The Ascent (17 page)

“No way.”

“It’s not a race.”

It was the shakes—I could feel them coming on again sooner than last time. The past half a mile the only thing I could think about was the canteen half filled with bourbon stowed inside my pack. Even looking across the reach to the haunting stretch of Mount Everest, it was all I could think about. Movement was the only thing that kept the shaking at bay.

“Man’s like a bullet,” I heard Shotsky wheeze behind me. I didn’t bother to turn and look at him.

You have to kick this, I told myself. There’s no way you’ll finish with your mind on a flask of booze. Dump it out in the snow. Do it now. Do it.

I wouldn’t do it. I
couldn’t
do it.

“You better keep a good pace, Tim, unless you want to reopen that scar on your left leg,” Petras said. He was keeping stride with me now.

“I’ll be fine.”

“How’d you do it?”

I hocked a wad of yellowish phlegm into the snow and said, “Caving. Fell through a ravine in the dark. Bone came through the leg. I was stupid. Careless.”

“Falls happen.”

“I was alone.”

“How come?”

“Hey, hey—” I stopped and looked at him, my eyes hard. “This an inquisition, man?”

“I just want to know what’s weighing you down.”

“Look,” I said, “I like you. I really do. But my ghosts are mine. Okay?”

John Petras seemed to mull things over. Finally he raised both his hands and said, “Sorry. I surrender.”

We continued walking. I suddenly felt like a heel. Petras hadn’t deserved my response and I knew it—even as I said it I knew it—but I had been right: my ghosts were mine, after all …

I glanced over my shoulder. Donald Shotsky had fallen behind, far enough to be out of earshot. “Andrew’s playing the savior,” I said, anxious to bring up something other than old ghosts. “He’s always been eccentric, but this time his ego’s riding him bareback.”

“The heck are you getting at?”

I told him about Shotsky and how he owed some bookies in Las Vegas twenty thousand dollars. “Andrew thinks this trip will … I don’t know … build character or kick his gambling habit or some shit. Like a goddamn twelve-step program, he brought Shotsky here to fix him.”

“How do you know this?”

“Shotsky told me. And when I confronted Andrew, he told me, too. He’s paying Shotsky the twenty grand to take this trip.”

If the news surprised Petras, it didn’t register on his face. He continued to trudge through the deepening snow, the incline growing increasingly steep.

“So,” I went on, “it seems we’re all apparently here for a reason …”

“What’s yours? Or is that too personal?” He smiled warmly to show he was ribbing me.

I offered a resigned grin back. I’d already mentioned the deathof my wife to Petras the first night we met when he drilled me about my reasons for coming here. I reminded him of it now, though I kept the details vague. “She left because I wasn’t the husband I should have been. I was an up-and-coming artist whose sole focus was on getting beyond the up-and-coming status. She always came second. Always. Until she left.”

“The moment they leave,” said Petras, “is the moment we realize their true worth.”

“After she left, I tried hard to get her back. And after she died, I found I couldn’t sculpt anymore. I tried but couldn’t do it. Haven’t done it since.”

“Ah, she was your muse.”

“I guess.” The notion made me smile. “Regardless, I gave up sculpting for a life on the edge.”

Raising one eyebrow and glancing over the ridge, Petras said, “Pun intended?”

I laughed.

“So Andrew believes you coming out here will help you get over your wife’s death? Maybe you’ll learn to sculpt again?”

I snorted and said, “He mailed me a giant slab of granite; did I tell you that? Had it shipped right to my apartment.”

“Did you sculpt anything from it?”

“I tried. But it didn’t work out. It wouldn’t take.”

Petras snickered. “You sound like a surgeon attempting an organ transplant. Operation was a success, but the patient died. Wouldn’t take.”

“Sometimes I feel that way.”

“Like a surgeon?”

“No, like the patient.” I reached out and touched his giant shoulder. “We’re cool, right? I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t sweat it.” He winked. “Never been cooler.”

Shotsky’s voice rang out, startling me with how far away he sounded. I turned to find that he had indeed lagged quite far behind us. Heraised one hand and stumbled forward. I anticipated his fall before it actually happened: a stiffening of his limbs followed by a keeling over to one side. He thumped down in a plume of powdered snow.

“Shit,” I said. Petras and I dropped our packs and sprinted toward him. I expected to find him unconscious, but as we approached I could see his legs moving back and forth along the ground, carving arcs in the snow. As our shadows fell over him, he moaned.

“What happened?” Petras asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Cramped … up …” He looked like someone in pain attempting to smile.

“Where?”

“Left … leg …”

Petras bent and felt his calf muscle. “It’s tightening up,” he said, glancing at me. He then looked back down at Shotsky and told him to straighten his leg while he massaged his calf muscle.

“Jesus!” Shotsky hissed.

I grappled with the walkie-talkie on Shotsky’s pack, wiping water off it with the sleeve of my anorak and bringing it to my face. “Andrew, this is Tim. Over.”

“I’m okay,” Shotsky said. “Tim—”

“You got your talkie on, Trumbauer?” I said into the handheld.

Andrew’s voice returned, full of static: “Go. Over.”

“Shotsky’s down. Leg’s cramped up. Over.”

“You want help? Over.”

“How’s he feel?” I asked Petras.

“Guys, I’m … I’m fine …” But he was still wincing.

Petras nodded. “He’s coming along.”

I keyed the handheld and said, “You go on ahead. We’re gonna sit out with him for a bit.”

“Stay in the passage along the black rocks,” Andrew returned. I could see him at the crest of the precipice far in the distance. “We’ll set up camp at the top. Don’t leave the passage, Tim. Over.”

“No problem. Over.”

I waited for something more—perhaps for him to keep his part of the bargain—but he did not respond.

“Spread your toes and bend your ankle,” Petras told Shotsky. “Bring your toes toward your head.”

“I can’t spread … my toes …”

“Try.”

“Boot’s too tight.” Shotsky sucked in a deep breath, then blurted, “Fucking boot’s been too tight the whole fucking trip!”

Without missing a beat, Petras popped the laces and yanked the boot off Shotsky’s foot. Shotsky winced and sucked air in through his clenched teeth. Petras clamped one hand against the bottom of Shotsky’s foot and bent it upward. Shotsky’s toes spread, expanding the tip of his sock like webbing.

“Get bigger boots,” Petras told him after he was done.

Only ten minutes had passed, but Andrew and Curtis had already disappeared over the crest of the passage. Hollinger and Chad were close behind them.

“We lose much time?” Shotsky asked, lacing his boot.

“Not much,” I said.

“Goddamn boots. Goddamn cramping leg muscle. Is it getting late?”

“We still have a few hours of daylight left.”

“Lousy goddamn boots. I’m sorry, guys.”

I waved a hand at him, yet I was anxious to start moving again. My hands were shaking. When I looked up, I noticed Petras watching me. His face held no expression.

Shotsky managed to gather his feet beneath him. He dusted the snow off his clothes, his face red and flushed. I could easily picture him as a bloated Popsicle frozen to the wall of an ice cave, his eyes hardened pebbles recessed into the black sockets of his skull.

By the time we crested the passage, Shotsky was behind again. Petras caught my arm and told me to wait. My heart rate wasthrumming; I wanted to keep going and to get my mind off the remaining alcohol in my pack.

“I’m okay,” Shotsky called from farther down the slope.

“Asshole’s going to break his neck,” I commented to Petras.

“Or kill one of us in the process. Listen,” Petras continued, lowering his voice. “About what you said before—Shotsky and the twenty grand and all. Let’s keep that between us, yeah? No need to let any of the others find out.”

“You think they’d be pissed?”

“What I think is we’ve got a crew of alpha males, each of them like to think they’re the one in charge. They find out this is some kind of mind game on Andrew’s part, and we may have an all-out mutiny on our hands. And seven headstrong individuals going their separate ways on this mountain is a bad idea. So if it’s all the same to you, I think we should keep up the façade. Whatever you’ve learned doesn’t need to leave this passageway.”

“Fine by me.”

“Guys …,” Shotsky called. He leaned against one of the large black stones, breathing hard. The skyline was bruising toward dusk. “Wait up …”

Petras sighed and rubbed the side of his face, covering his mouth from Shotsky’s view. “Anyway, we got bigger problems, I think.”

Petras and I grabbed Shotsky by the arms and hoisted him off the rock. He groaned and said he needed just a few minutes to rest.

“It’s getting dark,” I said, “and we need to catch up to the others before it gets too late. Wind will come funneling through here from the top of the ridge, freezing the place. It’ll be twice as hard to climb to the top.”

Shotsky groaned. “You two are a couple of downers—you know that?”

It was dark when we crested the incline and continued down the other side of the passage. The stars were countless and dazzling, the line of mountains a blackened series of waves against an inky backdrop of sky.

The flicker of a campfire trembled in the narrow, cupped valley below.

Two hours ago, Shotsky might have sighed with relief and commented in some quasi-humorous fashion about how glad he was to see the campsite. But that was two hours ago. Now all his strength was reserved for propelling one foot in front of the other. The night had cooled the atmosphere considerably, yet Shotsky’s round face was glistening with sweat, his cheeks flushed and quivering, his exaggerated breaths volleying his lower lip back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It would have been comical had I not been concerned about his heart giving out.

The rest of the crew was uncharacteristically quiet upon our arrival. Instinct told me they were thinking the same thing I was—namely, that there was no way in hell Shotsky was going to be able to complete this journey. Wordlessly, Hollinger handed a cup of hot cocoa to Shotsky, who accepted the cup equally as silent.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Chad commented under his breath, coming up beside me. “What’d you do, carry the son of a bitch on your shoulders the whole way?”

There was nothing I could say.

“Seriously,” Chad went on, his voice rising, “where’s the hidden fucking cameras? Because this has got to be a joke—”

“Cool it. I don’t need a goddamn recap.” I glanced around. “Where’s Andrew?”

“Where do you think? He’s praying like a goddamn monk up there.” He pointed to a silhouetted outline of jagged rock.

I could just barely make out Andrew’s form crouched atop one of the peaks, his face in profile.

“Is it just me,” Chad said, “or is everyone losing their fucking minds?”

An hour later, Andrew came down from the peaks. Shotsky was snoring against a stone outcropping, while Curtis, Chad, and Hollinger played cards. Petras had taken my book on George Mallory closer to the fire to read by the light. I’d spent the past hour thinking aboutthe situation with Shotsky but mostly thinking about the bourbon in my canteen. I’d come to the decision that I’d take another swig—just one more—after everyone had gone to bed. Either that, or do push-ups till morning.

“We need to talk,” I said to Andrew as he took off his shirt and sniffed his armpits.

“I’m ripe,” he said, pulling a face. He tossed the shirt atop his pack and bent to rifle for a fresh one. “What’s up?”

“I think you know.”

“Do I? Because there are so many things going on at the moment.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well,” he began, his voice level, “for one thing, I noticed how collected you were this morning and well into the afternoon. Up until early evening, really, when you started lagging behind. And your hands started shaking again.”

I wasn’t going to mention the liquor to Andrew—though he’d supplied it, I didn’t have to let him know that I’d discovered it—but he was already onto me. This angered me. I guess Andrew could see that it angered me because he looked me up and down and asked if I was going to punch him in the face again.

“Thinking about it,” I said.

He selected a fresh T-shirt and pulled it over his head, tucking it into the waistband of his camouflage pants.

“He’s going to drop dead out here,” I said. “And I’m sure as hell not going to be his babysitter for the rest of the trip.”

“You didn’t have to be his babysitter today, either.”

“We had a deal,” I reminded him.

“The deal was if
he
feels like he can’t finish. Not
you.”

“He won’t quit because he needs the money.”

“He’ll quit,” Andrew said. His eyes were like twin orbs of obsidian reflecting the nearby firelight. “That’s the problem with him. He’s a quitter. I wish it were different, but that’s not the case. You’ll see—

you’ll come out on top, and you’ll get your way.”

“I just hope it’s not too late. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Andrew said, squatting down with his back against his pack and lacing his hands behind his head, “we do. Good night.”

Speechless, I climbed into fresh socks and had Chad deal me in for a few hands of poker.

“You suck, Shakes,” Chad said after I’d lost my tenth hand in a row.

“Just deal,” I told him. Truth was, I couldn’t concentrate on the game; I was too busy watching Andrew sleep. Whether it had been subconscious or not, he’d removed himself from the rest of us, setting up his sleeping bag on the other side of the bonfire where, in the flicker of the flames, he was nothing but a dance of alternating shadows.