'Don't do too much,' Daniel pleaded with Abe from the tent door.
Abe opened the kit he'd never imagined using. He didn't dwell on the instruments,
barely knowing how to use them anyway. He wished now that it were a real physician
standing here in his place. Stump choked back his repulsion enough to disinfect the
toes by pouring a bottle of purple Betadine solution over them. Abe selected what
looked like a pair of stainless steel garden shears and Stump dumped Betadine over
them, too.
Abe was surprised by the shears' leverage and sharpness. The bones parted with a
snip. He stayed as distal as possible on each toe, figuring he could always trim them
more aggressively as the gangrene advanced. As it was, he had to prune most of the
joints anyway.
Stump poured more Betadine over what was left and Abe lay cotton dressings on
top and taped it lightly. The two of them finished washing Gus's thin body, then
dressed her in clean clothing and put her on oxygen. Finally they laid her in the
eight-foot-long plastic Gamow bag and pumped it tight with a foot pump. Each time
Abe peered through the clear face panel, Gus looked a little more at ease.
'That was an ugly job,' Stump told Abe. 'You did it well.'
'Now she has her chance,' Abe said.
'I guess,' Stump allowed.
'I need to take these rags to the garbage pit,' Abe said.
'I'll do it,' Stump said.
'It's okay,' Abe insisted.
The trench to the pit was still frozen and slick. He dumped the rags on top of other
camp refuse, then headed off toward the stone hut. No one had approached the Tomb
since the storm. It took Abe ten minutes to plow his way up the little hill.
Inside, the fabric ceiling bulged down under the weight of snow. Abe pried a stone
out of the floor and laid the tiny fetus underneath. Then he tamped the stone tight
again and left. No one would ever know – not Daniel, not Gus. Conceived here, this
one secret, anyway, would stay here.
The sun came hot that day. It blazed away at their cirque, triggering avalanches on
distant slopes and melting nearly half the snow in camp. By midday, the trenches
between tents had become waterways. Everest glistened to the south, once again
untouchable.
Every hour or so Abe peered through the face panel on the Gamow bag to check on
Gus. The big plastic tube lay in one corner of the mess tent like a piece of furniture no
one wanted to talk about. They ate lunch and dinner in there, but scrupulously
avoided mentioning it.
Abe slept beside the Gamow bag that night. He wanted to be close for any
emergencies, and it was up to him to know what an emergency looked like.
Periodically he opened the chamber to check on Gus's oxygen supply and take her
pulse and respiration, then closed it up and pumped it full again. At one point, he woke
and the beam of his headlamp caught Daniel's gleaming eyes. He was crouched on the
far side of Gus's chamber.
'Can we take her out of there?' he asked Abe. 'I want to hold her. Just for a minute.'
'If you do that, she'll die,' said Abe.
'But it looks like a coffin,' Daniel said.
'Not yet it's not.'
Daniel placed one hand on the chamber. 'Before it's too late,' he begged. 'One more
time.'
'Not yet,' Abe said.
'I have to tell her something.'
Abe knew what Daniel had to tell her, he'd been hearing Daniel whispering to the
comatose woman for days now. He loved her. He forgave her. If she loved him, she
should forgive him. And she had to fight and live because they had a life to share.
'Maybe later,' Abe said.
'Later... it might be too late. She needs to know.'
'Maybe she hears you.'
'But if she doesn't...' His desolation was breathtaking. Daniel was in mourning. No
one believed in Gus's capacity to survive anymore. How terrible, thought Abe. One
more terrible thing.
'I'm afraid, Abe.'
'The trucks will come,' Abe said. 'They'll take us out of here. Gus will go to a
hospital.'
'The trucks won't come. I know.'
Abe dropped it. 'Go to sleep, Daniel. We need to sleep.'
The issue of their evacuation was on everybody's minds. In the beginning, they had
waited for yaks to move them away from it. Their helplessness seemed never ending.
The alternative to waiting was also on everybody's minds. Daniel knew the way out
of here. They had followed him up the Hill. If need be, they could follow him across
one of the high passes into Nepal. But no one favored such extremes. For one thing
they knew from Daniel's experience the awful price they were likely to pay for
crossing the range in the monsoon. His Lepers' Parade was not something anyone
wanted to join, especially after the spectacle of Gus's blackened foot.
The blackness spread. When he ran his fingertips along her ankle and shin, the flesh
crackled with subcutaneous crepitus. By evening it was clear Gus would have to lose
the leg to her knee or else die. Abe informed the others and asked for volunteers.
Never having done this, he had no idea how many people the operation might take.
Then he went off by himself to read in his medical books about amputation.
At the appointed hour, people came into the mess tent, even Kelly who still hadn't
recovered her vision. They took Gus out of the plastic chamber and laid her on top of
the wicker table that had served as their dining table a thousand years ago when
times still allowed for good jokes and big plans and long rap sessions. Abe steeled
himself. He emptied himself of emotion.
Under Abe's direction, they took up various assignments. Someone had to look after
her oxygen supply. Someone had to take her pulse periodically. Someone had to be in
charge of the blood pressure cuff Abe had fitted around her upper thigh for a
tourniquet. Someone else had to sterilize their scalpels and knives over a gas stove.
The Sherpas were instructed to take care of the kerosene lanterns and keep them
bright. And J.J. was charged with finding Daniel if he could, and even if he couldn't to
keep the man out of the tent at all costs.
Stump and Abe tied a piece of nine-millimeter climbing rope around Gus's black
ankle, then tossed the end over the roof support and hoisted her leg straight into the
air. Most of Abe's work was going to be on the underside of the leg. There were no
ripsaws or hacksaws in camp, much less a surgical saw, and so the leg had to be
separated at the knee joint itself. The front of the knee would be simple, all bone. It
was the back of the leg with its hamstring attachments and the veins and, most
important, the big popliteal artery, that would require all the unriddling.
Abe made his first cuts several inches down around the calf. Carefully he skinned
the flesh over the joint for flaps to later sew over the stump. The bone and muscles
stood exposed now in an eight-inch band at her knee. Abe wanted this to take fifteen
minutes, tops. Longer than that, and they'd have to loosen the tourniquet. Things
could start going wrong when that happened.
He found the big artery and fished enough into the open to clamp it with a hemostat.
Below the clamp, he sewed the artery tightly shut with suture, then cut the artery to
the lower leg.
'Fifteen minutes,' Carlos said.
The words startled Abe. He hadn't realized how silent the tent was. 'But I just
began,' he protested.