by Rick Chesler
“April.”
“Who is the current President of the United...”
Dustin tried to keep the weary look from his face. After all, Dr. Kapoor was only doing his job. It was Ian who deserved the brunt of his frustration. Ian, who had pulled him down from Camp I at the worst possible time, simply because of an inconsequential cut at the base of his forehead. This was all Ian’s doing. The expedition leader, the so-called King of the Mountain, was screwing things up royally for him.
He recited the name of the current Commander In Chief.
“Good,” Dr. Kapoor said. “Now, I’m going to give you three objects to remember...”
Dustin glanced around the crowded interior of the team’s medical tent, wondering if there was anything he could use. His head ached less, so he assumed the Vicodin were already kicking in. Which also explained the slight euphoria.
Kapoor completed his array of tests. “Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”
The Indian vanished outside the tent.
Dustin stood and began sifting through the doctor’s supplies. He took a deep breath. It had been a hell of a last twenty-four hours, starting with his second arrival at Camp I. Snow had been falling then, and it was getting heavy, so heavy that even the queue of bright orange tents set up for them by the Sherpas was becoming difficult to see. All because Ian had decided to get the expedition up the mountain early. All because Himalayan Skies needed to be the first team to reach the peak.
Dustin squinted against the biting wind as he dropped his load at Camp I. He needed some rest. He’d eat some lunch then take a four or five-hour nap until dinner. He’d dine with the rest of the team. After dinner he’d retreat to his tent to gather his things. Maybe wait an hour or so until dusk. At least until no one was watching. Once he was certain, he’d slip out the rear of his tent. Figured he’d be back in half an hour or less. Figured he wouldn’t even be missed.
* * *
Dr. Kapoor stepped back inside the medical tent, followed by Ian Furst.
Here we go, Dustin thought. Now the Brit will begin blustering.
“What in bloody hell were you doing straying so far from Camp One?”
Dustin shrugged. “I didn’t mean to, Ian.”
Ian took a step toward him. “Pretend for just a bloody second, Blaisdell, that I’m not daft. Now sort me out. What in blazes happened last night, and how in bloody hell did you fall?”
Dustin put on his most apologetic face, bit his lower lip and sat down.
“It was starting to get dark,” he explained. “I just wanted to have a quick look around...”
So he told Ian how he’d wandered off and got lost, which wasn’t too far from the truth.
It had stopped snowing, but because of the wind, visibility still wasn’t good. The snow was drifting, smacking against Dustin’s glacier goggles like bugs on a windshield in Florida. He was still tired. The nap hadn’t gone precisely as planned. The damned altitude. It hadn’t affected his sleeping pattern last time he had to bunk at twenty thousand feet. But this time it was. This of all times because he had serious work to do.
“So you’re telling me,” Ian pressed, “that you strayed from Camp One without alerting the guides simply because you wanted to see the sights?”
Dustin nodded. “That’s right.”
In fact, Dustin had a very specific destination. He just couldn’t find it that night. Dark fell even faster than he’d anticipated. Then he realized the batteries were about to die in his tactical flashlight. So he shut it off to conserve some energy, flipping it back on every four to five steps. Many times he thought of turning back. But he couldn’t. What if it snowed again all day tomorrow? What if he couldn’t sneak away from camp the next night? This could be his only chance.
When he found the abandoned oxygen bottle, he knew he was lost. No one had been this high on the mountain in the past three months, except for the Himalayan Skies team, the Scots and their Sherpas, and of course, the late Elliot Wyle. And no one this season had emptied a single bottle of supplemental oxygen just yet.
He flicked off the torch and cussed. That was when he heard the whistle, the high-pitched shriek he now knew all too well.
The hideous cry was instantly followed by the vile smell.
Dustin switched the flashlight back on, put it in strobe mode and swung it like a weapon in every which direction.
Then he took off in a run.
* * *
“I panicked,” Dustin said. “I heard something, and I panicked. That’s why I ran.”
“Heard what?” Ian demanded, his hands now on his hips, his face so close to Dustin’s that Dustin could smell the stale tea on his breath.
“It was nothing,” Dustin said, shrugging. “Just the wind.” He paused. “But in the dark, on the mountain, it frightened me. So I ran.”
He did run, ran as fast he could through the freshly fallen powder, sidestepping larger rocks and stamping smaller ones into the dirt and detritus. But in his haste, Dustin had run the wrong way, over terrain he’d never traversed before. And his path brought him to a steep declivity.
He was sliding down the slope face-first even before he saw it.
“And that’s how I got this,” Dustin said, pointing to his forehead.
“By running?” Ian clearly neither expected nor wanted an answer. “By running from the bloody wind.” He turned toward Dr. Kapoor, his hands still curled into fists, attached to his hips like magnets. “My client wandered from camp twenty-thousand feet high on the mountain in the dark without notifying me or alerting a single guide or even one of his fellow climbers, got lost, and tumbled down the rock while running from the bloody wind. In all your years of climbing, Aasif, have you ever heard such a thing?”
Kapoor didn’t answer.
Ian swung back toward Dustin. “I know I bloody well haven’t,” he shouted.
Aasif Kapoor stepped forward. “I stitched him up,” he told Ian dryly. “And he doesn’t seem to have suffered a concussion.”
Dustin anxiously awaited the verdict.
“Still,” Kapoor said, now speaking directly to his patient, “I hesitate to clear you to climb, because with a head injury, you never know. Can never be too careful. You could be perfectly lucid one minute and dead the next. It’s called ‘talk and die’ syndrome.”
Ian held up a finger. “Happened to that lovely British bird, the one married to Liam Neeson.”
Kapoor nodded. “That’s right. As we speak, you may be experiencing a brain bleed and we’d never know it without a diagnostic test. Not until it was too late.”
“Not until you were dead, he means,” Ian clarified.
Kapoor nodded again. “That’s why I have to recommend you return to Kathmandu for a proper evaluation.”
Dustin was on his feet before the doctor even finished his sentence. “Not a chance.”.
Kapoor placed his palms on Dustin’s shoulders and sat him down again. “Let me finish.” He cleared his throat. “I’m recommending this course of action because of the great risk to you. I took an oath as a doctor to always do what is best for my patients..But in this case, Ian and I have decided that whether you follow my recommendation will be up to you.”
Dustin‘s reply was immediate. “Then I choose to climb.”
Kapoor bowed his head. “Very well. But you must make that decision with the knowledge that if you do have a traumatic brain injury, immediate diagnosis and treatment back in the capital could save your life. Otherwise, the damage caused by swelling will be exacerbated by continued exposure to high altitude and could well be irreversible.” At length, he added: “And you could die.”
Dustin nodded. “I appreciate your explanation, Doctor, and I understand.”
“If you experience any further symptoms at all - nausea, severe headache, sudden sleepiness - don’t dismiss it as acute mountain sickness. You are to alert me immediately, and if I so decide, you must descend back to Base Camp straightaway.”
“In addition,” Ian said, �
��I’m going to order Skinner to keep a bloody close eye on you, Blaisdell. And if he tells me you defied just one command, no matter how minor, I’m kicking your ill-mannered arse off the bloody team. Do you understand?”
Dustin bowed his head again, mumbled “Yeah,” almost under his breath.
“I said, do you understand?” Ian said again, much louder.
“Yes.”
Dustin understood. He understood that his task had just become all the more difficult, that he’d have to further enlist the aid of Francesca, and quite possibly Zack. He understood he’d have to leave everything as-is for the next four weeks until the summit push. By then, maybe Ian’s ire would have died down, and Skinner wouldn’t be keeping such a watchful eye.
He waited until Ian stormed outside the tent, then stood. Despite the setback, Dustin’s objective remained the same: Retrieve the carcass. Then get back down the mountain with it, alive.
Chapter 16
Valley of Silence
Days later they trudged listlessly through the Western Cwm, known to climbers since the 1950s as the Valley of Silence: a prodigious glacial snowfield leading from Camp I to the foot of the treacherous Lhotse Face.
Zack couldn’t see two feet in front of him. A band of thick clouds had chased them up the valley and finally caught up with them. He turned, searching for Dustin, for Skinner, for Tashi, for Francesca. Suddenly, among four other climbers, Zack felt as though he were on the mountain alone.
And still less than halfway there. The cwm (pronounced koom) had earlier acted exactly as Dustin warned: like a massive solar oven, baking the climbers’ skulls and further hampering their already-sluggish movements along the glacier. The clouds, in fact, would’ve provided welcome cover had they skulked about overhead where they belonged, instead of engulfing them like the pall of thick black smoke that long ago claimed Zack’s father.
Zack wanted badly to call out but feared his voice would betray his panic. That and he didn’t think he could make a sound without first downing the bottle of water stashed in his rucksack. But he couldn’t stop, couldn’t pause, couldn’t risk being left behind.
He coughed into his glove, then held it in front of his eyes because of a sudden certainness he was spitting up blood. But mercifully, the glove was still covered with snow, clean and white. At least as far as he could tell, lost in the endless ocean of clouds.
Zack slowed, listening for his fellow climbers’ steps. The Western Cwm was dubbed the “Valley of Silence” by the Swiss for good reason. The cwm’s closed topography stifled virtually all wind along the route. There was no sound at all but the soft crunch of the climbers’ crampons on ice. And now, even those soft crunches seemed to be fading.
“Zack?” Dustin’s voice cut through the eerie quiet.
“Here,” Zack called, needlessly waving his ice ax as though it could be seen by anyone.
“Francesca?” Dustin shouted.
“Over here,” she answered, from a spot nearer to Zack than he’d thought.
“Let’s rest,” Dustin said.
Zack moved toward the voice and eventually spotted the torn royal blue climbing suit. Next he felt Francesca come up behind him.
“What about Skinner?” Zack said, catching his breath. “And Tashi.”
“Tashi went up ahead,” Dustin said. “He’s affixing ropes up the Lhotse Face tomorrow and needs his rest. Skinner will be fine. Don’t be so surprised he left us behind. Ruiz warned us Skinner’s not the type of guide to hold clients’ hands on the mountain.”
Zack turned so that Dustin could reach into his rucksack and remove the bottle of water. Zack bit off his gloves, twisted the cap, and hungrily put the bottle to his lips. Dustin did the same for Francesca.
After a long pull, Zack reached for Dustin’s rucksack.
“I’ve got it,” Dustin said, pulling gently away. He slipped out of the heavy pack and placed it down in the snow.
Zack stepped back and continued to drink.
“Always be alert for symptoms of dehydration,” Dr. Kapoor warned the team days before. “Particularly in the Western Cwm, where the ambient temperature can be well below freezing, yet still feel hotter than hell. The snow covering the valley reflects the sun’s powerful rays. Between the walls of Nuptse and the western buttress of Everest, the cwm is like a massive house of mirrors, without a roof.” Kapoor paused to allow time for the seriousness of the situation to sink in. When he resumed speaking, he paced before the standing members of the team like an attorney before a jury at trial. “You’ll lose fluid from sweating. You’ll lose fluid from breathing heavily. The cold air at high altitudes requires more water for your body to humidify it. That, coupled with the decreased thirst you may experience at high elevations, could kill you.” He eyed Zack and the other climbers one at a time. “I want each of you to consume six liters of water per day to stay hydrated. Pay attention when you’re urinating to both the color and volume. If you’re painting orange flowers in the snow rather than the usual light yellow, you’re dehydrated and need to ingest more water straightaway.”
Now Zack peered through the clouds at Dustin. “How’s your head?” he said, handing his bottle to Francesca so she could replace it in his rucksack.
“Just fine,” Dustin said.
The stitches ran like railroad tracks north from Dustin’s left brow to a spot just below his hairline. The bruised skin around the stitches had turned from a reddish purple to a greenish yellow in the past few days. To Zack’s untrained eye, the injury looked as though it were healing okay.
“Mine is not,” Francesca said. “I have an awful headache.”
So did Zack. A headache worse than anything he’d experienced in the weeks following Nadia’s death. The scotch had caused him pain, but this... This felt as though he’d been struck in the back of the head with an ice ax.
“It’s from the sun,” Dustin said. “But now that these clouds moved in, you should start to feel a little better.”
“We should have been carrying umbrellas,” Francesca said.
“Too late for that today. But don’t worry,” Dustin said, winking at her, “we’ll have plenty more trips through the Western Cwm over the next few weeks.”
Minutes later they began moving again. Faster at first, then falling back into their slow, grueling pace. Visibility improved, but not much. So they stayed close to one another, plodding up the broad, gently sloping valley three-across in a straight line.
Together their footfalls sounded like the tick-tock, tick-tock of an old clock, and it reminded Zack that they were on a schedule, that they had to reach Advance Base Camp by a certain time, or else turn back in defeat.
“What if I try to climb Everest and fail?” Zack had said to the high lama in Tengboche.
The Abbott’s smile mutated into a look of utter perplexity. “Fail?” he said, as though he’d never before heard the word. “How can one fail when the only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows?”
Zack tilted his head to one side. “But I don’t underst–”
“Let’s just say,” the Abbott declared, the broad smile returning to his face, “that it is better to travel well than to arrive.”
On either side of Zack, the footfalls suddenly ceased, so he stopped in his tracks. “Everything all right?”
“Shh.” This from Francesca.
Then Zack heard it too, a long deep bellow, almost like a roar. It echoed off the walls of Nuptse, off of Everest’s western buttress. The sound emanated from far off, yet seemed to come from all around.
“What is it?” Zack asked.
* * *
The call came from Tashi.
“Something here, boss.”
Ian put his radio to his mouth. “Tashi, what’s your position?”
The Sherpa hesitated, then pronounced quietly: “I am at the top of the cwm, boss, not far from ABC.” Then he said again, “There is something here.”
“What do you mean?”
Another long
pause ensued before the Sherpa spoke. “I hear something,” he said finally.
Ian sensed something he’d never before encountered in his sirdar’s voice. If the expedition leader didn’t know any better, he’d describe it as fear. “What is it, Tashi? What do you hear?”
Nothing came back but static.
Ian waited a moment, then raised his voice. “I say again, Tashi. What is it? What do you hear?”
* * *
“It’s just the wind,” Dustin said.
Through the thick mist, Zack could see Francesca shaking her head. “The hell it is.”
Zack turned toward her. “Then what is it?”
Dustin answered for her. “She thinks it’s an avalanche. But if it is, it’s high up. Probably off the Nuptse Ridge onto the very top of the Western Cwm. We’re safe here.”
“What about Tashi?” Zack wanted to know. “What about Skinner?”
This time no one replied.
Zack tried to remember what he’d read in his avalanche handbook. Unfortunately, he’d been far more fascinated by the science behind avalanches than by the survival strategies. Now his mind raced through the three hundred pages.
Locate escape paths.
Yell to your climbing partners.
Jettison unwanted gear.
But hold onto your pack.
Reach for a rock.
Or dig your ice ax into the snow and hold tight.
Try to stay on the surface.
Swim on the snow and try to move to the side of the slide.
Close your mouth.
Thrust upward as the avalanche slows.
Relax.
Don’t shout or struggle.
Conserve your oxygen and energy.
Do not give up.
Fight to stay alive.
Before he could expel the fear of avalanche, a new unease arose in Zack’s mind. It felt irrational, and he wouldn’t have been able to explain it. All of a sudden, he didn’t fear the mountain. Didn’t fear crevasses or avalanches or falling or altitude or even death. Reflected in the snow he saw himself with his ice ax, only it wasn’t stationary at his side as he’d thought. It was raised above his head like a lion-tamer’s whip. And then he swung it forward with such force it felt as though his arm would wrench free of its socket. Warm spray shot into his face and then his visage was redder than the red down climbing suit that covered the rest of his form. His upper lip was raised in a snarl.