Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [134]
Cynthia bloomed, too, and never lost her independent spirit. She was a painter first, and at her one-person show she sold everything. Then she became a writer, penning three well-reviewed novels. She also traveled around the world. To pay for it she did whatever she had to, like drive a delivery truck until she had the money she needed. Then she’d come back, pick up another job, then take another trip. To tell you the truth, I used to worry about her traveling alone, and once when she came home I asked, “What’s the worst thing that happened?
“I was on a tour and this guy, when he walked by me, patted me on the left cheek.”
I said, “As a good Christian you should have turned the other cheek.”
“Well, I did throw a stone at him,” she said.
“That’s also scriptural,” I said.
EVEN THOUGH I no longer ran, I made it my priority to stay in shape. Today I’m still in great condition. I fly planes, ski double-diamond runs, trail-bike, and climb, though I gave up skateboarding a few years ago, just to be on the safe side.
To this day, people ask me how, after all I’ve been through, I managed to do it. It’s a valid question. I say I eat right and exercise—both are necessary and true—but really, it’s all about attitude. The war, the raft, prison camp, drinking—they took ten years off my life. I simply made up my mind to get those ten years back.
For instance, in 1957 Olympic ski jumper Keith Wageman and I climbed 14,000-foot Gannett Glacier, the largest ice field in the North American continent, in the Wind River area of Wyoming, and almost got killed in the process.
We figured it would take all day long to climb, but a storm delayed us until noon, so we had to hurry, and go without much of our safety gear. Between the rope, the crampons, and the ice ax, we had to decide which we’d use the most. We picked the ice ax. Our clothes were khakis and army boots.
Unfortunately we got caught in an electrical storm and nearly froze, but when we got to the top after eight hours, the clouds lifted, and we could see the glory of the ice field and the Grand Tetons seventy miles away. It seemed like heaven. The beauty of the vistas far outweighed the struggle and the cold. There was only one problem: the sun was setting. We’d have to scramble down quickly by boot-skiing and glissading. Keith and I made it in thirty minutes, and shot footage on the way. At the bottom we found the mule and the gear we’d left behind, but by then it was dark and, worse, overcast. We struck a match, tied a rope to each other and to the mule, then tried to find our way back to Cynthia. We fell into streams and slipped on rocks—it was pretty terrible—until we saw a big blaze in the distance. Cynthia had started a bonfire, and when she saw us she came running up with tears in her eyes. Later she told me she’d thought we were dead. Two days later we climbed the glacier again, this time taking our skis. The return trip took only minutes. At the bottom, the ranger said he’d “never heard of anyone skiing Gannett before. You two are most likely the first to do so.”
LATER I PUT those same survival techniques to good use one summer at Squaw Valley, where for two weeks I’d been given free food and lodging plus use of the facilities for the Victory Boys Camp program.
Large sheets of ice still covered the north slopes, and one morning I taught the kids how to use an ice ax both for climbing and as a survival weapon when slipping and sliding on the floes. In the middle of the class I heard a man’s voice call frantically for help. I saw him up the mountain, outlined against the sky, waving his arms and shouting. “My girlfriend’s fallen over the cliff!” Turning the kids over to an assistant, I grabbed the ice ax, and headed for