thing he knew, he was looking straight
down from the top of a waterfall,
100, or maybe 200, feet high.
He looked to his right and saw a
20-foot-high wall of nearly vertical
rock. Behind him, the ravine he’d fol-
lowed down the mountain looked
steeper and longer than he’d thought it
was. To his left, the wall was slightly less
vertical, slightly more creviced, slightly
more covered in thick laurel roots.
He knew what he should do: go
back up the ravine. But if he scaled
that rock to the left, he could con-
tinue across and down the ridgeline.
He would make it to the Jeep in time.
Bill began the climb, carefully plot-
ting each step, grabbing the fattest
root, tugging it to test its sturdiness,
then heaving himself up to reach the
next solid perch, and the next one,
and so on. He tried not to look down.
He kept pushing upward until, fi-
nally, he hurled himself onto the shelf
atop the rock wall. Everything burned.
He needed a rest.
By the time Bill got going again, it
was nearing 2:45 p.m. Descending into
the valley, he came to a trail marked by
white blazes. He remembered that oneWhen thoughts of shortcuts come
to mind, Bill looks at his left hand and
remembers a little mishap he had in
Hawaii. He and Joanna had taken a
once-in-a-lifetime vacation for her
80th birthday. They needed an extra
bag, so he took a sidewalk to a nearby
store, then realized he could get back
to the hotel quicker if he jumped a
barrier and scrambled down an em-
bankment. But he tripped and broke
his wrist and hand. With the pins now
bolting the hand together, he was
lucky he could still use the thing at all.
But on this day, eyeing the line the
crow would fly, Bill couldn’t help him-
self. I’ll just be extra careful, he rea-
soned, and began cutting his own path.
Before his descent, Bill had picked
up a call from Joanna. “Who might
this be?” he’d answered.
“Sounds like you’re still alive,” she’d
said.
Bill figured he could drop into the
valley, hunt a bit, tackle the next ridge-
line, then maybe hunt a bit more. But
the farther he snaked down through
the forest, the thinner and deeper the
ridges became. Before long, the can-
yon narrowed to a rock chute. NextBill had strict
instructions from his
wife, Joanna, to be out of
the woods by 2 p.m.rd.com 101pr
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