Night fell over the Eleanor Gorge with the sudden, violent chill of alpine darkness.
The wind roaring down from the Sunder glaciers had doubled in fury, howling through the half-round granite arches like an organ played by an angry god. Clouds of cold mountain mist boiled up from the canyon floor. It swept across the stone tiers in pale, ghostly sheets that soaked clothing, slickened rock faces, and reduced clear sight to twenty paces.
Tomas Reed stood on the lower narrow high walkway of the eastern bridge pillar, checking the knots on his climbing harness.
The harness was built of four-inch oiled cowhide, heavy with copper rivets at the stress points and lined with soft sheep’s wool across the groin and thighs to prevent rope-chafing. From his right hip hung a coil of fifty feet of three-strand manila line, tested to two thousand pounds of dead weight. From his left hung two forged iron snap-hooks with spring-loaded brass gates. His pack frame was cinched tight against his back, covered with a greased oilcloth tarpaulin to keep his ledgers and instruments bone-dry.
Beside him, Nessa Vale adjusted the straps of her instrument pack. She wore a tight-fitting woolen cap pulled low over her ears, her brass sound horn slung diagonally across her torso like a carbine.
