The Ascent(81)

Cleaning off my hands in the snow, I nodded toward a small, cavelike opening in the rock wall. “You think you can roll inside?”

He wasn’t even looking at it. “Sure. Whatever.”

After unsnapping the shoulder straps of his backpack, I helped him wiggle loose from it. He sighed as the weight fell away. Leaning his head back against the wall, clouds of vapor billowed from his chapped lips. His respiration was disturbingly raspy, like a lawn mower struggling to turn over.

That’s what they call the death rattle, I thought. That’s not a good sign. “You’re going to have to roll on your side to roll into the cave.”

“Okay.”

“You can only be so careful. It’ll hurt.”

He managed a sputtering, motorboat laugh. “It already hurts.”

“Fair enough.” I looped his good arm around my neck. “Come on.”

“Uh.” He jostled against me, his weight substantial, testing the limits of my own endurance. “Uh … Jesus …”

“Hang in there,” I gasped, dragging him toward the cave. A series of icicles hung like fangs over the opening. I kicked them away with a boot. “Here we go.”

Together we eased to a sitting position in the snow. I slid behind

Petras and held him upright as he maneuvered himself down on his good shoulder. I could see the blood soaking through the fresh bandage. The cauterized flesh was splitting open in the cold.

“I’m okay,” he said and rolled himself into the mouth of the cave. He moaned as he struck the rear wall and called out, “It isn’t very deep.”

“It’s shelter. It’ll have to do.”

I dragged his backpack over to the opening, partially obscuring it from view, the zippered compartments facing inside the cave in case Petras needed anything from within. Then I unraveled the canvas tent and pegged it at an angle to the rock wall and drove two pitons into the bottom half, pinning it to the ground. It would keep the wind off us and the cold from infiltrating Petras’s womblike cave.

Pulling my own backpack in after me, I climbed beneath the angled canvas and leaned against the rock wall. Like a soldier on night watch, I held the pickax in my lap. It felt heavier than hell. My heart was strumming like an electric guitar, my lungs achy and sore.

Petras’s hand appeared from the cave and gripped my thigh. His grip was surprisingly strong. “You done good.”

I chuckled. “Oh, Christ …”

“Seriously, Tim. Thank you.”

“Get some rest. We’re gonna head out early in the morning.”

“You go on without me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Who’s being ridiculous? Don’t be a fool. Go on without me.”

“Let’s worry about that in the morning,” I told him.

3



THEN IN THE DARKNESS—

Something heavy rolled over in my stomach. I leaned out the tent and retched in the snow. My hands were shaking and my vision blurred. Minutes turned to hours. I prayed I didn’t look as bad as

Petras—gaunt, featureless, vaguely misaligned.

4



BEFORE THE SUN HAD FULLY RISEN. I CRAWLED

from the lean-to. Halfway up the snow-throated gulley, I leaned against a mound of stone, unzipped my pants, and struggled to urinate. I managed to expel only a few sad droplets, which dribbled onto my pants.

Back at the cave, I packed up the tent and pulled on my gloves. From inside the cave, Petras’s raspy breathing was still audible. I bent down to the opening. “Wake up, man.” “I’ve been awake.”

The sheer quality of his voice—or lack thereof—felt like a stick jabbing between my ribs for my heart. “We should go,” I said. Petras didn’t answer.

I tried to peer farther into the crevice. I could see his haunted raccoon eyes, the skeletal whiteness of his face. I wondered how much blood he’d lost during the night.

“I don’t know who we’re tryin’ to kid here. I can’t move.” “John—”

“Can’t move my arms, can’t move my legs, and my head feels about as heavy as an engine block.” It sounded as if his voice had been halved—had been sliced down the middle and stripped of half the elements that made him who he was. “I can’t just—”

“We don’t got time to sit and kid ourselves. Get going. You find food; then you can bring it back to me. You find help; bring them back, too.”

I nodded, chewing at my lower lip. Bits of skin flaked off in my mouth. “Right. I will. I’ll bring food and I’ll find help.” “Go.”

“All right.” I fished the Zippo from my pocket and placed it in

Petras’s freezing hand.

He started to protest, but I wouldn’t hear anything of it. If he wanted me to leave him, then I was going to leave him with the means to build a fire, and I wouldn’t listen to any protest. Finally he relented. His fingers closed around the silver Zippo and retracted into the darkness of the hollow.

Hooking my helmet to one of the straps of my backpack, I slung the pack over my shoulders and thought my rib cage would collapse. With both hands, I rubbed the ice from my beard and cleared the hardened ice from the spikes in the soles of my boots.

“I’ll bring food,” I said one last time, though I wondered about his chances of surviving the next twenty-four hours.