The Everest Files (5 page)

‘You get half a kilo each a day!' he told them. The fresh honeycomb was the most delicious thing the children had ever tasted; an explosion of lavender and jasmine on the tongue.

By the third day of the trip they had harvested more than fifty kilos of honey and there was still space in the plastic jerrycans for another ten.

They passed a high mountain col and came to a windswept plateau, an outstandingly beautiful wilderness of meadows and glaciated peaks.

‘We can camp here tonight,' he told the children. They put down their packs with relief, running to fill the water bottles at one of the natural springs that seeped from the valley wall.

High above the sacred lakes, in a separate, hidden-away valley, a series of limestone cliffs formed a scar in the mountainside. The location looked a good hunting ground for wild bees, Shreeya's father had decided, and the next day he led the children across another high pass to take a look.

As they approached the valley wall Shreeya suddenly froze. ‘There's something moving' she said, pointing to the base of the cliffs, ‘over there by the cave.'

The place she was pointing towards was many hundreds of metres away. Kami couldn't see anything there at all and nor could her father despite his sharp eyesight.

‘What is it?' Kami asked.

‘I don't know. Some sort of creature. Let's wait a while, see if it comes out of the rocks.'

The three of them ducked behind a bush and waited for a while.

‘The wind is in our favour,' her father whispered. ‘If there's something there it won't pick up our scent.'

‘There it is again,' Shreeya whispered.

‘I can see it!' Kami hissed excitedly.

‘A snow leopard!' Shreeya's father whispered in awe. ‘The first time I've seen one.'

The cat strutted out of the rocks with regal grace, the distinctive dark rosettes of its markings clearly visible against a fur that was somewhere between ivory and honey. The thick tail was raised high, moving sensually back and forth in a way that reminded Shreeya of a snake being charmed.

‘Don't make a sound,' her father whispered. Shreeya hardly dared to breathe, so desperately did she want this moment to continue.

The cat prowled about the meadow, seeming to check the terrain. Even at that distance, Kami could see the latent power of this rare cat. Every movement it made was filled with a glorious grace and strength.

Having made a tour of inspection, the leopard began to call, a curiously high pitched ‘chuffing' sound which was somewhere between a cry and a sneeze. An answering bleat came from the rocks and the children held their breath as a young cub moved cautiously out of cover to join its mother. It mewled a greeting and nuzzled against her cheek as she licked at its fur.

‘There's a second!' Shreeya whispered. Her sharp eyes once again the first to spot the movement.

A few moments later the second snow leopard cub crept with elaborate care out of the rocks.

‘Keep totally still,' Shreeya's father whispered.

The three of them held their breaths as the leopard scanned the scree slopes, ever vigilant, ever wary of any threat to her cubs. At one point she seemed to look directly at them, but they were well-hidden behind the bush and the creature began to relax as she suckled her cubs.

They fed for several minutes before becoming restless. The two cubs struck off on their own. Mewing and calling, they started to explore the meadow, sniffing at flowers and leaping up at butterflies.

The spectacle could have continued but a shrill cry in the sky above the meadow caused the mother leopard to take fright. A huge eagle had soared up the ridge, playing on the late afternoon thermals. The mother cat uttered an alarm cry as she saw this dangerous predator, an urgent barking noise which immediately caused her babies to rush to her side.

The three creatures leapt with liquid bounds across the meadow and disappeared amidst the boulders that littered the foot of the cliff.

The show was over and Shreeya's father decided it would be prudent to quit the area as quickly as they could.

‘Better to leave the leopards in peace,' he said. ‘If they see us they'll be forced to leave the den.'

They crossed another watershed and found a different area of cliffs in an adjoining valley, which provided the final ten kilos of honey they needed to make the trip a success.

During the trek home Shreeya talked incessantly about the leopard encounter, re-living every moment and pestering her father to tell her everything he could about the cats.

‘I'm going to be a warden when I grow up,' Shreeya announced proudly, ‘and work for the national parks so I can see them whenever I like.'

Kami and her father laughed at this precocious proposition. But neither of them doubted her determination.

Back at the village Shreeya's father gave them five hundred rupees each out of the profit he made on the honey. Kami gave his to his father; Shreeya ordered a book from a shop in Kathmandu. It was a picture book about snow leopards, describing everything then known about the behaviour of that most elusive of Himalayan creatures.

She read it cover to cover, again and again, and it became her most treasured possession.

There were other memorable moments on that journey but Shreeya and Kami knew that the vision of those snow leopards playing on the meadow would stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Not long after the honey-collecting trip, in the dying days of that summer, a stranger arrived in the village. A furtive-looking character with sharp features and a mouth full of rotting teeth, he walked with a pronounced limp and his thigh was bandaged with a dirty strip of cotton.

Nobody knew where he had come from and he did not volunteer his name.

He just limped out of the forest carrying nothing but an ancient Remington rifle and a greasy hessian sack.

‘He smells strange,' Kami told his father that night as they shared rice, ‘like blood.'

‘No good will come of him,' Kami's father said, and Kami experienced, for the first time in his life, the unsettling feeling that his father was afraid.

‘Is he a bandit?' Kami asked. He had heard stories of the brigands who lived wild in some of the more remote valleys.

His father just shrugged. But he couldn't hide the disquiet in his face.

In fact the newcomer was a hunter, as became clear over the following days.

The man put the word out; he was on the lookout for many types of wild creatures, he told the villagers, particularly monkeys, deer and bears. He could sell the pelts for large sums in the markets of Kathmandu and certain glands and organs would be sold to a Chinese trader who specialised in traditional medicine.

He would pay good money for information which would lead him to a kill, he promised them, and the biggest money of all would be for information which would put him on the trail of a snow leopard.

Snow leopard skins could fetch thousands of dollars on the black market, he told them. Collectors in Hong Kong and Beijing would fight to obtain them. Such a prize would have to be handled with great care, he warned, as government wardens were authorised to shoot poachers on sight.

He pulled down the bandage on his thigh and showed them an ugly scar. A bullet was still in there, he boasted, and he didn't want another to add to the collection.

Total secrecy was necessary.

Kami had listened in on one of these conversations and at the mention of killing snow leopards he felt a flush of anger overwhelm him. He ran to Shreeya and told her what the hunter was planning.

Shreeya was shocked to the core. The very thought that someone could want to kill such a beautiful creature was so alien to her that she struggled to believe it was true.

‘Do you think he'll find out about the family we saw?'

‘If he does it'll be a disaster,' Kami replied. ‘Who else knows about them apart from your father and us?'

Shreeya shook her head. ‘I don't know, but I can ask my father who he has told.'

When they met next day Shreeya was looking gloomy.

‘My father can't remember how many people he told,' she said. ‘But he thinks maybe four or five.'

‘Four or five?' Kami's heart sank at this news.

‘But he says he won't give that man any information and neither will the others,' she told Kami. ‘He says the man looks like a crook and nobody's going to trust him.'

‘But maybe some others will want the money,' Kami suggested.

For the first few days Shreeya's father's theory was proved correct. The villagers were indeed initially reluctant to co-operate. But the hunter was persistent and cunning; he paid for millet wine to be brewed and invited some of the elders to join him for a drink.

‘This village has been poor for too long,' he told them as the alcohol began to flow. ‘It is time for you to make some money.'

The millet wine was potent enough to loosen a few tongues and after four or five glasses, inspired by the thought of the money they could make, the men began to talk. Many of them knew where rhesus monkeys could be found, others knew the glades where deer grazed in the early mornings.

Some had seen evidence of a bear in a region of forest less than one hour from the village.

And one knew of a family of snow leopards which lived in the cliffs above one of Langtang's sacred lakes.

At the mention of this last lead, the hunter smiled his rotten smile and became more generous than ever. Where was this lake, he asked. Which trail should he take to get there? Was it a solitary animal or a family?

The party went on until the early hours, laughter ringing out as those present celebrated the riches they would surely soon possess.

When the village woke up the next morning the hunter was gone.

News that the hunter had vanished spread rapidly around the village, and Kami and Shreeya soon found out that he had been told about the whereabouts of the snow leopard family.

The two children ran to Shreeya's father and delivered the bad news.

‘We have to chase after him,' Shreeya begged. ‘Can't you persuade some men to go with you?'

‘It's not so easy as that,' her father protested. ‘People have to work. They haven't got time to rush around the forest for days on end.'

‘Won't they want to save the leopards?' Shreeya found it hard to believe that anyone could sleep at night when such noble creatures were in danger.

‘Think about it,' her father continued. ‘That man is obviously a bad piece of work and he's armed with a gun. If he discovers he's being tracked then who knows what could happen … '

The children shivered at these words. The idea of that feral man of the forest hiding in the shadows with a gun was indeed a terrifying one.

‘What about the wildlife rangers?' Kami suggested. ‘Can't we tell them what's happening?'

Shreeya's father considered this but then shook his head. ‘The nearest ranger post is four days' walk away, and in the opposite direction. By the time we got there it would already be too late.'

‘I wish we'd never seen them!' Shreeya cried. ‘Then they'd be safe!'

Shreeya hated to cry, but on this occasion she couldn't hold back the tears. Her father held her tight, patting her head gently as she sobbed.

‘How long will it take him to get there?' asked Kami.

Shreeya's father thought a few moments. ‘With that leg it will probably take him three days and nights. And he'll have to stake out the cliffs when he arrives. He might have to wait a day or two to even see the leopards.'

‘Then there is time to stop him, if we trek as fast as we can. Please father. I beg you.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘We're not going to do it and that's the end of the conversation. You'll just have to hope those leopards have moved somewhere else.'

‘They won't have,' Shreeya said miserably, ‘I read it in the book. The mother will keep the cubs in the same den all summer unless something disturbs them.'

At that point, a couple of visitors arrived, and Shreeya's father instructed Kami and Shreeya to fetch two jerrycans of water. They ran through the rice fields to the well and sat side by side on a stone wall as the containers slowly filled.

‘I'll never forgive myself if those leopards get shot,' Shreeya said. ‘It's really our fault.'

Then a light of hope entered her eyes as a daring new thought ran through her mind.

‘What if we leave tonight? Just the two of us, trekking as fast as we can?'

Kami wondered if he had heard right.

‘
What!?
Just the two of us? What are you talking about? They'll never let us.'

‘Who said we're going to ask them?'

‘You're crazy!'

Kami knew that Shreeya was capable of being headstrong, impetuous sometimes, but on this occasion what she was proposing was little short of outrageous.

‘Run away to Langtang without telling anyone? They'll catch us and we'll be beaten black and blue.'

‘And if we don't the leopards will be shot.'

Kami looked at Shreeya. Her face was set and utterly determined; her eyes bright and filled with confidence. He had seen that look before, but never quite like this. He felt a thrilling shiver of excitement run through his body; the very air around Shreeya seemed to crackle with dangerous potential.

And most thrilling of all was the feeling that she really needed him at her side. This was something that she couldn't do alone.

‘OK,' he said. ‘Let's say we do it. Let's say we manage to get away and we make it to Langtang. What if he's already there? You want to get into a fight with a man with a gun?'

‘We try and get there before him. Find a way to scare the leopards away.'

‘But he's a day ahead already.'

‘OK. So we'll trek day and night. We could probably do it in two days if we don't stop.'