Akil looked up into the faces of his two colleagues and asked, “What’d you do with Edyta?”
“We haven’t found her yet.”
“What?” Akil tried to pull himself up. He got as far as his knees and fell back.
“You stay with Davis,” Crocker instructed. “I’ll look for her.”
“Hurry up!”
The team leader worked his way to the edge, zigzagging every three or four feet to dig, but found no sign of her. He thought of circling back, but since he was within six feet of the drop-off he decided to get on his belly, slide forward, and steal a look.
Akil shouted behind him. “Boss. Boss! What the hell are you doing?”
The distance down was even worse than Crocker had thought. A two-hundred-foot drop-off at least. The huge mass of snow had hit the gray granite face at an angle and dispersed. Most of it had ended up hundreds of yards lower, on another slope.
He was thinking No living thing could survive that when on his left periphery he noticed a bright yellow spot about 250 feet down. His heart sank.
Removing a small pair of binoculars from his pack, he focused on the yellow mitten with the palm facing upward.
Edyta!
He watched and waited for her hand to move. It didn’t.
Together the two men helped Akil over the ridge. He was still groggy and having trouble putting weight on his right ankle. They stopped to rest.
“You saw her? You one hundred percent sure about that?” Akil asked for the third time.
“It was her, yes. I ID’d her by her mitten. Yellow. Her hand wasn’t moving.”
“How can we be sure she’s not alive?”
“I can’t be absolutely positive. But there’s no way anyone could survive that fall.”
“Edyta’s tougher than shit.”
“I know that.”
The SEAL team leader tried to be patient. He understood his colleague’s distress. “It’s at least two hundred feet onto a solid granite face. Like I said before, I watched and waited, but her hand wasn’t moving.”
“That’s all you saw? Her hand?”
“Her gloved hand, part of her wrist.”
Hurt and anger burned in Akil’s dark eyes. “I think we should go back and try throwing her a line.”
Crocker had considered that option and come to the conclusion that it was impossible and too dangerous to attempt. He said, “The ledge won’t hold our weight for one thing. Number two, it’s impossible to descend from there. Three, if we throw down a line, we’re gonna need something like four hundred feet of it, which we don’t have. And finally, if by some miracle she’s alive and able to grab it, there’s no way we’ll be able to pull her up without the whole ridge giving way.”
“I’m going to try!”
“No you’re not.”
Akil tried to push past.
Crocker grabbed the front of his parka. “Look, the only way to reach her is from below. That would mean climbing down way past last night’s camp and making an ascent from there. We’re talking two days at least.”
“Two days? Bullshit.”
Crocker understood Akil’s desire to reach her. He said, “When we get to camp, we’ll radio for a rescue party. It’s the best, fastest option by far.”
“Maybe we do have enough line if we tie everything together. We can try that at least!”
“How is she going to grab onto it if her hand isn’t moving?”
Akil stared hard into his eyes. “You don’t give a shit about her, do you?”
“I like her a lot, Akil. Edyta’s a brave, amazing woman. A good friend. But I’m telling you, I watched for ten minutes at least, and she wasn’t moving. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe she’s unconscious but alive.”
“It still won’t work.”
“If she were your wife, you’d be climbing down there.”
“Edyta knew the risk she was taking.”
“So what?”
“She died on the mountain she loved.”
“She was with you, Akil,” Davis added. “She was happy.”
“Maybe she belongs here, Akil,” Crocker offered.
Akil looked up at the peak and sighed. “Fuck.”
Chapter Nine
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or as a curse.
– Carlos Castaneda
Crocker rubbed his tired eyes and looked again. There it sat, still against the white-gray landscape, its top propeller slowly spinning in the wind. A big green insect with “Pakistan Air Force” stenciled on the side.
“Boss. Look!”
Davis’s light blue eyes were weary and red. Little icicles hung from his mustache and eyebrows. The reddish blond beard on his face was covered with snow and ice.
“I see it, but is it real?” Crocker asked.
Somehow they’d managed to make it back to the Concordia, even though he, Davis, and Akil were exhausted and both Germans had bonked-depleted their stores of glycogen in the liver-several times during the descent.
“Looks real to me,” Davis groaned.
“I hope so.”
Crocker had weighed the dangers of stopping and getting hit by another incoming storm, and possibly being stuck for an additional three or four days without food or fuel. Instead, he had pushed himself and his men for almost thirty hours straight.
Akil had hallucinated, off and on, all the way down. They heard him talking to Edyta and laughing at her jokes. Rambling, sometimes incoherently, about favorite movies, interesting places they’d traveled to, pets. Fascinating how the human mind deals with loss.
Crocker had kept himself going by thinking about Holly’s cooking, sexual companionship, and the smell of clean sheets. A piece of a poem by Pablo Neruda recycled in his head.
Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my unbounded desire, my uncertain road!
After he slept for a week, he wanted to lounge in front of the TV and watch something like The Sopranos-his feet up, cold bottle of beer by his side, a bowl of pretzels.
Maybe catch Vanna White in a tight dress turning letters on Wheel of Fortune the way she had for years. Always neat, clean; a smile on her face. Years ago he’d seen her nude in Playboy. Later, he heard that a chick had claimed she had an affair with her.
Like that mattered.
The danger now was that their bodies would completely shut down.
Fifty more yards.
The landscape seemed to shift and wobble with each step, and the pack on Crocker’s back felt like it was loaded with bricks. His shoulders, back, knees, thighs, and feet screamed.
Ahead of them, climbers stood among the variously colored and shaped tents scattered throughout base camp and applauded as they approached.
Or was it a dream?
A Pakistani man in an olive military parka stepped forward and offered his hand. “Chief Warrant Officer Tom Crocker?”
“I think so.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Mushavi. I have orders to take you and your men to Islamabad immediately.”
Crocker looked at him and his bristling black mustache like he was insane. “My men and I need some food and rest first.”
“Jolly good, sir. I’ll be waiting.”
Whatever.
A Japanese climber helped him to a green tent. Seated on a thick sleeping bag, Crocker slowly and painfully removed his boots, thinking I never want to wear climbing boots again.
Then he looked down at his badly blistered feet and saw that the skin hadn’t turned black, which meant he hadn’t suffered frostbite.
Thank God.
He said, “I need to call my wife.”
But before Crocker even saw a phone he was unconscious, dreaming that he was fighting his way through clouds of blinding, whirling snow.
Edyta, walking by his side, said, “We’re on the road less traveled, Crocker.”