Exiles (27 page)

A sharp crack echoed through the canyon. They looked out; the guerrillas were directly across from them with rifles raised.

“Six,” said Ramesh. “Some must have gone back.”

There were two or three more shots, but they were too far away; none of the bullets hit within twenty feet of them. When the guerrillas understood the situation they lowered their guns and trotted down the trail toward the river. Even allowing for the river crossing, they’d be directly underneath them in twenty or thirty minutes.

Breathing hard, Peter made a difficult traverse out to the left. The other two followed, matching where he put his hands and feet. They found a gentler grade that he thought they could manage just by smearing and crabbing up. They were all gasping for air, and the guerrillas had made it halfway to the river.

When Peter got to the chossy patch, the first hold he grabbed broke off in his hand. The second one started to work loose before he’d put any weight on it. Ramesh and Devi waited as he tried to figure out what to do. The layer ran all the way along the face. He couldn’t see how to get past it without a rope.

“We’ll just keep going left,” he said finally, though the strategy had its limits. After another twenty or thirty yards the loose layer was broken up by a small boulder that stuck out of it a couple of feet. Rotten rock but big. Peter was able to get a hold on the side; he walked his feet up the wall and mantled onto the top of the boulder, then swung up his legs. The stone was so crumbly it didn’t even feel like the boulder was anchored in the wall; if he shifted his weight the rock shifted with him, like a huge loose tooth.

“One at a time on this thing,” he said. The granite above it was solid again, so he moved up and found a concavity he could get about half his butt into. With his feet stuck with friction and his hands on nubbins to the sides, he could just hold on there.

Devi stalled. She couldn’t do the mantle move, and she was just hanging there, kicking her feet, trying to get leverage. The boulder shifted ever so slightly. Ramesh saw what was happening and somehow got one hand on his sister’s foot, then helped boost her over the lip. From there she came up to Peter, but there was nowhere for her to rest, so he moved out of the jug and gave it to her. He faced the wall and rested both hands and feet on nubbins. He was shaking and couldn’t get his breath.

Ramesh pulled himself up onto the boulder, then pushed off it, onto the wall. The boulder moved again, the nose dropping with a sort of fitful sigh as it dislodged a few pebbles and finally came to rest. There was a gap between it and the wall at the top now. One good rain would bring it down. This, Peter realized, was where the big landslide below had come from. They were spidering across the surface of the next one, and if the rocks gave way they would carry the climbers thousands of feet to the valley floor.

The chossy layer abruptly angled up the wall and to the left, so they couldn’t keep traversing without crossing it again. There was nowhere to go but up. The angle of the slab was decreasing, though, and they were able to nubbin-scramble up for a good thirty feet before they came to another ledge, over which hung a little rock roof. The wall straightened out to vertical on both sides. Peter sat down on the ledge and looked around. There was
nowhere to go, and it was getting too dark to downclimb. They were trapped.

He looked at the two of them and tried to figure out how much to say. A night here would almost certainly be fatal. If they huddled back against the wall, the ledge would provide some cover from gunfire, but the temperature was already dropping and the wind would soon pick up. They’d be frozen by morning, and even if they somehow survived the night, trying to climb back down would likely get them killed without any help from the guerrillas.

Devi leaned into him, shivering. “Why is it so cold?” she asked.

“Cool air coming down with the sunset.” He draped an arm around her. He couldn’t see the guerrillas.

“No, there’s a draft,” Devi said. “Up behind us. I can feel it on my neck.”

He told her he’d go look, though he didn’t see how such a thing could be possible. He stood up, and then he could feel it too; cool air was leaking out of somewhere. He climbed up to where the slab that formed the roof met the main wall. He found a gap in the rock about eighteen inches high, so he climbed up and put his hand inside. There was nothing in it but air. He tired quickly, hanging there, and had about enough strength left for one quick look, so he pulled himself up and stuck his head in. He couldn’t see anything until he craned his neck around and looked up. He was staring up a perfect natural chimney, a squarish vertical pipe of rock that ascended maybe twenty feet and ended. The walls were rough and dry, perfect for friction climbing, and about four feet apart. Beyond it there was nothing but deep purple sky and a faint star.

They stood, precariously, on the ledge. Ramesh, the thinnest of the three, pulled himself up and wiggled through the hole. Devi went next. She got her hands inside and was kicking her way up the rock when there was another rifle shot, this time from directly below. Peter ducked as a flake of granite spun out from the wall by his head. There was another shot, then a short burst, and suddenly Devi was screaming and blood spattered the wall.

She fell onto the ledge and was just about to go over the side
when Peter grabbed her and pulled her back close to him. He pulled up her pants leg. The bullet had entered her calf just above the ankle and exited halfway around to the side and below the knee. She was bleeding, but the blood was dark and steady, venous rather than arterial. Peter took off his shirt and tore it in two. One half he wrapped around the exit wound, the other around the entrance. Devi kept screaming, and bursts of fire shattered the rock to the sides of the ledge and in the overhead roof.

Ramesh peered briefly out of the hole in the rock, then pulled his head back in when the next explosion of bullets came. Peter called him and signaled that he would have to grab his sister’s hands and pull her up. Ramesh nodded. Devi stopped screaming and turned white; she was going into shock. Peter put his face right in front of hers.

“Don’t go away,” he said. “You’ve got to stay right here with me.”

She looked at him, her face pale, her eyes out of focus, as if she couldn’t quite make out who or what he was.

“Devi!” he shouted, and her eyes seemed to clear a little. “We’re going to get your weight on your good leg, and I’m going to help you stand. Okay?”

She nodded. The blood had already soaked the two pieces of shirt. Peter got his arms around her waist and lifted her. She put her right leg down.

“Now, to the wall,” he said. There was another burst of gunfire and she crumpled into a ball, but she was scared, not hit. Peter got her to her feet again and put her hands on the wall.

“We’re going to do this fast,” he said. “Ramesh?”

Ramesh put his face to the opening and nodded. Peter lifted Devi up. She raised her arms, and Ramesh reached down and grabbed her by the wrists. He pulled and Peter pushed, and in a couple of seconds she was through the hole.

A long eruption of automatic fire chipped away at the rock around the ledge, so Peter sat down against the wall and waited for it to end. As soon as it did, another burst started up.

There was a pause, a clink, then a
ka-chunk
, then another spurt of fire. Peter listened. He was pretty sure the first sound was the expended clip being pulled out. The second, heavier sound would be a new one being slammed in. The pattern repeated itself twice.

He could hear Devi crying in the chimney and Ramesh talking to her. There wasn’t enough time to be sure he had it right. He gathered himself into a crouch below the hole and signaled for Ramesh to move Devi out of the way.

Three long bursts, bits of granite flying everywhere, then the lighter, clinking sounds. Peter sprang for the hole, got his hands in, and levered himself up. Just as he got inside, the next fusillade came from below. A rock chip caught him on the ankle and cut him, but it wasn’t serious. He heard shouting, and he and Ramesh peered out. The guerrillas were running back down the trail toward the river.

“Another way knowing, I think,” said Ramesh.

Peter showed him how to stem the chimney, placing a hand and a foot on each side and using friction to work his way to the top. “You go first,” he said. “If we fall I don’t want you under us.”

Ramesh nodded and spread out his hands and feet, then started up. Peter turned to Devi. “Get up on my back,” he said. She nodded, a little too dreamily for his liking. She didn’t look good. Blood had filled her shoe. As soon as they were on top he’d be able to get pressure on the wounds.

“You’ve got to hang on tight,” he said. “I need to use my hands to climb. If you let go, you’ll fall, and you don’t want to land on that leg.”

She nodded again. Peter got down on all fours, and she climbed on his back. He showed her how to grip each of her forearms with the opposite hand so she had a lock around his neck without choking him.

“Stay with it,” he said. Blood was dribbling out of her shoe and splashing to the ground. Ramesh had already stemmed his way to the top. He climbed out of the opening, then Peter started up. Right foot on the right side, left foot on the left side, braced by the
hands. Devi was hard to carry, and he was quickly shaking again and drenched with sweat. At about ten feet, her grip loosened and she almost fell. She began to sob. Peter’s legs shook from the stress and the weight, and his crappy soles wouldn’t stick to the rock. He had to keep moving or he’d start to slide, and if he slid, the shoes would come off the rock and that would be the end.

Devi almost lost her grip again. “Come on!” Peter said. “Hang on another couple of minutes.”

He had ten feet to go, then five, then three. Finally they were at the top. Ramesh reached down, grabbed Devi again, and pulled her out. Peter climbed out after. They were on a cold ridge at probably eighteen thousand feet. The moon shone, and a freezing wind was blowing. Ramesh and Devi were in T-shirts, and Peter was now shirtless. They were all soaked.

Peter got pressure on Devi’s wounds, and in a few minutes the bleeding had slowed enough that he thought they could move her. He had started to shiver violently. Down the hill they found a little rock shelter where some boulders had piled up. They crawled in under it, all of them now shaking with cold. Peter wasn’t sure they’d get through the night. He and Ramesh pulled more rocks in around the opening so they were almost completely walled in, with a little gap for air. The space was just big enough for them to lie in a pile together, and after a few minutes it began to warm up a bit. Peter hoped Devi would still be alive when dawn came.

He awakened to sun shafts penetrating the rock cave. He tried to say Devi’s name, but he was so cold and dehydrated he could barely speak; his voice emerged with a gravelly asthmatic whine. He nudged her gently with his hand. She was pale and still, but finally her eyes blinked open. Ramesh awakened, then he and Peter removed the rocks from the front of the shelter. They crawled out, and Devi followed, dragging her bad leg behind her. Once in the sun, Peter gently removed the blood-stiffened rags and examined her wounds. They were dirty, and the leg was starting to swell.

“We’ve got to get you somewhere.…” he said, but then his voice gave out and he started to cough. There was frost in the shadows, and he couldn’t stop shivering. Neither he nor Devi had eaten in nearly three days. Luckily, the sun was bright and the wind had died. He thought he’d warm up if they got moving.

It looked as if they could head down a relatively gentle slope toward the southeast, the direction of Pokhara, without crossing more than one or two more ridges. The goat trail seemed wider, better used, so it was possible someone lived up here. Peter helped
hoist Devi onto Ramesh’s back, and they set out, switching her between them every ten minutes or so. She was nearly deadweight.

Peter was reduced to flat, animal endurance. His brain seemed to have shut down, but he was no longer particularly afraid. He mainly thought of finding food, warmth, and rest. Devi’s lower wound started bleeding again from all the jostling, so they took a break, and he put pressure on it until it stopped.