Beyond the Summit (38 page)

The thought of holding her again had guided him through the treacherous icefall. Now unable to wait a minute longer, he ran across the rock-strewn glacier and swooped her into his arms. “Did you miss me?”

Afterwards with Beth lying comfortably in his arms, Dorje stared out the door at the massive peaks in this land of gleaming ice, their razor-sharp ridges climbing to impossible heights. Was Everest beyond his reach? And did he dare risk losing a single moment like this to chase the dream of a five year old? Right now, loving her seemed all that mattered but he knew he had to do more. He watched the last rays of sun on the highest rocks, turning them from scarlet to a deepening blue. The crystals of their mighty ice-fluted walls glistened as the peaks slowly vanished and the landscape crept into darkness.

The next morning, three porters demanded their pay for carrying to Camp I. Rinji’s accident was a bad omen and they were returning to their families. With Dorje as a translator, blond-haired Mark tried praising their superiority over
mikarus,
appealing to their sense of loyalty, commending their bravery. But nothing worked. They were convinced something had angered the gods such as Dorje making sauce. It was not an auspicious time to be on the mountain and they were going home. All the others, including Rinji, remained for one reason only—money.

“I will be back in two days,” Dorje promised Beth when she accompanied him to the end of the glacier. “I’m glad a doctor and reporter have come to camp. Now you have someone to talk to while I’m gone.” Holding her as long as he could, Dorje whispered how much he loved her and would carry the sweet taste of her kisses with him through the icefall. Finally the other American, Sean, was growing impatient. Donning his most engaging smile, Dorje said, “Write all that I described and I will be back before you miss me.”

Her lips were pressed tightly in a straight line as Beth bit them trying to hold back the tears already trickling down her cheeks. “Be careful.”

Mark led them back into the icefall this time with Dorje roped behind him followed by the other porters. Plodding around a crevasse that had opened since yesterday, Dorje wondered how to approach the subject of his relationship. When they finally stopped to rest 40 minutes later, he summoned the courage. “I ask that you do not speak of Beth and me,” he told Mark.

“Your affair is your business,” Mark answered with a kindness Dorje had come to expect from him. “I will say nothing.” It was as short and simple as that. Dorje trusted and liked this American with a square jaw, hair the color of Beth’s, and eyes that changed from blue to green depending on the day. Tall, strong, and intelligent, he appeared to be the most capable climber on the expedition.

When they entered a maze of ice pinnacles, Rinji nervously scattered thorns to keep evil spirits from following them. By mid afternoon, they reached Camp I again, exhausted but without incident. Over the next eight days, the porters shuttled more than two tons of gear and provisions up the mountain. Each time Dorje said good-bye to Beth, it became more difficult because he knew the greater challenge still lay ahead. With Camp I supplied, they would begin moving to Camp II and he might not see her for many days.

The next phase was a disastrous combination from the beginning. Marty and a thin-lipped Brit named Jarvis were in charge of leading the porters up the next portion. Put off by the aloof, humorless demeanor of the Brit, Marty had switched the salt and sugar for the man’s beloved tea their first night in Base Camp. When Jarvis spewed it out in disgust, Marty accused him of wearing his shorts too tight, and they had been at each other ever since.

“Such uptight-ness,” Marty commented to Dorje as they started out. “With that beak-like nose and beady eyes, it’s a wonder he doesn’t fly.”

Laughing, Dorje said, “I don’t think he likes you either.”

“Well, I hope not. Ugh, imagine the likes of him with me.” Marty stopped and leaned on his ice pick. “I’d rather talk about my beautiful Beth,” he said with a pause between words as if short of breath. “I haven’t seen her since we left Base Camp. Has she asked about me?”

My beautiful Beth?
His stomach roiling at the thought of Marty being with her, Dorje didn’t dare jeopardize his chances by speaking the truth. “Yes, and I told her about you saving Rinji just as you asked.”

Wanting to tell him to just forget it, Dorje again shoved the eager, vengeful words back into their holes with severe warnings against trying to sneak out. “She was there when I left.”

After roping up with the Brit and the porters, they climbed upwards to the Western Cwm—a deep, snow-filled valley spilling over the icefall. So close now with Everest on their left, Dorje stared at the black rock face below the summit, denuded of snow by an ever-present wind. After slogging though ice and snow for weeks and being filled with doubt, he finally experienced an emotional rush.

Flanking the valley on the right, were the granite walls of Nuptse with its dazzling fluted ice and hanging glaciers. Four miles straight ahead stood the 4,000-foot lower wall of Lhotse which had to be climbed. With ice pinnacles no longer cracking and toppling around them, the valley was strangely silent. It was a stillness so deep that Dorje heard only the crunch of his boot and his sleeve brushing against his jacket as he swung the ice axe forward. Even though the stretch ahead appeared a vast, flat area of endless snow, it too was riddled with innumerable crevasses, some narrow enough that Marty seemed compelled to jump across them. In the lead now, he spotted one, yelled, “Geronimo!” and took a flying leap but fell short by a crucial inch. Frantically scrambling to stay on top, he jammed his axe in and clawed the snow with his free hand, but the unstable lip ripped loose and plummeted into the depths, leaving Marty dangling over turquoise ice like a yoyo at the bottom of its string. The initial thrust had yanked Jarvis skidding to the brim. Having gone over the Rinji incident a hundred times in his head, Dorje responded by pure instinct now and quickly dug in to halt the slide. With the weight of the porters behind him, they first pulled Jarvis back to safety before hauling Marty out of the crevasse.

The Brit was furious. “You fucking American! What in the hell were you doing?”

“Hey, loosen up, Jarv. You just gotta smack heads now and then.”

Jarvis paced as far as the rope would allow, waving his arms and swearing. “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about, but I’m not trusting my life to an idiot like you. And anybody with half a brain won’t either.”

“Good,” Marty grumbled to Dorje after they set out to walk around the crevasse. “I don’t want to climb with him anyway.”

While agreeing with Jarvis, Dorje kept his mouth shut, unwilling to gamble with his chances of going to the top. Instead he chuckled to himself wondering if Marty wanted him to brag about this incident to Beth.

Reaching a crevasse too long to circumvent, they discovered Mark and Sean had left another ladder. After repeated trips through the icefall, Dorje was amazed at how quickly the mind adapts. He’d been so scared crawling on the first one and never wanted to face such fear again. Since then he’d crossed dozens of times and now simply walked on the aluminum rungs in the same slippery crampons while holding onto a fixed rope.

They unloaded at Camp II in the Cwm where the Americans were waiting to set up tents and supplies. As Jarvis, Marty, Dorje, and the porters headed back down to Camp I, the clouds thickened and turned everything pale gray. An hour later, large flakes drifted lazily and settled on the ever-lasting snow creating a featureless landscape.

Sharing a tent for the first time, Marty wanted to talk about Beth. “I usually date a woman six or eight months and then move on when another one comes along. And somebody always does who seems more interesting or more attractive, at least in the beginning.”

“There must be many women in America,” said Dorje.

“Thousands. And if you can dance well, they come running to you. My father thought I’d grow up liking boys better than girls because I loved dancing. How wrong could he be? While the so-called tough guys were patting each other’s seats playing football, I was holding onto beautiful women, but he just couldn’t grasp that.”

“With so many, you don’t need Beth.”

Marty rolled onto his stomach and leaned on his elbows, staring at Dorje. “Oh, she’s not like any other woman. Beth is pure luscious-ness like deep, dark chocolate that you want to wrap up in your pocket and keep forever. For a woman like her I’d wear matching socks every day.” He leaned down and whispered as if in great confidence. “And I’ve never said that about anybody. I will do anything to keep her.”

You can’t keep something you don’t have
, Dorje told himself

Heading back up the Cwm the next morning, the party encountered a deep layer of fresh snow that made walking an ordeal of sinking in knee-deep, dragging the back leg out and planting it, and then sinking again. The heat stored in the black, rock faces of Everest and Nuptse turned the valley below into an oven, wilting porters under their heavy loads. Stopping often, they huddled over their axes, mouths agape struggling for breath. Almost as if taking turns, one of them would crumple to his knees, clutching his axe, and crawl out again to continue the monotonous plodding upward. Dorje warned them against eating lumps of snow because it would only flay their dry throats more. They paced themselves by the slowest man, Rinji, who had been taking two steps, stopping, breathing heavily, and then taking two more. All of a sudden with a frightening moan, he collapsed. The ragged string of porters halted and stooped over their axes, panting. Trudging back to him, Marty tried to stand Rinji up, but the small, wiry man sprawled helplessly in the snow. Seeing the opportunity to prove himself, Dorje told two other porters to tie Rinji’s load onto his.

Stubbornly, Dorje pushed his hand out, palm down, and wiggled it back and forth, warning Marty to back off. But when he began walking, the extra load pushed him even deeper. Ten minutes of unrelenting heat and thigh-deep snow staggered him. Having never been this high before, his head was throbbing with the pain everyone had complained about for days. On straw legs, he fell face forward.

“Get rid of Rinji’s load,” Marty ordered.

Pulling back onto his feet, Dorje insisted, “No. I can do it.”

“Not up here. Every hour you’re above 19,000 feet your body dies a little. Then one day you can’t do it anymore and have to go down. That comes at a different time for everyone.”

“That is why you went down on Kangchenjunga,” Dorje said.

“Yeah,” Marty answered with a wheezy quality to his voice. “Wasn’t a storm that turned me back. I just got too damn sick. I coughed so hard I broke a couple of ribs and was throwing up all the time.” Not allowing Dorje to resist, he untied Rinji’s load. “Promise me we’ll go to the top together, no turning back for any reason. If I don’t make the summit, it will be because I died here.”

“The first thing you have to learn is to save your strength for the mountain like those climbing Sherpas from Darjeeling. Conserve-ness”

“I want to show them I am strong enough to make it.”

“Worry about that later. Right now, just make it to camp.”

Dorje left Rinji’s load in the snow and went on with a grateful body but angry heart. Having never given up on anything before, he didn’t like the feeling. When he reached Camp II at 21,300 feet in the middle of the Western Cwm, he dropped his load and immediately waded back through his own tracks to retrieve Rinji’s. By the time he returned after sunset, the temperature had dropped far below zero and another storm was approaching. Too tired and sick to eat, he crawled into the tent with nine other porters.