Faces of Granite

Dawn lays a thin, cold light across Yosemite Valley. Smoke from cook-fires clings under the granite like a low ceiling, and the river’s sound is a constant rasp below the ledges. You move along a rope bridge stitched from climbing lines and seatbelts, boots thumping the planks in a steady rhythm that says *Runner coming through*. Far out on the rim, a signal mirror flashes—three quick bites of light, then one long one—the pattern for *column on the move*. At the Bridalveil intake, water thunders over the lip and turns the air to needles. The tunnel mouth behind the fall is a black wound rimed with wet lichen. A boy from the Tunnel Clans waits there, shirtless despite the chill, his ribs sharp under skin. He holds out a waxed bundle sealed with pine pitch. “Half Dome traders,” he says. “They want you to take it up the Spine. No stops. No copies.” Then, quieter: “Ridgewatch says the outside army’s scouts took the old fire road last night. They’re probing for a way down. Someone’s been leaving cairns.” You crack the pitch seal with a thumbnail. Inside: a strip of printed satellite map—old-world paper, precious—and a note in charcoal. *Two weeks. They’ll test the falls first. There’s…