The Ascent(37)

Curtis’s face soured. “You can be as polite as you want to, Petras, but fact is fact. And fact just might be someone’ll have to hike backdown to base camp when the poor bastard cramps up or suffers a heart attack or stroke or something.”

“Men will surprise you,” Petras said.

“Shit,” said Curtis. “I know that’s true.”

As if summoned by the sheer mention of his name, Donald Shotsky materialized on the other side of the bonfire. His face glowing in the flames and shadows dancing across his features, he grinned a big, stupid grin and raised a hand at us. “Hey, guys.”

We mumbled and nodded at him.

He came over, followed by Chad. God knew how long he’d been lingering close by in the shadows.

Chad slid his cigar vial off his belt and unscrewed the cap. “I feel—,” he began but was interrupted by a growl of thunder.

We all looked up, mouths agape. In the distance, above the cover of low-hanging clouds, bleached blue light flared and resonated in the filaments of our retinas.

Chad summoned an even wider grin and proffered the fat joint. “As I was saying, I feel the need to perform an age-old unifying ritual with you boys, passed down from generation to generation, going back all the way to the first huddle of stinking cavemen who sat in mud up to their balls, pissing on their feet.”

“Look at the size of that thing.” Hollinger laughed.

“It’s primo, all right.” Chad produced a Zippo and ran the flame around the twisted tip. Then he popped the other end into his mouth, lit the joint, and inhaled with gusto. The bonfire was not strong enough to mask the smell of the marijuana.

“Didn’t Trumbauer say something about keeping us pure?” Curtis said, accepting the joint from Chad. “No liquor, no cigarettes, no fatty foods.”

“Technically,” Chad offered, “this is none of the above.”

Curtis exposed his very white teeth. “Technically.” He pulled a long drag, holding the smoke between his forefinger and thumb like an old pro.

“Where is Andrew?” I asked.

“On the other side of the far hill,” Shotsky said. “He’s mediating or something. Wanted to be alone. I didn’t realize he was such a religious son of a bitch.”

“Had a dream last night,” Hollinger said. The joint was pinched between two of his fingers now. “I was alone and stumbling around in the dark. We’d gotten separated in a system of caves halfway through the mountain. I could hear the lot of you talking through the walls, but your voices echoed all over, and I couldn’t pin you down. And every time I went in the direction where I thought one of you blokes might be, I walked smack into a wall of stone. So I kept feeling around the walls, thinking that if I ran my hands along the wall, I’d eventually follow it out into the open. But I realized I was in a tiny enclosed chamber made of icy cold stone, and there was no way in and no way out. As if I’d just appeared in a bubble of rock.”

“It’s a Freudian sex dream,” Chad chimed in. “Means you’re shooting blanks.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m serious, mate,” Chad insisted, executing a fairly decent Australian accent. “Means the old skin boat ain’t shuttling passengers to Tuna Town.”

The joint made its way to me. I considered it, then declined. I was expecting grief from the others, but no one said anything. Petras took the joint from me and examined it with the scrutiny of a Philatelist holding an old postage stamp up to the light. Then he leaned forward and handed the joint to Chad.

“Well,” Curtis said, “my daughter told me not to come.”

“Oh yeah?” Shotsky said. “How old is she?”

Curtis took a worn leather wallet from his BDUs and fished out what appeared to be a school photograph of a young girl with frizzy braids and two missing front teeth. “There’s my baby girl,” he said, passing the photograph to the rest of the crew.

“Adorable,” Petras said, nodding.

“Her mother still in the picture?” Chad wanted to know.

“She is but not with me. Lucinda lives with her mother in Utah most of the year. I get her every other holiday and two weeks in the summer.”

“Bummer, man,” said Shotsky. “She’s a cutie.”

“And a handful.” The picture returned to Curtis. He held it close to his face, smiling warmly at his daughter who was currently on the other side of the world. Then he kissed the photograph and slid it back into his wallet. “G’night, baby girl.”

Lightning once again blossomed beyond the veil of clouds overhead, followed by a peal of thunder so close I could feel it in my bones. A second later, we were caught in a thunderous downpour. The rain hammered down in sheets, striking like icy spears. We scrambled to our feet and quickly grabbed what gear remained scattered around the drowning bonfire and tossed it into the tent in assembly-line fashion.

I heaved a backpack toward Petras and glanced behind me over the craggy hillock. The Sherpas pulled hoods over their heads and vanished like ghosts into their own shelter.

“Where’s Andrew?” I shouted. The rain plastered my hair over my eyes and pooled into my mouth. “Petras! Petras!”

Another whip crack of thunder and the entire mountain illuminated like a pillar of fire. The storm had snuck up on us out of nowhere. I glanced up, shielding my eyes from the needling rain. The clouds above were black as roofing tar and slowly drifting counterclockwise in a vague circular shape.