Jumper

  The fifth day I twisted my ankle while working around a ledge ten feet above the next lowest ground. The sharp pain distracted me and I lost my footing and fell. It wasn’t a great distance, I kept upright to land on my feet, but the thought of landing on my newly twisted ankle made me flinch away.

  Instead of landing painfully on the scree below, I found myself standing gingerly on one foot and leaning against a bookshelf in the Stanville Public Library.

  Wait a minute. Doesn’t that violate some sort of physical law? Conservation of momentum or something? I limped to Periodicals and sat on a couch. The library was open, but nobody seemed to notice that I was dressed for much warmer weather.

  It occurred to me that teleportation itself might violate a few physical laws. I rubbed my ankle and thought about it.

  When I jump from Florida to New York, why don’t I smash through a wall or something? After all, in Florida I’m closer to the equator and in Ohio, I’m closer to the pole. The earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour at the equator. I didn’t know what the difference in speed was between New York and Florida, but it had to be more than fifty miles an hour. Why doesn’t that difference in speed throw me east at fifty miles an hour when I appear in New York?

  For a second I was convinced that this was likely, that the next time I jumped, I would flatten against the nearest wall as if I’d been hit by a car.

  Relax—it hasn’t happened yet and you’ve been jumping for over a year now.

  Well, what is happening when I jump? Why wasn’t there a frigging instruction manual?

  If I didn’t smash into the floor after jumping away from Texas, it meant that my relative speed didn’t matter.

  I remembered a book I’d read discussing Einstein’s theory of relativity. I didn’t understand most of it, but one thing it talked about was frames of relative motion. Even though, in Texas, I was traveling east to west at a different speed than I would travel in Ohio, and was dropping at, oh, twenty-five feet per second, I must have matched up the two frames of reference when I jumped, so there was no difference in speed, no difference in angular momentum.

  The implications were interesting.

  I jumped back to Texas, to the ledge where I’d twisted my ankle. I hadn’t recorded it, but it was vivid in my memory.

  The ledge itself was on the face of a dead-end gully that I’d found myself in. I was trying to avoid backtracking and the ledge looked like it led up over the top. It was relatively cool in the gully, perhaps sixty-five degrees, because the shoulder of a hill still blocked the morning sun.

  I looked at the rock scree ten feet below me, and picked out a flat spot over to the side. I jumped to it and teetered, putting minimal weight on my twisted ankle. It was a distinctive enough jump site, with a strange cactus growing out of a crack in the rock. I jumped back to the ledge and turned, facing away from the rock.

  If this doesn’t work, this is going to hurt like hell.

  I stepped off the ledge and let myself drop. Before I hit, I jumped to the flat spot by the cactus. There was no jarring, no thud. My ankle throbbed, but that was from standing.

  I jumped back to the ledge and worked my way farther along it. After a minute, because the scree dropped sharply away, I was twenty feet off the terrain below. My heart beat fast and it was hard to catch my breath. I stepped off the ledge and the air streamed past me. In panic, I jumped to the flat spot by the cactus before I’d even dropped four feet.

  Dammit!

  I jumped back up on the ledge.

  “Now, Davy,” I said aloud. “You can drop a full second without hitting the ground below. You’ll only drop sixteen feet in the first second. Give it a fair test.”

  I stepped off and said quickly, “One, one-thousand.” The air was rushing past me, actually whistling in my ears when I flinched away from the rising ground and found myself crouched on the flat spot by the cactus. Again, it was like any other time I’d jumped. I felt no jarring or difference in speed.

  I jumped back to the ledge and did it again, less afraid, but still nervous. To step off the ledge went against all my instincts, but I was closer to the bottom, closer to hitting, when I jumped away. Again, no problem.

  My ankle throbbed though, from standing, so I recorded the site and jumped away.

  After lunch, for the first time in days, I didn’t feel like sleeping. Perhaps this was because I’d cut my morning hike short, but it also may have been because for the first time since the funeral, I could think about Mom without my mind shutting down. I realized I’d been in a fog for the last two weeks.

  I kicked around the cabin and remembered things. Things like my first trip to New York, with Mom, and her visit to me in New York, before going to Europe. I remembered the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I remembered dinner with Mom in the Village.

  I was able to do this, instead of shutting down, instead of hiding in the depths of slumber. I cried still and everything was still overlaid with the memory of the news footage, but I could think about her.

  I was able to remember the stupid sermon at her funeral without getting more than mildly angry.

  Thoughts of the funeral reminded me of Jane’s promise to send me a picture of Mom. I wondered if it was there, at the postbox in Manhattan.

  It was, a four-by-six photo in a stiff manila envelope. There was also a letter from Millie. I jumped back to Serenity Lodge, to my cabin, and set it on the table, unopened. My stomach churned and I felt like crying again.

  The picture of Mom I put in the corner of the dresser mirror, held by the frame. She looked out at me, smiling gently, the familiar face with the stranger’s nose.

  “She sounds wonderful.”

  That’s what Mom said when I told her about Millie.

  I opened the letter.

  Dear Davy,

  It’s taken me a long time to write this. I’m not sure what I feel and I’m not sure what I want. If you hadn’t “left” so suddenly, I probably would have said, “No. I don’t want you to go away.” When I’m upset, I’m just as likely as anybody to say or do hateful things. I guess I wanted to hurt you, but I don’t think I wanted you to go away.

  Now, though, I’m not sure. You frighten me, Davy, and you make me doubt my sanity. That’s hardly a healthy thing. Also, you make me doubt your sincerity. You ran away and I thought you’d at least call, but it’s been two weeks.

  I’m not sure I want you to visit, but I think I’d like you to write.

  Millie

  I was relieved and I was angry. I picked up a piece of the Lodge’s stationery and wrote:

  Millie,

  My mother’s name was Mary Niles. She was featured on the news recently. I’ve been busy.

  Davy

  I crammed it in an envelope and wrote her name on it, then jumped to Stillwater and slipped it under her door.

  The next day, after sleeping heavily, I jumped out to my last hiking spot, the ledge leading out of the gully. By my estimates, I was now some fifteen miles from Redford and almost through El Solitario’s foothills.

  I followed the ledge up, walking carefully. By the time I got out of the gully, my ankle was throbbing painfully, almost too painful to walk on. The sun was viciously bright and the nearest shade was thirty yards or so away. I started to limp that way, then said, “Fuck it.” I couldn’t see the shaded area well enough to jump to it, but I could see the halfway point. I jumped forty-five feet toward the shade. From there I could see a nice spot against a house-sized rock, complete with a smaller boulder to sit upon. I jumped again.

  “Why am I walking at all?” I slapped my forehead. If I could see it well enough, and I knew where it was in relation to myself, I could jump it.

  For the past several days, I’d used a particular landmark, a 4,600-foot mountain peak in the distance called La Mota, as my bearing. I studied the immediate landscape. My best route seemed to be around the ridge directly in front of me and then.... No, it wasn’t. My best route was directly up the ridge, up a
hillside more clifflike than sloping.

  I studied the ground between me and the face and then jumped across it in three little hops of ten yards each. Next I jumped diagonally up the face of the hill, choosing spots to my left and right about ten feet higher than my last one. It took me less than a minute to reach the top of a hill that would have taken half a day to climb with a good ankle.

  The view from the top was spectacular. It was the highest point I’d reached on my trek. I looked back toward Redford and could see the building’s clustered on the road. The Rio Grande, beyond it, was hidden, but the top of its canyon was clear.

  I turned around and looked toward El Solitario. It was intimidating. Even though there was less than ten miles to go, each piece of land between me and La Mota looked rougher and bleaker than the land before it.

  Pity I can’t see better. Maybe I could jump straight there.

  See better? I quickly recorded the top of the ridge and jumped to First Avenue and Fifty-sixth in Manhattan. Twenty minutes later I walked out of a store with a large binocular case hanging from my shoulder. It was raining and the temperature was below forty degrees. Shivering, I jumped back to Texas, to the top of the ridge fifteen miles from Redford.

  By lunchtime I was standing on the peak of La Mota, 4,600 feet above sea level. Around me El Solitario stretched like the surface of the moon.

  I went back and had lunch and not even the sight of Millie’s letter could depress me.

  Well, not much.

  There was a letter in the PO box two days later, sent overnight express.

  Dear Davy,

  My first thought was disbelief, when I found out who Mary Niles was. I didn’t see the news coverage—I had midterms—but when I checked at the library, they knew all about it, down to describing the news footage. How could fate be so cruel, so viciously vindictive? I’m sure that words are inadequate at this point. I wish that you’d come to me, though, when it happened. I don’t know how you do what you do, but it seems that you could do that.... It hurts that you didn’t come see me. I would have been glad to do what I could to help.

  Millie

  P.S. And if you can put notes under my door, why can’t you give me a closer address to write?

  Millie,

  Thanks, I think, for your sympathy.

  I did come to see you, right after it happened. Just in time to see you welcoming Mark into your apartment. The words, I believe, were, “Thanks for coming, Mark.”

  I guess I can’t blame you. After all, you’d told me to get lost, but, from what you’d previously said, I thought you’d have better taste.

  Davy

  P.S. Any answer can be put under the door of apartment 33. And no, I’m not there, but I’ll check it every day or so. If you actually want to keep up this discussion.

  I jumped to Stillwater and put my answer under the door. Even before I stood upright, I heard a hand on the doorknob. I jumped to my Stillwater apartment and shook.

  I felt guilty and afraid. I leaned against the wall by the front window and watched the approach to the apartment stairway.

  After a moment, Millie came around the corner, looking at the apartment numbers. I saw her stare up at my window, but the apartment was dark and the sun bright. She didn’t see me. She walked on and I heard her steps on the stairway. When she reached the top, she rang the doorbell.

  Oh, Millie...

  I walked, hesitantly, to the front door and paused there, my hand on the doorknob. The doorbell rang again and I flinched, pulled my hand away from the doorbell as if it were hot. I jumped away, to Texas, to my cabin at Serenity Lodge, flopped down on the bed, and buried my face in a pillow.

  Just when I thought that El Solitario was the perfect representation of my mood, bleak, blasted, ravaged, I stumbled on the first oasis.

  It was a box canyon with high sides, the upper end blocked by an ancient rockfall, the downhill end stopped at a cliffs edge, dropping eighty feet or so where ancient uplift sheared the rock. Near the blocked upper end of the canyon a spring of sweet water poured forth, and ran down the length of the canyon to a small pool with no visible outfall. The pool was shaded by mesquite bushes turned into trees and trimmed with ancient buffalo grass. There were mountain goats and jackrabbits and several kinds of birds.

  I spent an entire day sitting by the spring, reading, sleeping a little, and just listening to the water while I soaked my ankle.

  There were two other spots of green in the midst of the desert. One was larger, two miles of valley blessed with multiple streams. In that one I saw deer droppings, the tracks of a cougar, and discarded beer cans. I got angry about the beer cans. There weren’t a lot of them but it brought people into this haven and I didn’t like that. I spent a couple of hours gathering them and any other traces of humanity, jumping, occasionally, to a dumpster in Stanville to dump the trash.

  I may be a bank robber, but I’m no litterbug.

  The third oasis was a pit, formed by rockfall and perhaps subsurface water. The walls were very high and the sun didn’t shine to the bottom except at midday. The bottom was larger than the top and filled with water, except for a green island in the middle, perhaps sixty feet long by twenty wide. There were no beer cans there.

  The walls were perhaps a hundred feet high, and it took me several minutes to acquire enough information to jump to the island at the bottom. It was cool there, almost uncomfortable, and the walls, towering above, were intimidating. I wondered if it would be more comfortable in the summer, when all around was hellish hot.

  Davy,

  Didn’t you realize that the only thing I wanted from Mark was his version of the night you, well, removed him from the party? I know Mark is a sleaze. I’m not involved with him in any way, but when you vanished from in front of me, what was I to think?

  I don’t know if you’re even human. For all I knew you fly around in a flying saucer kidnapping humans left and right. If this sort of jumping to conclusions bothers you, think how much alternative explanation you offered.

  I know you’re hurt, and I guess you were hurt even more when you thought I was getting involved with Mark again. But, dammit, you are doing your share of lashing out, yourself.

  Millie

  P.S. I still don’t know if you are human, but I know that I care for you enough that you can hurt me. You did.

  Several pieces of paper, crumpled into small balls of paper, were strewn across the desk. Each of them had two or three lines written on them before I discarded them. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to write an answer that felt right. I swept them from the desk and into the trash can.

  I considered going to her, but I was afraid to. I didn’t really want to see anybody.

  Earlier that day, before I picked up Millie’s letter, I’d found a ledge facing south, in the depths of El Solitario. I jumped there. It was more cave than ledge, a broad shelf heavily overhung with rock, two hundred feet up a sheer rock face. It was another fifty feet to the ridgeline above and only a technical climber or a teleport could reach it.

  It was thirty feet deep and relatively flat. I paced forward and stood at the edge, dry puffs of wind pulling at my shirt. I was feeling careless, apathetic. The drop would be more than enough to kill me, if I reached the bottom. The sun was almost down and there were clouds made flame and billowing orange by its rays. The rock shelf projecting above stuck out even farther than the ledge, solid, palpably heavy.

  It was like the mouth of a giant, mouth poised open, massive molars ready to drop, to chew the life from me.

  I liked it.

  That night I started moving materials from a lumberyard in Yonkers, the one I’d dealt with before. There was a guard but he stayed near the front door and depended on the alarms. I only took mortar and some concrete dyes plus a mixing trough, trowels, and some chalk lines to mark out the walls.

  The do-it-yourself book on masonry told me that working with natural stone was hard, and that projects that used ordinary brick were best to start with. I i
gnored that part and read the rest of the book carefully.

  It was cold on the ledge at night, and I settled for leaving the materials stacked at the back, out of sight of anyone but passing buzzards.

  Back at the cabin, I stared again at Millie’s letter. I was still confused, still angry, furiously angry, but I knew enough, now, to know that she wasn’t the cause. I penned a short note.

  Dear Millie,

  I’m sorry. There is too much pain right now for me to be rational. What you said about caring and being hurt makes sense. If I didn’t care for Mom, her death wouldn’t hurt. If I didn’t care for you, your rejection wouldn’t hurt.

  I won’t be writing until I can get a better handle on things, but I’ll be back. I hope that you find more good than bad in that fact. I can’t give up on you without giving up on myself.

  I love you,

  Davy

  There is an abandonment, an escape, that physical labor bestows.

  I took my rocks from the scree at the bottom of the cliff. This was rock of the same color and texture, broken off and tumbled down by weather and time.

  The mortar was hard to dye and I wasted a couple of batches before I got the proportions right. Part of the problem was that the color of the mortar was darker wet than after it had dried. I started the wall ten feet back from the edge, at the deeper end of the ledge, and I ran it forty feet long, about half the length of the ledge.

  By midafternoon my back was sore and my arms ached, but I had a wall knee-high along my ledge. I left a gap at the open end of the ledge for a doorway, but the other end butted up against the rock face. Where the mortar on the bottom rows had dried, it was hard, even from ten feet away, to tell where the cliff rock stopped and the wall began. From across the canyon, on the next ridgeline, it was impossible.