Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

“I was taking a leak,” Andrew said now. “I didn’t even realize anything had happened.”

“Okay,” I said, my fists clenching. “Cut it the fuck out. Chad was on that ledge because he was looking for you. If I hadn’t followed him and grabbed his coat as he went over the side, we’d be scooping him up off the rocks down there and carrying him home in our canteens.”

One of Andrew’s shoulders rolled. “What would you like me to say? It’s a scary thing, but this isn’t exactly a trip to the zoo. We’re all grown men. We know what we’ve got ourselves into.”

“I saw you.” I took a step toward him. “I saw you sitting on that fucking ridge, watching the whole thing.”

“You’re wrong. Calm down.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down. I saw you sitting there.”

Andrew sighed and raked a hand through his hair. He looked caught between a laugh and a sob. “I was taking a piss on the other side of the hill. When the rain hit and the mud started pouring down the side of the hill, it became too slippery to climb up. And when I did climb up, you guys had already pulled Chad over the ridge. It was all over before I could do anything.”

“So you just sat the fuck down and watched us?”

“I was exhausted from climbing through the mud.”

I glanced away from him in the direction the wolf had gone only moments before. “You were gone for a long goddamn time just to take a piss.”

“I told you. The rain and the mud—”

“Before that,” I said, glaring at him and taking another step closer. “You’d disappeared long before that. The rest of us were bullshitting by the fire, and you were off gallivanting.” My fists were shaking, and my vision began to blur. “What the fuck’s going on here?”

“Go to bed, Tim.”

“Answer me.”

“I said—”

“Who do you think you are?” I growled. “Don’t tell me what to do. I swear to God I’ll flatten you right here.”

“This was a mistake.” Andrew threw his hands up. “I thought you were ready for this. It’s my fault. The whole goddamn thing was a mistake. When the rest of us take off for the first pinnacle, you can go back to the valley with the Sherpas. They’ll take you to the roads that lead back into town. You can get a bus from—”

I hit him in the face. It was a poor, clumsy punch, but it hit with solidity, and I could feel Andrew’s jawbone through his cheek and against my knuckles.

Andrew stumbled backward seemingly more shocked than hurt, a hand up to his jaw. His eyebrows knitted together, creating a vertical divot between them, and he didn’t take his eyes off me.

“I told you not to tell me what to do,” I said quietly.

Andrew’s gaze shifted to the fist that had struck him, which was still balled at my side. His face was expressionless. “Okay, Tim. Okay. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I’ve been distant and aloof and removed from the whole damn thing, keeping all you guys in the dark. So, yeah, maybe I deserve it. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to tell him to shut the hell up, but my body refused to cooperate. I sat on a large white stone and pulled my legs under me.

I kept my eyes locked on Andrew for fear that if I looked away he might vanish into the night.

“You said you’d left us in the dark,” I said finally. “What haven’t you told us? And no more games.”

Andrew took a deep breath and sat down beside me. “That maybe we shouldn’t be here.” He chuckled. “All right, you caught me. I wasn’t just taking a piss tonight.”

I stared at him.

“I was praying,” he said. “Meditating. Trying to lock into the power of the land. The power of the gods.”

“Meditating,” I repeated. “You don’t believe in that stuff.”

“That doesn’t matter here.”

“Why shouldn’t we be here?”

“Because there are a lot of people who think no one should climb the Godesh Ridge,” he said. “You can forget about the folklore, the campy stories, or even the facts—the men who’ve died trying. You can’t deny those things, but that’s not all of it. Fact is, we’re some big-time violators for coming here. The Godesh Ridge is sacred, a holy land, a temple not to be pursued, not even by the monks, the Yogis. No one. And the same holds true for the Canyon of Souls.”

I thought about Shomas, the hulking man who’d been waiting for me that night outside my cabin and whom I’d chased—or imagined I’d chased—through the streets of a rural village days later.

“A beyul ,” I said, which seemed to catch Andrew’s interest.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Petras. You’re familiar with the term?”

“Sure.”

“Is that what this canyon is? A beyul? A hidden land not meant to be found?”

“I suppose.”

“That’s why the guides turned back after the bridge,” I said. “That’s why they wouldn’t lead us into the Valley of Walls.”

“The Valley of Walls is considered a gateway to the ridge and the first in many stops along the way to the Canyon of Souls. There are others, too—the Sanctuary of the Gods, the Hall of Mirrors—and many of the indigenous people of this area will not corrupt the land with their presence. Simultaneously they believe we’re corrupting it by being here. To them, we’re no different than a band of grave robbers.”

He gripped my shoulder and squeezed it. It was a gesture very unlike him. “I meditate to maintain a connection with the land and to show my respect. Please don’t let that weaken your trust in me to lead this mission. I haven’t lost my mind, and I haven’t dragged you all into something I can’t handle.”

“We shouldn’t be here.” I cast a wary glance at the sky. It was as clear as lucid thought. The moon hung fat and yellow, larger than I had ever seen it.

“You never struck me as the superstitious type, Overleigh.” He was back to using my last name, and I was helpless to remember the day we first met in San Juan. This caused me to think once again of Hannah …

“Has nothing to do with superstition,” I corrected him. “I know for a fact that we’ve pissed off at least one of the locals from Churia. I met him, and he didn’t seem too happy with our little crew.”

“Don’t let that bother you.”

“And then there’s Donald Shotsky.”

“What about him?”

“For one,” I said, “the fact that he’ll never make it. He’s been struggling already, and we haven’t even started to climb. The man’s never climbed anything more strenuous than a flight of stairs in his life.”

“We’ve already discussed Shotsky. I’ve explained it to you.”

“You’ve explained your deranged reason for wanting him out here, but that doesn’t make it right.”

Andrew chuckled and repeated the word deranged , as if it were the punch line to a joke.

“Make me a promise.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Andrew said.

“Promise me you won’t break him. Promise me that if he can’t make it to the end, you’ll cut him loose.”

“I’m not holding a gun to the man’s—”

“So then promise me you’ll let him off the hook if he feels he can’t finish this.”

Andrew’s fingers drummed on his knees. “All right, if he feels he can’t finish …”

“And that you’ll give him the money.”

His eyebrows froze in twin arches above his eyes. He said nothing.

“The twenty grand,” I went on. “Promise me.”

His eyes narrowed, and he clasped his hands in his lap, staring at the blackened heap of carbon that had been our bonfire earlier this evening. “And if I don’t promise?” he said, not looking at me.

“Then I walk. Right here, right now—tonight. I’ll pack my shit and head back to the valley. You flexed your muscles a few minutes ago and told me to do just that, but I know that’s not what you want. You’re here to make us all better, to fix what you think is broken in us, just like you said. Despite what you said, you don’t want me to leave. You very much want me to stay.”