The Ascent (13 page)

own. He had one thumb holding up my eyelid. I blinked, and he let go and took a step back.

Behind him, Donald Shotsky stood with his hands fumblingover one another, his eyes bugging out. “On his neck.” His voice sounded like it was issuing from the far end of a long, corrugated tunnel. “See it? What is it?”

“Leech. Big sucker, too.” Petras peeled it from my neck and briefly examined it between his fingers. It was the size of a man’s index finger. He chucked it into the underbrush.

Then the shakes started—the cold had permeated my clothes, freezing them to my body, the water causing them to cling like flesh.

“Can you hear me?” Petras asked.

I nodded.

To Shotsky, Petras said, “We need to get him out of these clothes.”

I passed out.

3

LATER. THE SKY A MISTY GARY AND THE SUN

veiled by long streamers of clouds, I sat before a blazing fire. I was dressed in Michael Hollinger’s clothes, which weren’t exactly a perfect fit, and my teeth chattered in my skull. We still had several hours of daylight left, and Andrew had wanted to put them to good use. He was irritated and anxious at the mishap on the bridge, and I watched him pace back and forth along the brush, oblivious to the rest of us.

Petras brought me some
tsampa
—roasted barley ground to sticky flecks—and hot tea.

“The hell happened, anyway?” I said, grasping the tin cup of hot tea in both hands, savoring its warmth.

“You must have hit a weak board in just the right way.”

“And I didn’t pull you two down?”

“I reached the other side and secured the line around a post just before you fell.”

“And Shotsky?”

Petras grinned wearily. “Lucky bastard got his foot tangled inone of the bridge’s suspension cables. Just like that story he told about the crabbing boat when Andrew saved his life.”

“Pudgy bastard’s got a flare for that,” I commented but with no disdain. “He’s okay?”

“He’s fine. How about you?”

“Never better.”

“Your head still hurt?”

I frowned. “My head?”

“Gashed it pretty good.”

I suddenly became aware of a dull throb at the center of my forehead. When I touched the spot, I felt the split in the flesh and the sting of my fingers upon it. “Nice,” I muttered.

Petras shrugged. “You were an ugly bastard before. Doesn’t change much.”

I nodded in Andrew’s direction. “He pissed?”

“Says we’re close to the Valley of Walls. If we don’t lose too much time here, we can reach it by nightfall.”

I rose with some difficulty. My body was sore and unsure of itself. “Then let’s go.”

“You should give yourself some more time. Fuck Andrew Trumbauer.”

“He’s not my type.”

Petras didn’t protest further.

I carried empty bottles down to the river with Hollinger and Curtis and filled them with water, adding drops of iodine for purification. Back at the fire, someone had opened my gear and laid out my belongings to dry. I repacked it all and was ready to set off again in under an hour. The guides killed the fire, and we climbed a ravine to the next plateau in silence.

At the crest of the plateau, the land far below was dotted with tiny pagodas. Tendrils of smoke drifted lazily from huts pressed against the foothills. Yak herders watched us as we descended the other side.

In oncoming dusk, we dipped through a stone channel and foundourselves staring at the Himalayas, ghostly and blue and seeming to hover off the ground, in the distance. The range was spectacular in its grandness, its solidity, forcing even the most atheistic of mankind to pause and contemplate the existence of the divine.

At the end of the valley, foothills rose to touch the faint stars. The fields gave way to sand and crushed rock. At the front of the line, the guides once again spoke to Andrew in their native tongue. Like the other conversations, this one started out like a conspiracy in hushed tones and subtle gestures, but as it progressed, it was evident Andrew was becoming agitated. His voice rose. The guides adjusted their packs and began walking in the direction of the village we’d passed only an hour or so ago.

“What’s going on?” Curtis wanted to know.

“They’re leaving,” said Andrew. “This is as far as they’ll go.”

“I thought you said we were close to the Valley of Walls,” said Hollinger. “You said we would reach it by nightfall.”

“It’s just beyond these hills,” Andrew said, surveying the terrain ahead.

“Then why did they leave?” Hollinger pressed.

“Because they’re superstitious,” Andrew said calmly, his voice once again quiet and restrained.

Under my breath I asked Petras if he had understood any of what the two guides had said.

He considered for a moment, then turned his head away from the others and said, “They believe the Valley of Walls to be one of the levels of the
beyul
, the outer level to the Canyon of Souls. They won’t set foot in the valley.”

“Why not? It’s not just superstition, is it?”

“Not to them,” said Petras.

Andrew slung his gear over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. I know where I am from here.”

“Great.” Hollinger scowled.

“The Sherpas will already have camp set up,” Andrew continued.

“They’ll take us to the Godesh base in the morning.”

“Do you blokes get the feeling he’s making this up as he goes?” Hollinger said to Petras and me, then walked away before we could answer. I rolled my eyes and Petras shrugged.

We continued through the pass, the foothills looming on either side, as the twilight faded to a deep, resonant blackness.

1

THE VALLEY OF WALLS WAS JUST AS IT PRO-

claimed to be: a narrow tract of land flanked by the gradual slopes of jungle and the sheer stone of the foothills rising high above the trees.

The entranceway into the valley was defined by a rising crest of rock on either side of the stone path, like sphinxes bowing together to form an archway. The floor was comprised of busted shale slats and powdery white rock between which tall, spindly weeds sprouted. Immense boulders had come to rest at random, wreathed now in age-old moss and dressed in fallen garland, and what looked liked tombstones jutted up periodically from the earth. The valley itself had once been a river fed by a mountaintop glacier, but that had been many years ago before the glacier disappeared and the riverbed dried up.

We lit electric lanterns and followed Andrew. The walls seemed to narrow and close in on us until we were hiking single file down a sloping flume. As I passed one of the tombstone-like edifices, I swept my lantern across its face. Monastic prayers were carved into the stone.

“It’s a spiritual place,” Andrew said, his tone hushed and reverent. Somehow I’d found myself beside him at the front of the line. “The Yogis say there is always the scent of roasted barley.”

I inhaled deeply but could smell nothing except the alpine scent of the distant trees.

Ahead, the prayer stones grew increasingly large, positioned at seemingly intentional angles. Soon it was like traversing through a maze. In the light of our lanterns, our shadows grew to hideous size on the stone walls. I pressed my hand to one of the prayer stones—it towered several feet above my head and must have been about fifteen inches thick—and traced the intricate carvings. I’d first thought the “walls” were the rising foothills on either side of the valley. I realized now that I’d been wrong.

“It’s amazing,” I breathed.

“Few have been this far,” Andrew said. “I can only imagine what else is in store for us on this trip.”

“The guides,” I said. “They were afraid to come here.”

“Bad juju. Nothing to worry about. They saw your little accident at the bridge as an omen.”

“What if it was?”

Andrew merely glanced at me and kept moving.

In the distance, firelight flickered in the darkness. It was the Sherpas. They’d come from the neighboring village, hired by Andrew to set up camp in advance. As we approached, the frying electric smell of our lanterns was overpowered by the scents of stewed meats and boiled tea leaves. The four Sherpas were dressed in heavy maroon robes, their faces white and ageless in the firelight.

“It’s like the pilgrims meeting the Indians for the first time,” Chad mumbled and received Hollinger’s elbow in his ribs.

The Sherpas said nothing for the entire evening, though they made us very comfortable and brought us more food than we were prepared to eat. Exhausted, I set my gear down between Shotsky and Petras and peeled my sodden boots from my feet with relish. Rubbing the feeling back into my toes before the crackling fire, I could feel the events of the day already begin to drain from me.

Shotsky appeared with a steaming cup of tea and some bread. He folded himself neatly onto a straw mat and tore into the bread with vengeance.

“You doing all right?” I asked him.

“Sure. How about you? You almost bought the farm today. Good thing you thought about tying us all together like that.”

I winced, working a particularly painful knot out of the bottom of my foot. “Good thing you were nervous about crossing.”

Donald Shotsky smiled and nodded, his eyes reflecting the bonfire.

“You said something about needing this job,” I said after a few moments of silence. Around us, the stone walls laden with scripture cast rectangular shadows on the valley floor. “Back at the bridge. Remember?”

“I guess.”

“What did you mean?”

“I mean, I needed the money.” He tore at another piece of bread and washed it down with tea. “You think I’d be here otherwise?”

“Hold on. You’re getting paid to be here?”

Shotsky sensed my change in tone. He shot me a sideways glance. “Of course. Isn’t he paying you?”

“Andrew?”

“Who else?”

“How much?”

Shotsky seemed to consider whether or not this information should be shared. After too many drawn-out seconds, it looked like he was ready to self-combust. He said, “Twenty thousand dollars.”

“Motherfucker,” I whispered.

“Why else would I come? For the goddamn scenery?” Shotsky said. Then added, “Why would
you
come?”

“Probably because I’m a fucking idiot,” I groaned and pulled my socks back on.

Chad, Hollinger, and Curtis were playing cards beside a couple of lanterns when I walked past them twenty minutes later. Petras wastaking care of personal business in the nearby woods. The Sherpas had cautioned him to carry a knife in case a bear or wild cat came sniffing around. Petras only nodded. I noticed his pearl-handled hunting knife jutting from his belt.

The Sherpas huddled together in one tent, inking long swaths of parchment and murmuring to themselves. Their tent smelled of incense and burning grape leaves and exuded an intense heat, as if the under-the-breath praying generated physical energy.

Andrew was off in the distance by himself, secluded in shadows, meditating. As I approached, my boots crunched the stones to dust beneath my weight, but Andrew did not turn around. I stood there for several minutes, staring at the back of his head, watching the slow, dilatory rise and fall of his respiration, before I felt like a fool.

“Is this something new?” I said.

“What’s that?” he said, not turning to face me.

“This meditation thing. This praying. I thought you were agnostic.”

He dropped his head. After a moment, he stood and rolled his sleeves up his arms. His face looked almost see-through in the moonlight. The square cut of his jaw was dressed in three days’ beard growth.

“Did you pay Shotsky twenty thousand dollars to come on this trip?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation, no emotion.

“Why?”

“Because he wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

“And why was it so important that he come?”

“Because,” he said casually, “that’s the point of this whole thing, isn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not necessary that you understand.”

“Did you pay anyone else?”

“No.”

“No one?”

“No one else. Just Donald.”

“So why is everyone else here?”

“The same reason you are.”

The thing was, I could no longer remember what my reason had been.

“Do you think this is a game, Tim?”

“I don’t know.”

Andrew smiled. “Neither do I.”

“Shotsky shouldn’t be here. He’s a fucking novice. He’s scared of heights for Christ’s sake.”

“Donald Shotsky nearly died on a crabbing boat in the Bering Sea,” Andrew said, his voice turned up a notch. “Since then he’s been living in a one-bedroom shithole apartment in Reno. Last I spoke with him, there were men looking for him because he owed them money. Bad men. So I offered him this job. He comes out here; he gets twenty thousand dollars. Enough to keep those bad men at bay for a bit longer.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“Why are you suddenly so accusatory?”

“Because something doesn’t feel right. Something doesn’t make sense.”

“I think maybe you hit your head hard on that fall from the bridge.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Andrew. I asked you a question. Shotsky gets the money; what do
you
get?”

“I,” he said, “get Shotsky.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

Andrew sighed. He bent and gathered up the mat on which he’d been meditating and rolled it into a tube. “I didn’t save that man’s life on that boat so he could have it taken from him by a bunch of Vegas thugs. After that accident on the boat, if he was too much of a coward to go back to work, to work like a man, then I’m going to help him overcome that fear.” He grinned, and it was the old devilish Trumbauer grin. “I’m going to save his life again.” He tucked the mat under one

arm and stepped around me, heading back toward camp. “Then why am I here?” I called after him.

Andrew paused. I expected him to face me, but he didn’t. I didn’t need to look at his face to know he was still sporting that horrible grin. “Same reason,” he said and walked away.

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