Powder Burn (Burn with Sam Blackett #1) (8 page)

“
It’s just Vegas,” said Pete.

“
I’m not sure,” she said. “He’s been quiet, and even moodier than normal the last couple of days.”

“
He’s fine, don’t worry about him. It’s cold and rough and there’s no oxygen up here, gets everyone down at some time or another,” Pete replied.

“
Maybe,” she said. She flipped up the collar on her down jacket and nestled a little deeper inside it, leaning back against the monastery wall. Pete smiled, and wandered off along the cliff.

“
I wanted to apologize again,” said Lens.

She turned. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re pretty unhappy about the way I set this up. I just want you to understand how important this film is to me, everything depends on it – my whole life.”

She eyed him skeptically
– he had squatted with his back to the cliff, facing her, hands deep in the jacket pockets.

“
No, really, I’ve mortgaged the house up to the roof beams to get the money for this film,” went on Lens. “If it doesn’t work, I lose the family home. I’ve got a wife and kid. The publicity from your article is such an unbelievable opportunity. It might make the whole difference between success and failure. I couldn’t take the chance that you’d not come if you heard it was in Shibde before we left – and leaving you in a position to tell other people where Powder Burn is – do you see?”

It was so tempting to prick his little bubble and tell him
the limits of her actual journalism. But saying something now would only jeopardize the whole thing. And she needed to get this done just as much as he did. No, that glorious moment would have to wait. So in the end, she just said, “That’s what worries me.”

Lens looked at her for a moment before catching on. Then he said,
“Pete will have the final say on the mountain, I promise you. Even if they don’t ride the top, some of it will be safe – and it’s still a story. It’s not getting there at all, or losing the film, that idea really freaks me out.” He paused. “So?”

“
So what?”

“
So do you accept my apology, can we try and get on a little better?”

Sam looked down to hide a satisfied smile
– at least she’d been getting to him, but it was probably time to call a truce. She still had her ace to play when the moment was right. “OK. I accept,” she said, with a little sigh for her reluctant concession.

“
Thanks,” said Lens, and held his hand out.

Sam took it firmly, and shook.

“I’ll get a couple more shots and then we should be getting back down,” he said.

“
Yeah, me too,” she replied, pulling out her camera.

“
You’re taking pictures?” said Lens. “What about our agreement?”

“
Our agreement says I won’t use them to tell people where Powder Burn is, and I won’t. So you have nothing to worry about. For goodness’ sake, Lens. Chill out. I just want some memories.”

He was silent for a moment, his gaze locked on hers. Then he seemed to relent.
“OK. Sorry.”

“
Hey, Vegas, hold up a minute.” Pete’s yell echoed out into the expansive silence of the valley, and Sam glanced up just in time to see Vegas stop and look back at them. They were almost halfway up to the notch, scrambling through a mix of rock, snow and ice. “Not sure that’s the best way. Hold on a minute while we check the pictures,” called Pete.

She watched Vegas roll the pack off his back, awkward with the snowboard strapped to it, and t
hen slump down beside it. She waited with Pete for Lens to catch up with them. Even after the exertion, she was cooling off fast in the freezing air. Pete pulled the satellite photos out of the side-pocket of Lens’s pack, and they crowded round to take a look. Pete stabbed at the image with a grubby finger and chipped nail. “Yeah, this is what I’m worried about. This is the notch that we’re aiming for, and we’re heading to the right side of that huge slab of rock.” He looked up and pointed. Grey cloud scudded above the top, but the visibility was good where they needed it. “The section above that rock slab looks like some pretty technical ice climbing.” Pete glanced at the photo again and then turned to his left. “But if we go across from here, under the rock slab, then we can get onto the broken section of rock running up the left of it. That’s just a scramble, it’s much easier.”

Sam and Lens both examined the photo and then the terrain. Lens was the first to speak.
“Uh-huh, so there’s just the little issue of getting across this ice cliff then,” he said.

It was easy to see why Vegas had carried straight on up. The massive rock slab finished in a broad field of ice that dropped away to an overhanging face. One slip on that ice cliff and the only thing between it and the bottom of the valley was an awful lot of very thin air.

“It’s worth doing it,” said Pete. “It’ll be a lot easier crossing this than getting us all up that other ice face.”

“
I thought you said there wasn’t any technical climbing required,” said Sam. “Only you and Vegas have harnesses, crampons and axes.”

“
Well, I guess I lied – let me have a look at your boots,” said Pete, kneeling. “I think I can get my crampons to fit these.” He stood again, caught Sam’s doubtful expression. “It’s OK, I’ll lead it. I don’t have a lot of gear, but we’ll tie a safety off on that rock, and then I can get a few ice screws in for protection on the way over. Once the rope’s in place we’ll use it as a fixed line, and the rest of you can come across one at a time using the second harness and a couple of slings. I’ll take both the ropes over so we can haul the harness and slings backwards and forwards. It’s not perfect, but it’ll be all right, and once we’ve done it, it’s just scrambling to the top.”

Lens nodded.
“I’ll set up to film you on the crossing.”

Pete turned and looked back up to Vegas and waved.
“Come on back down, we’re going across here,” he called.

Pete broke out his gear, and while Lens looked for a good spot for the camera, Sam found a rock and sat down. By the time Vegas had retreated back to them, Pete was already in his harness. He explained the plan while he fastened his crampons, and Vegas followed his lead without a word. It was ten minutes before they were ready. Pete set
up the safety line and a position for Vegas and then made sure they were all quite clear on the order of things and the techniques. “You come across last, Vegas, pull out the gear as you get to it,” he finished up. “I’ll have you on a safety line from the other side ...” Pete hesitated and leaned forward, flicking the rope connecting him to Vegas so that he could see properly. “Other way.”

“
Huh?”

“
Thread it through the other way.” Pete started untying himself to give Vegas the rope tail.

“
It’s good to go,” stated Vegas, peering downwards at the rope and his harness.

“
Nah, it’s not. And since I’m the one that might be dangling off it, I’d prefer you to do it my way.”

Vegas looked up, and for a second Sam thought that he was going to argue. Then he started rethreading the proffered rope.

Pete twitched his head at Sam as he took the awkward steps on his crampons to the start of the ice cliff. She joined him, and he asked her, “Did you do any climbing while you were chasing those bears in Vermont? Can you tie a figure-eight knot?”

“
No and yes.”

“
Vegas is going to have you and Lens on the safety rope from this side. I’m sure he’s OK, but let Lens go first and just check the knots before he steps out.”

“
You’re not inspiring me with confidence here,” said Sam. “I don’t know what I’m doing either ...”

“
All you’ve got to do is check that the knot is solid. Everything else is already set up. I took him on a course before we left Canada and he’s got the basics, he’ll be fine.”

Sam looked at Pete for a moment. She rolled her eyes.
“Sweet mother of –”

“
He’ll be fine. He’s stronger than the average ox. He’ll pull you back up that drop on his own if he has to.”

Forty
-five minutes later and Sam took the final step off the ice, to stand beside Pete on the rock he had chosen as his base. She was breathing hard in the thin, cold air, and as she took one last look at the sphincter-puckering drop below, she said, “Glad I don’t have to do that again for a few days.”

“
Vegas did all right though, huh?” said Pete.

She nodded a reluctant assent.

“Now peel those crampons off and we’ll swing them back over for Vegas,” said Pete, already tugging at her harness straps.

“
I can manage,” retorted Sam, tapping his hand away. “What’s the hurry?”

Pete stepped back and dug his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Oh, just busting to see the mountain, I suppose.”

Sam smiled
. “I guess you’ve been waiting for that for a long while.”

Pete nodded.
“Once you get the gear off, head up after Lens, he wanted to regroup on the top of the slab of rock.”

It was a slow, hard slog upwards. Sam worked at keeping her rhythm, locking the downhill leg and pausing before she stepped up. Pete had suggested the technique and
, while it was slow, she could maintain her pace without stopping. She kept at it and eventually came up to Lens, resting with his pack off. They exchanged weary looks but no words, and Sam plodded on past. An hour and a half later, she was a few short paces from the top of the rock slab, with Pete and Vegas close behind her and Lens bringing up the rear again. As she came level with the rock platform, her eyes widened. She stopped dead. Staring back at her was a man. He was sitting, face mostly shadowed by a wide-brimmed felt hat, just a wispy beard visible. He stood and made a short bow, as though he had been expecting them. He was tall and powerfully built. A long-sleeved black coat was pulled off one shoulder and arm, revealing a thick sheepskin lining. Unnerving, colorless, blank eyes settled on her face as he spoke in a language that she had never heard before. He indicated a second man at his feet, wrapped in a similar dirty, black sheepskin coat.

She scrambled up onto the platform and dropped her pack off. She knelt beside the man on the
ground and pulled back the coarse cloth covering his head. The smell of long, hard days on the road drifted up to her, mixed with something rancid. She looked straight into frightened brown eyes. His breathing was fast and shallow; there were bubbles of pink frothy blood on his lips. Then he murmured something that she didn’t expect to understand. But there was something about the sounds, and the way his lips moved. She leaned closer.

“
Help me ...” he murmured through bloody spittle.

She stared in astonishment, but there was no doubting it. She looked up.
“He speaks English,” she said, almost accusingly.

The other man’s pale eyes momentarily ducked down towards his sick companion.

“If you can tell us what you know,” she said, “like when this started, how long he’s been bringing up the blood – it will help us to help him.”

He just gazed back at her.

She stood and crossed the few feet to the edge of the platform. Pete was only twenty yards away. “Pete, get up here, there’s a sick man,” she called out.

Pete stopped in his tracks and looked up.
“Man ... what man?”

“
Just get up here,” she insisted. Pete dropped his backpack and hurried up towards her without another word. When she turned back, the man was kneeling by his companion. After a few moments, he looked up at her.

“
The blood is recent,” he said, with an American accent. “I only checked him a short while ago.”

She stared at him. Then Pete appeared beside her.

“I am Jortse, this is Tashi, we are refugees, trying to escape Shibde,” announced the pale-eyed man, as a long, racking cough shook his companion.

“
Bloody hell,” said Pete.

“
We have to help them,” she said.

Pete nodded, already moving to Tashi’s side. He took one look and turned to Jortse.
“When did this start?”

“
I think the blood only just started.”

“
And the breathlessness?”

“
Last night, the other side of this hill.” He pointed upwards. “He was tired. We tried to make it over and down to the valley, but we were too slow. This is as far as we got, and this morning he wouldn’t move. I can’t move him.”

“
It’s altitude sickness, I’m sure of it, but he’ll be fine if we can get him down to a low enough height. Does he speak English too?”

“
Yes.”

Pete turned back to Tashi.
“We have to get you down the mountain, or you will die up here. Do you understand?”

There was a bare nod of the head, more coughing. Sam glanced around her
– a second bedroll was laid out; a couple of rough canvas bags; one long, thin felt bag and another black, wide-brimmed hat. “Maybe we could make some sort of a stretcher out of the bedrolls?” she said.

Tashi tried to sit up.

“Help me,” called Pete, getting under one arm.

“
What the hell is going on?” Everybody turned – it was Vegas.

“
Give me a hand here, Vegas, we have to get this man down to the valley floor,” said Pete.

“
What’s wrong with him?” demanded Vegas.

“
Altitude sickness, looks like pulmonary edema. If we can get him down far enough he should be fine.”

Vegas looked upwards, gesticulated, shook his head and then managed to reply.
“We’re nearly there ... Powder Burn, bro. The weather could break anytime.”

“
I don’t want to walk past a dead man on the way home,” said Pete. “We’re not going to turn this into a scene from Mount Everest.”

Vegas glanced around, took in Jortse.
“Why can’t his buddy carry him down?”

Sam opened her mouth, but Pete was quick to interrupt.
“If you got hold of the other arm, you’d see,” he grunted, struggling to keep Tashi on his knees.

She moved forward, realizing that Pete was probably right; she might as well save her breath, she wasn’t going to help persuade Vegas to do anything.
“Jortse, pack your gear, please, and see how you go dragging our backpacks down as well. Otherwise we’ll have to do it in relays,” she said, taking Tashi’s other arm across her shoulders. She looked at Pete. “Ready?”

“
Ready.” And together they lifted Tashi to his feet and walked the handful of steps to the edge of the platform. “Good job it’s this one that’s sick, he’s six inches shorter and must be half the weight,” muttered Pete.

“
You ain’t gonna get far, and how the hell are you going to cross the ice cliff with that sack of potatoes,” said Vegas, stepping out of their way.

“
That’s why we need your help to save his life, Vegas,” she said, unable to keep her mouth shut.

Vegas stared at her.

“It’s the only thing we can do, Vegas,” added Pete. “We can’t leave them to die on this ledge.”

Vegas hesitated a moment longer, then he sighed and pushed Sam aside to duck under Tashi’s arm to lift him.
“OK, let’s get this done so we can get back up here,” he muttered.

The three of them stumbled off the rock platform and onto the downhill slope. Vegas was taking most of the weight and still carrying his own pack. Jortse gathered up his and Tashi’s gear, and Sam carried her pack and then half
carried, half dragged Pete’s once she got down to it. After a couple of minutes of this they met Lens coming the other way. The cameraman was so locked into his own private world of pain that he didn’t see them until Pete dislodged a rock, which rolled to a stop at Lens’s feet, announcing their arrival.

Lens looked up and found his teammates and the two exotically dressed strangers only fifteen yards above him.
“What the hell?” he said.