= Angels Landing
  by Tim Wohlforth

I watched Andrew out of the corner of my eye. Both hands clutched the wheel of the minivan as if he was driving a sixteen wheeler. I was getting sick to my stomach, clutching the door handle as we swung around each curve of the serpentine road through the canyon at Zion National Park.

We'd hardly talked, except to argue, during the whole two weeks of our vacation. Andrew's goal was to visit every fucking national park in the West. This was number thirteen.

He'd spot some damned natural wonder, slam on the brakes, and grab for his camera. "Spectacular," he would say with that smug expression on his face. I ground my teeth. No, I was not about to comment on the scenery. I would not give him the satisfaction. That's all he ever said. Each view was more "spectacular" than the last. Not even a "pretty" or a "beautiful."

I had had it with views, with scenery, with Andrew. I longed for the vista out the rear window of my old apartment. Where I lived before I met the bastard. A vacant lot filled with old burned-out mattresses, rusting door-less refrigerators, and broken beer bottles. Not even Andrew could find that view "spectacular."

All Andrew ever wanted to do was take pictures. He stopped at every viewpoint. He'd hop out of the car and snap away. I would have to get out and pose in front of a cactus, a red bluff, a waterfall, a mountain. It drove me mad. I was no longer a person. Just blotches of color on a piece of film.

He never wanted to walk more than a few feet. Just enough for the photo op. However, this morning he told me he wanted to hike up to Angels Landing, a treacherous 1,200 foot rise.

"Spectacular view," he said, with a very peculiar look on his face, even for him. Somewhere between a leer and a threat. Hiking? So unlike him. He had his reasons. He never did anything without a purpose.

It will happen today. It will happen on Angels Landing.

Andrew snuck a look at me from behind his little round glasses with gold metal frames. My stomach tightened. Made me feel like a specimen under a glass.

When we first met, his small face, covered with a week's growth of brown beard speckled with gray, short-cropped hair, lanky build, seemed sexy to me. Everything about him shouted "The Intellectual." That had appeal. I used to love to listen to him spout off about Derrida, Foucault, and the lot. He, the English Literature professor. Me, the sexy student sitting in the first row.

I wore my tightest sweater to class and stared at him with my blue eyes wide open. He asked me out. We went to bed together. Not bad sex at first. Rough, biting, scratching. He loved it. Then we got married. Andrew stopped talking to me. Rarely screwed me. But when he did, it was more violent than ever. To put me in my place. To humiliate me.

He thinks I'm beneath him. I've become his sex object. His trophy wife to show off to colleagues. I could have lived with that. But now I've morphed into a photo op. I'm no longer even flesh and blood.

* * *

As we started our climb, I clung to the wall of rock on the side of the narrow trail, forcing Andrew to walk towards the edge.

"Spectacular, Ann," Andrew shouted as we reached our first viewpoint.

I purposely looked at the wall. He insisted on a goddamn pose. I pasted on my phoniest smile. Then glared back at him. Not one shot, but ten, twenty. The bastard was determined to single-handedly buoy Kodak's bottom line. He was having a ball.

We rose higher and higher. I made the mistake of looking down into the valley. Way below I could see tiny toy cars making their way along a serpentine strip of black. A scattering of toothpick-sized cottonwoods lined the Virgin River at the edge of the road. Rich red soil and rock dotted with the occasional green cactus covered the steep edges of the canyon. Enough to make you puke. I'm not good at heights. Or the outdoors.

It will happen soon.

* * *

I was almost 1,000 feet up. I saw a viewpoint ahead and slowed down. Andrew pushed past me, forcing me away from the wall. A hard-edged, determined look filled his face. It was as if, for the first time, his academic mask failed him. I could see deep inside him. Icy whirling water. A vortex with no bottom.

I moved back toward the wall. Andrew grabbed my arm and yanked me to the edge. His fingers dug into my flesh. He pulled me around to face him.

Out came the camera. He gestured for me to move back. Toward the chasm. I froze. I was too close already. Andrew reached out. Without looking up from his camera, he shoved me. He focused the camera. Then he shook his head. He gestured for me to step further back. Did he think I had wings? That I could fly? Me, an angel? What a laugh.

I felt the wind from the canyon and stole a glance behind me. I gasped. Nothing for 1,000 feet straight down.

Will it happen here?

"Further back," Andrew shouted. "Spectacular."

I teetered on the edge. Gravel slipped from under my feet. I began to slide. I reached towards Andrew. He pulled away. I screamed as I began to lose my footing.

Andrew didn't move a muscle. Instead he snapped a picture. Voices. German. A young couple emerged from around the bend. They rushed to me, steadied me. Both sported close-cut blond hair, crotch-pinching khaki shorts, backpacks, shades, and damned cameras.

"Spectacular shot," he shouted to the Germans. He hit them with his well-oiled smile and muttered something in their language. What had he told them? How did he explain the close call I had had? The phony S.O.B.

I hurried on. Andrew scrambled after me, panting, clutching his camera as if it was a lover.

I turned a corner and stumbled out onto a flat wooden platform, surrounded by an iron railing. Finally the top of the damned mountain. Andrew staggered toward me and dropped to the ground, out of breath. Some athlete. I stood for a few moments, letting the breeze blow in my face. Hubby panted beside me. Like he used to after our more athletic nights in bed together.

"Look, Ann," Andrew said, once he had regained his breath. "The trail goes on."

Damned if he wasn't right. Revealed before us was the last half-mile of hike. Straight up the side of a precipice. No path. Indentations chiseled out of almost vertical rock. A chain on one side to cling to. Warning signs.

It will happen here.

The German couple was halfway up the first rise. Andrew shoved me ahead of him. I climbed the sheer cliff, gripping the chain tightly. I moved fast, trying to keep distance between us. The trick, I soon learned, was not to look down. Just cling to the chain, stare straight ahead, resist swaying in the strong wind, feel with your free foot for the next notch.

I sensed Andrew right behind me. But I couldn't look. The German couple stopped. They chickened out and started back down the cliff. I let them pass.

It will happen soon.

I heard hard breathing. I turned to find Andrew almost on top of me. Couldn't believe it. Holding onto the chain with one hand, he maneuvered the camera into position for a shot of me. The German couple had disappeared around the lower bend. Nobody was on the mountaintop but the two of us. Swinging from the chain, he snapped his shitty picture.

"Spect--" he started to shout.

It happens now.

I gave the bastard a powerful kick and sent him tumbling down the 1,200 feet to the bottom. He clutched his camera to his chest, terror tattooed on his face. He rolled over and over, like a skydiver without a parachute.

"Enjoy the view," I shouted after him.

I laughed hysterically. I would be no specimen, no goddamn image on film anymore. I was free of the snotty asshole. I was in charge of me. He was meat splayed over the rocks. Food for the turkey vultures. Andrew, true to form, died spectacularly.

That kick had been like an orgasm. I could still feel echoes of it, tingles in my groin. I lived more in that one moment than I had in my whole life.

I saw the top of a head. Sandy hair blew in the wind. A figure emerged. A park ranger. Young. I shifted my laughter seamlessly into crying. I had had plenty of experience at posing.

"I told him not to try to take a picture," I said.

He helped me down from the cliff. Very solicitous. His freckled face burst with innocence and concern. I gave him my name, my address. Then my telephone number.

"When this is all over, maybe I could call you?" he asked. "Just to see how you're doing."

"I'd like that," I answered. I looked up at him, my blue eyes wide open, top button loose on my khaki shirt. I lifted my top a bit too high and wiped a tear from my cheek with its tail.

He would be next.

TIM WOHLFORTH writes a Private Investigator series, featuring Jim Wolf. His books and short stories are written in a contemporary California noir style. His short stories have appeared in the anthology, Fedora: Private Eyes and Tough Guys, Over My Dead Body Magazine, and the Plots With Guns web site. He appeared on the short stories panel at last year's Bouchercon. He is the co-author of On The Edge: Political Cults Right and Left.

Copyrights (c) 2002 Tim Wohlforth

--//--