, motor oil, canned food, chocolate bars, cigarettes and chewing tobacco. Rusty picks three neon-orange hunting caps up off a dusty shelf.

“I ain't wearin' one a them things,” says Jeb. “Y'all want me to look like a fool?”

“Better a live fool than a dead fool,” says Rusty. He sets one of the caps on his head and grins.

“Maybe it's better if we go back home,” I say. “My mom could use some help packing.”

“No way, Vanisha,” says Rusty. “This is your last chance to pull Edge of Flight before you leave.”

chapter three

The sun is setting by the time we finish eating and pile back into Jeb's truck. The sky gets darker as we leave town, cross the bridge over the river and drive up the dirt road into the forest. The road is narrow, bumpy and steep. Now and then we have to pull over, leaning halfway into the ditch, to make room for the headlights of another vehicle coming toward us. Finally, the truck grinds up a set of switchbacks and reaches the top of the ridge. Jeb parks on the side of the road.