Graphic the Valley Read Online Free PDF

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    In the early evening, I didn’t see Lucy by the water. I swam 50 yards out from the north shore. All the tourists gone, the water cold, and I turned down-lake, looking to the end, and the rise of the high-country peaks behind. Snow patches were still on the north slopes. I considered swimming all the way to the end of the lake.
    Then something brushed my back in the water and I spun around. It was Lucy. She laughed and dropped underneath. Grabbed one of my ankles and turned me.
    I rolled. Then came back toward her.
    We wrestled in the water. She was stronger than she looked. And meaner. She bent my pinkie finger back, bit my forearm hard enough to leave indents from her teeth.
    I pushed her down under the water and held her head. Shaking it. Then she jabbed me in the ribs with her thumb. She came to the surface spitting and laughing. Kicked me in the thigh and swam away like a frog.
    I swam after her.
    She turned and splashed me in the face. Said, “Where’d you go today?”
    “When?” I said.
    “This afternoon.”
    “Oh,” I said, “the Polly slabs.”
    “More climbing, huh?” She reached out and tugged on my wrist, pulling my face into the water.
    I came up and slapped the water to splash it into her eyes. Then I backstroked. “Yeah, more climbing, why?”
    “Well, I was asleep, so thanks for ditching me.” She faked one way then went the other.
    I dove toward her but missed. Came up and turned around. She was smiling, happy with her dodge.
    She splashed me again. I dove and missed her once more.
    “Missed me twice,” she said. She spit water straight up, then swam ten feet away. “Are you hungry?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Definitely.”
    She slapped the water one last time, and I turned to let it hit the back of my head.
    She said, “Let’s go eat then.”
    • • •
    More chili and cheese and chips for dinner. The only dinner food we had in the bear box. I liked that Lucy didn’t complain. We could’ve hitchhiked into the store and gotten different food if we’d wanted to. But she didn’t say anything about that.
    I filled both bowls and handed one to her.
    She bumped into me with her elbow, almost knocking the bowl out of my hand. “Oh sorry,” she smiled. “Real, real sorry about that.”
    I bumped her back.
    She said, “Are you going to climb again tonight?”
    I nodded.
    “Really? I was kidding,” she said.
    I took a gulp of water from the jug.
    “Same dome?” she said.
    “Probably.”
    “Don’t you get bored by it?”
    “No,” I said.
    “It doesn’t matter to you how many times you’ve done the same thing?”
    “No,” I said. “Not really.”
    “Huh. Okay.” She poured water into her bowl and began cleaning the inside with the tips of her fingers. “Do you like climbing more than talking?”
    I smiled. Poured a little water into my bowl and started to scrub. “Normally, yes,” I said.
    Lucy finished scrubbing her bowl with her fingers and dumped the cleaning water out onto the ground. She said, “I like that. I really do. Some guys just talk too much. Did you know that you were the only guy on the crew who didn’t talk to me the first day I worked up here?”
    “No,” I said. I rubbed the ends of my fingers around in the bottom of my bowl, finished cleaning, then drank the dishwater.
    Lucy shook her head. “That’s nasty,” she said. “Did you just drink your cleaning water?”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s sick. You should’ve dumped that out.”
    I said, “I always drink my dishwater.” I grabbed a few pine needles to scrub a spot off the bottom of my bowl. Then I shook out my bowl and wiped it with the inside of my T-shirt.
    Lucy pointed at the chili pot. She said, “You know, this would’ve been better with an apple for dessert. Or a carrot.”
    • • •
    We walked into the trees. The hill slanting. Then the granite. I scrambled to an easy line I knew, only rated a 5.5, but a good line, up one of the southern ramps leading to a higher, easy crack