Dry Heat

Angel’s Landing

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by Malka Daskal

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                The three of us set out together that day. Two of us came back. It wasn’t expected, but then again, I can’t say it was exactly a surprise either. My brothers and I have a history and history has a way of trapping you in its grip, squeezing all your choices out of you one by one, until there are no choices left. At least that’s how it seems to me.

                It was Samuel’s idea to hike up to Angel’s Landing for his thirtieth birthday and when Samuel has an idea it usually comes to pass. He is the oldest. March seemed like the wrong month for hiking, the winds can be biting in high altitudes and the temperatures unpredictable and I told them all of this, but I am the youngest and they don’t pay me much mind. So it was decided, and we made our arrangements. It wasn’t too much hassle for me. I was working odd jobs down in Tucson for the winter, painting houses, fixing roofs, mowing and planting the lawns and gardens for the big resorts, anything to keep me outside and out of trouble. Samuel said he was between projects. He had been out in California for the last few years buying houses to fix them up and sell for a profit. When he first told me what he was doing, I thought it strange because I couldn’t picture Samuel with a hammer in his hand, but he smiled wide, one of his white teeth smiles, and explained that he didn’t do the actual fixing, he had a team to do all that, and then it made more sense. Adam, the middle brother, teaches in a high school in Summerlin, Nevada. English literature. We have that in common. I like to read too. His school had a one week spring break in March, so that was the week we chose.

                 The bus made good time on the long stretches of Arizona highway that cuts a straight path north, so I wait for my brothers on a bench outside the visitor’s center, first reading the trail guidebook and then watching people come up the walkway from the parking lot. It was a funny thing really. Families with young children holding hands, crowds of teenagers, couples and friends, all coming up the path in a steady stream talking, yelling, crying and then, somewhere at a distance of about twenty feet from where I am sitting, they look up and catch sight of the Zion mountains rearing up behind the visitor’s center, snowcapped peaks puncturing a sky so open and blue you could dive into it. Their faces would go still, raised up and caught in a moment of grace. Walk, chin tilt, silence. Walk, chin tilt, silence. And then it is my brother’s face shining in midmorning sunlight. He stops and stares for a few moments, exposing his long white neck as his chin lifts to point towards the mountains. He wears dark sunglasses that wrap around his head so I can’t see his eyes but when he lowers his chin, I know he sees me from the way his shoulders draw back and I get up from my bench and hurry towards him. He crosses the distance between us with long confidant strides and I remember how much I miss him.

                “Jonah. It’s good to see you.” He embraces me and I can feel the strength of his broad back under my hands.

                “You too. Samuel.”

                “And you were so worried about the weather. Look at this day. It couldn’t be any better.” He spreads his arms out wide as if he is holding up the sky.

                “Yes. I guess we got lucky.” I say.

                “Lucky,” Samuel laughs, his head tossed back. “when you’re with me, you don’t need luck. Where’s Adam? Making us wait for him like usual?”

                “I guess he’ll be here soon,” I answer.

                “Yah, I hope so. I’ve traveled a long way to climb up that mountain. Hey, what you got in your backpack? I’m starving.” I lower my backpack off my back and set it between my feet while I dig out a protein bar. I hand it to Samuel and he unwraps it and takes a bite.

                “This thing tastes like shit.” He takes another bite.

                “Happy Birthday, brother.” Adam stands directly behind us and Samuel turns to give him a hug and a hard slap on the back.

                “Jesus, you scared me,” Samuel says. “I see you’re just as ugly as ever. I hope those students of yours aren’t going to flunk out of school cause you’re not there to teach them about Charlotte’s Web and shit.”

                “Charlotte’s Web is a little kids story, you ignoramus. When was the last time you picked up a book?” Adam asks.

                “For Christ sake, are we going to stand here and talk about literature, or are we going to climb that mountain?”

                “Ya. Ya. Keep your pants on,” Adam says and turns towards me. “Hey Jonah. You look good man. How are things going?”

                “Pretty good.”

                “Ya. You still doing some farming?”

                “No. Not much in the way of crops this year so they didn’t need me. I’ve been doing roofs mostly,” I say.

                “Must be nice to be out in the sunshine all day.”

                “Ya. It’s good.” It’s funny that he says that because I had been thinking about how all of us ended up in warm climates. We grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula so maybe it some ways it was inevitable that we would want to escape from the cold. Things there could be brutal.

                “Ok. Ladies,” Samuel calls over his shoulder. He is already walking towards the shuttle stop. “Time to quite yapping and get going.”

                I swing my backpack back over my shoulders and follow my brothers down the concrete path.

                We take the sixth stop on the shuttle, exiting at the Grotto Trailhead. Samuel walks in front, Adam just behind, their arms moving in rhythm with their legs. I keep my eyes on Adam’s back, keeping pace with their steps as we pass other people on the trail, slow moving families and middle aged women with water bottles strapped to their waists. The path is a smooth red surface dotted by clumps of Utah daisies. Ahead, two young boys have picked up sticks from the path and are using them to battle each other while their mother tries to pull the twigs out of their grasps. One of the boys looks up at me as I pass and his lucent blue eyes lock with mine, a knowing grin on his face. It reminds me of how my brothers acted as kids. How they would play out behind the storage shed, fighting with fallen branches or abandoned gardening rakes, using them as weapons. Our father would come out and egg them on, watching them like it was for sport. He liked to pit them against each other. They would stand behind the barn in the summer sun, sweat pouring off their foreheads, chopping logs in a competition to see who could make the most firewood. Samuel would be the winner, more often than not which was good because he did not like to lose. It’s funny to think about now. It was such a long time ago, but I can still see them through the window, the flickering blue light from the TV projected against the darkened glass.  In the winter’s gloaming, I would watch their small figures shoveling a path through the snow to the hoophouse, two growing white hills beside them and the taller figure of my father standing with his tape measure ready to see whose pile was the largest.

My father said soft and simple had no place on a farm so he didn’t bother with me much. It was expected that I was my mother’s responsibility, but my brothers got a lot of his attention when they were younger. Dad died about five years back, just a few months after Samuel moved to California. Lung cancer got him and took him quickly and I suppose there’s mercy in that because he was not a man who could tolerate being sick. He’s gone now but I think he’s gone in the way God isn’t something you can see but he’s always there, hovering, if you know what I mean.

                   We walk across the bridge and Samuel stops to lean his forearms on the railing and looks down at the Virgin River a few feet below, its frothing surface twisting through the curves of the red riverbanks

                “Jesus, will you look at that,” Samuel says. His voice is unusually soft and it’s hard to hear him above the forceful rushing of the water.

According to the educational recordings that had been playing on the shuttle ride, the river is swollen from the melted winter snow this time of year. In the summer, the river will slow down, but tourists are warned not to be fooled. The river is at all times a powerful muscle that has worn away the sides of the mountain, carving out the deep canyon over millions of years. The shuttle had been hot and stuffy. I could hear everyone breathing around me and I get real uncomfortable being so close to other people so I listened closely to the recording because it was a distraction and because I like learning about things like that and it got me thinking about how things can wear away at you, wear away at your soul, slowly and surely until it’s been cut right in two.

                The three of us stand there for a while, three matching pairs of strong freckled forearms resting side by side, looking out at a view so grand, it makes you feel small. Samuel gives me a hard time because I forgot to pack a camera, but I know he’s just trying to get his bearings after being humbled by something bigger than himself. Then Samuel says it’s time to move on, and we follow him the rest of the way over the bridge.

                We keep up a good pace and with the sun shining directly overhead, I can feel myself begin to sweat under my T-shirt. When I look up, I see there is a small dark line on Adam’s shirt between his shoulder blades. The path is ascending quicker now and it is a relief when the trail passes into a canyon, the walls of Cathedral Mountain on one side and Angel’s Landing on the other providing shade. Here, the vegetation is greener and the red earth is punctuated by Fremont cottonwoods, Velvet Ash and the gnarled silhouettes of willow trees reaching skyward. I can tell we’re higher now because the shrubbery is dotted with thin patches of snow, like white icing on a birthday cake. We stop and Adam and I sit down on some boulders at the edge of the path, while Samuel stands on the other side of the trail.  I pull out water from my backpack and toss a bottle to Samuel who catches it, unscrews the top and tilts his head back, drinking it in one gulp. Adam takes a water bottle too and we take long sips while we sit on the rock. I notice there is no one else on the path but us; the families we saw when we started must have decided to follow other trails.

                “Remember when we used to go down to Traverse City in the summer time? Down by the lake?” Samuel leans back against the uneven red wall of the canyon, one leg bent at the knee, his foot placed flatly against the wall’s surface. 

                “You were so terrified of the water Jonah, remember? Always staying in the sand to build sandcastles. God, I loved those summers,” Samuel rocked gently against the wall. “Remember Adam when you and I built that raft out of driftwood and tried to sail around the world? We got about a mile out onto the lake before that thing capsized and dad had to come swim out to help us.”

                “You,” said Adam.

                “What?”

                “Help you.” Adam says.

                “Right, right.” Samuel has stopped rocking. “You were always the better swimmer. I could beat you at just about everything else, but in the water, you were like a fish.”

                “I wasn’t that good.” Adam mutters and I can feel the heat radiating from his body next to me.

                “What?”

                “Nothing.”

                “Those summers were the best. You know what dad told me once?” Samuel reaches his hand up to pluck the leaves off some maidenhair fern that is growing out of the rock wall. “He said that without those summers to look forward to, life was just one long shitty snowstorm. I mean, I was just a kid and that’s what he told me.” Samuel shook his head but his eyes were still covered by his dark sunglasses so I couldn’t see what he was really thinking.

                “All right ladies,” Samuel walks back across the path, crushing a patch of scarlet monkeyflower under his shoes, and hands me his empty water bottle. I put it in the backpack and Adam and I get up and follow Samuel through the gorge.

                The path leads to a series of twenty-one steep switchbacks climbing almost vertically up the side of the mountain. The edge of the path is a sharp drop into the valley below which is mottled with grey-white snow and the tops of green junipers.  I can hear Adam and Samuel breathing heavy now as they make their way up ahead of me. They are in good shape, but they have the kind of muscles you get from going to the gym a few times a week, broad chests and arms that take up too much space. I am smaller than them, it’s true, but daily manual labor has given me endurance that cannot be found at a gym. I could have passed them easily, but I stay where I am and take my time. When we reach the top, a plateau of layered sedimentary rock known as Scout’s Lookout, I can see Adam and Samuel’s chests are heaving through their thin t-shirts. I take out some more water and pass it around. At this height, the wind is blowing strong, whipping through the hair on my forehead and the air feels clean and empty like the silence after church bells stop ringing.   

                I stand leaning on a metal railing, looking down over the steep side of the cliff. The mountains around us seem to stretch to eternity. I don’t think their snow domed peaks look like white elephants though, they just look like mountains. The coat of snow has settled into the grooves created by the layers of sedimentation, thin lines ringing the mountain in ever so slightly different shades of rust. A million years of history laid open and bare.

                “Don’t stand so close to the edge, Jonah,” Samuel calls out.

                I take a step back.

                “It’s really something isn’t it.” Samuel says. “Angel’s Landing is only another half a mile but it’s the trickiest part. You guys don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

                “What the fuck do you think we’re here for?” Adam answers. He is standing in the center of the plateau his legs planted wide in a V, a perfect patch of blue sky between them.

                “All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m just saying, a lot of people stop at this point. It wouldn’t be anything to be ashamed of. I can come back and tell you what it was like if you want.” Samuel shrugs his shoulders, and takes another swig from his water bottle.

                “I forgot what a fucking asshole you are.” Adam says and turns to continue down the path, tiny pebbles rolling out of his way from beneath his sneakers.

                Samuel smiles wide, a white teeth smile, and calls out to me. “Come on Jonah. Looks like we’re headed out.”

                The trail quickly narrows, the path now about the width of our shoulders with steep drop offs on either side. It is like walking on a tightrope through the sky.  We have to walk single file. Adam is in the lead this time, with Samuel right behind him and me following a few steps behind. Samuel hadn’t been lying about the terrain. We have to go much more slowly, every footstep carefully calculated on the uneven and sometimes loose rocks under our feet. In many places the rocks are choked by slippery ice, their dull clay color peeking through. Where there are chain cables anchored into the rock, we walk clutching onto the cable, pulling ourselves along hand over hand up the steep incline. The cold steel of the cable in my sweaty palms seems like the only thing tethering me to earth, the only thing keeping me from floating away like a balloon into the wispy white clouds.  Where there aren’t cables, we walk with bent knees, lowering our center of gravity, our hands groping the surrounding boulders for support.  It is hard going, and none of us speak for a while and I wonder if my brothers are scared. I am used to heights and I have steady feet but these elevations could frighten a mountain goat. Once, Samuel’s foot slips in front of me, but he is holding on to the cable and after swearing loudly he keeps going. I have to keep my eyes down on my own feet, so I don’t know how Adam is doing up ahead.

                We keep going like this and then we are at the top. All around us are mountains and shadows of mountains and the sun shining fiercely on the blinding white snow so you have to turn your eyes away like you are looking at the face of God. Samuel lets out a long low whistle and walks over to stand next to Adam, throwing his arm around his shoulder.

                “Fucking beautiful, isn’t it,” he says.

                “Yah. It sure is,” Adam answers.

                “Listen, I’m sorry about giving you a hard time. You know, it’s just what we do.”

                “You’re thirty years old now,” Adam says, still staring into the swirling green treetops in the canyon below. “When are you going to grow up?”

                It takes a long time for Samuel to answer. His arm is still wrapped around Adam’s shoulder and from where I stand behind them, watching their matching silhouettes against the blue of the sky, it almost looks like Samuel is clinging to Adam for support.

                “Ya, I know,” Samuel says finally and it is in the same quiet voice he used on the bridge. “It’s just being an adult hasn’t been all that great, you know? Things were easier when we were kids, weren’t they? I mean real estate in California, Jesus, what was I thinking, you know? That state is like one giant sinkhole sucking my money down into the middle of it. Whatever. Fuck it.” Samuel takes off his sunglasses tucking them into the V of his T-shirt and wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

                “Jesus, Samuel. Why didn’t you say something?” Adam says.

                “Whatever. Forget I said anything, Ok? I’ll sort it all out. Let’s just get down this mountain in one piece.” Samuel walks back towards the steep path we had just climbed. Just when he gets to the head of the path, he turns around to face us.

                “Well, happy birthday to me, right?” he grins, white teeth flashing, and takes a small step backwards.

It’s funny how people talk about things slowing down when bad things happen. I never understood that, but that’s exactly how it was. Samuel’s foot landed on a slippery patch of ice and when he lost his balance, I thought I saw him reach behind him for the cable and then change his mind and pull his hand back. Adam would later say he saw a look of terror on Samuel’s face before he fell. I don’t know. To me it looked a lot like relief.  I guess sometimes we see the things we want to see. At least, that’s how it seems to me.