They continued the climb, bushwhacking through chaparral, including oak and, farther up, rock-hard manzanita stands that were nearly impenetrable. They went through the first granite spires back into a second ridge where smoke would be hidden from passersby below. What didn't require bushwhacking required scrambling. John was having trouble with that, coming up vertical faces without getting good purchase with his boots, coming down chutes of scree and falling, sending debris onto Sisson and Tom.

Near the top of their climb, Tom came out of a clump of hard, sharply broken manzanita right to an outcropping of granite, vertical for nearly eight feet. He was able to jump enough to get his hands onto the top of the outcropping, something he didn't like to do—putting his hands where he couldn't see. He pulled himself up with his arms, digging as best he could into the granite with his shoes.

They brought Sisson up together, John boosting him with a foothold of interlocked fingers while Tom reached down, took Sisson's wrist, and pulled him up. When they had Sisson on flat ground, Tom threw himself down on the ground to catch his breath.

John jumped for the top of the rock but couldn't get purchase against the rock face. “Tom,” he yelled. “Give me a hand up here.”

At the edge of the ridge Tom looked down at his brother and shook his head. “I told you not to wear your boots. Take them off.”

“I ain't going to. Reach down and haul me up like you done Sisson.”

“The hell. You're liable to pull me off the top here, and then I got to do it all over again. Take off the damned boots.”

“You can take his arm, and I'll hang on to you so you don't go over,” Sisson said.

“The hell with that. Let him take off his boots.”

“You'll throw my damned boots down into that canyon there. You think I don't know that? You think I don't know you?”

“I ain't going to throw your boots away. That's just stupid. You need to be able to walk, and boots are better than nothing. Throw them up here and get on up. We need to keep moving.”

“Oh, hell. You throw these boots away, and I'm going to damned kill you.” John tossed the boots up over the top of the outcropping one at a time. Then he took another jump, scrambling against the granite in his stocking feet and up onto the top with his brother and Sisson. When he got to the top, Tom was threading a length of rope through the pull straps of John's boots. “All right, then. I'm here. Give them back.”

“No,” Tom said. “You'll move faster without them. Not all that slipping and sliding you been doing.”

“No. Give me my damned boots. I ain't going to go walking around here in my stockings, getting them all full of rock and sand and crap. Give me my boots.”