Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

Petras sat down beside me, busy with his own bowl of beans and rice. “You’ve got some stamina.”

“I’m still wide awake. I could go another ten miles.” Truth was, as long as I was active and exerting energy, I didn’t think about drinking. Now, sitting here in the dark while the world slowly wound down, I felt my tongue growing dry and fat and that old urgency causing my

throat to convulse reflexively.

“Save it for tomorrow,” Petras advised.

“Hey,” I said. “What was it you were going to say earlier today? About the guides and Andrew? You’d heard them say something—”

“Beyul,” Petras said, staring into his bowl. I heard his spoon scrape the bottom.

“What is it?”

“It means ‘hidden land.’ They’re believed to be places of middle existence between our world and the next. Some lamas have spent their lives seeking out these places, interpreting the beyul to be a sort of paradise, a Shangri-la. Others believe it is where the earth is weakest, where our world is physically capable of touching the next. Many others think these hidden lands are not meant to be found and that the spirits—or nature itself—will prevent travels from uncovering their locations at all costs. I once read a book by a lama who said he was guided for a full year by a female spirit—what he called a dakini— in search of a beyul hidden beneath a glacier. He never found it, and he nearly died of exposure in the process.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I said, yet my mind was still echoing with the concept of a female spirit, the dakini . “After a whole year with nothing to show for it.”

“On the contrary,” Petras said. “He was one of the lucky ones. You see, most lamas who set out to find a beyul die trying to find it. Or they simply vanish and are never heard from again.”

“Yeah?”

“And sometimes,” Petras continued, “you may be standing in the heart of the beyul and never even know it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you aren’t attuned to it. Your spirit isn’t ready or capable of accepting it.”

Jackals howled in the distance. I jerked my head and could see the wreath of mist rising over the plateau. It was nearly impossibleto make out the trees below, and the winding, glittering river I had witnessed less than thirty minutes ago had now vanished.

“Is that where we’re going?” I asked. “The Canyon of Souls? Is that supposed to be one of these beyuls?”

“I honestly don’t know. And as far as we’re concerned, I don’t think it matters.”

I barked laughter and shook my head. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

“It’s the truth as I know it, anyway.” He motioned in the direction of the two guides, who were asleep under a canvas lean-to. “I believe that’s what our buddy Andrew was discussing with them earlier this afternoon.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“I’ve been out here before. A few years ago, I came by myself and spent nine months with a rucksack over my shoulders. Spent many nights in the Western Hills, in Pokhara, and made friends in Thamel. It was a good way to clear my head, and back then I needed my head cleared. It was a rough time, but I guess we all go through that at some point.” Petras faced me. “You all right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You’ve been rubbing your leg the whole time. You get hurt?”

I was massaging the scar on my left leg. It didn’t hurt; it had just become an unconscious habit. “No, I’m fine.”

Across from us, Chad whipped out a harmonica and began playing some unrecognizable tune. Someone laughed, and someone else—possibly Shotsky—told him to shut the hell up and where did he think he was, the old West? Right on cue, Chad told his heckler to go fuck himself. Again, laughter from some disembodied voice.

I sighed, smiling and shaking my head. “This is going to be a long couple of weeks.”

Petras leaned over and squeezed my shoulder. It was such a brotherly gesture that it caught me off guard and rendered me temporarily speechless. “Get some sleep,” he told me.

I watched him rise and shamble over to his own tent, the bonfire

causing shadows to dance across his broad shoulders.

After he disappeared through the flaps of his tent, I shifted my gaze out over the grassy plateau, black and still in the night, to the waning fire. Beyond the fire, I could see Andrew. He was perched on a large outcrop of white stone, his legs folded beneath him, his back facing the moon. He looked lost in meditation.

Chapter 8

1

IT WAS NOON. ACCORDING TO SHOTSKY’S WRIST-

watch, and on the third day of the hike when we reached the bridge spanning the cliffs. It was an unsteady rope bridge, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, suspended at least five stories over a chalk white river. Great fronds waved along the riverbank, but they did not fully conceal the display of jagged white stones, slick with lichen, that hugged the wet earth.

Chad tossed a rock over the side of the cliff; we all watched it plummet to the frothing waters below. Chad whistled but didn’t say anything.

Once again, Andrew spoke with the guides. It had become his custom to pull them aside and speak in hushed tones whenever the spirit struck. This hadn’t bothered me at first, and it wasn’t until I heard one of the guides say something to Hollinger in crude but understandable English that I began to feel uneasy about their discussions in Tibetan. I thought of Petras’s story about the beyul and how some secret places were never meant to be disturbed. This, coupled with the fresh memory of Shomas and how my room had been ransacked, did not sit well with me. It seemed none of us knew much about the Canyon of Souls. It wouldn’t be unlike Andrew to lead us into danger.

“We cross here,” Andrew said.

The guides were already securing lines to the moss-slicked rope handholds. The bridge wobbled unsteadily as they did so.

“They’re sure this bridge will hold?” Curtis said. He eyed the wobbling bridge as dubiously as I had.

“It’ll hold. Besides, we’ll lose too much time climbing down and trying to cross the river.”

“He’s playing loose and fast,” Curtis muttered as we secured our gear.

“But he’s right about losing time if we had to climb down and cross the river,” Hollinger said.

“That bridge don’t hold,” Curtis said, “we all might be in that river, anyway.”

One of the guides went first. He traversed the slotted wooden planks with seemingly no difficulty, the palms of his small hands just grazing the ropes at waist height.

“Thirty-three seconds,” Shotsky commented, staring at his watch. “From one end to the other.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but he moved damn fast.”

“Thirty-three,” he repeated, ignoring me. “What’s thirty-three seconds?”

Chad laced up his boots at the edge of the cliff. “Don’t tell me you’re actually afraid of heights, Donald.”

Shotsky scanned the length of the suspended bridge. “What can I say?” His voice was small, and I could hear the dryness in his mouth when his throat clicked. “I needed the job.”

Andrew crossed second. He moved confidently and without concern. At the midpoint, he paused and called to the rest of us, “It’s a sturdy bridge.” Twice he stomped his boot against the planks; both times we all winced collectively. “We don’t need to go one at a time. Space it out, leave about ten or fifteen feet between each of you. It’s strong enough.”

“Strong, strong,” echoed the guide who’d remained on our sideof the bridge. He pulled at one of the ropes to bolster his authority. Judging by his urgency, I assumed this had been the guides’ suggestion from the beginning and was most likely the essence of their discussion with Andrew.