Skillful Death (76 page)

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” I say. “I can’t ask you to do that. I’m going to miss you guys so much. I’ll call every night.”

“You just keep yourself safe.”

“I love you,” I say.

“You too.”

I’m glad I already said goodbye to the kids. Being alone with Franza lets me feel our bond more precisely. As I walk towards the helicopter, I hear her talking to the air.

“Jesus. I wonder who’s paying for this.”

Since I’m not working all the time, she has no idea where my money comes from. She’s convinced that I live hand to mouth. I do like to keep things simple. For this trip, I splurged.

The helicopter takes me on a short jump to a private airfield. There, Bud’s jet waits to take me to Los Angeles, then Shanghai, then Lhasa. From there, I take a boat and then a Jeep. I don’t know why Bud’s plane is still available. I didn’t ask. It can’t be a coincidence that as soon as I decided I should take a trip to Tibet, I got a letter from the lawyer telling me that I had lifetime access to Bud’s plane.
 

I’m not about to turn down a free trip to Tibet.

When I asked where I would be departing from, they gave me the address of a helicopter pad a few minutes from Franza’s house. Perhaps after I get my memory back, I’ll try to find out the identity of the helpful travel fairy.

The flight is pure comfort. I hate it.

I call Franza from somewhere over the Rockies. They’re having dinner. No matter what’s going on, Franza insists that everyone gather for dinner. Sometimes that includes extended family, friends, family of friends, a soccer coach, or the school bus driver. Everyone has to sit at the same table no matter what else is going on. Haskett sets up the camera so I can see the whole group as we talk. I turn my camera away from my face when I have to dab my eyes.

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The roads in Tibet are terrible. At least the back-country roads where I’m going are. From my descriptions and a whole bunch of research, my team charted out a trek through the mountains for me. I figure if Bud and his toddler daughter can do it, then I shouldn’t have too much trouble. I’m sure the landscape has changed in the past fifty years, but I can almost picture Bud walking along this rocky hillside.

The Jeep pulls to a stop at a bunch of boulders and I climb out.

My trek begins. From here I’ll walk alone.

I climb for hours before I’m even in what the locals would call the foothills. It’s amazing what people can get used to. I try to take long, deep breaths to fill my lungs with the thin air. I have a checklist I’ll use every two hours: nausea, fatigue, dizziness, nosebleed, rapid pulse, drowsiness, flatulence, and swelling. If I get any of those symptoms, I will stop climbing until I acclimate.

When I finally stop to take a break, it’s because my hands are sore. My feet are fine. I have great boots that I took time to break-in properly, but I didn’t anticipate so much hand work. My journey is supposed to be mostly hiking, and I’ve been using my hands a lot to climb up rocks.

A little higher up the slope, I come to my decision point. It’s faster to keep going up and go through the pass. Or, I can circle the mountain and stay in the foothills. I choose the longer route. I feel a headache coming on and I think I could use some more time at this elevation. Besides, this should be the same route that Dom and Diki took. I don’t mean to confuse you, calling him Dom instead of Bud, but it seems correct to refer to Dom and Diki when I’m in this place.

The terrain alternates between loose rocks and scrubby grassland. It’s on a nice patch of grass near some wildflowers that I decide to set up camp. In my pack, I have enough high-calorie food to last a month. Water is harder to carry. After I set up my tent, I wander awhile to find fresh water.

My destination is a bit vague. Nobody really knows where the caves of the monks might be, or if monks still live in these mountains. At least I have plenty of good navigation equipment this time. This time, I won’t be throwing my GPS and my maps away. I don’t even trust myself to find my tent when I leave to go get water. I have a little electronic dot tracking my every move on a detailed map.
 

Bud was never comfortable out in the open. I can’t imagine him living here. He liked to be hemmed in by buildings or trees. Of course, I can’t imagine him living on the ocean either, but apparently he did that too. I’m not an outdoorsy type, but this place is nice. You can see forever in every direction, and the height of the mountains is comforting. The sun sets early behind the peaks, but light seems to linger forever. It seems like everything around you is glowing just a tiny bit. Even the air seems to give off a little light.
 

I crawl inside my tent and call Franza.

“Hello?” she asks. She must have been asleep. She’s never this polite on the phone when she’s fully awake.

“Hey, Babe,” I say.

“You said you would call tonight. What time is it?”

“It’s six there, I think. And it
is
nighttime here.”

“This is not night. This is morning. I can tell because Nicole’s burning toast.”

“How are you?”

“Asleep. What do you mean, ‘how are you?’ I have to get up and drive the kids to school in a half-hour.”

“It’s summer, Babe. No school.”

“No, you missed it. I got pissed yesterday because Haskett tried to burn down his bedroom and Nicole gave herself a tattoo. I put the kids in vocational school. Who knew they had vocational school for pre-teens? Good riddance. It will get them off the street and out of my hair so I can earn a living.”

I smile at my satellite phone.

“You there?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.
 

“Don’t use all your battery on the first day.”

“I’ve got a spare,” I say.

“Still. Save it. You don’t know how long your little spirit walk, or whatever, will take. I’ll talk to you tonight.”

“Okay,” I say.

She disconnects.

I
MAKE
GREAT
PROGRESS
the next day. I’m walking fast, my breathing feels normal, and the line on my map gets shorter and shorter. I’m getting good at looking at the GPS, picking a landmark on the horizon, and then not veering from that heading. The hike goes a lot quicker when I don’t have to constantly correct my course.

I’m using too much food though. I decide to cut back on my intake, which means I’m always hungry. I drink more water to compensate. Fortunately, I come across plenty of water sources.
 

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On the morning of the fourth day, I come to the end of mapped route. I’m on the north side of the mountain that my team believes should contain the caves of the monks. It’s a big mountain though. Looking up at the sweeping slope, I don’t know where I would even begin to search for caves.

I turn around.

Down the hill, the gravel gives way to grass and the grassy plain sweeps down to a small stream. A few trees grow along the banks of the stream and on the other side, more grass grows. Off in the distance, those might be little buildings or huts. It’s hard to tell.
 

I see a few purple flowers in the field.
 

I don’t know what to do aside from climb and search. It’s a big mountain and there are no guides to tell me which way to go. I keep my eyes sharp for any signs of a path. You might figure that if people live up there, they would have to come down sometimes to hunt for food, or perhaps collect firewood. If they do, maybe they’ve created a path. I don’t see any sign of a path.

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My first battery is depleted and my second isn’t looking much better. I don’t call Franza on the satellite phone every day anymore. I’m saving the last of my power in case I need to call for a helicopter or something. I’m on the last of my food as well. I’m not so concerned about the food. I’ve been eating less and less and I actually managed to catch one of the ground squirrels that live in the rocks. I suspect they’ve never seen people because they’re almost tame. They run and hide if there’s a hawk around, but I can get within a couple feet of the little things before they bolt. It’s easy enough to kill them with a rock. There’s precious little nourishment in the things once you roast them though. It’s like chewing on a stick.

Franza doesn’t know that I’m wandering aimlessly.
 

I climbed as high as I dared and searched the mountain for caves as I worked my way down. After three days of searching, I got back down to the plateau again. The only thing I learned is that it’s impossible to set up a tent on the side of a mountain. I didn’t see a single cave or even an outcropping of rock that I could duck under and call a cave.

Last night, it snowed just a little bit. There were tiny round white balls in the shadow of my tent when I woke up. They didn’t look like normal flakes. They looked more like the beans from a beanbag chair. They melted between my fingers.
 

If I left right now, I’m not sure I could hike back to the road. I’m tempted to use the last of the battery on my satellite phone to have my team scout out a helicopter extraction point. It can wait until tomorrow though. I have one more part of the mountain to check again.

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I’m sure the phone was off, but somehow the last of the battery drained. I tried it this morning and it won’t even turn on. The last time I looked, it still showed fifteen percent charged. Even if I do hike back to the road, I won’t have a way to call for the Jeep.

I’m going to stay put. That’s what they always say to do if you’re lost in the wilderness—stay put. My team will know that I’ve been out too long and they will send in people to track me down. That’s the protocol we arranged. After three days with no contact, they’re supposed to come running. I think today is the third day, so now I just have to wait for them to catch up with me.

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By my count, it’s been seven days since last contact. They should be here by now. According to my GPS, I’m camped right at the endpoint of the trail they marked for me. I have tons of battery left in the GPS. I wish it could call home, but it’s just a receiver.

I’m eating squirrel and some grain I collected from the field. It’s too tough to eat dry, but if you boil it awhile, it’s kinda like rice. I’m thinking of walking down to the stream to see if I can catch any fish in my net. I don’t want to leave the camp.

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Something made me sick. I don’t know if it was the squirrel, or the rice, or the fish. Maybe I just didn’t boil the water long enough? I can’t hold anything down.

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When I woke up this morning, I heard the bell. It was coming from way up the slope. I’m going to see if I can hike up there.

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I found the cave from the smoke. Now I’m just lying here, looking at the opening. It can’t be more than fifty feet away, but there’s no strength left in my legs. I need to rest. Maybe then I can yell for help.

My eyes drift shut.

I wake to an old monk tugging at my arm. He’s wearing a rust-colored robe and talking in a light, almost singing voice that sounds like a baby’s gibberish. My eyes shut again, but I’m aware of my feet moving and the monk holding on to my arm.

My stomach rolls and my guts clench into a knot when I smell the smoke of their cooking. I’m not ready for food. I’m rolled onto my back and something moist is pressed to my lips. The salt tastes good.

I wake later to the sound of another bell.

I’m dressed in one of their robes. The old monk is kneeling next to me. He smiles and bobs his head. I follow him with my eyes.

“You are very weak,” he says.

“Yes,” I say.

This guy looks about a hundred years old, but who knows. He could be sixty or one-twenty. His wrinkles are not a good indicator.
 

“I want to see the oldest monk,” I say. My voice tries to give out. I push through and it cracks painfully.

“Yes. He wants to see you, too. You have to walk back to the fire first.”

I try to push away from the cave wall and my head spins. We’re right near the opening of the cave and I picture myself tumbling down the rocky slope. If I swoon again, I just might fall. I wait.

The bells wake me again.

The smell of food no longer makes me nauseous, but I’m so hungry that I almost feel sick. The old monk gives me a hard piece of something to chew on. It’s savory, and smoky, and salty. It makes my teeth ache when I bite down. They feel loose in their sockets.

After I eat, I try to stand again. It’s no good. I have no balance. I resort to crawling and I make it a few feet before I have to rest.