reason for Abe and Kelly to pause a minute longer.
Camp Two no longer existed. It had been scoured away by avalanches. Abe followed
Daniel's makeshift string of ropes across a blank stretch, then picked up the line as
four expeditions had laid it out over the years.
Minutes after traversing a gully, another avalanche scrubbed away the route behind
them. Once the billowing powder settled, Abe saw that the ropes leading up to Three
had been erased once and for all.
The terrain below Two eased considerably. Ironically, the easier angles made
descent more difficult. In the Shoot, where the wall was pitched at 70 to 80 degrees,
gravity had done most of Kelly's work. But as they approached One, Abe had to cajole
and push and lift Kelly across sections that defied simple lowering. It exhausted them
both.
Just before dark they reached the yellow tents at One. The wind had flattened one
of the tents and one was missing altogether. Abe scavenged for anything of use.
Except for some rock-hard nutrition bars – useless because of their loose teeth – the
camp was barren of food. There was no gas to melt water, no oxygen for Kelly, no
sleeping bags, no medicine, not so much as an aspirin. He wondered what had
happened to Jorgens and Thomas and Stump. It was entirely conceivable the
mountain had stalked and caught them.
Abe considered spending the night here. They could haul the collapsed tent inside
the one still standing and wrap themselves in it and probably survive the night. On
the other hand, there was still a little more light left.
While he was trying to decide what to do, Abe spied the third tent. It looked alive as
it wiggled slowly down the slope beneath them. At first he thought it was just blowing
downhill. Then he saw a tiny figure – Daniel – fishing it into the depths with a rope.
He had bundled Gus inside and made it into a crude sled.
Abe put his lips near Kelly's ear. 'I see them.'
'They've found us?' she cried.
'No. It's Daniel and Gus.'
Kelly tried to put a good face on it, but she was crushed. Abe had to pull her to
standing and then herd her down the slope. He didn't waste time trying to attract
Daniel's attention. The two teams of climbers joined together a thousand feet lower at
the bergschrund, the deep crack dividing the mountain and its glacier. It was a border
of sorts. And they needed to escape across it. It was so dark Abe and Daniel could
barely see each other. Across its gaping four-foot-wide split, the Rongbuk Glacier
awaited them with all its crevasses and obstacles.
No sooner did Abe reach the schrund than he realized they were going to get caught
out tonight. It would have been suicidal to try crossing a mile of open glacier at this
hour. The past several days of snowfall would have collapsed all their markers and
new crevasses would have opened during the earthquake. So there was no
alternative. They would have to wait until morning.
'I thought you were lost,' Daniel greeted Abe. He seemed oblivious to their danger.
It was night. The wind was extreme. None of them had eaten or slept or drunk much
for two days and nights.
'Daniel, we've got to get out of this wind.'
'I don't think we're going to make it,' Daniel replied. His voice creaked. His blue eyes
were rheumy. The bones of his face declared famine.
'We'll make it,' Abe said. 'But we need shelter.' A blast of wind knocked him back
against the snow. Daniel nodded his agreement, but he had no solution.
'Here,' Abe pointed. He was standing on the upper lip of the gaping crack. 'Maybe we
could go down in there.' Abe knew that climbers sometimes bivouaced in crevasses.
But the thought of descending into the crystalline underworld had long been his
waking nightmare. It was their only hope though.
'Maybe,' Daniel shouted into his ear. Daniel had scrounged a headlamp from one of
the deserted camps. He shined it into the black depths. To Abe's surprise, there
seemed to be a distinct bottom some fifty or sixty feet down. Avalanches had
apparently filled in some of the hole.
Together, Abe and Daniel cut a long section of rope loose and lowered Gus into the
crevasse. She made soft noises when they knocked her against the walls. Kelly was
next, then Daniel. Abe went last, checking to make sure the rope was firmly anchored
for their exit. He dreaded descending into the opening, almost preferring the darkness
of night to the possibility of another earthquake sealing the crevasse's lips above
them. But Daniel's little light beckoned to him, and he went toward it.
The crevasse walls were spaced ten feet apart and had the slick feel of glass. Closer
to the light, he could see the glass was dark green and turquoise. It terrified him.
Abe touched beside the others. Instantly he sensed that the snow they were
standing upon was a false floor. It could go at any moment. The illusion of security was
better than none at all, though, so he gingerly settled his boots onto the surface. At
least they were out of the wind and driving snow down here.
After a while the climbers were settled enough so that Abe could take a look at Gus.
He untied the ropes that bound the yellow tentage around her. With Daniel holding
the light, he opened pieces of her clothing, one at a time to preserve her warmth.
Gus had broken her left femur, possibly snapping the ball off her hip joint. Abe
couldn't be sure of that without an X ray. The blood had come from a compound
fracture of both her tibia and fibula.
'Her foot was turned backward,' Daniel explained. 'I twisted it around.' Then he
added, 'I just hope I twisted it the proper direction.' It was a worthy hope. If Daniel
had rotated her foot the wrong way, this leg would have been set 360 degrees out of
alignment. It would have been the same as tying a tourniquet around her leg.
Despite Daniel's makeshift splinting with an ice axe and a tent pole, the broken leg
was grotesque. He had controlled the bleeding, it seemed, but that wasn't good
enough. The fractures – probably the splints, too – had cut off the blood supply to her
foot. It was swollen and black with frostbite. If she lived, Gus was going to lose the
foot, at least. Abe didn't see how she could possibly live through the night. It was
amazing that clots and blood loss and shock and exposure hadn't finished her off
already.
There was little Abe could do to improve on Daniel's handiwork. The splints and
bandaging were as good as they could be. He tried without luck to get a pulse at the
ankle of Gus's shattered leg. His fingers were too cold to feel much, but he knew that
wasn't the real problem. The leg was dying. Abe was helpless. Without his trauma kit
and oxygen, Abe couldn't even begin to work on her.
'Are there any other injuries?' Abe asked.
Daniel mumbled, 'What?', less punch-drunk than distracted. Abe had never seen
him like this. The fire in his eyes had burned to common ash. Daniel looked downright
mortal for a change, as if pain and defeat and exhaustion were things that could
happen to him, too.
'Just hold the light,' Abe told him.
Gus's teeth showed yellow in a ghastly grimace under the lamplight. Kelly lay
hibernating in a ball in the snow. Daniel said, 'It's done now.'
'I know,' Abe said. It was so done, there was no sense even remarking on it. In Abe's
mind, the climb no longer even existed.