from the pit. Panting, he rolled onto the surface and lay there. Snowflakes lit down
with astonishing weight. Abe knew he was under attack, yet the snow warmed and
coddled him. The snowflakes crashed into his face and melted and ran past his ears.
Abe commanded himself to get up.
'Kelly,' Abe whispered. He didn't suppose it would rouse her, but he needed the
reminder. Every muscle and joint ached from his subterranean struggles. He made
the pain work for him. It too was a reminder.
Teetering in the wind, Abe stepped toward the dune hiding Kelly. He plowed his
hands through the powder and grabbed her arms and lifted her into the storm light.
He brushed the snow from Kelly's face. She was mumbling and she turned her head
from the light. Saliva had frozen into her golden hair. Abe couldn't get over the fact
that, even blind, this woman had saved him. Abe bent to her. He kissed her.
It wasn't much of a kiss. His lips were scabbed and filthy and grown over with
beard. But some part of Kelly responded. She looped one arm around Abe's shoulder
and spoke his name.
'Help me,' Abe whispered.
'Rest,' Kelly invited him.
Abe shook her hard. When she wouldn't cooperate, he simply dragged her across the
snow.
There was nothing to fetch or bring down. They had lost everything in the
avalanche. Abe eyed the Yellow Band overhead. There was enough snow gathered up
there to wipe the face clean. Most of it would funnel straight down the Shoot. Anyone
caught out would get washed to the base of the mountain. He tried to hurry.
Before they could start down the rope, Abe had to find it. And before he could find it,
they had to cross the plateau. The whiteout was in full blow, though, and the snow had
piled hip deep. Daniel had slugged a path through, but that was hours ago. Fresh snow
had filled in behind him.
Abe wondered if he and Kelly were trapped after all. Every step cost him five or six
breaths. The snow gave way like quicksand. Gusts of whiteout cut visibility to a few
inches, only to be replaced by light so flat it killed all perspective. The closer they got
to the edge of the plateau, the greater their danger of walking right off the North Face.
Abe didn't give in. He dragged Kelly after him, keeping a sharp eye for the first rope.
The wind howled.
At last he reached the plateau's edge. It dropped away six thousand vertical feet. He
couldn't see the abyss – it was just more whiteness – but he did sense a change in the
wind. This new wind tasted different from the monsoon curling over the summit. It
was a Tibetan wind, blowing in from the north and sweeping straight up the immense
Kore Wall.
Abe had found the edge then, but there was no rope. For an hour, he hunted back
and forth along the lip of the wall. Without the rope they were marooned. Without the
rope there was nothing to do but go to sleep in each other's arms. Abe was just getting
used to that idea when the rope appeared.
It was checkered green and white. All Abe could see were the green dots, a long
chain of them. He grappled the line to the top of the snow, then went off to find Kelly.
She didn't want to wake up, but he bullied her. Then he lost the rope again. Finally he
located the chain of green dots and they could start down.
Their torturous descent reminded Abe of the childhood riddle about the cannibals
and the missionaries trying to cross a river. They had one rope, one blind climber and
one climber on the verge of surrender. He tried the various configurations, going down
first to check the anchor, going down last to make sure she descended and going down
side by side to describe what she could not see. At her best, Kelly ran the drill like a
sleepwalker, eyes closed, limbs wooden. She was at her best for only twenty or thirty
feet at a time.
Over and over, Abe reached the bottom of the rope to find Kelly hanging limp in the
wind. She had neither the hand coordination nor the vision to clip into the anchors,
which complicated Abe's own descent. After several hundred feet, he rigged a
separate line to lower Kelly himself. Like a sack of rocks, she knocked against the wall,
sometimes whimpering protests, mostly just dangling mute. The method bloodied her
nose and scraped holes in her clothing. But it was far quicker than waiting for a blind
woman to feel her way down the steepening ice and rock.
They were halfway to Four when the mountain tried for them again. Abe's feet were
planted square against the face, and there was no mistaking the earthquake this time.
The tremors traveled up the long bones of Abe's legs. His crampon teeth scratched
across the bare rock like a stylus gone wild.
Abe felt sick all the way into the core of his heart. He looked up the Shoot's narrow
walls for the avalanche that had to come. It came.
Abe grappled with the rope and got a handful of Kelly's jacket. He shoved her
beneath an outcrop.
The main mass of the avalanche sluiced past in a tube of thunder and rubble. The
bulk of it struck the face several hundred feet lower.
Abe and Kelly clung to one another and kept their faces to the wall, breathing inside
their parkas to keep from suffocating in the cloud of fine spindrift. The aftershock beat
them against the rock and ice, but their rope held.
Kelly hung on to Abe. He hung on to her. He felt more tremors shaking them
through the wall. Then he realized the tremors were actually from a person sobbing.
But when he looked at Kelly's face, she wasn't the one doing the crying.
All day long, Abe pressed to catch up with Daniel and Gus. Teamed together, he and
Daniel could speed the descent and pool their precautions. At the top of each rope, he
felt the line for human vibrations. He peered into the depths, but didn't see a soul.
They landed at the cave just as darkness tinged the white storm. Abe had hoped to
reach Two or One or even ABC before nightfall. But he was getting used to dashed
hopes. At this hour it would have been foolhardy to try for a lower camp.
Abe unzipped both tents at Four, sure Daniel and Gus would be inside one of them.
But the tents were empty. It looked like Daniel had stopped here just long enough to
melt some water and root around for an oxygen bottle. Then he'd gone on. Abe
wondered if the two had survived the afternoon's avalanche.
Abe led Kelly inside and zipped her into a bag. With rest and care, her sight would
return. But it wasn't likely they would get such a respite until ABC or lower.
He started some snow on the stove, then assembled the last two bottles of the Kiwis'
oxygen supply and fitted an extra mask over Kelly's mouth and took the other for
himself. They got a single pot of water from the remaining butane. It would be their
first and last water on the descent.
In the morning, Kelly's eyes were no better, but at least they were no worse. Abe's
whisper had upgraded to a hiss. Outside, the storm continued. Since they had slept
fully clothed, not removing even their boots, they were able to leave first thing.
They reached Three at noon. The tent walls had been perforated by falling rock.
One of the platforms had taken a direct hit, knocking its legs out. The camp looked
desolate. Daniel and Gus had spent the night here. Frozen blood and dirty dressings
lay everywhere. There was no butane for melting water, no food, no oxygen. No