Fractured Everest Box Set

by D. H. Dunn

  “What do you and Wanda hope to find up there?” Drew asked, looking off toward the peaks. The sky had lightened sufficiently to see them, though Everest itself was obscured due to their route.

  “I think Wanda and I want the same thing, lad,” Carter said. “Meaning. For her, it will be to give meaning to her father’s death and maybe to bring something back, something to help her people.”

  The wind blew cold, bitter enough to eat through Drew’s jackets and sweater and send chills through him. Far above them, the moon continued its trek over the mountains.

  “And the meaning for you?” Drew asked.

  “More years have passed me by then I’d care to mention, Drew. More mistakes as well. Not much time left, I’d wager. I’d like my life to have some purpose, to get something right.”

  That was a feeling Drew could understand.

  The beam from Pasang’s flashlight pierced the dark of the early morning as he cast it across the Khumbu Icefall. Nima’s eyes followed the light as she peered into the maze of frigid ice pillars and canyons.

  The Icefall was the end of a glacier that cut between Everest and her sister peaks Lhotse and Nuptse. Nima was no less fearful of the collection of towers and crevasses than when she had first seen it. Slowly angling up between the two mountains, it was a maze of twisting paths around sharp, wide daggers of ice, some larger than buildings.

  “It looks like teeth,” Pasang said, running the light up and down the Icefall’s surface again. She could hear the fear in his voice, mixed, perhaps, with excitement.

  Nima nodded her agreement, just as a crack shot through the silence of the morning, followed by the soft hiss of falling snow. Somewhere in the darkness an unseen tower of snow and ice had given way to the glacier’s progress.

  These were teeth that moved, slowly most of the time, but they could suddenly shift without warning. Running between the pillars were gashes in the surface of the frozen river, dark drops that might go down a meter, or might be bottomless. If Chomolungma was a treasure, the Icefall was the guard who protected her. Only the worthiest would be permitted to cross.

  Nima looked over her shoulder at the distant pair of tents where Wanda, Drew, and Carter now slept. Once she and Pasang finished scouting their approach, they’d need to wake the others up. Nima wanted to be deep into the Icefall before the sun started hitting it. The glacier would be even more active in the day, and they needed to stay ahead of any melting.

  Not to mention Jang, who Nima was certain would come for them if he could determine where they had gone.

  “She offered you the money?” Pasang asked, the yellow circle of his light looking like a tiny sun rising and setting in the ice. “Why didn’t you take it?”

  “We get paid when the job is done,” she said, her tone brooking no argument from her brother. “There,” she pointed into the dark confines of the glacier, where Pasang’s light showed a group of logs that had been lashed together to form a bridge over one of the many chasms. “That’s another one.”

  “Yes, much of what the Shipton people used is still here. I looked at the gear that old man brought, too.” Pasang glanced back at their camp. “Ropes, new boots, oxygen, and goggles. It all looks good. Maybe we can do this.”

  “Maybe?” Nima grinned back at her brother. “Of course, we can do this! We will do this because we need to, but you cannot tell me you don’t want to try!”

  Pasang smiled back, a chuckle emanating from behind his orange scarf. Except for his pants and boots, her brother had managed to acquire all orange clothing through trades with other Sherpa. Nima thought he looked a bit funny, but Pasang was proud of his clothes, even more so when Drew had said he liked them.

  “Okay, sure,” he said. “There’s sure to be new Western teams here next year. If I can do this, I bet I can get a porter spot on one of them. But that’s not why you want to go, and it’s not for the money either. Not all of it.” He narrowed his eyes at her, something he often did when he was concerned. “You already wanted to see your myth, your Yeti. Now this woman tells you there’s more magic on the mountain and you can’t wait to rush up it!”

  She looked out past the Icefall, up the glacier running between the great peaks. Were those mountains just rocks and ice and not the homes of gods? Was the snow just water and the sky just air? Was there truly nothing more to this world than what she could see and touch?

  “So, what if that is true? What if I want to see something you can’t believe in? Maybe I want to know the world can be . . . different. Bigger.”

  “You want adventures, just like Pagaga did.” Pasang’s brows unfurrowed as he took her gloved hands in his. “You like to jump, you know? You leap and then look for somewhere to land. And I love you for it, sister, even if I don’t understand. I just want you to be careful . . . ”

  “Asking Nima to be careful? Good luck!”

  Drew’s voice bounced off the nearest pillars of ice as he came up from behind them. He sounded rested, his blue eyes less bloodshot and tired to Nima’s gaze.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Pasang asked Drew as the bigger man clapped him on the arm.

  “Two whole hours,” Drew said with a grin. “More than I needed. You know the Navy taught―”

  “―you to work with little sleep,” Nima and Pasang said as one. Nima giggled as Drew’s face turned crimson.

  “I guess you’ve heard that one.” Drew took a position between the two of them, looking out into the Icefall.

  “Only a hundred times,” Pasang laughed. “It is okay though, Drew. I like hearing your stories.”

  Nima reached out and punched Drew’s left arm. He looked back at her in surprise.

  “Ow!” Drew rubbed the spot, though he was just making a show of it. She knew she hadn’t hit him that hard. “What was that for?”

  “Putting ideas in my brother’s head!” Nima glared up a Drew. “What if Shamsher had caught him? What if Jang had seen him stealing those papers!”

  “I am right here,” Pasang said. “I did it. Drew didn’t make me do it.”

  “Yeah,” Drew sighed, nodding. “But Nima’s right. I gave you the idea, kid. I was going to do it myself, once this was over.”

  Nima looked up into the dark sky. The thin wisps of clouds above her were being pulled by the wind like threads in water. In a few hours those clouds would turn pink with the sunrise, too soon.

  What had happened with Jang was done. Talking about it further would only delay them.

  “Look, we give this woman her three days on the mountain and then I will pay off Jang. If he tries anything, we have the papers. After that . . .” Nima trailed off. What was after that? She had been so focused on saving Awa’s farm for so long, she hadn’t thought about what she’d do next. “Let’s just focus on this,” she said, ignoring the odd pressure in her chest. There was no time to think about the future now. “Pasang, can you get the gear ready and then go wake our clients?”

  Her brother nodded, turning and weaving a path through the low mounds of snow and thin cracks in the ice as he headed back toward their two small tents.

  Drew sighed, the vapor cloud from his breath immediately pulled away by the wind. “I am sorry about Jang.” Drew had a look on his face Nima knew well, the same one he’d get when he talked about his Navy days and his brother. “I didn’t think Pasang would do that.”

  “Pasang made his own choice, and it is good to have something else Jang wants besides money.” She stopped for a moment, looking into the grinding river of frozen water in front of them. The Khumbu looked hungry to her, like an underfed animal. “Do you think Jang will―”

  “Yeah,” Drew said with a sigh, “he’ll be coming.”

  “Then we need to be gone,” Nima said as the wind began to pick up again. Floating streams of snow blew across the small, flat plain at the edge of the glacier, looking like a cloud that had died on the ground.

  Ahead of them was the Icefall, and beyond that the vicious winds of the Western Cwm. Not to mention
a Yeti and possibly the magical gateway Wanda was looking for. Nima was willing to face them all, just to get some distance from Jang. She only needed three days.

  Yet looking at the bitter teeth of the Icefall, she worried she was asking Chomolungma for the impossible.

  4

  “Like going through the gates of Hell”

  —Charles Crenchaw

  November 2, 1951

  Khumbu Icefall, Nepal

  In the dim light of Drew’s headlamp, the approach to the Icefall looked like a graveyard, a wispy snowfield filled with shadows and mist. Beyond the small stretch of flat land, the cracked form of the glacier rose above them menacingly as it stretched up the pass between the great mountains of the Himalaya.

  Nima stood at his side, the vapor from her breath passing through Drew’s vision and mixing with his own. Pasang was off rousing Wanda and Carter and for the moment all was quiet except for the constant slow cracking of the glacier.

  “Glad it is still a few hours from sunrise,” Nima said, breaking the spell the chilling visage had begun to cast on Drew. Everest was majestic and beautiful, but the Icefall seemed like frozen malevolence.

  “Yeah. With any luck we’ll be through the Icefall before it gets too warm.” He chuckled at the notion of passing through the Khumbu as if it were just another route.

  “What about your path?” Nima’s voice dropped to little more than a whisper against the light pre-dawn wind. “You told me you see a path to that woman you met. Does it show you a way through?”

  Drew laughed. It was amazing the ease with which Nima had accepted even the most fantastical element of his confusing, magical encounter with what Nima always called his “dream woman.”

  The path was there, of course. It floated in front of his eyes as it always did, though only in Nima’s presence would he speak of it. Over the months since that night in Kathmandu it had slowly led him here, the thread appearing in his sight the moment the mysterious woman had vanished. It wound its way into the Icefall, so constant a presence in his sight that he had nearly forgotten it. Shimmering and unaffected by the wind, it undulated as it wove through the massive glacier, passing through ice and snow as though it they were not present.

  “I don’t think so,” Drew said. “It doesn’t seem that specific.” It was odd to discuss out loud what he once thought might be the onset of insanity, but Nima’s smile always made it seem okay somehow. “It is probably better for you and Pasang to take the lead anyway. If it shows me something, I’ll let you know.”

  Nima nodded. “But it does go up the mountain, right? Maybe that woman you met is up there somewhere. If she is, Chomolungma will help you meet her.”

  The idea didn’t make any sense, but since the thread itself made no sense Drew decided it wasn’t worth spending much thought on it. He had Nima, Pasang, and Jang to focus on, and that was enough for now. The woman from his dreams would still be in his dreams in three days.

  “My god,” Wanda’s voice came from behind them. Drew looked back and saw the heavily bundled forms of the Polish woman and Carter trudging forward.

  Wanda’s mouth gaped as she cast her light across the sharp daggers of ice that graced the top of the first wall, just a few feet away. “I had no idea,” she whispered.

  “What did you think it would be like?” Pasang asked as he walked by carrying two large packs. He handed one to his sister, throwing the other over his shoulders. “I thought you climbed mountains in this . . . Poland?”

  “Mountains yes,” Wanda said, still staring, “glaciers, no.”

  “Well it’s there, we’re here.” Carter reached down to test the binding of the iceteeth strapped to his boots. Drew was impressed the old man knew how to manage his gear. “Scary or not we’d best get going.”

  Nima gave Drew an inquiring glance and he nodded in return. Motioning to her brother, she began walking toward the first wall of ice that rose just ahead of them, their headlamps dancing across the frozen surface. Drew gauged this first obstacle to be no more than ten feet in height.

  “What is our strategy here?” Wanda asked. Her voice had regained some of the strength Drew had heard the night before. She might be scared of the Khumbu, but he was glad she was willing to proceed.

  He pointed to the rising form of the glacier, directing their gaze. “Think of the Icefall as a staircase that runs up the mountain. We’ll have to scale the steps ourselves, hopefully they will be stable while we are out of the sunlight. Between the steps are deep channels and crevasses, we’ll deal with those as best we can.”

  “What do you mean, lad?” Carter said, peering into the darkness. Given his age, Drew wondered how good the man’s eyesight might be. “‘As best we can?’”

  “The shallow ones we walk through,” Drew laughed. “The short ones we jump over.”

  “And those that are too wide or too deep?” Wanda had taken a step closer to the wall, where Pasang and Nima were already climbing.

  “We hope the Shipton team left us something to use,” Drew said. “Or we go around. We can’t take too much time though. The later in the day we go, the more unstable the glacier will be. We don’t want to be around when one of those towers of ice comes down.”

  There was a second wolf on their heels, but Drew didn’t mention Jang. With any luck he wouldn’t even figure out where they had gone until they were back, his money in Nima’s hands.

  “Ready!” Nima’s cry came. She stood atop the wall of ice, her smile visible even in the dim light. Drew could just make out Pasang’s orange jacket as he moved out of view to scout their next step. Nima ran a line of rope down the wall for them, anchoring it at the top.

  “Everest awaits,” Drew said with a smile, motioning Wanda and Carter toward the wall. The pair walked forward, Carter muttering under his breath about the early hour.

  Drew stayed at the bottom watching each of them make their ascent. He was impressed with the ease with which Wanda attacked the wall, and even Carter managed a solid pace. Within a few moments, both joined Nima at the top.

  Drew took one last glance over his shoulder, through the dark morning sky toward Gorak Shep, looking for signs of Jang. Seeing nothing but the empty snow fields and the far-off tip of Kala Patthar, he grabbed the rope and started up.

  Reaching the top of the first step with little effort, Drew accepted Nima’s hand as she pulled him up and into a standing position.

  Carter and Wanda were close by, crowding Drew by necessity. The top of the step was little more than a ten-foot space of snow, which Drew would only call flat and level if he were feeling charitable.

  Nima moved a few feet in front of them, examining the crevasse that blocked their passage forward. A deep gouge in the glacier’s surface, the crack was about fifteen feet wide at the narrowest point. Drew could not be certain of its depth, the dark shadows inside the chasm kept that secret for themselves.

  Stretched across the gap were two logs, local trees with the branches removed. They had been lashed together with rope to form a makeshift bridge, a crossing that looked no wider than two feet.

  “Shipton’s people must have left this,” Nima said. She was already kneeling on the two logs, leaning a bit forward and wiggling to test their stability. The pair of trees rolled with her, Drew’s nerves getting the better of him as he reached out and grabbed Nima’s coat to steady her.

  “What? I was fine.” Her smile was matched by the intensity of the sparkle in her eyes. She was enjoying herself, a bit more than Drew was comfortable with.

  “Just stay focused, little sister.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Carter said, kneeling beside them as he investigated the depths below. “You want us to walk across that?”

  “More like crawl, Carter. We’ll run a rope across first and anchor it on the far side. It’s that or head back.”

  “Please proceed.” Wanda folded her arms while glaring at Carter. If the old man had more to say, he kept it to himself.

  “You want me to go across
?” Pasang asked. Nima looked over at Drew, the question in her eyes. Drew felt the heat of embarrassment rising inside him, realizing he had started to take charge. Military training died hard, he supposed.

  “It’s your party, Nima. I’m sorry, I just wanted to keep you safe.”

  “No problem,” Nima said, giving Drew a soft punch in the arm. “Go ahead, Pasang.”

  With the nod from his older sister, Pasang knelt on the two logs and began to crawl across, a rope tied to his waist. Drew held onto the rope while sitting in the snow, legs braced to hold Pasang up if he fell. Nima held onto the logs to keep them a steady as possible.

  Drew felt his breath trapped inside him as he watched Pasang slowly inch across the narrow bridge, methodically moving one limb at a time. Each movement brought him slightly closer to the other side, but also sped the arrival of the sunrise.

  Nima chanted to her brother. Drew was unable to understand the words but was certain she was offering him support and encouragement. Pasang reached the half-way point as Wanda and Carter paced the snow behind them, a smart way to keep warm even if it did nothing to reduce Drew’s tension.

  Drew watched Pasang move forward inch by inch like an orange turtle, finally reaching the opposite end of the bridge and flashing the group a wide grin.

  With a nod from Nima, Wanda clipped her carabiner onto the line and shimmied onto the logs, keeping herself in a kneeling position. Drew was impressed with her pace, as well as the fact that she avoided looking down. A few minutes later, Pasang was helping her off the logs and onto the other side of the crevasse.

  Carter’s progress was much slower. The old man started out quickly, but nearly came to a halt when he reached the center of the log. Drew could hear snippets of Carter’s muttering on the wind. Nima rushed out and took a place behind him, and this seemed to aid his confidence.

  Together the pair made steady progress, Drew sighing with relief when he saw them both exiting off the bridge.