He lay supine on the sled, wedged into the debris as if the sled had burrowed to escape the lahar. But his body was clear; nothing on top of him, save the same muck that coated everything. I bent closer, angling my headlamp. Cement covered his head like a hood. He wore a mask. There were the crude contours of a face but it was masked in cement. No hair, no ears, no eyes. There were the slopes of cheeks and the rise of a nose, and on the underside was a hole where something, perhaps a sneeze before the stuff was set, had cleared a nostril. Below the nose was a break in the mask where the cement had been clawed away to free a mouth. The skin that showed was black, and it was only when I looked still closer that I saw it was dried blood.
I removed a glove and touched the mask. It was a hard seamless casing; crack it and it would come apart like the halves of a mold. I stared at the scabbed skin around his mouth. No, the stuff was glued to him.
He lay so still, his arms in line with his body, that at first I thought the cement had glued him to the sled, but then I looked more closely, running my fingers along one runner, and I found a cement worm that bunched and crawled across his midsection to bunch at the opposite runner.
I shoved back. “Who tied you?”
His head turned.
Eric did. Had to be Eric. I stared at the worm; Eric had done it before the lahar. He didn’t have cuffs but he had rope. I went cold. “What did you do? Why are you tied?”
Shallow breathing through crusted mouth.
“Who got the stuff off your mouth?”
He whispered, “don’t know.”
They did. After the lahar. They’re alive. They cleared his mouth and then went to get first aid supplies. Their packs were swept away so they had to go to the summit. Should be back by now. But no. They didn’t find me at the summit so they kept going. Search and rescue; it’s what they do. It’s a big mountain. All of them had to search. Even Walter. Especially Walter; he wouldn’t be left behind.
I scrambled up.
He heard me. “Get it off.”
“You can breathe.”
I stumbled through the fog, yelling, and then I moved downhill because that’s where they would be searching for me, thinking I’d been swept downhill. I took a different route this time, descending until I reached a drop-off. I thought I knew that drop-off. I peered over the cliff but could see nothing below. I began to traverse, searching for another way down, because if I remembered right there was a ridge below the drop-off, angling off to the south, and if the ridge was high enough to channel the lahar north then someone could have survived to the south. But the fog had lowered and the ash had thickened and the puny beam of my headlamp was not enough to lead me down. I kept going, searching for a way down. After a time, I knew I was lost. I headed back uphill, thinking I’d go all the way up to the station for lanterns, but I seemed to climb forever without reaching the summit. Didn’t care, really. I wandered until at last I came upon the shed. Whole mountain’s lost in black fog and here I come, back to Krom, like he’s put out a beacon.
It had darkened so much since I’d left that I could not make out details. I moved inside cautiously, navigating the wreckage, sweeping my beam to the corner where Krom lay. No sound came from him and I thought he’d lost consciousness. No demands to get it off. Perhaps he’d died. And then there was a sound, a cough, but it did not come from Krom. I spun and my light fell on a body slumped against the I-beam.
I let out a cry.
His eyes opened. He squinted against my light. He hunched his shoulders as though to rise, then abandoned the effort. I didn’t move. I was afraid I had assembled him here out of hope. I wanted so badly to believe in Walter that I just held my breath. Finally, I was assured of the existence of this old man with his face chipped raw and a blackened dent in his skull. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, then with an effort asked, “are you all right?” I nodded. We let that sink in. He said, “I had lost hope.” I nodded.
He told me his head hurt. I rushed to him, unslinging my pack.
Rudimentary first aid. I cursed myself for not learning more. All our trips into the field, where anything can happen, and I never learned more than to treat hypothermia and snakebite and splint a broken bone. In horror and ignorance, I applied antibiotics and bandaged his head. Ashy scabs; no fresh blood. He was not convulsing, or vomiting, or seeing double, or talking nonsense about birthdays. But he sagged beneath my hands, he had no rebound. I gave him water and when he had drunk his fill I checked his vital signs. “Eric?” I said, finger on Walter’s pulse. “Mike?”
His pulse skipped.
“Neither?”
“We went to find you.” His voice was thin. “Eric and I. Couldn’t see.”
I knew. The Stygian dark. I could not breathe.
“We came back. Mike was gone. Adrian said Mike went to hunt for you. We didn’t believe him.”
“Then Eric was still with you.”
Walter nodded at the ropes binding Krom. “Eric did that. Said he promised you.”
I whispered, “What did he do then?
“He went in search for Mike.”
My eyes stung with acid tears.
“I remained behind.” Walter made that coughing sound. “I was spent. I was of no use.” He took another drink. “After the lahar hit, after I regained myself, I found Adrian like this. I cleared his mouth. Then I went out in search.”
I whispered, “You were hurt. You said you were spent.”
“It no longer mattered.”
I said, tight, “It’s a big mountain.”
“Yes it is, dear.”
I stood and shouldered my pack. “I’m going to look.”
“It’s too dark.”
I moved outside and outside was dark as inside, I needn’t have moved at all to know that but I had to go look. I could see ahead a couple of yards along the beam of my headlamp but beyond that stunted reach it was pitchy black. I was a nearsighted creature, and beyond the very near I was blind. Blind as Krom beneath his hood. I swiveled, sweeping my lamp, carving a tight circle of light. “Maybe lanterns,” I said, although I didn’t know how many more visible feet lanterns would buy me, “there’s lanterns in the station, Walter, it’s not far,” although I wasn’t sure if I could find my way.
“You leave, he kills me.”
I froze. It was Krom’s voice. I simply clamped down my muscles, some animal instinct. Freeze and listen. Walter, I saw, had stiffened as well. He had come up onto his hands and knees and he was looking at Krom. My beam caught Walter in sharp profile and cast a long wolfish shadow upon the rutted ground. Had I missed something in my rush to nurse him? I’d been watching so keenly for the trauma signs — vomiting, convulsions — when I should have searched for something more fundamental. I watched now for a signal. Some predatory tic. What sign would Walter give if he intended to commit murder? I didn’t know. That wasn’t in my world view. “Walter?”
Walter said, “I didn’t know he was still alive.”
I moved back to Krom and pitched to my knees. “You didn’t check him, Walter? When you came back from your search?” No. I knew how it felt to end up at the shed, used up, ready to drop and die here if that’s what’s in store. No thought to Krom. Nearly comatose himself. So what’s changed? I watched Walter get to his feet and come settle down opposite me, a new lithe purpose in him. What’s changed, I realized, is water. Rehydration. He’s regained himself, and all that is inside him.
He touched the mask.
I pushed his hand away. “I’ll do it.” I tried to find an edge of the mask, a fracture where the mouth hole had been made, but the stuff was thick and set and of a single piece from jaw to scalp. I got Walter’s knife from my pack and probed the jawline. “I’ll try not to cut you, Adrian.”