What I knew about the Scramble was this: It began as a steep ascent by way of stone steps, risers set into the earth that would take us a good third of the way up the cliff, hugging close to the waterfall and the spray of the river. After that, the steps faded, trailing off into a narrow, almost impossibly steep path that cut back and forth, winding upward in a precarious serpentine.
A break in the trail came roughly fifty feet from the top in the form of a stone plateau, one that was wide and flat, overlooking the falls and valley below. Technically it was possible to pitch a tent on this ledge and sleep among the clouds, though from what I’d read, dueling wind streams made this a risky choice. But ahead lay the roughest part—a slick pile of shifting rock and crumbling granite that could only be climbed using all four limbs. At the very top, we’d have to pull ourselves up onto the cliff before leaping the waterfall outlet to land on the far side. This leap was the section I’d studied the most and I knew full well how harrowing that last crossing would be. Not a long jump, by any stretch. Just one you’d never get a second chance to screw up.
I explained this all to Archie as we stood at the base of the Scramble. He stared up at the rocks and the waterfall and nodded like it was no big deal.
“So you’re okay with heights?” I asked him.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s always the possibility that you could fall to your death.”
“You’re an idiot,” he said. “That’s, like, the least of my concerns.”
Well, there were a lot of things I could’ve said in response to that. None of them nice. But I let it go, and we started off on the trail with me leading the way. The path was narrow from the start and Archie had to fall in line behind me, requiring him to walk with his face in my ass, which felt like a certain brand of justice. Spite, maybe, was the proper word.
Archie had problems right off the bat. His face did that red thing and his breathing grew labored. If I hadn’t seen him like that the day before, I would’ve guessed he was on the verge of altitude sickness—we were above 5,000 feet. Although he’d been fine on the earlier hike, he now struggled with each step. Pretty soon he was swearing.
“What’s wrong with you?” I finally asked.
“Asthma,” he gasped. “But I’m fine.”
“You have asthma? Don’t you have an inhaler or something for that?”
“No,” he said, wheezing more. Then a minute later: “Tell me where we’re going.”
I hesitated. There didn’t seem to be any reason not to tell him. I didn’t care about the money. I was only going to make sure he got up and back down the waterfall safely. “Okay, there’s a cave,” I said. “About a half mile past the lake. We’re going to walk around the perimeter of the lake, then follow a sign pointing toward the summit. When we turn north, there should be a tall cairn on our right. We’ll enter the woods there, and the cave’ll be a few hundred yards back and covered with rocks. I don’t know. It be might be hard to find, but that’s where Rose said to go.”
Archie nodded, seeming to take this all in. We soon came to the end of the switchback, reaching the part where we had to climb—scramble, really. Staring up at the talus slope and piles of loose rock, I took time to point out the easiest routes.
“You don’t want to choose the shortest way up,” I warned, echoing the words I’d read on countless climbing blogs and websites. “You want to pick the smartest. There aren’t any ropes and I sure as hell can’t help you if you get in trouble. You got it?”
“Yeah, sure. I got it.”
“Rest if you need to, Arch. I’m serious. You don’t look good. This isn’t a race.”
He sneered. “Jesus. Don’t be such a pussy. Let’s go already.”
We started climbing. It wasn’t long before I was gasping, too. Progress was slow, the sun rising to lick our backs as the wind whipped harder. I’d selected the most direct route toward the top, which meant crawling along the spine of a steep ridge, clambering up boulders and over fallen trees—those brittle victims of drought. Archie, on the other hand, veered east, his choices more deliberate and cautious than I would’ve predicted.
A narrow ledge jutted up from the ridge peak, and I pulled myself up and over to land on solid ground. I still had a ways to go, but I took a moment to breathe; the view from the ledge was vast and yawning, and Archie was nowhere close to reaching me. I peered over to watch him toil below, picking his way from marker to marker and having to rest every couple minutes in a way that felt more lazy than necessary.
I stayed there like that, leaning over the side on my hands and knees, until a rush of dizziness closed in on me—a sudden bout of vertigo that seemed to come from nowhere. Alarmed, I straightened up and crawled back, then tried pushing myself to standing, only to have my arms crumple under my weight. I collapsed forward onto my face. With a groan, I rolled to one side, scissoring my hips, and struggled to rise again. And again. But something was wrong. My limbs had gone all pins and needles, as if my body had fallen asleep without me. I lay there, like a dying horse, my right foot churning uselessly in the air.
I had no clue how long I was on the ground like that. Time spiraled into something bleak and unreliable, and I was vaguely aware I was experiencing the precursor to a migraine—aura, it’s called and mine takes many forms. I also knew the pain would consume me soon, battering me with suffering, bright and flashy. If I couldn’t get to my meds, my only hope for relief would be to die of a stroke or else find a way to roll myself over the edge of the cliff.
Heavy breathing signaled the arrival of Archie onto the ledge, which was followed by the sound of him gulping water from the bottle I’d brought with me. He hadn’t bothered bringing his own.
“What the hell are you doing, Gibby?” he asked when he was done.
Migraine, I wanted to say. With parasthesia. That was the word for the numbness and lack of coordination winding through my limbs. It was also the reason I couldn’t form words to tell him what it was I needed and why opening my eyes felt like trying to grasp objects that had fallen to the bottom of the deepest well. These were the worst of my migraines; the ones that came on fast, without warning, only to leave me ruined.
Archie stood over me. “You having a seizure or something?”
I still didn’t answer. I gaped like a fish.
He made his wheezing sound again. “Well, now, crap, Gibby. You don’t look too good. But like you told me, if you can’t climb, I sure as hell can’t do anything to help you. I’m real sorry about that. But I’m gonna keep going. Catch up with me if you can.”
I groaned again as he reached down to unzip the side pack I wore around my waist. A spark of hope flared within me as he rummaged around in there. Maybe he was getting my pills. But instead, he plucked out both sets of car keys, my compass, and the trail map, jamming all the items into his own backpack.
“You really can’t blame me,” he said before he left. “You’d do the same thing if you were me. I know damn well you would.”
34.