The Ascent(22)

But no one was here. The windows were still closed, and my luggage was just how I’d left it. While this helped calm my heartbeat, it did little to soothe the shakes I could feel rumbling up through the core of my body. I needed a drink. Bad.

I decided to shower and take my mind off my withdrawal. The water wouldn’t get hotter than lukewarm, which was fine by me, because by the time I stepped under the spray, I was sweating like a hostage.

2



ABOUT TWO HOURS LATER. I WATCHED AS A

caravan of nomads rolled through the clearing on horse-drawn carts. They reminded me of the old paintings in high school history textbooks of the carpetbaggers traversing the flatlands of a blossoming new country. There were children among them; they shouted and laughed and hopped down from the carts to sell vegetables to whomever they could.

I felt a lower eyelid tremble. The withdrawal shakes were coming, all right. Easy, I willed it. Easy now, boyo.

As I watched the caravan, a man appeared above an embankment. He was deeply tanned with feathered yellow hair and wraparound sunglasses. He carried a backpack over one shoulder, and his strides were long and well defined.

The children hurried over to him, proffering their goods. The man smiled, exposing what appeared to be—at least from what I could see while standing on my cabin porch—two rows of perfect white teeth. The man tousled the hair of the nearest child, then lightly slapped the underside of the child’s hand that held a plump, red tomato. The tomato hopped into the air, and the man snatched it before it could fall back into the child’s hand. He nodded at theyoung boy, and even though he was wearing those wraparound sunglasses, I got the distinct impression he winked at him, too.

As the children looked on, their giddy playfulness fading, the man’s two rows of perfect teeth reappeared for an encore performance before disappearing into the fat skin of the tomato. I could almost hear the snap of the bite and the patter of the juices down the man’s chin.

The caravan continued down the roadway. The children, collectively expressionless, stared at the man for several moments before catching up to the carts. I could still hear the clop of the horses’ hooves and the creaking of the wooden carts after the caravan disappeared over the embankment.

“Howdy,” the tomato thief said, tipping me a salute as he strode toward the main lodge. “You from the States?”

“Yeah.”

“You look like a Trumbauer experiment.” If this was meant as some sort of joke, I was not in the mood.

“If you’re hungry, they’ve got a pretty decent menu in the lounge downstairs,” I commented.

The man paused and slid his sunglasses halfway down the bridge of his nose. Crystal blue eyes seared me. “I’m Chad Nando. From Miami.”

“You fly out here from Miami or just steal a boat?”

Grinning, he tossed the tomato at me.

I caught it, more out of reflex than skill. My fingers sank into the juicy skin.

“This is going to be an interesting little adventure,” he promised.

Indeed, I thought and watched him walk into the lodge.

3



THERE WAS LIGHT MUSIC COMING FROM THE

lounge, something prerecorded and full of percussion, and I smelled

steamed meats before I actually entered the room.

Petras leaned against the wall outside the lounge, examining his fingernails while clinging to a pint glass of something dark and frothy.

“Please tell me that’s a beer,” I said, saddling up to him. Laughter boomed from the lounge, and I peered into the room. A group of men crowded around a single table filled with plates of steaming food. Thangkas—Tibetan scrolled paintings—hung above them from the rafters.

“No such luck,” Petras grunted. “It’s supposed to be some kind of local juice, but it tastes like motor oil. Want some?”

“I’ll pass.” Scanning the table and the rest of the lounge, I couldn’t locate Andrew. I asked Petras if he’d shown up yet.

“Haven’t seen him. Hollinger saw him earlier today. He told me to come here tonight, so I did.”

“You meet the rest of the guys?”

Petras stared at the dark liquid in his pint glass. “They all seem okay. Except maybe for that Nando guy. He’s got a big mouth and likes to hear himself put it to use.”

“I watched him wrestle a tomato from some homeless Nepalese children earlier today.”

“You okay, Tim?”

“Sure,” I said, suddenly aware of Petras’s eyes all over me. “Why?”

“You look …”

“What is it?” I urged.

He shrugged. “It’s nothing. Your hands, that’s all. They’re shaking.”

In truth, I felt like shit. A hollowed-out husk, a rubbery mockery of a man … “I’m sweating, too,” I commented nervously, thinking—for whatever bizarre reason—that this statement might lessen the tension of our conversation. It didn’t.

“You on something or coming off it?” Petras wanted to know, his voice level and baritone.

I forced a chuckle. “Are you kidding? What in the world would—?”

“Only two reasons a man shakes like that.” He seemed to consider his own words. “Well, maybe three reasons, but I wouldn’t concern you with the third. Just two reasons, and they’re both cause for alarm.”