"Jeff Long - Angels of Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Long Jeff)

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For Diane




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Jeff Long - Angels of Light




"The existence of some terribly yawning abyss in the mountains... was frequently
described to us by crafty or superstitious Indians. Hence the greater our surprise
upon first beholding a fit abode for angels of light."

тАФLAFAYETTE BUNNELL, member of the Mariposa Battalion, on discovering Yosemite
Valley in 1851




ANGELS OF LIGHT




CHAPTER 1

Like that wild boy who flew too close to the sun, there was no way the climber was
not going to fall. The difference was that John's wings were melting under the moon,
and that for him ascent was not escape but captivity itself. It was too soon for him to

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Jeff Long - Angels of Light


admit desperation, though, and so John Coloradas worried his handsтАФtaped, raw,
and smoking with a fresh coating of gymnastic chalkтАФtighter and higher in the cold
granite crack, grimacing because there was no pain and there should have been.
There would be time enough once (he declined "if") he and Tucker hit flat land to
thaw his fingers and check for frostbite. For now he bit a lungful off the night breeze,
smelling pines so far below you couldn't hear them. Moonlight seared the wide, stark
acres of stone, starving his shadow, beckoning him higher with its quicksilver. He
could taste the chalk powder in the back of his throat, and from much farther away,