Page 136 of Valley Girls
She exhaled a long rush of smoke and shook her head.
“Lucky girl. You’re all good.”
His shoulder touched hers and her skin thrummed alive. She wondered what Walker was doing. And a sudden sadness over the way that happened rushed over her. She shook her head and kept smoking. Walker was up here somewhere. Hopefully they’d survived the night.
“Well, you’re about halfway there. Going to keep going or are y’all heading down?” the man asked.
She startled and looked at him, confused. “Why would we go down now?”
He laughed and put the smoke to his mouth. “Damn straight. Good luck!” He scooted off the portaledge with smoke trailing from the cigarette still held in his mouth.
Stretching on the harness she leaned across Petra and Adeena, forgetting she was in her underwear until the breeze hit her ass. “Yo, Adeena,” she yelled. “Wake up.”
“Do you want lunch?” The man behind her asked. “We have extra MREs. I’ll cook for you.”
She glanced over her shoulder, holding her cigarette away from the nylon. “Uh ... sure? Yeah.”Why not?
He nodded and gave her a thumbs-up, still heading for his buddies.
She finished waking Adeena and Petra—and putting on pants. And by the time they were packed and ready to climb, he handed them each a packet of beef stew.
“What’re your names?” his friend asked as the three hungry girls poured the stew straight into their mouths.
“I’m Rilla,” she answered for everyone. “This is Adeena and Petra.”
“Oh, Petra. Nice.” He nodded. “Petra is beautiful.”
“The place,” one of his friends helped.
“Well, and the girl.” He gestured across.
“My parents visited during their honeymoon, hence ... ” she waved her hand. Petra looked ... busted. Her eyes were sunk deep in exhaustion and her hair was knotted on top of her head. Sunburn touched her cheeks. They all looked terrible, and Rilla laughed to realize she literally couldn’t care less. Smiling, she drained the rest of the stew.
“Thanks for this. It was actually really great.” Rilla stuffed the empty packet into their trash bag and looked up. “Did y’all mind if we jump on ahead of you?”
“No problem.”
It was a good thing they went first. With four men waiting for their turn behind, Rilla found she was motivated to move faster than her aching body would have wanted. They hauled ass up the pitch, moving gingerly over the loose blocks and to the left, where they were able to collapse on a ledge and drink water, and eat another meal.
“See ya at the summit!” The man waved as they pushed through to the next pitch.
Rilla bit into her salted avocado and waved back. The same wind that had lashed angrily at her now gently caressed her face, cooling her as the sun warmed her bones. She wondered again about Walker.
•
It was late afternoon when they reached Camp 4, putting them a whole day behind. It was full of people, including the men from earlier.
Rilla turned back to Adeena and suggested making up time and continuing into the night. “If we can get past the Great Roof tonight, we’ll be in okay shape,” she said. “I just want to get ... off this wall.”
Adeena agreed.
Tentatively, they turned to Petra.
“Absolutely not,” Petra said.
There was a moment of tension-filled silence.
“Okay, help me. What makes you want to bivy here? How are you feeling?” Adeena said, which was a lot nicer than the way Rilla would have done it.
