Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

And why hide? Did he even know I was following him?

“Hey,” Andrew said, startling me with a hand on my shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I thought I … I recognized someone.”

“Got a lot of friends out here, do you?” There was no humor in his voice.

“Sorry.”

“Run off like that again and we’ll leave your ass.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Get back on the bus.”

When I reclaimed my seat, Curtis thumped an elbow into my ribs and muttered, “The hell got into you, man?”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” I said before I fully understood what I was saying.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Never mind.”

“You losing it already? Because we ain’t even on the mountain yet.”

“No,” I told him and wondered if it was the truth.

2

BY MIDDAY. THE BUS LET US OUT AT THE CUSP OF

a dense forest. Two Tibetan guides in full regalia waited for us. It was as far as the bus could go, so we all emptied into the mud and strapped our gear to our backs. Andrew spoke briefly with the guides in Tibetan, while Petras and I tied bits of leather around our exposed calves and neck to keep the leeches off.

“Do you understand any of it?” I whispered to Petras, still keeping one ear on the dialogue between Andrew and the guides.

“Very little. My Tibetan is shaky at best. Something about a river, following a river. The Valley of Walls is farther than Andrew originally thought.”

“What’s the Valley of Walls?”

“I don’t know. They keep saying …”

“What is it?” I pressed. “What?”

“Beyul,” he said.

“The hell’s that?”

“If it’s what I think it is …”

“What is it?” I pressed on.

Before Petras could answer, Andrew clapped. “We’ve got a few days’ hike ahead of us, gentlemen. The Valley of Walls is farther than I thought.”

Petras and I shared a glance. This time he did wink at me, and I said, “Nice translating, chief.”

Our backs and shoulders burdened with gear, we tromped through muddy ravines while following the two Tibetan guides and cutting swaths through the hemlock with large knives. Andrew remained close to the front of the line.

By late afternoon, the forest opened onto a sprawling mountainside dotted with ferns. The air was clean and scented with pine. Ahead in the unreachable distance, seeming to float unanchored to the earth,the crests of the snowcapped mountains rose like the humpbacks of sea beasts. A trail of white stone led in a gradual slope to a distant valley over which an enchanting mist hung suspended.

“There it is,” Petras said at my side, pointing at the line of snowcapped ridges on the horizon. “That’s where we’re headed.”

I was not intimidated by the distance. In fact, I was invigorated at the sheer prospect of it all. My feet ate up the earth, covering the distance without difficulty, and I was hungry to keep moving even as a smoky twilight settled over the valley.

We crossed the valley and migrated through dense trees. In the oncoming dark, monkeys chattered and howled nearby, and I frequently heard other animals—bigger animals—burst through the underbrush no more than fifteen yards away. Yak herders waded through a small stream and smiled at us with toothless mouths. They bent at the water’s edge and cleaned mud off their hands.

As the moon climbed, we came to a low-running river, no wider than a four-lane highway. We paused while our guides shared words in low voices and tested the current with stalks of bamboo.

After a few moments, Andrew turned to us and said, “We cross here. Once we’re on the other side, we’ll move through the trees. There’s another clearing just up the embankment. We’ll set camp there tonight.”

I took off my boots and secured the bands of leather about my legs. Touching a toe to the surface of the water caused icy tremors to course up through the marrow in my bones.

“Latch on,” Andrew said, tossing me a length of rope.

“Are you kidding?”

“I know it’s shallow and there’s hardly a current, but we’re not taking any chances. You okay with that?”

Not taking any chances? I thought. Is this the same guy who once stripped off his clothes and dived blindly off a cliff?

“No problemo, amigo,” I intoned and hooked the rope througha clamp on my belt. I fed the remaining length of line to Petras, who did the same, and continued to pass it along to Curtis, Chad, Shotsky, and Hollinger.

We crossed with little difficulty. At the opposite bank, after unlatching ourselves from Andrew’s rope, we surveyed each other for leeches before climbing back into our boots and ascending the vast, wooded incline toward the next clearing.

Farther down the line, Chad began crooning Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang.” When no one joined him after several minutes, he lost interest in singing and proceeded to mutter to himself beneath his breath.

This caused Petras to chuckle—he was right at my back as he did so; the sound was unmistakable—and in turn caused me to grin and laugh.

Soon Curtis began belting out the song, his voice much stronger and more disciplined than Chad’s, and this time the whole company, with the exception of the two Tibetan guides and Chad, chimed in.

“Come on, mate!” Hollinger prodded Chad from the back of the line. “Sing on, now! We know you know the words!”

Chad joined in, adding the “ooh” and “aah” when required. All in all, it was a surprisingly adept rendition.

When we reached the summit of the clearing, the moon was full in the sky, larger than I had ever seen it. Wisps of clouds drifted seemingly close to the ground—so close I felt I could reach out and touch them. The air was thin and cool, and my lungs were still acclimating, but I felt alive and rejuvenated.

His hands on his hips, Andrew wolfishly surveyed our surroundings and said, “We camp here and leave tomorrow at first light.”

I dropped my rucksack and erected my nylon tent. Beside me, Petras did the same, humming some obscure tune under his breath. The Tibetan guides established a fire at the center of camp, using bamboo stalks and dried rhododendron leaves for kindling, andbegan cooking brown rice and beans in a cast-iron pot. The smell was instantaneous.

After peeling off the extra layers of my clothes, I slipped away from camp and passed through low-hanging moss where I urinated on a patch of saxifrage. From this height, I could hear the rushing of the river and see its meandering tendrils glittering like slicks of oil beneath the shine of the full moon. Beyond the hills, the tendrils convened into a single strong-flowing current that dropped perhaps one hundred yards beyond the valley into a steaming, misty gorge.

Hannah would have been speechless , I thought, feeling a dull pang deep inside me.

Back at camp, the Tibetan guides were doling out mugs of brown rice and fat red beans.

I claimed a mug and shoveled a spoonful into my mouth. I hadn’t realized how hungry I’d been until I swallowed that first spoonful.

“Here.” Hollinger handed me a tin cup. “Careful. It’s hot.”

“Thanks.” The cup warmed my hands, and the tea tasted like basil.

Hollinger nodded and walked over to his tent. Grinning, he planted an Australian flag outside the tent door, then peeled off his sodden boots and proceeded to rub his toes on a straw mat.

I looked across the plateau and tried to make out the distant mountains, but it was too dark to see anything that far away. I could see Andrew standing on the precipice, his hands still on his hips, gazing out over the valley. He was briefly silhouetted against the moon. It was impossible not to think of that night in San Juan … which inevitably made me think of Hannah. I chased the thought away.