Breath hissed between her clenched teeth. She hauled herself upward by arm strength alone, not letting her boots touch and mark the cliff face. Supported by her left hand for a moment, she darted her right upward, and a merciful universe let her find another grip.
Once more she hauled herself upward, shoulder muscles cracking. She was high enough to use her boots now without leaving obvious marks, and she could start hunting for and using toeholds as well. She had rock climbed before, for pleasure, but there was nothing pleasant about this. Her hands were already on fire with the cold.
Come on, Randi! You've only got your eyes closed because the Utah sun is too bright. It's ninety degrees in Zion National Park and you're wearing shorts and a halter top and you can feel the climbing harness hugging you, keeping you safe. You've got just a few yards left to go and you're at the top and you can dangle your feet over the edge and laugh and drink a cold Diet Pepsi from the cooler.
Just a few yards more.
She found a horizontal fissure she could stand in for a moment, and she beat her fists against the rock to force feeling back into them. She couldn't let them go completely numb yet. She had to be able to touch her way up!
Voices! Reflecting lights. The search party! Limpetlike, Randi plastered herself against the rock face. They had reached the slide. They were on the ledge directly below her.
This would be it. Would they buy into her accidental death, or would they suspect the trick? Would a light beam play up the cliff face, followed by a stream of bullets or just one carefully aimed shot?
Her hands! Dear God! Her hands!
They were having an argument down there! Come on! Come on! Before I fall off and land on top of you! Who was going to win? The tired or the dedicated? I'm dead, damn it! Buried under an avalanche! Your red-haired bastard boss should be satisfied with that!
They were moving. They were going back. They were leaving. After an eternity they were leaving. And no one had looked up.
Randi had to continue the climb, and she had to pray there really was only a short distance to go. She had no feeling left beyond her wrists, and she was not going to get down from here without either falling to her death or losing her hands.
Just a few yards more.
Another hunt for a foothold. She didn't care anymore if it was solid or not. A levering of her trembling body up another foot or two, again...again...Reach up once more and find something to hook those numb claws over. Something...soft. Fresh banked snow, the trailing edge of the broken cornice. The top! A final push and she was burrowing wormlike through the cliff-edge drift. She was out. She'd made it!
Randi came up onto her knees. Fumbling dully, she pulled her nonexistent hands back up the sleeves of the overshirts. Crossing her arms over her chest inside the shirts, she thrust her hands into her armpits. Shivering and rocking in place, she waited in dread. Slowly, slowly, she began to feel pain, the terrible fiery pain of returning circulation. It felt wonderful! And she knelt there for a long time savoring the agony, tears streaming from her eyes.
But she could feel the tears freezing. As the deadness left her hands she became aware once more of the deeper overall cold saturating her. The wind was stronger, more piercing up here, the snow being driven harder before it.
That should mean something to her, but to Randi's failing mentality it didn't. The deadly, stealthy enemy hypothermia was on her now.
Move. She had to move. Tapping the last dregs of her energy reserves, she forced herself to her feet. With her arms still crossed under her shirts, she tried to bulldoze ahead through the snowbanks. Why was the wind so much worse here? She muzzily groped at the thought. Of course, she must be right on top of the ridge. There was nothing to windward to block it anymore.
But what did that mean? Why was that important?
Randi bulled forward another yard, another step, struggling through snow and blackness; then, suddenly there wasn't anything under her left boot. She heard the crump of another collapsing cornice, and the snow around her came alive. She was falling with it, sinking into it, drowning in it.
But why was that important?
Chapter Forty-two
The North Face, Wednesday Island.