Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [0]
New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2004 by Aron Ralston
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0510-5
ISBN-10: 1-4165-0510-5
First Atria Books hardcover edition September 2004
ATRIABOOKS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Helene Berinsky
Text permissions
Credits for insert 1: pg. 1 courtesy of Elias Fallon; all photographs appearing on pg. 2 of insert, as well as pg. 3 (top and bottom right) are courtesy of the Ralston family; pg. 4 (bottom right) courtesy of Howard Huang.
Credits for insert 2: pg. 2 (top) courtesy of Kristi Moore; pg. 3 (top and bottom) courtesy of Greg Funk; pg. 7 (top) courtesy of Eric Meijer; pg. 7 (bottom) courtesy of Ron Elberger; pg. 8 courtesy of Tony Angelis.
All other photographs are courtesy of Aron Ralston.
Maps by Guenter Vollath
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Passion: That which I suffer, allow, endure, is done to me.
But once your crew has rowed you past the Sirens
a choice of routes is yours. I cannot advise you
which to take, or lead you through it all—
you must decide for yourself—
but I can tell you the ways of either course.
On one side beetling cliffs shoot up, and against them
pound the huge roaring breakers of blue-eyed Amphitrite—
the Clashing Rocks they’re called by all the blissful gods.
No ship of men has ever approached and slipped past—
always some disaster—big timbers and sailors’ corpses
whirled away by the waves and lethal blasts of fire.
On the other side loom two enormous crags…
One thrusts into the vaulting sky its jagged peak,
hooded round with a dark cloud that never leaves—
And halfway up that cliffside stands a fog-bound cavern
gaping west toward Erebus, realm of death and darkness—
past it, great Odysseus, you should steer your ship.
Scylla lurks inside it—the yelping horror,
yelping, no louder than any suckling pup
but she’s a grisly monster, I assure you.
She has twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down
and six long swaying necks, a hideous head on each,
each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset,
packed tight—and armed to the hilt with black death!
…with each of her six heads she snatches up
a man from the dark-prowed craft and whisks him off.
The other crag is lower—you will see, Odysseus—
Atop it a great fig-tree rises, shaggy with leaves;
beneath it awesome Charybdis gulps the dark water down.
Three times a day she vomits it up, three times she gulps it down,
that terror! Don’t be there when the whirlpool swallows down—
not even the earthquake god could save you from disaster.
No, hug Scylla’s crag—sail on past her—top speed!
Better by far to lose six men and keep your ship
than lose your entire crew.
—HOMER, The Odyssey
Prologue:
Circulating with the
Robbers Roosters
He was a better boatman than a cowboy, and a better cook than a train robber, but John Griffith, with the distinguishing mark of one blue eye and one brown eye, became a favored extra hand with the Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy’s gang, during his time in the Robbers Roost country of eastern Utah. Blue John, as his first employer called him, found entry into the area as a cook for the Harris cattle operation near Cisco, about sixty miles west of Grand Junction. After fewer than two years of legitimate work, the thirty-five-year-old fell in with Jim Wall, alias Silver Tip, and “Indian Ed” Newcomb on a cattle roundup for the 3B outfit in the spring of 1890. The 3B herd ranged the Roost under the infamous foreman Jack Moore, who proffered hospitality to the Wild Bunch during their frequent gatherings in that country bounded by the Dirty Devil, San Rafael, Green, and Colorado rivers. Sometimes dropping into the Roost for the entire winter, to set up a base camp prior to or after a raid, or to help with the 3B stock, the Bunch always had a welcome in the Roost.
Silver Tip, Blue John, and