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Hawsmoot

One day at the base of the cliffs high above the Wisconsin lake came a young German climber who carried no rope and said that no one could follow him unroped on a climb of the grand giraffe.

"Climber, who are good climb with ropes," he said. " But climbers who are great climb alone."

The German was eighteen and wore lederhosen and an orange climbing parka. While he talked his gray eyes sparkled and his lips parted in a smile over his square white teeth, but the smile was as distant as the lake below him and his eyes were as cold as the autumn sun which hung in the sky above him like a frozen amulet.

"I will be great," he said. "So I climb unroped where other climbers will not follow." And women with coiled ropes on their shoulders and belts hung with climbing iron. Most of them wore blue parkas or windbreakers with the insignias of climbing clubs sewn to the sleeves. In back of them was one older man who carried no rope or gear or insignia, and who rested on a walking cane. He looked like a trail walker of the Audubon variety.

When the German had finished speaking the young men and women did not answer him, but the older man did.

"I'll follow you," he said.

The young German's eyes softened. The Prussian lines of his jaw relaxed and a shock of blond hair fell over his forehead.

"Do you climb?" he asked.

The man, who was fifty-four, stepped out from the group of younger people. He was an ordinary looking man with gentle and undistinguished features like those of a regular army corporal or a custodian at a school for small children. He wore an army surplus shirt and pants and soft leather climbing shoes, and he used the cane when he walked because the pain in his back was terrible without it.

"I'll follow you," he said.

The German was watching him carefully. " You climb?" he repeated.

"Sure," the man said.

The German gestured at the cliff behind him. The sleeves of his parka were rolled back to the elbow and the muscles of his forearms bulged under the skin like rocks in a silk sock.

"The Giraffe?" he said.

"Sure," the man said.

The German kept smiling as he looked at the man, but his eyes were like gimlets. The man looked back calmly, whishing that the German would begin to climb for his back hurt and really he had climbed enough for one day. It was time to drive back to North Fork and make a meal of corn muffins and franks and then get under the heat lamp. But the German was arrogant and the young climbers, who were quite good, would not answer the challenge to climb alone because they were used to the safety of a rope. As for himself, he had climbed on these cliffs for thirty years; he had done the most difficult climbs, and never in all that time had he used a rope.

"If you climb the Giraffe," the German said smiling, "even as far as the overhang, even with a rope for safety, I'll buy you a supper tonight."

"Sure," the man said. The German was insulting and cocksure and for a moment the man became angry, until his own pain and weariness came over him. Then all he wanted to do was sit down.

"Ja," said the German. "Good. It's a good joke."

He walked to the start of the climb and looked up. The cliff rose nearly vertical a hundred and twenty feet and was quite smooth, broken now and then by small nubbins and ledges where it was possible to place usually no more than one half inch of the sole of a boot. The crack itself was big enough in some places to take a man's hand and in others to take his fist or toe. Twenty feet from the top a small overhanging roof jutted out from the cliff about four feet. To the people who had first made the climb the long crack resembled the neck of a giraffe and the overhang resembled its head.

"Ja," the German said again. "Es ist alles nur Spass."

He studied the beginning of the climb, then raised his hands above his head fitting them carefully into the crack. In that attitude he paused for a moment, looking like a brightly colored still from a ballet. "A good one," he said glancing over his shoulder. Then he raised his right foot lightly to a small hold and began to climb.

The man, who was Will Hawsmoot, found a rock and sat down resting his chin on his hands which he folded over his cane. You're right, he thought as he watched the German climb. A man can get to be known by climbing without a rope. But maybe I'm too old to climb that way anymore. I don't know. Maybe I am. The decision was one he would have to make soon. He knew that. Perhaps he should have made it before now.

The wind blew up from the lake in gusts, up the cliff where it ballooned the orange parka until the German looked huge and then the wind suddenly died and the air went out of the parka and the German looked small again, high on the cliff, sixty feet up, resting on small holds.

"He'll eat crow," one of the young climbers said.

The German yodelled, tilting his head up, a sharp Bavarian yodel that echoed down the cliffs.

    "He's so egotistical, isn't he, Mr. Hawsmoot," a young girl said.

Hawsmoot smiled. They were nice people these young climbers, and certainly meant well. But there were some things they didn't understand. There were some things that a man decided for himself; about the rope for instance. They had wanted him to use a rope when he climbed. They offered to climb with him every weekend so he would always be sure to have a partner, and when he kept refusing, or tried politely to change the subject, they had thought he was too poor to buy a rope and offered to buy one for him.

The German had begun to climb again moving slowly, high enough up now that a fall would kill him, moving slowly but easily the way a squirrel can climb the trunk of a big barked tree. You are good, Hawsmoot thought watching the young German climb. And they won't offer you a rope because you're young. And I'm old. I guess that's the real difference between you and me.

The young climbers came to the lake every spring as soon as the ice was off the cliffs. They climbed for a week or two weeks. Some of them climbed all summer until the leaves turned yellow and the air got so cold their hands turned numb on the rock. Not just young climbers either, but young and middle-aged and old. Some came back for a second season. Some came back year after year for four or five years. Then they would disappear and he would never see or hear of them again. In thirty years he had seen so many climbers come and go from the lake that all their faces seemed the same to him, and while he remembered certain climbs he had taught them to do—or had done while they watched gazing up at him like a half circle of interested possums—he could not remember anything particular about them except that most of them climbed well and that all of them used ropes; that each year there would be a few new ones among them, and a few of the old ones would have gone.

He would remember the German. Not the oranged parka, or the blond hair that the wind was whipping up there, or the powerful arms and legs that lifted his weight like jacks, but the fact that the German was making a difficult climb without the protection of a ground, so close under the overhang, standing on small holds a hundred feet above the ground, so close under the overhang that his head was bent sideways, his cheek pressed flat against the cold stone of the roof. "He'll see what it's all about now," one of the young climbers said. "The cheese will get more binding."

Some of the others laughed dryly but the sounds were meaningless to Hawsmoot who at this moment was bound body and soul to the climber who clung to the rock so high up that when he dislodged a small pebble, it took a long time to hit the ground, and when it did, it broke. The oranged parka luffed in the breeze which blew up suddenly and then stopped. The dry leaf rustle on the slope died. A silence came over the cliff. The German moved his left hand out to the edge of the overhang in such silence that Hawsmoot heard his ring scrape. Then he let his feet come away from the wall and hung by his hands four feet out from the cliff like a man on a high trapeze. The group at the base of the cliff watched. The German raised himself up slowly as if to gain the overhang, then lowered himself to arm's length again. The people watching caught their breath. Hawsmoot felt his heart begin to hammer. He had hung like that many times and knew exactly how it felt, like hanging onto life by the fingertips. The German raised himself, paused, then lowered himself again.

"Look at him show off," one of the young men said, "Crazy bastard."
The German hung motionless above them for a moment longer, then raised himself up again, but not stopping this time, following through by kicking a foot high up, moving with great precision, levering himself up quickly until he stood on top of the roof. Then he finished the last twenty feet and sat at the cliff edge smiling down at them.

When Hawsmoot got up and walked to the start of the climb, one of the girl climbers followed him. There were club and walked to the start the climb, one of the girl climbers followed him. There were club insignias sewn to the sleeves of her parka.

"Don't climb without a rope, Mr. Hawsmoot," she said. "You shouldn't."

She was a pretty girl, long dark braids like panther tails almost reached her waist. There were usually a few like her each summer, prettier than most. He tried to remember the one last summer, the one he had taught to climb the overhang on the Leaning Tower. But he couldn't remember. Maybe it had been the summer before, or any one of thirty summers.

"I guess I'll be all right," he said laying his cane carefully against the cliff as a man who would come back for it. "It's a good climb. I know it pretty well."

The massive cliff was in shadow now for it faced east and the sun had passed behind it. Know it well? Yes, he know it well. He knew how it looked in all seasons; how it was in sun and shade, in snow and ice. He knew where  was easy to climb and where it was hard, and where, so far at least, it had been impossible. He knew intimately the long crack that looked like the neck of a giraffe, knew the size of each nubbin of rock on either side, how long he could stand on it comfortably, which way it sloped and which foot must be placed on it to make the climb smoothly.

It did not seem surprising to him that he knew the rock so well. The cliffs from end to end measured less than a mile, and he had spent half a lifetime studying them.

The wind blew up in gusts and died and blew again. His back began to throb, the torn muscles drawing up in spasm against the cold. For a minute it seemed to him that he had been standing in front of the cliff since spring and that whole seasons had gone by until suddenly it was winter. Foolish, because it had only been a minute or so. He reached his hands over his head and placed them in the crack, a little lower than the German had, and as soon as a little of his weight was on his hands, his back stopped hurting.

"You shouldn't do it," the girl said. He was startled by her voice so close to him. "We can run up the trail to the top and lower a rope. It wouldn't take long."

"Don't worry about me," he said. "I want to do the climb."

He started. The rock felt good, a little cold which he liked because his hands stuck hard to the holds and did not perspire as they did sometimes in summer. The young climbers were talking below him. He heard them say that Hawsmoot was still one of the climbers in the country and that the German would eat crow, but soon the words and the sounds of their voices became meaningless and he was alone with his climb as he had been for so many years.

He tried to think just when it was he had begun.  It was after the old man had been killed in the brutal accident with the mower. It was after the farm went under which he remembered so vividly as the day when the auctioneer came out and sold all the furniture and took down the big sign on the barn that said Hawsmoot. It was either just before or just after his mother's death, right about the time he took the job in the cannery. He still worked at the cannery, worked on a belt culling the cans that got fouled in the labeling machine and came out with tattered labels or no labels at all. It was not what he had wanted to do with his life, not at all. But the farm had failed and no better job was open to him. There was no money, and he had to eat.

He reached down to brush some grit from a foothold and watched the pieces fall like drops of water far below him to the ground where the younger climbers gazed up at him. From the corner of his eye the forested slope of yellow-leafed trees fell steeply away to the mud shore of the lake. That was right. He remembered now. it was early spring of the year his mother had died when he had come out to the lake to swim and had seen the climbers working the cliffs. He had put on his boots and levis and climbed the steep slope to the cliffs and watched long enough to see how the climbers moved on the rock, then he went off to a cloistered section of the cliffs and began practicing on his own. He had always been shy.

For the next three years the careful study of the rock, the discovery of force and counterforce and the delicacy of balance, all the myriad techniques of moving up and down steep rock let him forget the loss of his family and home, and made it easier to work on the belt where he performed his job as a faceless, nameless man, lost like a pebble in the rock pile of the cannery.

The wind blew up so hard for a moment that his eyes watered. The overhang was not far above him now. The climb was going nicely and he felt good except that his hands ached a little, probably from the cold. He paused to rest, taking one hand from the rock and putting it in his pocket, letting the stiff tips of his fingers rest in the warm crease of his groin.

Five years went by. Sometime, he couldn't remember exactly when or how it happened, he had begun climbing on the big cliffs and gradually the other climbers began to recognize him and they gathered to watch as he climbed the most difficult climbs alone and unroped. Sure. It was a little after that that a short blond haired man with a stiff brown beard asked to climb with him.

" I'm Joe Meyers," he said. "You're Hawsmoot, aren't you?"

"You know all the best climbs I guess," Meyers said.

"Sure."

"I'd like to climb some of them with you."

"Sure," Hawsmoot said.

They climbed. Without a rope Hawsmoot led climb and Meyers followed. No matter how severe the pitch, Meyers followed with such grace that Hawsmoot knew this man was the best that had ever come to the lake.

At the end of the day when they stood at the base of the highest climb, Hawsmoot pointed up the rock and said, "The overhang is hard."

Meyers nodded. He stood on the ground watching Hawsmoot climb up the crack that looked like a lightning blot, and when he saw Hawsmoot swing out from the cliff hanging by his hands from the edge of the overhang, feet swinging free, Meyers smiled and shook his head slowly and said, " I'd want a rope for that one." And he did not follow.

It was as clear in Hawsmoot's mind as if it had happened yesterday, or today, as though it were happening again. Joe Meyers. The other climbers told Hawsmoot who he was. He was one of the five best climbers in the country, and he had hitchhiked from California to see Hawsmoot climb.

"How'd he know my name?" Hawsmoot had asked.

A girl had replied a little disdainfully, " Everybody knows you."

Others came. Peters came from Utah, Turner from Colorado, Mrs. Ann Brisket from Anchorage, Dietrich from Austria, Steffano from Italy; famous climbers on their way to make first ascents in all the mountain ranges of the hemisphere stopped at the lake to see Hawsmoot climb, the man they had heard of who did extreme climbs unroped.

    Himself, he had never been thirty miles beyond his own town. But these climbers brought the world to him and took him to the world.

He was about to smile thinking this when suddenly he saw something above him, blocking his way. He was startled and for the first time he grew tense on his holds. The hell. It was the overhang, that's all it was. But it seemed to loom over his head, dark and fatal looking. Until now he had hardly been conscious of the climb, his hands and feet working automatically. Now he must keep his mind on the rock. He inched up until his head was bent under the overhang and his cheek rested against the cold stone roof. No need to hurry here, there's time. Far down there he could see the young climbers gazing up like possums, and behind them the slope of trees dropped into the lake. It gave him the impression of being a thousand feet up, so high up in the heavens he wanted to let go, fall back into the soft oblivion of a cloud. He was very still, hugging the stone closely, his cheek pressed against it as if he were embracing a close friend he was leaving and knew he might not see again.

Then the left hand moved out to the edge of the roof and caught in the familiar hold, the rock gritty against his nails. Then the right hand went slowly out to meet the left; and instantly after that his feet pulled from the wall. Hawsmoot! Hawsmoot! Something was wrong. He kept hearing his name, someone was shouting his name, and his arms weren't working. The wind was blowing from the lake so cold it numbed his hands and his arms weren't pulling up. He dangled above the ground, confused, alarmed. He felt a great desire to drop off, to let go; he was weary, tired out. It had just been too much for one day, too damn much. He was exhausted. But he forced the arms to work until slowly by inches his head was level with his hands. He forced the arms again, forced them so hard he thought the muscles would burst through the skin, forced them until his wrists were level with his hands. Wobbling he kicked his shoe up, and missed the hold. He hung out over the emptiness, hung out over the abyss with every fiber of his body screaming to let go. But he kicked again and this time made it. He pressed his weight up on that leg and reached for higher hand holds. He was over.

On top of the overhang, he rested. It had not been close only a little clumsy missing the foothold the first time. Plenty of good young climbers had missed that hold and fallen from the overhang caught by their rope. You should climb with a rope, Mr. Hawsmoot. He had climbed it many times, a hundred times, at least that. He had first climbed it when he was thirty and the only difference now was that he climbed it more slowly and had missed the foothold the first time. Had they been calling his name? He guessed not. They were standing down there, so far now that they were hard to make out, dim white faces all the same. Mr. Hawsmoot, use a rope.

It was getting to be twilight and he felt saddened at the thought of having to walk the hiking trail back to the base of the cliff without a cane, the back sore in the damp evening air. He did not think about making the German eat crow, the German was all right. He was young and cocksure and good, and probably he had little money and was trying to make a name for himself in the States. The German was all right. What he thought about as he stood on the steep cliff high above the ground was that this year he would be fifty-five and sixty in five years; and that one day his hands would not hold. You should wear a rope, Mr. Hawsmoot. Yes, that would save him all right.

He looked at his hands on the knobby rock and thought of the lifetime he had spent building their power. He thought of Meyers coming from California to climb with him. He thought Dietrich, Steffano, Peters, and all the others who had come to see him climb. He thought of the faceless, nameless hundreds who had come to the lake to climb roped and had left forgotten. You should wear a rope. Maybe so. Maybe I'm too old to climb without one. Maybe it was close just now, I don't know. He began climbing again, the last twenty feet.

The German was waiting at the top of the cliff. When he came forward, his face seemed softer in the shadows. They stood facing each other in the stiff wind that blew up the cliffs causing the leaves to make sounds like pebbles down tin chutes. "You are a great climber," the German said. "If I had known..."

"I guess we better get down the trail before dark," the man said. He did not want the German to feel humble.

"Yes," the German said. "Surely. My name is Fuchs and yours..."
"Hawsmoot."

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