The Ascent(43)

“Look there,” Petras said at one point. He shook my arm lightly, while Shotsky staggered close behind us. “That’s Everest.”

Even from this distance it was tremendous, dwarfing the other mountains that surrounded it. Clouds encircled its midsection like the frozen rings of Saturn.

“You trying to beat some record, Tim?” Petras said.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Huh?”

“You’re walking too fast. You’re going to burn yourself out before nightfall.”

“No way.”

“It’s not a race.”

It was the shakes—I could feel them coming on again sooner than last time. The past half a mile the only thing I could think about was the canteen half filled with bourbon stowed inside my pack. Even looking across the reach to the haunting stretch of Mount Everest, it was all I could think about. Movement was the only thing that kept the shaking at bay.

“Man’s like a bullet,” I heard Shotsky wheeze behind me. I didn’t bother to turn and look at him.

You have to kick this, I told myself. There’s no way you’ll finish with your mind on a flask of booze. Dump it out in the snow. Do it now. Do it.

I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.

“You better keep a good pace, Tim, unless you want to reopen that scar on your left leg,” Petras said. He was keeping stride with me now.

“I’ll be fine.”

“How’d you do it?”

I hocked a wad of yellowish phlegm into the snow and said, “Caving. Fell through a ravine in the dark. Bone came through the leg. I was stupid. Careless.”

“Falls happen.”

“I was alone.”

“How come?”

“Hey, hey—” I stopped and looked at him, my eyes hard. “This an inquisition, man?”

“I just want to know what’s weighing you down.”

“Look,” I said, “I like you. I really do. But my ghosts are mine. Okay?”

John Petras seemed to mull things over. Finally he raised both his hands and said, “Sorry. I surrender.”

We continued walking. I suddenly felt like a heel. Petras hadn’t deserved my response and I knew it—even as I said it I knew it—but I had been right: my ghosts were mine, after all …

I glanced over my shoulder. Donald Shotsky had fallen behind, far enough to be out of earshot. “Andrew’s playing the savior,” I said, anxious to bring up something other than old ghosts. “He’s always been eccentric, but this time his ego’s riding him bareback.”

“The heck are you getting at?”

I told him about Shotsky and how he owed some bookies in Las Vegas twenty thousand dollars. “Andrew thinks this trip will … I don’t know … build character or kick his gambling habit or some shit. Like a goddamn twelve-step program, he brought Shotsky here to fix him.”

“How do you know this?”

“Shotsky told me. And when I confronted Andrew, he told me, too. He’s paying Shotsky the twenty grand to take this trip.”

If the news surprised Petras, it didn’t register on his face. He continued to trudge through the deepening snow, the incline growing increasingly steep.

“So,” I went on, “it seems we’re all apparently here for a reason …”

“What’s yours? Or is that too personal?” He smiled warmly to show he was ribbing me.

I offered a resigned grin back. I’d already mentioned the deathof my wife to Petras the first night we met when he drilled me about my reasons for coming here. I reminded him of it now, though I kept the details vague. “She left because I wasn’t the husband I should have been. I was an up-and-coming artist whose sole focus was on getting beyond the up-and-coming status. She always came second. Always. Until she left.”

“The moment they leave,” said Petras, “is the moment we realize their true worth.”

“After she left, I tried hard to get her back. And after she died, I found I couldn’t sculpt anymore. I tried but couldn’t do it. Haven’t done it since.”

“Ah, she was your muse.”

“I guess.” The notion made me smile. “Regardless, I gave up sculpting for a life on the edge.”

Raising one eyebrow and glancing over the ridge, Petras said, “Pun intended?”

I laughed.

“So Andrew believes you coming out here will help you get over your wife’s death? Maybe you’ll learn to sculpt again?”

I snorted and said, “He mailed me a giant slab of granite; did I tell you that? Had it shipped right to my apartment.”

“Did you sculpt anything from it?”

“I tried. But it didn’t work out. It wouldn’t take.”

Petras snickered. “You sound like a surgeon attempting an organ transplant. Operation was a success, but the patient died. Wouldn’t take.”

“Sometimes I feel that way.”

“Like a surgeon?”

“No, like the patient.” I reached out and touched his giant shoulder. “We’re cool, right? I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t sweat it.” He winked. “Never been cooler.”

Shotsky’s voice rang out, startling me with how far away he sounded. I turned to find that he had indeed lagged quite far behind us. Heraised one hand and stumbled forward. I anticipated his fall before it actually happened: a stiffening of his limbs followed by a keeling over to one side. He thumped down in a plume of powdered snow.