Abe looked at his hands. He clenched and opened them. He wondered what else he'd
said and done that afternoon.
'So what's the program?' he asked. Daniel's team had misfired on their summit
assault. Kelly was blind. They were down for the count. There weren't going to be
enough of them left to push it. The mountain had scored another defeat. Their only
remaining mission was to get off the Hill in one piece. He only hoped Daniel didn't
want them to descend right away, tonight, in the dark.
'I know the way now,' Daniel said. 'We cracked the Yellow Band. I thought it would
be simple and it wasn't. But now I know the way.'
Abe was sorry for Daniel. To have come so far and learned so much, and now to
have to turn his back on it all. But Abe had no doubt Daniel would return. Someday he
would complete his cycle upon this mountain. Carlos had told Abe about a mountain in
western Tibet where pilgrims circled around and around. This was that mountain for
Daniel, only the circles moved vertically, up and down.
'What do you say, Abe?'
'First thing in the morning,' Abe said. 'We can start at seven o'clock.' That would give
them a full day. They could descend most of the face in that time, maybe all the way
to ABC.
'I was thinking more like six.'
'Fine, six.'
Daniel grinned. 'Don't worry, Abe. This time, I know the way.'
Abe grimaced. He was appalled. They were talking about two different directions.
Daniel meant to go up.
'I thought you meant down.'
'He meant up,' a new voice intruded. It was Gus. She had been listening. She looked
broken to pieces by the combat. The sun and wind and fatigue had cut her face into
separate parts, and the parts were coming unglued. Everything was.
There was no possible way he could go farther. Now that the afternoon was over,
now that he was learning how lucid he'd been in his craziness, Abe was frightened. He
had to get out of this zone of illusions before it consumed him. But instead of risking
his hard-won alliance with Daniel by telling him no, Abe pointed at Kelly. She lay
asleep in a pile of down gear and gold hair.
'But Kelly's blind,' he said. 'I have to take her down.'
It was true, but also it was a way of cutting his losses. This way he could descend
and still have Daniel's respect. But his gambit failed.
'Negative.' Gus sounded a hundred years old. 'I'll take care of Kelly tomorrow. You
go up. I'll go down.'
'But Gus,' Daniel faltered.
'I'm whipped.' She stated it categorically, with no pathos. 'I can't go on. And I know
it.'
'Gus,' Daniel protested. But they knew she was right. Once a climber turns her face
from the mountain, there's nothing more to argue. Without faith, without obsession, a
climber was no more than bait for disaster.
Abe watched the gravity steal into her eyes. It was like watching a person die, a
terrible and private twilight. Yet Abe felt he'd earned this voyeurism and Gus didn't
turn from his gaze nor clothe her pain. Watching over Daniel had exhausted her.
'I'm sorry, Gus,' Daniel said. At the same time, Abe noticed, Daniel wasn't offering to
retreat. He didn't propose to descend with her, hand in hand. They weren't going to
stroll away from the mountain into a happy ending. This wasn't Hollywood. Nor was it
pity. Daniel's words were a simple, dry-eyed acknowledgment of her loss.
Gus was not particularly touched. She shrugged. 'I'm not sacrificing myself,' she
said. 'I'm making way.' Then she looked at Abe. 'I had my run. Now you have yours.
Get it over with.'
It was remarkable how she managed to bring it off. Here she was setting him up and
yet it sounded so benign. But the facts stood. Having exhausted herself trying to
deliver Daniel his summit, Gus was simply making certain her lover had a
replacement. Regardless of what had just been said, Gus was definitely sacrificing. She
was giving away her second try with the calculation of a kingmaker, and she was
giving away Abe's fear and maybe his life and, who knew, maybe even Kelly's life if it
depended on his medical know-how. Gus was willing to sacrifice them all, herself
included, in order to get Daniel to his salvation. And yet Abe could not resent her.
'Leave him alone,' Daniel said to Gus. 'You made your decision. He made his, too. I
misunderstood, that's all.'
Her eyes stayed locked on Abe's. 'He talks like you're blood, the two of you,' she said
to Abe. 'You act like it, too.'
'Stop it, Gus.' Daniel hissed at her.
She faced him. 'If Abe goes down, will you?'
'That's beside the point.'
'But it is the point,' Gus said. 'You can't do this alone.' She turned to Abe. 'And you
can't either.'
She quit talking. If she had said one false thing, Abe would have turned away. But
he'd felt the night in his heart for too long, exactly as long as he'd known Daniel. It was
time for them to escape, together. A thousand more feet of climbing and they would
break through to the sun.
'You're right,' Abe said.
'Damn it, Gus.' Daniel's shoulders looked thin beneath his parka. He was at once
angry and defeated.
'Shut up,' Abe said to Daniel. It surprised them both. 'I'm going. We're going.'
'Listen,' Gus said. 'The wind. It stopped.'
And it had. The tent walls were no longer buzzing. The thunder was gone. They
were talking at a normal volume.
'We should sleep,' Daniel said.
'It's so quiet,' Abe noticed. It was more quiet than just the absence of the wind. Now
he touched the still tent wall and found that it was solid and heavy, like cold wet
concrete.
Daniel zipped open the top of the door and shined his light outside.
'It's snowing,' he told him. 'Snowing hard.'
'It will stop,' Gus said. 'Like the wind, it will stop. Now you should sleep.'
11
Long ago, drinking straight shots on flat land at the end of a sunny day of rock
climbing, Abe had held forth that a mountain is nothing more than a pyramid of
memories and dreams. He had insisted. No mountain exists without the climber to
perceive it.
There was the opposite possibility, of course, that every climber is simply the
invention of long geological slumber. Just as climbers can manipulate their dreams, a
mountain can manipulate its own ascent. And when the mountain wakes, the dream
ends and the climber evaporates.
But Abe hadn't thought of that one that sultry twilight in a Mexican restaurant, and
now it was too late, for the Kore Wall came alive. It caught Abe, booted and spurred,
in the very act of checking his watch.
None of them had slept a wink, not once Kelly's Valium wore off and she started
begging for more. Abe had refused, saying she needed to be coherent for her descent.
She had cursed him and wept, but the tears only hurt her burned eyes more.
At 3:30 in the morning, Abe and Daniel started arming for their final assault by
headlamp. Gus and Kelly stayed in their bags to make room in the crowded tent. After
the men were gone, they would gear up for their own departure.
For a hundred days, they had forgotten time, living like exiles. Yet this morning Abe
couldn't remember it enough. Like a condemned man, he tracked every minute. His
destiny seemed to have become a matter of seconds.
At 5:15 Abe started working into his boots and super-gaiters. He snapped shut the