Dorje was not surprised. “And the rest?”
“An hour or two behind. I came ahead to find you. Where’s Beth?”
“In a snow cave, not far.”
Beth was coughing uncontrollably when they reached her. Royd felt her forehead. “She’s severely dehydrated and burning up. We can’t wait.” While Dorje prepared the bags and pads for travel, Royd asked Beth if she could walk.
“I’ll try.”
Despite her effort, she was too weak and dizzy to bear her own weight. Supporting her on both sides, the men departed in a whiteout with nothing to guide them other than continuing in a slow and cumbersome descent. An hour into their trek, Royd tripped on a rock lurking beneath the snow and tumbled downhill pulling Dorje and Beth off balance in a head-over-heel, arm-and-leg sprawling freefall behind him. Striking his back, shoulders, and injured side, Dorje fervently sought to grab anything that would brake his descent, but it was all happening too fast in a dizzying blur. “Beth, Royd,” he screamed and heard nothing but the swish of his sliding parka. Suddenly the pack with sleeping gear tore loose and whizzed past, disappearing only seconds before Dorje’s legs were airborne after it. In a desperate reach, he caught a rock on the edge of the precipice and hung on as his legs slammed against the wall.
“Watch out,” he yelled clinging to the rock. “There’s a cliff.”
“I missed it,” Royd called from Dorje’s right.
“And Beth?”
“I don’t know.”
Shaking with exhaustion, pain, and cold, Dorje slowly pulled himself on top and collapsed trying to get his breath. “Beth,” he shouted into the dense white surrounding him.
“Here,” came back, the most beautiful sound ever heard.
“Do not move.” Once again testing the ground before each step, Dorje followed her voice. “Are you hurt?” he asked before taking her in his arms.
“Not too bad, but I’m getting a lot sicker.” Her face was hot against his shivering cheek.
Royd joined them. “We should wait for the storm to clear. It’s insane to go on.”
“I am afraid for Beth and want to go down now.”
“But we can’t see a damn thing. I don’t intend to die falling off some mountain in a whiteout.”
“And I don’t intend to die freezing up here,” Beth murmured. “Stay if you want, but we’re going.”
“Then you’re both mad.” When Beth’s body crumpled as Dorje lifted her, Royd added, “Oh, what the hell. I’ll come too. You’ll never make it alone.”
He led as they picked their way down the boulder-strewn face of the cliff never knowing when the next step would cast them into an abyss. Holding onto Beth, Dorje carefully handed her down to Royd on the steepest sections. Again progress was slow and treacherous, the rock face never ending. Hours later, the clouds gradually thinned to a blue-tinged, gossamer sky. They rested on a ledge trying to get their bearings with Beth beside them still feverish and weak.
“Looks like a valley over there,” Royd said pointing to the left. “Probably where we should have come down.”
“I didn’t know where to go,” Dorje answered. “I couldn’t see.”
“Hey, I’m not blaming you. None of us could.”
But Dorje blamed himself. He had failed Beth and everyone else: two porters dead and perhaps more by now. Sitting with his hands clasped around his knees, he closed his eyes and silently recited, “Om mani padme hum.”
“We’d better go before it gets dark,” said Royd.
As he repeated one more mantra, Dorje heard a sound from far away—the gentle chiming of yak bells, all at a different pitch. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Yak bells.”
“It’s just the wind. You’ve been out here too long and are going crazy. We all are.”
The chiming—so faint. Thinking he could be hallucinating like mikarus who are sick from being too high, Dorje stopped breathing and listened harder. Five or six different tones. He got to his feet, trying to determine which way. Rising from the valley below, the bells clanged with the slow, steady rhythm of yaks plowing through snow. In a frenzy, he half stumbled, half crawled to the edge and searched the valley. Nothing but glaring white. In the distance, a red spot moved. Heart pounding, he watched it move again—the blood-red robe he had waited for as a boy. Surely he must be dreaming. The unmistakable form of a yak train was climbing toward the Cho La but far to the north of them just like the helicopter.
With a dry tongue that felt swollen and his throat frayed, Dorje screamed, “Father, we’re here!” but his cries scattered like leaves rustling in the wind. “No! You’re going the wrong way!”
“Who are you talking to?” Royd asked.
“My father is down there. We must get to him.” But between them and Mingma lay a steep, snow-covered slope. Dorje glanced at Royd. “You can ski?”
The Norwegian laughed. “We invented the sport.”
“And Colorado is famous for it,” Beth added to his surprise that she was aware of their conversation. “But you’ll have to hold me up.”
Dorje lowered her over the ledge to Royd waiting below. With one on either side of her again, Royd counted, “One, two three, go.”
“Geronimo,” Dorje shouted and pushed off with his knees bent Marty style. Arms flailing for balance, he discovered skiing on steep snow was harder than he thought. But of the three, he remained upright the longest with Beth and Royd sliding on their seats and backs behind him. Then hitting a bump, he flew ten feet and landed face down before finally skidding to a stop. Are you okay?” he shouted and got a nod from each one.
He could see the procession better now: two men with six yaks breaking a trail through deep snow, the animals’ thick coats impervious to the cold. Father!” he yelled. “Faaather!” The animals stopped; their bells stilled. Dorje yelled again, waving his jacket. Mingma turned toward the mountain and raised both arms, the full sleeves hanging like enormous red wings ready to enfold his son.
“They see us,” Dorje cried. The schuss having drained her strength and spirit, Dorje’s announcement seemed to give Beth the freedom to surrender to fatigue. Carrying her on his back, Dorje made his way down by stepping in the deep prints created by Royd ahead of him. When the two groups finally converged, Dorje expected to be reprimanded for dishonoring the gods by trespassing on their abode.
When instead Mingma commented, “My son is brave and strong to survive this storm,” Dorje suddenly felt like his six-year-old self wanting his father to make everything all right.
“Beth is very sick. I must get her down.”
“And what about the others—my nephew?” asked a third voice.
Pemba? How was it that these enemies came together? “Tashi’s dead,” tumbled out like rubble in the sweep of an avalanche. “He was carrying Beth and got buried alive.”
“I knew she was a curse,” Pemba grumbled. “I warned you to stay away.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Dorje said, too exhausted, cold, and hungry to argue. “He insisted on carrying her so he could prove himself worthy of working on Everest.”
Pemba hurled and spat the words at Mingma. “Just like your brother. You blame me for his death, but he chose to carry a double load that day; he chose to cross the ice field at night.”
All Dorje could see was a red blur as the pendulous sleeve rose and Mingma struck back with the vengeance of an angry god. “You corrupted him with your cursed blood money and sent him onto Everest.”
“Wasn’t me. He saw where the future is and wanted it. Lhakpa wasn’t like you, a stubborn old dog with its tail curled so tight it can’t straighten out.”
Dorje covered his ears and yelled, “Stop it! Stop it! I’m sick of your fighting. Beth needs to go down and the others are still up there. They all need your help now!”
“I will show them the way,” Royd interjected, “while you and your father take Beth.”
After consuming the first water in days, the Norwegi
an left with Pemba and four yaks. Squinting into a bright sun now, Dorje watched steam snorting from their nostrils as they plowed up the hill in his jagged path. With visions of Sangbu and the others screaming from the icy depths of some chasm, he retreated from guilt and despair by turning his thoughts to Beth and his father.
“Your woman is shivering but her skin is hot,” said Mingma. “My most gentle yak will carry her to the monks at Tengboche. But tonight we must stop at a yersa where we stored food, water, dung, and blankets on the way up. Many trekkers are lost.”
“And you came for me,” Dorje said, incredulous that his father had risked the cold.
“Now perhaps you will stop all this nonsense and I won’t have to worry about you so much.”
Worry about you so much? The words halted Dorje in his tracks. He was grateful and didn’t want trouble with his father, but fourteen years of anger and disappointment bubbled into accusing words that appeared on his tongue and would not be silenced. “Why do you worry now when you never did before?”
“What are you talking about?”
“How . . . how can you ask that when you abandoned your sons and stopped loving them?”
Eyes averted from Dorje, Mingma continued with an unbroken stride. “I never stopped loving you.”
The anger had smoldered too many years for Dorje to let go. “Then why did you never come for us?”
Mingma’s voice hardened. “It’s too cold now. You must wait until tonight, my angry son, and we will finally speak of this.”
CHAPTER 21
With one yak for Beth and another for gear, Dorje and Mingma returned using the animals’ earlier path and reached the sole hut at Phulong Karpa just as the setting sun cast a pink wash across the white landscape. No one spoke. Only the clanging of yak bells and Beth’s persistent, deep-throated cough broke the silence. After building a dung fire and supplying the young people with dry clothing, wool blankets, and water, Mingma went outside to give them time alone.
Sitting next to the hearth, Beth was still shivering uncontrollably. “I’m soooo cold. Hold me.”
“I will as soon as you are out of these wet clothes.” As he unbuttoned her shirt, Dorje noticed flat, rose-colored spots that had not been there before. Not wanting to alarm her, he distracted Beth by pulling a shirt over her head while he checked for more and discovered the rash covered her entire lower chest and abdomen. A scrap of fear attached itself firmly to his ribs and wouldn’t let go.
Wrapped in two blankets, he was holding her by the fire when Mingma knocked and entered. “How is she?” he asked in Nepali.
Dorje tightened his jaw to keep his voice from wavering. “She has red spots all over her chest and is still too hot. What does that mean?”
“That a shrindi or witch has possessed her. We’ll leave at first light for Tengboche.”
Staring at Mingma, Beth said, “Is your father really here? I thought I was dreaming.”
Dorje wanted to give her only good news. “Yes, and he just told me you are the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.”
“Thank you,” Beth said, nodding at Mingma. “Does he understand?”
Dorje chuckled. “No. Not a word of English. We can speak of love all night and he will think we are talking only of yaks and the storm.”
As Beth giggled and nestled closer to him, Dorje tried to ignore the nervous field mice who had again invaded him, scurrying about in a fearful frenzy. In order to squelch them, he would hold onto Beth all night and believe the monks could exorcise her demons. After a meal of tsampa, nak cheese, cold chapatis, and tea of which she ate very little, Beth lay on the bench wrapped in her sleeping bag, her head in Dorje’s lap.
To keep from thinking about the rash, fever, and coughing spells, he looked at his father lying on the other side of him—the closest they had been since Dorje’s return to the Khumbu. “You promised we would talk later,” he said quietly, not wanting to wake Beth.
Mingma shouldered himself upright and closed the blanket over his chest. “I have started to tell you many times, but your anger always comes between us. Can you put it away long enough for me to explain?”
“I will try.”
Hands folded in his lap and eyes to the floor, Mingma said, “Sometimes, especially when we’re young, we don’t always make the right decisions. And so much was happening when you were six and seven that I . . . ” He paused and opened his thumbs in a kind of shrug. “But none of that matters to you.”
“None of what?”
Mingma was silent as if he didn’t want to go on.
“What was happening that was more important than your sons?” Dorje demanded.
“I didn’t say more important.”
“You watched us being dragged away, crying for you, and did nothing about it.”
“Your mother wanted to leave me and I couldn’t talk her out of it. Away for months at a time on trading trips, I couldn’t have taken care of two young boys. I had to let you go.” His shoulders arched and his back stiffened. “I don’t know where to begin. As a boy, I was educated in Tibetan monasteries while my father traded there.”
“You could have done that with us,” Dorje said, as if pleading his case now would change the past.
“No. Things were different then. And you are very impatient,” his father added frowning. He shifted onto the other hip. “I knew early on that I didn’t want to be a monk, so at fifteen I disrobed and gave back my vows. When I was seventeen, my father needed an alliance with a wealthy salt trader, so he arranged a marriage with his daughter.”
“My mother?”
“Yes. She was from a different village. And although we had never seen each other before, we learned to care. But there was never real passion or love. I found that years later . . . with a Tibetan woman.”
Stunned, Dorje suddenly didn’t recognize the man next to him. Mingma was no longer the pacing, indomitable figure whose eyes could impale him to the wall but a man desiring the same depth of passion he felt for Beth. Of all the possible explanations he’d conjured up over many years, this was not among them. “What happened to her?”
Hands clenched tightly between his knees, Mingma stared at the fire. “I’ve made some bad decisions in my life but none as terrible as that one. For years Nimputi begged me to bring her to Nepal. She was scared of what was happening around her. Chinese troops occupied the cities and claimed Tibetans must return them to the Motherland.” Still gazing into the fire, Mingma pressed his fingertips together. “I was young and ambitious, too absorbed in trading animals to really understand what was happening—not the way she did. Then one year, she told me rumors of Tibetans in Kham fighting back. The Chinese retaliated by destroying villages, torturing and executing thousands. This region was far to the east, away from Nimputi’s home. I didn’t believe she was in immediate danger, but I promised to return for her and our children as soon as I finished trading in India.”
“Children?”
His fingertips splayed together, Mingma tapped them lightly against his lips. “Yes, two young girls.”
Tibetan sisters. Unprepared for this, Dorje didn’t know what to feel: anger, jealousy, curiosity. “But what about us?”
His father turned to him with a surprised look. “My feelings hadn’t changed. I loved you as much as always and planned to take care of you and your mother. Many Sherpas have two wives, especially those who travel, but I waited too long. She had heard stories of Nimputi before I asked her permission, and that caused her to lose face. Feeling disgraced and betrayed, she walked away from me and took you with her.”
Understanding now the angry voices in bed the night his father returned and the raging silence the following days, Dorje couldn’t condemn him for having wanted love. If he were married to Shanti now, would he not be guilty of the same? Dorje ran his hand along Beth’s sleeping body, feeling the curve of her hip, the slenderness of her waist. The thought of anyone taking her from him sent a chill through his bones. With unexpected compassion for h
is father, Dorje asked, “What happened to her?’
Mingma’s chest rose and then let out slowly as if the air were too heavy to breath. “I don’t know.” Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands. “I never believed the Chinese would commit such crimes. I never . . . ” His voice faltered. “Never thought they would harm women and children.” When Mingma lapsed into silence, Dorje waited, trying to imagine the visions haunting his father.
Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance Page 21