Brooks had other ideas, though.
He looked up at the cliffs. They were the orange of rust and riddled with fissures and cracks. Granite was a climber’s best friend: it had a high friction coefficient and naturally formed step-like ledges. Without Julian to spot him, he was going to need all the help he could get.
“You’re not really contemplating what I think you are,” Adrianne said.
“Better here where they’re just wet than up there where they’re covered in ice.”
“If we fall—”
“I’ve heard drowning’s one of the more peaceful ways to go.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Brooks shed his backpack, snapped on his climbing belt, and attached his ice axes to the bungee cords affixed to either hip. He pointed through the sparkling mist toward a vague shadow maybe thirty feet from the top.
“When I get up there, I’m going to toss a rope down. I want you to put on the harness in my backpack and tie the rope to it. Then run it through this clip and tie it like…this. Do you understand?”
“I’ve got it.”
“Tie it wrong and you will fall.” He mounted the rock wall and looked back at her. “And if you see anything, take the shot and climb like hell.”
The granite was slick, but not as slick as he’d feared. The narrow ledges offered solid traction and coincided with the various sedimentary layers, almost like an irregular ladder with inch-thick rungs spaced six feet apart. As he climbed sideways out over the river, he became increasingly conscious of the consequences of a single misstep. The roar of the river was so powerful that even the rock trembled. Occasional flumes grabbed at his feet and slapped the rock around him. The boughs of a fig tree swatted his legs and nearly pried him from the wall. He leapt for the next ledge up and pulled himself higher, out of the reach of the debris. Already his arms and legs trembled with the exertion as a consequence of the prior day’s arduous climb and the lack of sleep.
For every foot he ascended, he took three sideways, picking his way along the narrow edges in search of crimps of diminishing size and frequency. He could barely see Adrianne through the mist and even then tried not to look back too often for fear he might throw off his balance. His fingertips bled freely, forcing him to pay close attention to where he placed his toes so as not to slip in his own blood. The rock became dryer as he climbed, until he was above the spume and nearing the cave he had barely been able to see from below. Whether it was large enough to comfortably accommodate both of them he couldn’t tell, but at least it would serve as a resting point and give him the leverage he needed to belay Adrianne up. The longer she remained out in the open, the better their chances of having their ruse prematurely discovered.
He skirted a vulture’s nest built into a dead tree growing from a crevice and noted the sheer amount of bones among the feathers. He recognized the skeletal remains of rodents and smaller birds, and even the distinct carpals and phalanges from a human hand. The owner of the nest was probably one of those that had been circling overhead and now perched in the branches of the dead pines lording over the top of the cliff, their exposed roots projecting out over the nothingness. They flapped and jostled for position, craning their bowed necks in an effort to better see him directly beneath them.
By the time he reached the mouth of the cave, the pain in his hands had become unbearable. His shoulders and calves felt like hooks had been looped into the muscles and twisted to the point of snapping. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes. He gave everything he had left to haul himself up and over the ledge and into the cool darkness. He barely had the strength left to draw his legs inside.
Brooks moaned in relief. He lay there on the cold stone only long enough to catch his breath and pushed himself up to all fours with trembling arms. He started to turn around and stopped abruptly.
The smell.
There was something in there with him. Something with which he was intimately familiar. Something that by all rights shouldn’t have been here in the humid darkness.
He unclipped his flashlight and shined it deeper into the darkness.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
The light fell from his hand and clattered to the stone.
Part VIII:
The Hunt
Thirty-six
Yarlung Tsangpo River Basin
Motuo County
Tibet Autonomous Region
People’s Republic of China
October 17th
Today
Brooks had been on digs all over the world and while they all differed in terms of composition of the soil and the relative age of the subjects, the remains all had a similar smell. It was one he considered almost archival, an ancient scent as unique to the human species as it was distinct from all other animals. It was the ultimate fulfillment of an individual’s biological destiny, when everything susceptible to rot had decomposed to nothing and even the dissolution had dried and wasted away, leaving only the porous bones to absorb the various aromas of their surroundings, in much the same way tea leaves absorb the flavors of their unique environments.
He knew there were bones in the darkness before he even saw them, and yet he was still unprepared for the condition of the remains. He’d seen everything from warriors fallen in battle and left to sink into the fields to the most revered, ensconced in silk and soaked with scented oils, inside their gilded tombs. He’d unearthed those wrapped in fetal position and interred in funereal bundles and those who’d starved to death and simply fallen apart. Even the remains of human ancestors so ancient all they left behind were partial skulls that had become more rock than bone. None of them had displayed this level of violence, though.
These bones were heaped in a pile in no apparent order or design, as though they’d merely been cast aside after outliving their usefulness, the primitive midden heap of a predatory species. All of the long bones were scored by teeth marks and snapped in half to scrape out the marrow. Even the irregular bones of the hands and feet were disarticulated and gnawed. Only the skulls appeared marginally preserved, but they were riddled with fracture lines and missing everything from teeth to entire jaws, their cranial vaults broken open and pried apart to access the brains in the most expeditious manner possible.
No anthropologist could work in this field for very long without encountering the earmarks of cannibalism. The ends of bones smoothed by the contours of the pot in which they’d been boiled, the denaturation of the bony matrices by flames, the telltale scoring of the sharp instruments used to carve off slabs of muscle. After all, morality was a more recent evolutionary adaptation within a species that collectively no longer feared its next meal might never come.
These were different, though. There was no indication that any attempt had been made to cook them. They looked like they’d been savaged by wild animals, but rather than scattered and left to work their way into the ground, they’d been gathered and entombed where only the vultures would ever find them.
It was impossible to tell how many individuals had been crammed back into that recess, only that they were all of varying age. Without the ability to carbon date them, he could only estimate that they were anywhere from several hundred to several thousand years old. Some of them near the back were maybe even older than that.
Brooks picked up his light and shined it onto the surrounding walls. They were covered with petroglyphs of men and animals, of hunting parties and fallen warriors, and creatures that walked on two legs, but looked nothing like the other men. They were represented as hairy, like the yaks with their unmistakable horns. There was even primitive writing reminiscent of ornate Tibetan script, with its swooping curves and accent marks, if poorly chiseled by an unsteady hand.
He backed away and tried not to think about the implications of what he’d found. As an evolutionary anthropologist, he could spend months in this one cave alone, sifting through the remains and cataloguing every minute imperfection and injury, pori
ng over the petroglyphs and determining their place in the chronology of human evolutionary development and charting the course of divergence, but now was not the time. Adrianne was still down there and a species he now feared was capable of higher thought and written communication would only be fooled for so long.
He quickly hammered several anchors into the ground and attached a belay device with carabiners to each. He fed the ropes through each in turn and tethered them to his harness. A few solid tugs confirmed it was properly seated. He gathered the remaining length of rope, leaned out over the river, and saw Adrianne already creeping out over the river. From this height, it looked like it might swallow her whole. She was barely moving and appeared to be on the verge of slipping with every jerky movement she made. The plan had been for her to wait for him on level ground. The only reason she would have taken her life into her own hands by venturing out onto the cliff was—
He glanced toward where he had left her and saw only their backpacks through the spume. They’d been opened and the contents spilled out onto the bank, as though in an effort to make it appear as if they’d washed up onto dry ground at the point where the river wound into the canyon, which could only mean one thing.
Their pursuit was closing in on them and she’d made a desperate play to buy them more time.
When he looked back down, his eyes met hers through the mist and he saw the sheer terror on her face. She clung to the tiny ledge for dear life and there was no way she would be able to do so for much longer.
“Hold on,” he said, and dropped the rope.
It uncoiled as it fell and snapped like a whip maybe six feet to her left. It swayed on the breeze, just out of reach. He watched her grab for it, terrified to extend her arm to its full length.
He swung the rope from his end in the hopes that he could get it close enough. Even if he did, though, it would take two hands to tie the knot he’d shown her and she wouldn’t be able to do so without letting go.
The rope bounced off her palm and seemed to momentarily dislodge her from the wall. She scrabbled for purchase and pressed herself flat against the granite. The rope slapped her shoulder and she reached for it too late.
He glanced again toward the bank of the river and saw motion through the mist. The branches of the trees shook as something moved through the forest.
“Come on, Adrianne,” he said, and swung the rope once more.
It hit her shoulder again, only this time she grabbed it before it rebounded out of reach. She fed it through her harness, wrapped it around several times, then fed it back through to form the kind of knot used to tie a sinker to a fishing line. It wasn’t ideal, but it was going to have to work. She wound the rope around her forearm several times and gripped it as tightly as she could.
She looked to her right, then quickly back up at him with tears in her eyes. He read her intention on her face and threw himself backward into the cave as she let go of the ledge. He caught a glimpse of her grabbing the rope with both hands as she fell toward the waiting river. He barely had time to brace his feet against the stone to either side of the opening before the rope drew taut and yanked him forward. He cried out with the strain of straightening his legs and reeling the rope through the carabiners, which served as a system of pulleys to distribute her weight.
The rope swung from side to side over the ledge while the stone worked at it like a dull saw blade. It was rated for five falls, but there was no way it could have been tested under these conditions.
He gave it everything he had, pulling hand over fist until it felt as though his biceps would tear and his elbows would snap, and still he belayed her higher until finally her right arm appeared over the ledge. He dove for her, grabbed her by the back of her jacket, and dragged her inside.
Several silhouettes materialized from the mist.
He threw himself deeper into the cave, hauling her up on top of him. He pursed his lips to shush her and felt her mouth against his. She kissed him long and hard, her tears falling onto his cheeks. He kissed her back and drew her to him in a desperate embrace that only those who’ve narrowly survived a brush with death could understand. The pistol tucked underneath her waistband pressed against his abdomen, but he wasn’t about to complain. When she finally withdrew, she remained right above him, her breath warm on his lips. She closed her eyes and turned her right ear toward the outside world. Brooks listened, but couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of the river.
“Did they see you?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I…I don’t think so.”
“We can’t stay here.”
“There’s nowhere to go from here.”
She started to cry again. This time he kissed her, only softer, a gesture from which he hoped she drew reassurance. She broke away more quickly this time and leaned her forehead against his. Her skin was startlingly hot.
“It’s about time,” she whispered, and looked up for the first time. “Amazing.”
“Thank you,” he said with a smirk.
“Not you—although that wasn’t half bad—I mean…that.”
He rolled out from beneath her and followed her eyes to the pile of bones, barely illuminated by the glow of the flashlight he’d dropped on the ground. From this vantage point, he saw something even more amazing than the accumulation of remains.
He crawled forward and right up onto the bones, then looked up at the roof of the cave.
“Well, what do you know?” he said.
A great roar echoed from the canyon, only this time he was certain it wasn’t the river. He was again reminded of Limpopo, only this time it wasn’t the remains of the wildebeests he recalled, but rather the sounds of the lions that had killed them.
Thirty-seven
Yarlung Tsangpo River Basin
Motuo County
Tibet Autonomous Region
People’s Republic of China
October 17th
Today
There was a chute above the pile of bones, a narrow crevice leading upward into the darkness. Brooks understood now why the bones had been broken to such an astounding degree. They’d been thrown down the hole from somewhere high above them. And if they could get down here, then surely he and Adrianne could get up there.
He shined his flashlight up into the shadows, but the beam diffused before reaching the top. The chute itself was obviously the product of erosion and not the work of man. The walls were smooth and appeared to offer nothing resembling hand or foot holds, or even the tiniest finger cracks.
“I can’t see anything down there,” Adrianne said. She lay flat on her stomach against the side of the cave’s mouth, just far enough out into the open to see the ground where their supplies were still scattered around their backpacks.
Not being able to see them was worse. He and Adrienne didn’t know where they were or in which direction they’d gone. They could be heading upriver toward the lone bridge exiting Motuo or circling around to descend upon them through whatever warren of tunnels and caves connected them to the unknown above. Whatever the case, they were already on borrowed time.
He scooted the bones out of the way and carefully stood up. His shoulders barely fit into the chimney and it was all he could do to manipulate his arms so that he could raise the light over his head. At the farthest reaches, he saw the hint of stone and the faintest silhouette of what might have been a ledge. He ducked back down and found his face inches from Adrianne’s.
“We’re going to have to climb for it. Once I get to the top, I’ll lower the rope—”
“We don’t have that kind of time and you know it.”
Her left forearm was circled with bruises and there were even sections where the rope had bitten through the fabric and into her flesh. She’d torn the ripped sleeves and fashioned the straps into bandages that were already wet with blood.
“The offer stands.”
He stood up once more and clamped the mini Maglite between his teeth. He pressed his back against
one side, his forearms against the other, and inched upward until he could get his knees into the chute. The pressure on his shoulders was phenomenal, as was this pain in his elbows and knees, which he pushed into the bare rock with every ounce of strength he possessed. His body shook with muscular contractions. He wasn’t going to be able to maintain this level of exertion for very long.
He focused on the movement of one appendage at a time. One arm, one leg. Another arm, another leg. He couldn’t lean his head far enough back to gauge his progress above him and resisted the urge to look down. Not that he would have been able to see much of anything with Adrianne’s body blocking out the light. She grunted and groaned at first, then started to whimper with every movement. For as difficult as it was for him, her shorter limbs made it exponentially harder, especially considering her injured arm. He had to admire her courage and determination, but he knew they would only take her so far. With each passing second, her body grew weaker and it was only a matter of time before it gave out completely. If it did so too soon, she would plummet straight down the chute and likely shatter both ankles, leaving him to carry her across the Himalayas on his back.
The thought stimulated a surge of adrenaline and Brooks moved faster. Forearm, knee. Forearm, knee. He felt the back of his jacket rip and the spinous processes of his vertebrae scrape against the rock. He had to bite his lip to keep from crying out with every vertical inch he gained.
Fearful Symmetry: A Thriller Page 23