The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17 Page 18

  We continued our climb for several hours, oxygen getting thinner with every step. The sky, which had been a brilliant cerulean blue, was starting to take on a hazy cast. I observed that on the high sawtoothed ridge ahead of us, major cornices had formed from the action of the wind. Plumes of snow continued to be whipped off the high points along the sharp crest. I pulled my parka a little tighter around my neck and trudged on, breaking trail in the snow, which was becoming deeper as we ascended.

  We finally arrived at a bench, and I called a halt. My companions collapsed onto their packs. I went over to see how Thanh was faring.

  “It’s better,” he said, though there was still pain etched on his thin face. His high cheekbones looked white, the skin stretched taut.

  Gord looked like a zombie, staring into the distance. Yuri, who made sure that he always sat behind George, took the occasional swig from his flask. George seemed tired, but that was normal.

  Scarface’s pack was off to the side, but he wasn’t sitting on it. I looked around and saw him standing about thirty meters away, with his back to us. At first I thought he was just being unusually modest in relieving himself, but he stood there several minutes, quite still, looking down at the snow in front of him. I walked over and stood next to him.

  In the snow directly at his feet, there was a small patch of red with a few tufts of dun fur around it, and some black pellets. Aside from our footprints, there were no tracks leading to this scene of violence.

  “What the fuck is it?” I said, more to myself.

  Scarface turned to me; the thin scar across his cheek and temple was particularly noticeable against the deep tan of his face.

  “Rabbit,” he said.

  I looked around. “There are no rabbits this high. How did he get here? There’re no tracks.”

  “Eagle,” Scarface said, pointing.

  And indeed there was a faint impression where the feathers of one wing had brushed the snow. The raptor had probably snatched the hare below the tree line but had not completely killed it. Its struggles had forced him to drop it for an instant, while he got a better grip; he then continued on his way to his high aerie.

  What terror that hare must have felt, gripped by powerful talons, its struggles futile. Then the instant of hope as the eagle dropped it, immediately dashed as the raptor took hold again. No wonder he shit himself. It was like the Angel of Death plummeting from the sky and snatching us from the life we take so much for granted.

  It was a sorry-looking bunch that pulled into camp that night, but at least I was satisfied that we had a chance of getting across the border before we ran out of food. We camped at a col above a long, steep descent to the glacier below. I would have preferred to camp further down, but I was concerned about the group’s ability to negotiate that difficult stretch. There were a couple of cliff bands along the way, and a stumble while skiing down could result in a disastrous plunge. It would be safer to do this when my charges were well rested.

  The tents were set up, I made dinner with help from Thanh and Scarface, and Yuri kept drinking and making toothpicks. A typical evening in the mountains.

  “How are your shins?” I asked Thanh after everyone had settled down.

  “Better,” he said.

  “Let me take a look,” I said.

  He sat down on his pack, and I unwrapped the gauze dressing. There was some oozing of clear fluid on his right shin, but the other dressing was dry. I replaced the stained dressing with new gauze, making sure that it was quite loose, to allow a scab to form.

  “Make sure we tape back the foam before we start in the morning.”

  “Thanks, Sierra.”

  “You’ll be fine. You come from tough people.”

  “You think so?” He raised his eyebrows quizzically.

  “I visited the Cuchi Tunnels, Thanh. I have some idea.”

  “You were in Vietnam?”

  “I went there in 1995. I saw the War Atrocities Museum.”

  The muscles in Thanh’s jaw bulged and his face hardened, but he said nothing.

  “The world should know what the Americans did. They talk about what the Germans did or what happened in Rwanda, but no one speaks of the war crimes in Vietnam.”

  “There are some things that can’t be recorded in a museum,” Thanh said, and he stood up and walked to his tent.

  During the night I dreamed that I was back on Everest. I tried to climb, but my legs would not move, and my lungs burned, screaming for oxygen. I woke with sweat streaming down my face.

  I lay in the blackness of my snow cave, trying to get calm, but I still felt like I was suffocating. And I was hot, as if I had a fever. I groped for my headlamp under my pack, and when I switched it on, I immediately understood that I was actually suffocating. The opening to my cave was completely blocked by snow.

  It took a surprising amount of effort to punch through the snow and allow some air to flow into my burrow. With the fresh air came a blast of snow and a high-pitched whine, as if a million banshees were screaming to gain entrance.

  I pulled on my clothes and crawled out, to witness a scene of chaos. The wind was howling, and the snow was so thick I could barely see the few meters to where the two tents had been. In fact, I could not see the tents.

  But it quickly became clear why. Thanh’s tent was in tatters. He, Scarface, and Omar were desperately trying to hold on to their sleeping bags and belongings as the raging storm tried to sweep them off the col.

  There was more left of George’s tent, mostly because Gord was still inside it, deep in drug-induced slumber, apparently oblivious to the howling chaos around him.

  The ear-splitting din and swirling snow made communication almost impossible, but I finally organized them to dig individual snow caves, using what was left of the tents to line them. George seemed more concerned about the packs than his partners, and I had to dig a larger cave in which to store their cargo. George made sure that his cave was right next to the precious burden.

  Gord was housed in the same burrow with Yuri. He had slept through the whole ordeal.

  Finally my charges were all settled, and with the storm still keeping up its infernal racket, I crawled back into my sleeping bag. I felt exhausted, with my whole body aching, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I knew I had made several serious mistakes that had jeopardized the safety of my clients. This was no recreational outing but a drug-smuggling operation, but that did not mitigate my responsibility as a guide. First, I should have been more aware of the signs that a storm was coming, despite the fact that when we had left, the forecast had called for the persistence of the ridge of high pressure whose benign influence we had been enjoying. Second, I should never have camped on the col. It was too exposed. The choice had been forced on me, by trying to make maximum distance so that we would not run out of food yet delaying the hazardous descent while my crew was exhausted. But these were excuses. I had fucked up. To top it all off, the wind and snowfall accumulation would dramatically increase the avalanche hazard for the rest of the trip. While we enjoyed the calm weather, the snowpack had been relatively stable.

  When I emerged from my lair next morning, the wind had abated somewhat, but large flakes were still pouring from the sky, and visibility was minimal. As the little group huddled in what was left of the kitchen area, I suggested that we wait out the storm.

  “We have to get across the border,” George said. “Arrangements have been made.”

  “Arrangements will have to be changed,” I insisted. “You can’t navigate in this visibility, and there’s high avalanche danger.”

  The others seemed convinced by my logic, but George was not giving up.

  “We can navigate by GPS. How long will the avalanche danger last?”

  I had to admit that it could take days for conditions to settle down, but made it clear that I was not willing to jeopardize the group’s safety just to meet some artificial deadline.

  “If we don’t meet our deadline, you won’t be paid.”

&
nbsp; “If we all get killed, there’ll be nobody to pay me.”

  He did not reply but stalked off toward the cave where the packs were stored. I hesitated for a few moments, as the others muttered among themselves, and then went after George to see if I could reason with him. He was on hands and knees, crawling out of the burrow backward, and I slowed when I saw that there was something black in his right hand. I froze when I realized it was a gun. George got to his feet, facing away from me, wiped the snow from the flat gun, and put it inside his jacket. Before he could see me, I quickly made my way back to the kitchen and squatted down in the same place where I had been when George left.

  Just as he came within earshot, I announced, “Okay, I think the storm is settling a bit. Everyone get ready. We’re leaving in half an hour.” I stood up and went back to my cave to pack.

  I’ve often wondered what causes us to compound an initial mistake with progressively greater stupidity. I had put my group in jeopardy by camping on the col, and despite the fact that I knew how dangerous it was, I had been intimidated into attempting the descent in essentially whiteout conditions. Though visibility was zero, all the indications for disaster would have been quite obvious even to a blind man.

  Since most of our travel to this point had involved climbing, I did not have a clear idea of how well my group was able to ski downhill. The first part of the descent from the col was relatively gentle. Even with the large packs, George, Scarface, and Yuri were enjoying themselves, making large swooping turns in the fresh powder. Thanh and Omar were skiing adequately, though the heavy packs and the fact that they couldn’t see ahead of them made them stiff and awkward.

  Predictably, Gord was an utter disaster. The dosage of whatever drug they were pumping into him had obviously been reduced, in anticipation that the descent would not require as much energy as climbing. However, the man was at best a weak intermediate skier, and with the difficult conditions, this was simply not adequate. In the first hour he fell three times. Since I was leading the group, the first time I did not realize this until word had been passed up the line. I directed the others to take a rest while I climbed back up to where Gord was still floundering in the deep snow. He had exhausted himself trying to get up with his pack still on and was now lying on his side, half buried. I took off his pack, pulled him out, found one of his skis, which was buried in the snow, found his poles, supported him while he tried to put his skis back on, and then carried his pack down to where the others were waiting. I watched Gord ski down, and even without a pack he was struggling. I kept yelling at him to get forward on his skis, but after a split second he’d be leaning back again and the skis would start to run out of control. He’d then make a sharp turn to slow down. In powder, this is disastrous, and inevitably he’d fall over sideways. Without the pack, he’d manage to get up, but each time he was more exhausted. The ski to the others was short, but by the time we reached them, Gord’s legs were trembling. I decided to wait until he recovered, and made some hot tea while we waited. In the meantime, I pondered what kind of insanity had prompted George to include this novice in his group.

  I also wondered why Gord’s pack was so hard. It felt more like metal containers than compressed dope.

  When we set off again, I gave George my GPS and charged him with staying on the route that I had planned. I stayed next to Gord and tried to coach him. He fell a few more times, but his stance was improving, and because I helped him to get up each time, this was no longer taking such a toll on his energy. As well, I noticed that Yuri had laced Gord’s tea with more pharmaceutical assistance.

  In this way, we managed to drop about a third of the way down. The visibility was improving, with much smaller snowflakes, and the wind had almost stopped. I could see George and the others ahead of us and was able to ascertain that he was not straying off course. I was actually starting to believe that we could make it down to the glacier below. Crossing the glacier had its challenges, but at least it was flat. Then there was one more modest ridge to cross, and we would be across the border.

  We stopped for a short lunch. Food was getting low anyway.

  I instructed the group to put their skins back on.

  “What the fuck for?” George asked. “We’re going downhill.”

  “There are some rocky parts ahead of us. It’s easier to control your speed with skins.”

  “That’s because you don’t know how to ski,” George said.

  “Look, George, are you here for the turns or to get across the border?”

  He glared at me but didn’t reply. I saw a quick smile flit across Thanh’s usually impassive face.

  With the skins on, we could no longer just swoop down the slopes. We had to zigzag to make the descent gradual, and this slowed our progress dramatically.

  Despite this, there were a couple of places where we had to make a traverse on a narrow ledge with a steep slope below us. I generally stuck with Gord and coaxed him through these spots. I kept telling him to look ahead, but somehow he could not resist occasionally glancing down the steep drop beside him. Sometimes his legs would begin to tremble, and then I would tell him to stop, breathe deeply, and would not allow him to go on until his legs were steady.

  We were now descending through a light mist, but it had stopped snowing, and visibility had improved to the point that on occasion I could actually see the glacier below. Unfortunately, at our pace we wouldn’t be able to reach it before dark, but at least I could find a more sheltered spot, in case the wind picked up. I decided to keep moving as long as possible, despite the fact that even the stronger members of our party were starting to show signs of fatigue. I called for a quick stop to allow everyone to hydrate and gulp down some food, and then we pressed on.

  Gord was starting to handle the difficult parts better. Given a couple of years in the backcountry, he would probably become a competent mountaineer.

  We were crossing a part that was fairly steep. I had asked the others to wait while I went ahead and packed down a firm, if narrow, traverse into the side of the steep slope. There was a cliff band above us, so there was little danger of avalanche from that direction. By cutting the snowpack with my skis, I was testing to see whether the slope below us was likely to go. If it did go, I had little hope of getting rescued by my companions. The one quick transceiver exercise we had done indicated that it would take them far too long to find and dig me out.

  The slope did not slide, and I went back and instructed the group to cross one at a time and wait for me at a protected spot ahead.

  They navigated the traverse, and I could see them waiting ahead. Only Gord and I were left. I had to allow him to cross by himself, because the traverse was too narrow for two.

  “Keep your weight on your downhill ski,” I said. He nodded, and started across. He was doing well until he came to the middle. At this spot the slope above was so steep that Gord could reach out with his left hand and almost touch the slope above him. I suppose the temptation to steady himself was too much, and he leaned in toward the mountain. Before I could warn him, his skis slid out from under him, and he started to rag-doll down the slope to his right, which was equally steep.

  An experienced mountaineer would have been able to self-arrest, but Gord was anything but experienced. He kept going, flipping head over heels. While terrifying, the damage would not be severe, since the snow was soft. But as a sudden breeze blew apart the curtain of mist, I suddenly realized that there was another rock band far below us. The slope was relatively gentle there, but Gord was heading straight for it at high speed. The small figure hit the rocks and came to a stop. He did not move.

  I quickly stripped off my skins and skied down at full speed. Kicking off my skis and dropping my pack, I ran out into the rocks.

  Gord was unconscious, but there was no sign that he had hit his head. The pack had also protected his spine. However, his right pant leg was soaked with blood. I cut away his pants and nearly vomited. The broken end of a bone was protruding through the skin of h
is thigh.

  I put a tourniquet on his thigh, because the blood was pulsing out of the wound. Then I used his poles, which had been clutched in his hands, to fashion a splint.

  By this time the others had arrived. I don’t know how they had come down the steep slope. In retrospect, I was amazed that we had not triggered an avalanche in the process.

  We made camp on a flat spot nearby. While the rest retired to their individual snow caves, Yuri and George conferred in Russian about Gord. I noticed that Yuri referred to him as “professor,” and I finally understood why they’d bring along someone so inexperienced. They needed him to process the drugs they carried.

  I was trying to make dinner from the sparse supplies we had left. Gord was laid out on the flat platform we had dug for the kitchen. Though he was unconscious, he moaned occasionally, and his breathing seemed shallow. We had to get him to a hospital soon, or he would lose his leg. Worse, he could die from shock and infection.

  Yuri injected him, and Gord’s breathing became more regular, and he seemed to go into a deep sleep. George told Yuri to give him another injection, setting off a rapid discussion that I couldn’t follow. Yuri injected Gord again.

  It took me a long time to melt the snow required to make our evening meal. We had food enough for one more day, and at best we still had two days of travel ahead of us, possibly three. The liquid would allow me to stretch the supplies.

  As I went about making dinner, I tried not to think about the events of the day. I had fucked up in so many ways on this trip! If my examiners had witnessed this disaster, they would have immediately yanked my guide’s ticket for incompetence. Fortunately for me, the illicit nature of the job ruled out making a report, but that didn’t change the fact that, in my own heart, I knew.

  Gord had been placed into Yuri’s snow cave and appeared to be sleeping peacefully. The rest of the group gathered quietly in the kitchen to consume dinner, and eventually the big Russian joined them. When he walked past me, my nose indicated that happy hour had already started.