Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

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.

I turned and cupped my mouth with both hands. “Andrew! Andrew!”

A shape darted across the campsite: Chad. I could make out his bright neon parka even in the dark. He trampled the steaming, blackened heap that had moments ago been the bonfire and sprinted toward the hillock. I followed, cognizant of Petras shouting my name as I ran.

“Where is he?” I huffed, skidding to a muddy halt beside Chad.

“Don’t see him.” Chad was farther up a gradual incline, peering over the ridge to the cupped pool of rocks below.

I waited for the next lightning strike, hoping it would reveal Andrew below, unharmed.

“I don’t think—no, wait. Wait—” Chad took a step forward, and the crest of the ridge broke apart. His arms pinwheeled, and he bowed backward. Then he pitched forward as his feet fell away beneath him.

I grabbed a fistful of his parka just as a mudslide broke across the ground quick as a serpent. “Chad!”

He went over the edge, dragging me forward. My chest slammed against the rock as the cascade of mud pooled into the cuffs of my cargo pants and washed over my body. My arm seesawed over the broken crest of the ridge, the sharp rock slicing my flesh. I groaned and sat up, mud splattered and freezing, and grabbed a second handful of Chad’s parka. He was heavy as hell; I could feel the tendons straining in my arms.

“Tim! Tim!” It was Petras, his voice nearly in my ear. I felt his hands slide beneath my armpits and wrap around my chest, his hands coming together in a death grip. My breath was squeezed out of me as Petras pulled me against his chest.

“Don’t let go,” I moaned, not sure if I’d actually managed to speak the words or not.

In a flash of lightning, I caught a glimpse of Chad’s terrified eyes staring at me from over the ridge. He seized my arms with both hands, but the rainwater made it impossible for him to get a secure grip. His cheeks were quivering. For one horrifying second, as another bolt of lightning lashed out overhead, I thought I could see his skull through his skin.

“Come on!” I cried, trying to pull him up. “Come on, Chad!”

“Don’t fucking drop me, Shakes,” he said, his voice quavering.

“Don’t you fucking drop me.”

“Won’t happen,” I promised. “Get one of your feet up.”

The pain ratcheted in my arms and shoulders as he swung toward the face of the cliff and tried to dig his boots into the rock. But like a cartoon character, his legs only cycled wildly in the air, pushing him farther from the face of the cliff and back out over the abyss.

Hollinger and Curtis were suddenly at my side, feeding a length of rope down to Chad over the jagged ridge.

“Watch your footing, guys,” I cautioned them, my breath coming in gasps and wheezes. “The ground’s turned to mud.”

Hollinger pointed to the rope and shouted to Curtis, “Don’t let the rope floss the rock, mate! It’ll rupture.”

Curtis dived forward and grasped the rope in gloved hands, his head two inches away from my own. I could see the deep trenches in the mud that his knees had made as he slid across the incline. The trenches quickly filled with water.

“Grab the rope!” Curtis shouted to Chad.

“He’s slipping,” I said through clenched teeth. I couldn’t tell if anyone had heard me. “I’m losing him …”