The Ascent: A Novel of Survival (Thriller Suspense)

  He gripped my shoulder and squeezed it. It was a gesture very unlike him. “I meditate to maintain a connection with the land and to show my respect. Please don’t let that weaken your trust in me to lead this mission. I haven’t lost my mind, and I haven’t dragged you all into something I can’t handle.”

  “We shouldn’t be here.” I cast a wary glance at the sky. It was as clear as lucid thought. The moon hung fat and yellow, larger than I had ever seen it.

  “You never struck me as the superstitious type, Overleigh.” He was back to using my last name, and I was helpless to remember the day we first met in San Juan. This caused me to think once again of Hannah …

  “Has nothing to do with superstition,” I corrected him. “I know for a fact that we’ve pissed off at least one of the locals from Churia. I met him, and he didn’t seem too happy with our little crew.”

  “Don’t let that bother you.”

  “And then there’s Donald Shotsky.”

  “What about him?”

  “For one,” I said, “the fact that he’ll never make it. He’s been struggling already, and we haven’t even started to climb. The man’s never climbed anything more strenuous than a flight of stairs in his life.”

  “We’ve already discussed Shotsky. I’ve explained it to you.”

  “You’ve explained your deranged reason for wanting him out here, but that doesn’t make it right.”

  Andrew chuckled and repeated the word deranged, as if it were the punch line to a joke.

  “Make me a promise.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?” Andrew said.

  “Promise me you won’t break him. Promise me that if he can’t make it to the end, you’ll cut him loose.”

  “I’m not holding a gun to the man’s—”

  “So then promise me you’ll let him off the hook if he feels he can’t finish this.”

  Andrew’s fingers drummed on his knees. “All right, if he feels he can’t finish …”

  “And that you’ll give him the money.”

  His eyebrows froze in twin arches above his eyes. He said nothing.

  “The twenty grand,” I went on. “Promise me.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he clasped his hands in his lap, staring at the blackened heap of carbon that had been our bonfire earlier this evening. “And if I don’t promise?” he said, not looking at me.

  “Then I walk. Right here, right now—tonight. I’ll pack my shit and head back to the valley. You flexed your muscles a few minutes ago and told me to do just that, but I know that’s not what you want. You’re here to make us all better, to fix what you think is broken in us, just like you said. Despite what you said, you don’t want me to leave. You very much want me to stay.”

  I was working off a hunch, not quite sure what Andrew wanted. For one moment, I thought he might actually tell me to pack my stuff and leave. But when he faced me, his eyes somber and ancient, I knew I had called his bluff. Relief washed through me.

  “Twenty grand’s a lot of money,” he said offhandedly.

  “Not for you. Won’t put a dent in your wallet.” I knew this was true; after all, he’d paid for the whole goddamn trip.

  “Why do you care, anyway?”

  “I guess I don’t want another death on my conscience.”

  Andrew’s expression softened. “Been thinking about her tonight?”

  “You mean Hannah,” I said. It was not a question. And he didn’t need to ask it. “I guess so. She’s been on my mind a lot lately.”

  “Mine, too.” He smiled wearily. He looked like he could close his eyes and fall asleep right here. “She was something else.”

  “Yes, she was.” I laughed nervously. My vision was starting to blur.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’ve got a deal on this Shotsky thing. Against my better judgment, you’ve got a deal.”

  “Good.” I shook my hair down in my eyes and pawed at my mouth with one hand. “Christ, I could use a fucking drink.”

  “Then take one,” Andrew said and stood. He stretched his spine, the tendons popping in his neck and back. “Don’t stay out here too late, bro. Get some sleep.”

  I said nothing more to him. He didn’t seem to care or even notice. He strutted back to the tent, pausing to urinate over the side of the ridge for what seemed like twenty minutes. For someone so concerned about being in touch with the land, it seemed a rather vulgar gesture.

  4

  ANDREW’S COMMENT DIDN’T REGISTER WITH ME

  until I awoke maybe an hour later back in the tent, the tendrils of a passing dream still tickling my chest. I rolled over and blindly groped for my pack until I found what I was looking for.

  It was the canteen Andrew had placed inside my cabin before departing on this trek. Sitting up on one arm, I unscrewed the cap and brought the canteen to my nose and inhaled.

  Bourbon.

  What the hell is going on here?

  I was still pondering the meaning of it before I had time to consider what I was doing. Two swigs from the canteen and the bourbon seared my throat and exploded in the pit of my stomach like a car bomb, its warmth spreading through me like the serpentine tentacles of some nonspecific cancer.

  PART THREE

  THE GODESH RIDGE

  Chapter 11

  1

  THE ONES THAT WERE FOUND WERE PRACTlCALLY

  unidentifiable. Hardly human, they were fragile, blue-skinned husks whose eyes had frozen to custard smears in their sockets, whose mouths were textured with colorless sores and frozen in a grimace of torment and pain.

  Typically they were wrapped in layers of clothes, tattered and faded and solid as planks of wood. Others were found nude, fooled by the onset of hypothermia where their skin burned and sweat dimpled their flesh even in the freezing temperatures. There was one story about a man frozen solid to the wall of an ice cave, glazed like a donut by a two-inch sheen of ice. His hands were sheared clear of the wrists as rescuers attempted to hammer the corpse from the ice, the blood within frozen to a dark purple slush.

  Others returned defeated. Frostbitten, starving, anemic, and delirious from high altitudes and snow blindness, they staggered back into base camp like petrified zombies, their tendons hardened to broomsticks, their hands hooked into claws or molded into flippers. These were the lucky ones.

  Lastly there were the ones who were never seen again. Thedisappeared. Separated from their groups or foolish soloists with no perception of mortality, these poor bastards were fated to slip down mile-deep crevasses, tumble off a shaky precipice, or become swallowed up by a sudden avalanche. Occasionally search parties would locate articles of their clothing or uncover evidence of what had presumably befallen them—a broken anchor halfway up the face of a cliff or a length of rope with a frayed end swaying in the cool wind over an abyss—but their bodies were never found.

  What gear that was eventually recovered told a tale of frantic last moments: utensils scattered about rocky formations; pots and pans half filled with glacier water purified with iodine tablets; boots tossed in snowdrifts; vinyl flags staked in erratic patterns in the mountainside. Some left behind claw marks in the ice.

  These were the stories that fueled the myth of the Godesh Ridge. I did not doubt them—I had heard similar ones about much of the Himalayas that I knew to be true—but I did not pay them much mind, either. I’d done my fair share of research in Annapolis while I was still debating whether or not to join Andrew and his crew in Nepal. These stories circulated the Internet like high school rumors. Despite the myth that surrounded the Godesh Ridge—the fact that it was a Nepalese hidden land or John Petras’s beyul and quite possibly haunted—the stories were no different than any other mountaineering story found in a book or in a copy of National Geographic. I paid them little mind.

  However, as we began the ascent up the southern face of the mountain, the stories returned to me in all their gory detail. In my mind’s eye, I could see the frozen bodies with white, rubbery skin coated in a slick mat of ice,
the scattered assortment of hiking gear melting impressions in the snow, the random boot jutting footless from a bank of powder.

  It wasn’t fear that brought these thoughts back to me. It was the bourbon from last night finally filtering out of my system. I’ddowned half the canteen before screwing the cap back on and rolling over, my stomach burning with the calming roil of booze. My hands had stopped shaking, and my vision, even in the darkness of the tent, seemed to clear. Outside, I could hear the powerful wind barrel down the chasms and stir the trees along the edge of our camp.

  Now in the light of a new day, I was going through withdrawal all over again.

  The brown earth and whitish reeds graduated to snow midway through the afternoon. An hour after that, the snow was already several inches deep. I paused at one point and cupped a handful of snow, which I brought up to my face, wiping away the sweat and dampening my hair. Our group had paired off in twos, except for Petras and me who’d taken up the rear of the line to keep Shotsky company; in the lead, Andrew and Curtis appeared to be about a quarter of a mile ahead of us. They looked like small, colorless stones poking out from the snow.

  “Good idea.” Shotsky dropped to his knees and massaged handfuls of snow against his face. “God, that feels good!”

  “You hanging in there?”

  “Yeah,” he said, planting both hands into the snow and resting on all fours. I could see vapor billowing from his mouth with each exhalation.

  “Don’t leave your hands in the snow too long,” I cautioned him. “Or your knees.”

  He was in shorts, as were Petras and I. When he stood, which required some assistance, I could see his thick knees were fire engine red and dripping with melted snow.

  “Jesus,” Shotsky said, running the back of one hand along his forehead. “I’m sweatin’ like a whore on Judgment Day.”

  “Come on,” I urged him and was immediately tossed a glare from Petras.

  We continued up the incline. To our right, huge black rocks rose out of the snow like smokestacks of a sunken ship on the floor of theocean. By late afternoon, the sky had opened. The winding, serpentine backbone of the Himalayas was visible straight through to the horizon, great blue vestiges whose arrangement appeared to be preordained.

  “Look there,” Petras said at one point. He shook my arm lightly, while Shotsky staggered close behind us. “That’s Everest.”

  Even from this distance it was tremendous, dwarfing the other mountains that surrounded it. Clouds encircled its midsection like the frozen rings of Saturn.

  “You trying to beat some record, Tim?” Petras said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Huh?”

  “You’re walking too fast. You’re going to burn yourself out before nightfall.”

  “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 lo
oked 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.