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Zero managed to laugh.
“I think I’ll get a pepperoni pizza and a large root beer,” said Stanley.
“I want an ice cream sundae,” said Zero. “With nuts and whipped cream, and bananas, and hot fudge.”
The sun was almost directly in front of them. The thumb pointed up toward it.
They came to the end of the lake. Huge white stone cliffs rose up before them.
Unlike the eastern shore, where Camp Green Lake was situated, the western shore did not slope down gradually. It was as if they had been walking across the flat bottom of a giant frying pan, and now they had to somehow climb up out of it.
They could no longer see Big Thumb. The cliffs blocked their view. The cliffs also blocked out the sun.
Zero groaned and clutched his stomach, but he remained standing. “I’m all right,” he whispered.
Stanley saw a rut, about a foot wide and six inches deep, running down a cliff. On either side of the rut were a series of ledges. “Let’s try there,” he said.
It looked to be about a fifty-foot climb, straight up.
Stanley still managed to hold the sack of jars in his left hand as he slowly moved up, from ledge to ledge, crisscrossing the rut. At times he had to use the side of the rut for support, in order to make it to the next ledge.
Zero stayed with him, somehow. His frail body trembled terribly as he climbed the stone wall.
Some of the ledges were wide enough to sit on. Others stuck out no more than a few inches—just enough for a quick step. Stanley stopped about two-thirds of the way up, on a fairly wide ledge. Zero came up alongside him.
“You okay?” Stanley asked.
Zero gave the thumbs-up sign. Stanley did the same.
He looked above him. He wasn’t sure how he’d get to the next ledge. It was three or four feet above his head, and he didn’t see any footholds. He was afraid to look down.
“Give me a boost,” said Zero. “Then I’ll pull you up with the shovel.”
“You won’t be able to pull me up,” said Stanley.
“Yes, I will,” said Zero.
Stanley cupped his hands together, and Zero stepped on his interwoven fingers. He was able to lift Zero high enough for him to grab the protruding slab of rock. Stanley continued to help him from below as Zero pulled himself onto the ledge.
While Zero was getting himself situated up there, Stanley attached the sack to the shovel by poking a hole through the burlap. He held it up to Zero.
Zero first grabbed hold of the sack, then the shovel. He set the shovel so that half the blade was supported by the rock slab. The wooden shaft hung down toward Stanley. “Okay,” he said.
Stanley doubted this would work. It was one thing for him to lift Zero, who was half his weight. It was quite another for Zero to try to pull him up.
Stanley grabbed hold of the shovel as he climbed up the rock wall, using the sides of the rut to help support him. His hands moved one over the other, up the shaft of the shovel.
He felt Zero’s hand clasp his wrist.
He let go of the shaft with one hand and grabbed the top of the ledge.
He gathered his strength and for a brief second seemed to defy gravity as he took a quick step up the wall and, with Zero’s help, pulled himself the rest of the way over the ledge.
He caught his breath. There was no way he could have done that a few months ago.
He noticed a large spot of blood on his wrist. It took him a moment to realize that it was Zero’s blood.
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