We would head for that sharp spire of rock, see what we saw as we got closer to it, and then make our decision.
But at least it gave us our first destination.
“Go down now?” Lelia asked.
I thought about making a dirty joke, but I hadn’t taught her the expression ‘going down’ yet, so I figured it would take too long to explain afterwards. There’s nothing unfunnier than having to explain why a joke is funny.
Instead I looked around at the plateau we were standing on. It was surrounded on three sides by mountains. The only exceptions were our northern-facing side, the top of the cliff overlooking the gorge –
And a narrow passageway directly across from us.
The passageway was a smaller gorge – a ravine, really – running perpendicular to the gorge I’d been living in with Lelia.
Because our view to the south was entirely blocked by the massive mountain behind us, going down into that ravine might be our only chance to see what lay to the south.
I doubted we would be coming back up here, so this was our one chance. Who the hell knew – maybe Shangri-La was down there. Fabled cities and shit.
I was still pretty nervous about the possibility of an avalanche occurring, but I convinced myself that if it hadn’t happened in all the time we’d been living in the cave, it probably wasn’t going to happen suddenly in the next several hours. Not if we didn’t go climbing up the mountain and disturbing the snow.
It was all a matter of probability. And the probability was fairly low.
But I still was fuckin’ nervous.
However, we were in one of the most hostile environments imaginable that still happened to be livable. We couldn’t not do things just because there was a small chance that something bad might happen – not when there might be valuable intel to be gained by going down that ravine.
If we kept quiet and didn’t take chances and an avalanche still happened, so be it.
When your number’s up, it’s up.
I was living proof of that fact.
If not living proof, then dead proof…
Or afterlife proof…
Whatever the fuck.
I wanted to know where the ravine led.
“Let’s go over there and see,” I said in a low voice as I pointed.
Lelia nodded, and we set off through the snow, plowing bodily through the three-foot-deep snowdrifts.
When we reached the ravine, the going got a lot easier. The narrowness of the passageway had shielded it from the heaviest of snowfalls, so there was a lot more exposed rock. Placing your next footstep wasn’t nearly as treacherous as trying to feel around blindly through three feet of snow.
“Keep going?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Okay.”
We kept walking down the ravine, which was littered with boulders. It wound its way down the mountain for nearly a mile until it finally emptied out into the woods.
We were probably just a mile and a half or so from our cave if we circled around and followed the curve of the mountain.
Son of a bitch… we hadn’t had to climb the cliff after all…
“Let’s go back to camp this way,” I suggested, pointing at the woods.
She frowned. “But… the rope and things…”
I was fairly sure she meant the rope and pitons I’d used to make anchors up the wall of the cliff. I’d also left the belaying rope back there, as well.
“I can get them when we get back to the cave,” I said as I pointed north. “We should be close.”
“What if wolves come?” she pointed out. “No spear, no arrows, no rope.”
She had a point, dammit. We had no weapons. I had climbed the cliff with the intent of going up there to take a look, not taking a sightseeing tour. And I hadn’t brought any extra supplies with us.
I would have preferred Lelia not go down the cliff, though, in case something went wrong. I didn’t think it would, but it was still 150 feet up. Any fall from too high would be fatal.
On the other hand, I was way better equipped to handle going down the cliff face than I would be if we encountered a bunch of wolves out in the forest.
So – what were the odds that we would encounter a pack?
I’d only seen them twice – my first night here, and when they had chased Lelia towards my cave. We’d heard them since, but never seen them again, not even when we were out in the forest hunting.
But every time we’d gone out, we’d had weapons – and lots of rope for scaling trees to get away from them.
Not to mention that I’m a big fucking believer in Murphy’s Law: ‘If anything can go wrong, it will.’ That was my Gospel truth.
I knew that the surest way in the world for us to encounter a ravenous pack of wolves was to go hiking through the woods with nothing to help us escape.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s safer to go back the way we came. We can walk back here later, once we have your spear and ropes.”
She smiled, happy that I’d listened to her.
We started back up the ravine. It took a good hour to hike back up it, going at a slow pace.
Once at the cliff, we went back down in the reverse direction we’d gone up: me climbing down first to the previous anchor point, then belaying Lelia down to me.
The only thing I did differently was that I created a new anchor at the edge of the cliff, so that she had something to let herself down with safely.
I would have to go back up by myself later to retrieve all the pitons and climbing equipment. I sure as hell didn’t want to leave them behind, especially when the nearest REI was probably a couple of billion light years (or dimensions) away.
But retrieval could be saved for later. The priority right now was getting her
