1953
June 21st The
Andes, Peru
Father Suetonius Graft is no ordinary priest. At
present he has his left fist jammed vertically in a horizontal crack that splits
the granite face he is ascending. The open seam stretches upward for fifty feet
or more tapering to a sliver that is still two hundred feet away from the top
of the mountain. His toes nip a two inch ledge, left over from a stone slab
that split from the heaving rock millennia ago. His calves, like the rest of his
lean body are chiseled muscle, strain from holding the weight of his body on
his toes. He has to reach up with his right hand where he needs to find another
hand hold; there is nothing he can see.
He has to find a position where he can rest soon. He’s been climbing
since early morning, stopping only when he absolutely has to.
His fingers search for a grip as he brushes his hand
across the flat surface. A familiar feeling of unease touches him, as has since
he was a boy. He closes his eyes for several seconds and asks God where his
hand should go, he thanks Him for His guidance and if there is no hand-hold to
be had then he thanks Him for his life. It has never failed him yet, in the
thirty two years since he scrambled up a rock pile when he was five. He had
gotten stuck then. A boyish prayer to his guardian angel had given him
confidence to find a way back down. He feels the same aura of the presence that
rescued him then. He waves his hand over the hard face once more. This time his
fingers sweep away ancient debris from an indent in the rock with enough room
for four fingers up to the second knuckle. He latches onto the hold just as his
lower legs begin to quiver from exertion. He takes most of his weight on his
hands and arms relaxing his legs. Semi relief is instantaneous and he hangs
there motionless for five minutes, his sweaty forehead pressed against the warm
rock thanking the Lord for His benevolence, delivering him one more time.
As he clings to the sheer plate that rises over eight
hundred feet from the forest floor, the afternoon sun ricochets off his ebony
skin defining the taut musculature of his lengthy frame. His upper body is clad
in perspiration that makes thin rills down his back, his chest and under his
arms. He wears tattered climbing shorts that cover his dominant thighs to the
knees, all four pockets bulging. At his waist along his back, attached to a
thin leather belt is a pouch for climbing chalk, its half empty. His legs end
in thin wool socks, all tucked into custom, rubber-toed climbing shoes he
designed. No other gear is attached to him, no pitons, no hammer, no clips,
just his trust in God. Around his neck hangs a polished, golden, curb link
chain; a quarter inch wide, an eighth of an inch thick. Between his chest and
the stone is a 24kt gold cross that his father gave him when he had been
ordained. He never, ever takes it off.

With deft manoeuvres, risky placement and death
defying movement he is sitting on the ledge forty five minutes later. He can
stand upright in the cleft, it being wider with more head room than he
originally thought. He leans back against the rock that is refreshingly cool.
The lip of the outer slab covers him from the sun. He studies the grain of the
granite to his left, glancing overhead at the slab at his back, marvelling that
the two faces have identical marks and slices. It’s obvious they were one piece
sometime in the past. He is in awe at the massive force that would have pushed
these imposing mountains from the earth’s crust, cleaving solid rock as easily
as if it were wood. He crosses himself
in respect for God’s ways, impressed by His majesty, for His designs.
Leaning out over the rough ledge, his feet hang over
the edge with his back against the giant slab. The Peruvian landscape poses
before him. Mountains, many gigantic, many shorter and greener fill the horizon
in every direction. The smaller mountain he is perched upon, east of
Ollantaytambo, not many miles from Machu Picchu, is over a thousand feet from
the valley floor but was still over nine thousand feet above sea level. The rock
face he discovered was obscure, its access hindered by dense forest and
abundant ancient scree. He felt led to this particular dome and he relishes the
difficult work he's accomplished over the past month to finally get where he is
at this moment.
As his body rests his thoughts sweep back to the rocks
of his youth, the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, the Appalachians that
puncture the southeast states. He climbed for the sheer joy of contact with
the stone. It was at those moments when he felt closest to God, when he felt
his calling into the priesthood, when it opened his heart to possibilities, to
humbleness, to mightiness, to sharing and giving. When he clung perilously to a
sheer stone wall, there was never any fear of falling, only a pure sensation of
rising above the bounds imposed by gravity, above the bounds of our personal
limitations. To this very day, his best sermons are those that come from his
moments with the open sky, the silent crags, and the peace that comes from
times alone with God. His days off are always spent climbing or scouting for
climbs. He grins as he thinks how far away he has come from a dormant village
in Tennessee to the mountains of Peru.
Remembering the mountains back home reminds him of his
parents; both dead for the last three years, his father went first, at ninety-one
from cancer, his mother last, two years younger, same terrible disease. How he
had loved them. He was so proud of them, his father the first black fireman on
the town of Raven Hollow’s pay roll. He recalled the marvellous sight of his
‘Pap’ in his new black uniform, buttons and brass as polished as his pure black
skin.

With that last thought, he rises from his seat
thinking to scale the final stretch to the top, not too worried about time. He
still has five or six more hours of sunlight. He wants to check the rock
overhead looking for his best route up and backs into the crevice so he can see
past a jutting scrawny branch that is trying to grow in a narrow, dirt covered
ledge just above him. He didn’t look behind him because the inner slab looked
to be still part of the outer slab that formed the walls around him but when he
steps back he feels a weak breeze stirring behind him. Looking several feet in
where it tapers past the back wall he discovers an opening that rises the
thirty feet of the split but is only ten inches wide. He isn’t a caver, a
spelunker, so openings in the rock face hold little fascination for him. As he
attempts to ignore it, a shiver that prickles his skin tells him to take a
look.
He turns back to the opening, removing a small
flashlight from his pocket, clicking the button to expose a sharp, straight
beam. He pokes the ray of light into the darkness where it is swallowed twenty
feet away. The walls appear to open, moving apart from each other. The ceiling is
nowhere in sight, too high and too dark for the penetrating glare. The floor is
littered with rocks small and large, the
rocks with cobwebs and guano. The spooky emptiness is oddly inviting, like an
entity that calls to him. An aroma of cold dust and aged memories wafts through
the black passage. Suetonius tries to ignore his inner prodding, about to give
up on the cave when his sweeping light falls upon something familiar, the
skeleton of a human hand.

The bones are projecting from the base of a large
boulder the size of a small car, as if still reaching for freedom. The curled
finger bones are still intact, tarsal and meta-tarsal pointed to the roof.
Suetonius stares at the dreadful sight for many moments never having considered
that perhaps he’d not been the first to climb this face. His curiosity urges
him deeper. Behind the boulder, the skeleton continues, two sets of tibia and
fibula with feet attached complete the scene. The man or woman had been crushed
by a falling rock. Who it was would never be answered. What the person may have
possibly been doing here would soon become evident.
Father Graft sweeps his light in a pendulating arc
across the floor. The cavern is widening out, narrow cracks punctuate the floor
that he realizes is too smooth and level to be natural. He watches carefully
where he walks. Stones of every size
litter the passage, a reminder that the mountain’s insides are unstable,
probably not safe. Shortly the ingress takes a sudden turn to the right opening
into a wider grotto. He continues several feet where the point of his torch
touches upon something recognizable on the floor to his right, a crude hammer.
Its stone head is attached to a wooden handle, with curling strips of dried
leather binding the two. He holds the light directly on the hammer as he stares
at it for several moments; its obvious antiquity stuns him.
He finally lifts the light up the right wall close to
the hammer discovering a stone shelf that runs along the wall disappearing into
the pitch. It is about three feet high. The width varies with the roughness of
the stone it has been carved out of. It’s cluttered with many more hammers of
different sizes, with metal chisels clothed in a greenish patina. Odd
implements he doesn’t recognize and loose rock fill the space. The spider’s
traps are abundant. As he scans the collection he tries to estimate the
historical significance of what he has uncovered, he can see they are very old.
How long have the tools been here, are they Incan, Quechan, Chanca? Why here? What were they building? The
discovery provokes so many questions. He checks his watch seeing he has only
been in here for fifteen minutes; he decides he will look around another half
hour before leaving.
He directs the beam across the floor checking for
cracks when off to the far left a stone berm is revealed. The delicate and
precise crafting could only have been made by the most skilled of artisans. It is
obviously Incan stone work. He has been in Peru for almost three years; Inca
history has always fascinated him. He visited the ruins, listened to the lore
and devoted much reading time to their history. Their skills with chisels and
wet sand are impressive. As he thinks of
that, he detects this is the same work that he saw at Machu Picchu, it may be
over six hundred years old. He directs the sliver of light upward.
There is a stone pedestal on the berm that holds what
appears to be a tremendous slab almost like a wall rising into the bleakness
above, ten or twelve feet high, he estimates. He flashes his light briefly
inside the cavern ahead of himself to see berm, pedestal and slab continue
unbelievingly beyond the reach of his hand light. Returning the light back to
the wall in front of him as he slowly steps through the debris to move closer,
he lifts his light up four or five feet. The shock at what he sees forces him
back several steps. Even through the
dust of ages, through the fine patina that masks the surface, he can detect,
carved ornately into the façade of the flat wall, a huge warrior with battle
axe raised above his head. Fine detail riddles the fitted helmet upon his head.
The figure stands with a fractured shield, armor dressing his lower
limbs. One leg is raised with the
sandaled foot resting on a fallen foe. The body of the fighter’s enemy lies at
his feet, the severed head a foot away.
Father Graft wheezes into the gloom, "Oh my goodness, it’s a wall of war.”
Than you for visiting. This novel is 90% complete and will be ready for several beta readers in the near future. Anyone interested in being one? All comments welcome.
Please stop by next week to read an award winning short story by new contributor and distinguished author, Susan Toy.
Exciting first chapter. How in the world did you come up with such an unusual name for this MC?
ReplyDeleteThanks Lockie. I've always found roman names interesting and Suetonius seemed to fit....
ReplyDeleteFascinating story, Allan, which I found via your comment on my story in CommuterLit. I'd very much like to read the novel when it comes out since it seems built on an atavistic urge built into us all. Two minor "gotchas": Colombia and Smoky Mountains, both spelling glitches I'm sure you've caught. Nice writing!
ReplyDeleteThank you Walt for the comment and for pointing out the glitches
DeleteThe story is at the editor know and I'll double check the spelling. There will be info on the Scribbler when it is published.