When he reached the chosen site he took out his machete, looped its thong from his right wrist, and began climbing.

No classic ascent, this. None of the clean exhilaration of a challenge with goldline, harness, and carabiners against a bare rock face. The danger here would not be from a single fall—likely to be broken by shrubbery—but from jagged rocks, nasty thorns, poisonous snakes, and plain agony. Cerebration would not help so much as watchfulness and stoicism.

At first the hillside was steep. The foliage was thick enough to bar his path, but too poorly rooted to use for support. It came free of its roots in his hand, leaving him teetering on the crumbling soil. Finally he hit on the technique of tearing the bushes loose on purpose, opening a path to crawl through.

Soon, however, the slope flattened just enough to give the roots leverage. He found himself again and again forced to take detours… every one of which led him inevitably downward. Finally, he had to lay on his stomach to worm among the burrows and insect nests, shoving upward by brute force.

It was neither a time nor a place for finesse.

He hacked at roots with the short machete. The tough, springy bushes bled a gooey yellow sap that soon coated his hands with a cloying, binding stickiness. Perspiration ran in clammy streams along his sides, under the leather jacket. The sun burned down through a muggy haze. The smell of his own sweat mingled with the evil stench of the thorn shrubs.

Repetition soon became automatic. Reach, pull, hack, hack again, and again, until the plant tears free… keep flat, crawl through the gap, ignoring the jutting rocks and jagged root stumps… reach, pull, set your legs, hack… hack… hack…

Shortness of breath made him regret his lost youth.