The Ascent

The conversation was one-sided, with Li doing all the talking. The climbers couldn't

hear a word, but instinct told them something was off and wrong.

Jorgens leaned in to glean the softly spoken words. Li repeated himself. Jorgens

swayed back.

'Not good, not good,' Stump muttered.

Li turned his back on Jorgens then and led off toward the mess tent with the

soldiers in tow. Jorgens didn't move. As a group, the climbers surrounded him by the

Land Cruiser.

'Five days,' Jorgens said. He looked pasty and ill. 'We have five days.'

The climbers glanced at each other, mystified. Finally Robby spoke. ' No comprendo,

Captain.'

'They pulled the plug on us. In five days a convoy of trucks will arrive. We have to

leave.'

'Five days?' J.J. wailed. 'We can't finish in five days. We can't even occupy our high

camps in five days.'

Jorgens was squinting. 'No more climbing,' he breathed. 'We have to pack up and be

ready to go. We're done.'

The news stupefied them.

'But we have permission. We paid. It's ours.' Carlos tripped out his argument.

'They pulled the plug on us,' Jorgens said.

'I've never heard of such a thing...' Stump started. But they were too stunned to be

angry. They were scrambling just to understand the implications.

'Five days?' Thomas said. 'Even with yaks here right now, we couldn't start to strip

the mountain. We'll lose everything. From ABC to Five, we'll lose it all.'

Jorgens nodded slowly. 'Yes.'

'But they can't do that.'

'We have five days,' Jorgens said. 'They want us to load the trucks and leave the

same day. These soldiers will escort us to the Nepal border.'

'What the fuck happened?' It was Gus, quiet, furious. Now they started finding their

anger, too.

'What did I say,' J.J. railed. 'You can't trust gooks.'

'There's been trouble in Lhasa,' Jorgens said. 'A Tibetan riot. A Chinese police

station was burned. Several Chinese stores were destroyed. The army opened fire.

That means bloodshed. They've declared martial law.'

'These fucking Tibetans, man,' J.J. shouted. 'Now we're fucked.'

'Say we stay. We climb,' Gus said. 'We make our way across the border when we're

done. Li can go home right now.' It was farfetched.

'The country's under martial law,' Jorgens said. 'They want all tourists out.'

'But we're climbers.' J.J. beat at his chest. 'We're climbers.'

Robby took care of that one. 'We're tourists, J.J. That's exactly what we are. And

keep your voice down.'

'Li said he'll recommend us for a permit. For the very next season, whenever

martial law gets lifted, whenever the mountain opens up again,' Jorgens said. 'He said

this is unfortunate.'

'So, carrot and stick.' Gus spat. Her disgust washed over them, more than enough

for them all. 'Go along, get along. Shit.'

But Stump considered the proposition. 'It just could work, though. Next season, if it

really was next season? The minute we leave the yakkies will plunder our stores here

and at ABC. But they won't go onto the mountain itself. And at least some of our

camps will survive the monsoon. We'd have a leg up, stock in place. It might just

work.'

'Yeah,' said Robby. 'A definite advantage.'

'Two, three months,' Carlos thought out aloud. 'Not so bad.'

'Like a sequel climb,' Robby added. 'I like it.'

It was Abe who popped their bubble. 'Count me out,' he said. 'I can't come back next

season. Med school starts in September.' He wasn't sure why he shared this nugget of

information. It presumed that he'd even be invited to return, and he'd barely been

invited along on this one.

Nevertheless, it reminded the rest of them of the realities. They had girlfriends and

wives, children and jobs. There were mortgages to pay, commitments that couldn't be

broken. From many dinners and small moments and shared days and nights together,

they remembered that Thomas was getting married in October and J.J.'s little girl

was starting first grade, Gus was lined up for an all-woman's expedition to the

Caucasus and Kelly was moving to Boise for a new teaching job.

The fantasy of a return to this climb – with these climbers in this perfect weather

upon this route – fell to pieces. The instant they left Everest they were going to

disperse into tales that would have nothing to do with their comrades'. Their joined

dream, such as it was, could never be recaptured.

They spent another half hour trying out other solutions to this sudden collapse of

their expedition, but the facts only weighed heavier. The Hill had won.

Then Kelly raised one final bittersweet thought. 'If only Daniel had gone the little bit

further,' she said. It was true. When even one climber reached the top, the entire

expedition did. But none had and time was out. In the end, Daniel's noble gesture of

waiting for them had disserved them all.

'So close,' Thomas said.

'And the radios,' Stump said. 'Just when I finally fixed the bastards.'

Abe had his back turned to Everest. When he turned to look at their lost prize, the

mountain attacked with a wave of raw white light. Unprepared, Abe gasped and

bowed his head, clawing for the sunglasses in his pocket. Ordinarily the sight would

have provoked a nod of admiration, but not this morning.

Even with the glasses covering his eyes, the mountain was too bright to look at for

more than a few seconds. All definition was gone, washed away by the pure

illumination. No lines or shadows, no stone or ice, no ridges or cols. Even the summit

pyramid was illegible in the midst of all that radiance. The mountain simply fused into

sunlight and sky, hiding itself in infinity. It made their ambitions seem fruitless and

tiny.

Gus asked Jorgens to talk with Li again. It was hard for her to ask, because she

didn't like or trust Jorgens. But the mountain was a higher priority worth more than

her pride and she spoke the words. 'One more try, Jorgens, please.'

Jorgens didn't make her grovel. 'It won't work,' he said, 'but if that's what you want,

okay. I'll try.'

He was back from the mess tent within ten minutes. 'It's written in stone. Li said his

orders come directly from the Public Security Bureau in Lhasa. The army is out of its

cage. He wishes to ensure our safety.'

'You can't get any safer than our dead end,' Carlos pointed out, but of course that

wasn't Li's consideration anyway.

'One other thing, people,' Jorgens said. 'I want you to steer clear of our military

guests. No contact whatsoever. Is that understood?'

'Screw,' said J.J.

'I'm not asking, J.J. I'm ordering. Things are already bad enough without hard

words or more tension. Got it?'

J.J. didn't answer.

Jorgens put it bluntly. 'They've got guns.'

They spent the rest of the day cursing the Chinese and Tibet and the mountain,

finally dropping into an exhausted silence as alpenglow lit Everest orange. As

everywhere else in the world, bad news traveled quickly through the Rongbuk Valley.

Before nightfall, a tiny contingent of herders showed up driving seven yaks. They

were eager for work, and also eager to get a preview of the booty getting left behind.

At dinner that night, Carlos got the climbers drunk. He had stocked the expedition

pantry with enough Star beer for one big blow, and this was it. 'With victory in clear