by Roland Smith
The shen bolts, bounding up the cliff face as if it’s running across flat ground. Mom must have found the pistol she dropped. That’s the only explanation . . . But it isn’t . . . Ethan floats down to the shelf, releasing his paraglider chute two feet from the ground. The chute billows into the river and is swept away . . .
ETHAN DIDN’T TAKE his rifle off of Émile as he walked over to him. He kicked Émile’s weapon away, then kneeled and felt for a pulse. It wasn’t until he was sure Émile was gone that he looked at me and grinned.
“Guess you and I are back among the living,” he said.
Mom and Alessia threw their arms around him. Zopa stood to the side, smiling.
“From above,” I said.
Zopa shrugged.
“How did you know?”
I expected another shrug, but he surprised me. “I saw him. He looked over the edge of the cliff with a pair of binoculars. The sun caught a lens. He watched us for a long time. At first I thought he might climb down after us. When he didn’t, I remembered his parachute.”
“Paraglider,” I said.
Zopa shrugged.
“How did you know it wasn’t Géant?”
“He would have shouted down to Émile.”
It all made perfect sense, and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I didn’t want it to make sense.
“He had to wait until we were on the ground,” Zopa continued. “He had to time his jump perfectly.” He looked up at the cliff. “And so did the shen.”
I looked up. The shen was two hundred feet up the cliff and moving quickly. I watched until the cat disappeared, then looked back at Zopa.
“What do you mean the shen timed its jump perfectly?”
“The jump to the shelf. A second earlier, or a second later, one of us would have noticed Ethan floating down and looked up. Émile might have followed our gaze and shot Ethan before Ethan could . . .” He nodded at Émile. “The shen was here to distract us. To hold our attention at the right moment.”
I grinned. That was more like it.
THE BOAT WAS FILLED with supplies, including life vests and two satellite phones, which didn’t work in the gorge. There were about four hours of daylight left.
“The water’s fast,” Mom said. “It won’t take us more than twenty minutes to get out of the gorge. But we won’t get out at all if I don’t take some time to familiarize myself with this boat.” She looked at Ethan. “Have you had any experience with a boat like this?”
“Just riding in one,” he answered. “Not piloting one. I’m more of a canoe and kayak guy.”
The boat had a huge engine in back and four oars.
“Give me a few minutes,” Mom said. “You might as well eat something or just chill out.”
We broke out the camp stoves and started water boiling. I sat down next to Ethan.
“I don’t understand why you came after us,” I said.
Ethan smiled. “I told you I wasn’t very good at following orders.”
“We didn’t have orders. We had a plan.”
“They figured out we’d flown the coop quicker than we thought. Halfway up the hill, I spotted the guard following us. He was moving quickly, but he was alone. That could only mean that Émile and Géant were going after you. I sent the film crew on ahead and told them to keep going, no matter what. I waited for the guard and ambushed him.”
I didn’t ask what he meant by “ambushed,” because I already had a pretty good idea. I noticed that after Ethan had checked Émile, he hadn’t once looked back where he lay. He had done what he had to do, but he wasn’t proud of it.
“My choice then was to catch up with the film crew or try to help you. Wasn’t much of a choice. I hurried back down to the stream, grabbed my gear, and set out to find you, which wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be until I saw the snow leopard.”
“The one that got skinned?”
Ethan shook his head. “No, I saw that one later. This one had to be the same one that helped me with the trapdoor. I know you’re going to think this is weird, but I think it was leading me to you.”
“I don’t think that’s weird at all.”
“Good, because I believe that’s exactly what it was doing. I lost your tracks in the woods.”
“That’s because Zopa and I smudged them out.”
“That explains it. When I broke out of the trees onto the plateau, I had no idea where you were. That’s when the snow leopard showed up again. It would run in front of me, then stop as if it were waiting up. It seemed crazy to trust a cat, but that’s what I did. It led me to the skinned cat. I freaked out. When I first saw it, I thought it was one of you. Anyway, when I was gawking at that horror story, I heard the gunshots.”
“They caught up to us just as we reached the gorge.”
“That’s what I figured. The snow leopard bounded ahead and led me to Géant. Who shot him?”
“Mom.”
“From the gorge?”
I nodded.
“Wow. That’s good shooting with a pistol at that range. He was probably dead before he hit the ground.”
I didn’t want to talk about dead people. We’d all had enough of that. “What happened then?”
“I saw the snow leopard disappear over the cliff and start following you down. By the time I got there, you were four hundred feet below. Too long of a shot for me. My only choice was to jump when you got to the bottom and hope for the best. The glide was a little difficult in that narrow space, but there wasn’t much wind, so I was able to control it. I was shocked Émile didn’t look up. If he had, it would have been dead man falling.”
The River
I think the trick to keeping a boat afloat in fast water is to be faster than the water. As soon as we launch, Mom guns the motor. I’m behind Zopa. Alessia is behind Ethan. We’re manning the oars. The problem is, with the exception of Ethan, none of us have ever used an oar.
“Dig in!” Ethan shouts over the roar of the water.
Zopa’s oar snaps in two as we slam into the opposite wall of the gorge. My oar stays intact because I’m not strong enough to hold it against the wall. The handle hits me in the chest like a brick. I tumble backward. Mom saves me from going overboard by grabbing a handful of T-shirt and shoving me back into place.
The boat is spinning, bouncing from one side to the other, banging into walls, like a pinball. It’s like falling horizontally and trying to save yourself by clutching a wet beach ball. During one of our out-of-control spins, Mom guns the motor just as the bow swings upstream. The boat stabilizes.
“Use the paddles as rudders!” she shouts. “Keep the boat centered! I’ll control the speed!”
And in this way, we slowly back our way out of the gorge . . .
AS SOON AS we hit calmer water, we pulled over to shore to bail out the boat and repack our gear. Ethan got on the two-way and tried the film crew. JR answered right away.
“Where are you?”
“Upriver from you. Where are you?”
“Still crossing the scree. We should be at base camp in an hour or so. What about the guard?”
Ethan hesitated.
“He’s not going to be a problem. You’re safe. We’re all safe.”
Not Phillip, or Elham, or Aki, or Choma, or Ebadullah, I thought.
“So you’re in a boat?”
“Yeah. We might even get to base camp before you.”
WE DID GET TO BASE CAMP before them, but there were people there. Rafe and Cindy were standing outside their tents. They looked as surprised to see us as we were to see them. The camel and the donkey were there as well. Rafe looked even worse than he had two days earlier. The butterflies had come loose. He had a flap of skin hanging down on his forehead.
“You’re supposed to be in a kayak halfway to Kabul by now,” Ethan said.
“That didn’t work out, mate. Hit some rocks. We saw a boat just like this come by. Tried to wave him down. Blighter wouldn’t stop. Figured that if there was one boat, there
would be more. We decided to come back here and wait for another boat. Someone friendlier.”
Ethan grinned and shook his head but said nothing about who the blighter in the boat had been or what he would have done if he had stopped.
“Where’d you get the boat?”
“Long story,” Ethan said.
“Where’s Phillip?” Cindy asked.
I’d been waiting for this. So had Mom. And Alessia.
“Let’s go up to the tent,” Mom said. She and Alessia took Cindy’s arm and led her away.
“Aki? Choma?” Rafe asked.
We shook our heads. Ethan began explaining what had happened as he patched Rafe up again. I walked down to the river. Zopa joined me. He had a sat phone in his hand.
“There’s a signal,” he said.
I shrugged.
“I suppose we should wait and have Alessia call the embassy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And within a few hours after the call, our camp will be swarming with helicopters filled with soldiers, police, and the press. We’ll be an international news story. Plank’s Peace Climb will be a disaster.”
“Do you care about what happens to Plank?”
“I have never met him, but he was trying to do a good thing. So were Choma, Aki, and even Phillip, in his own way. It’s bad enough that Émile and the others murdered our friends. I don’t think they should be allowed to murder the Peace Climb as well.”
“What do you have in mind?”
I gave him another shrug.
“Tell me.”
“It’s too crazy. We’re all exhausted. Give the phone to Alessia. Let the story begin.”
“Whose story is it?” Zopa asked.
“It’s our story.”
Zopa smiled. “Then let’s talk to the other characters and see how they want it to end.”
I WAS SHOCKED that Cindy wanted to go with us, and even more surprised when she insisted on climbing. She didn’t do too bad, considering that the most complicated thing she had ever climbed was a ladder. I put her in the P cave, and I took the E cave, so I could keep an eye on her. Rafe climbed up to the A, although he said he really didn’t want to. Mom took C, and Zopa took the last E. We spent the night in the caves and climbed down at dawn.
Alessia called the embassy.
We spent the wait keeping the vautours off our friends Elham and Ebadullah.
Holiday
PIERRE, WHOSE REAL name was François Bast, was caught three days after we left the French embassy. I’m not sure what happened to him, but I hope he rots away forever in a bastille. The Afghan he was with was not caught. His last known whereabouts were somewhere in Syria. There was not one news report about what happened to us in Wakhan Corridor. The French government wanted to keep it quiet, and so did we.
Sebastian Plank flew to Kabul to meet us as soon as he heard what had happened. He wanted to cancel the Peace Climb and the documentary, but we talked him out of it. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t our fault. The fault lay at the feet of the terrible men who murdered our friends.
JR, Will, and Jack flew to their studio in Boulder, Colorado, to edit their video.
Rafe went back home to Australia, with what I am sure is a very interesting version of what happened on the climb and the role he played in it.
Cindy went back to California to pursue an acting career, and she’s gotten a couple of small parts. The reason I know this is because she sends me text messages several times a week. I write her back when I see the texts, which is not very often, because my phone is . . . well, you know.
Ethan decided to stay in Kabul. Alessia’s mother hired him as her security chief, but the real reason he stayed was to learn Pashtun and more about Afghan culture. He couldn’t get that snow leopard out of his mind.
“I need to see what I can do about helping those cats,” he had said. “The snow leopard was there when we needed it. I’d like to return the favor.”
After returning the camel and donkey to their owners, Zopa stuck around long enough to meet Plank and asked him for a lift back to Kathmandu on his private jet. I went to the airport with them to see him off. Just before he stepped into the jetway, I thanked him for everything and told him to say hello to Sun-jo for me.
He put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, “You ended the story well.”
But I guess stories never really end.
Alessia comes into the kitchen, where I’m writing.
“The show is starting.”
She and her mother are in New York for the holidays. Alessia is staying with us.
I close the Moleskine journal and follow her into the living room. Rolf and Mom are on the sofa. The two Peas are on the floor with pillows and bowls of popcorn.
“Sit with us, Alessia!” Patrice says.
“Yes, with us!” Paula echoes.
“She doesn’t want to lie on the floor,” Mom protests.
“No, no,” Alessia says. “I would love to lie between the two pea pods.”
Patrice turns around just before the documentary starts. “Are we going to the zoo tomorrow to see the shens?”
“Of course,” I answer.
We have gone almost every day since I returned. The cubs are getting big. We watch them playing in the snow.
The Peace Climb begins. No commercials. Just beautiful climbs on different mountains on the same day all over the world. Patrice keeps turning and asking when our climb will appear. They have no idea what happened to us in After Can Stand.
“Soon,” I tell them.
Our climb appears at the very end. It is three minutes long.
“It’s a Christmas tree,” Patrice says.
“No it’s not,” Paula says. “It’s a little mountain. It spells peace.”
I look at Mom and Alessia. There are tears in their eyes.
There are tears in my eyes.
The letters do not stand for peace, but I wish there were peace.
Aki
Elham Choma
Phillip Ebadullah
Acknowledgments
Books are written in solitude, but published with a great deal of help from hard-working book people. I want to thank Betsy Groban, Scott Magoon, Lisa DiSarro, Hayley Gonnason, and the entire team at HMH, who have stood behind Peak since his climb on Everest in Tibet and now join him on his arduous trek in Afghanistan. Special thanks go to Julie Tibbott who “out of the blue” asked me to write the introduction for the classic Western Shane by Jack Schaefer. It was a great honor to be picked to write this introduction, which led me to my old friend, and my fabulous editor, Julia Richardson. If it weren’t for Julia, this climb would have never happened.
The Assignment
MY NAME IS PEAK. Yeah, I know: weird name. But you don’t get to pick your name or your parents. (Or a lot of other things in life for that matter.) It could have been worse. My parents could have named me Glacier, or Abyss, or Crampon. I’m not kidding. According to my mom all those names were on the list.
Vincent, my literary mentor (at your school this would be your English teacher), asked me to write this for my year-end assignment (no grades at our school).
When Vincent reads the sentence you just read he’ll say: Peak, that is a run-on sentence and chaotically parenthetical. (That’s how he talks.) Meaning it’s a little confusing and choppy. And I’ll tell him that my life is (parenthetical) and the chaos is due to the fact that I’m starting this assignment in the back of a Toyota pickup in Tibet (aka China) with an automatic pencil that doesn’t have an eraser and it’s not likely that I’m going to find an eraser around here.
Vincent has also said that a good writer should draw the reader in by starting in the middle of the story with a hook, then go back and fill in what happened before the hook.
Once you have the reader hooked you can write whatever you want as you slowly reel them in.
I guess Vincent thinks readers are fish. If that’s the case, most of Vincent’s fish have gotten away. He’s written s
omething like twenty literary novels, all of which are out of print. If he knew what he was talking about why do I have to search the dark, moldering aisles of used-book stores to find his books?
(Now I’ve done it. But remember this, Vincent: Writers should tell the brutal truth in their own voice and not let individuals, society, or consequences dictate their words! And you thought no one was listening to you in class. You also know that I really like your books, or I wouldn’t waste my time trying to find them. Nor would I be trying to get this story down in the back of a truck in Tibet.)
Speaking of which . . .
This morning we slowed down to get around a boulder the size of a school bus that had fallen in the middle of the road. In the U.S.A. we would use dynamite or heavy equipment to move it. In Tibet they use picks, sledgehammers, and prisoners in tattered, quilted coats to chip the boulder down to nothing. The prisoners smiled at us as we tried not to run over their shackled feet on the narrow road. Their cheerful faces were covered in nicks and cuts from rock shrapnel. Those not chipping used crude wooden wheelbarrows to move the man-made gravel over to potholes, where very old Tibetan prisoners used battered shovels and rakes to fill in the holes. Chinese soldiers in green uniforms and with rifles slung over their shoulders stood around fifty-gallon burn barrels smoking cigarettes. The prisoners looked happier than the soldiers did.
I wondered if the boulder would be gone by the time I came back through. I wondered if I’d ever come back through.
The Hook
I WAS ONLY TWO-THIRDS up the wall when the sleet started to freeze onto the black terra-cotta.
My fingers were numb. My nose was running. I didn’t have a free hand to wipe my nose, or enough rope to rappel about five hundred feet to the ground. I had planned everything out so carefully, except for the weather, and now it was uh-oh time.
A gust of wind tried to peel me off the wall. I dug my fingers into the seam and hugged the terra-cotta until it passed.