Unsnapping the buckle of my helmet strap, I pulled it off my head and tossed it aside. I dropped my pack and fumbled with the zipper on my parka. Then I took my parka off, whipped it into the snowbank, and lifted my anorak over my head. My flannel shirt and thermals were drenched with sweat. Wasting no time with the buttons, I tore the flannel shirt from my torso, the buttons popping loose and soaring through the air, then sloughed off the sopping wet thermal beneath it.
Petras closed one hand around my wrist. “What the hell are
you doing?”
“Gotta … get out of these clothes …” My voice was breathless, struggling. “Claustrophobic …”
“You’re not.” Petras grabbed my other wrist. I struggled to get free, but his grip was too tight. “It’s onset hypothermia. You’re actually freezing to death and dehydrated, but you feel like your body is on fire.”
“My heart,” I gasped. “Jesus … help …”
My eyelids fluttered, and the world tilted to one side, knocking my legs out from under me. I collapsed into the snowbank, the world grainy and distant before my eyes. My heart was like a jackhammer trying to drill through the wall of my chest. I actually placed one hand over my heart to steady it and could feel its reverberations against my palm.
“Hey!” Petras shouted to the others. “Man down! Some help here!” Strangely his voice was laden with echo. It took me several seconds to realize I was also hearing it come through the walkie-talkie affixed to my backpack, two feet away from me in the snow.
“I think … think I’m having a … a heart attack …”
Petras’s hand fell on my chest. “Be cool,” he said in his big bear’s voice. “Relax.”
I forced my eyelids open. They were gummy, and my vision was blurred. Once it cleared, I could make out the wind-chapped skin stretched taut over Petras’s high cheekbones and the flecks of snow caught in his auburn beard.
Suddenly I was a child in bed with a fever, and John Petras was my father, who incidentally was also named John. My father mopped my brow and smiled warmly down to me and told me to relax and stay warm. He told me of the birds roosting in the fig trees in the yard and how the limestone wall by the shore was becoming infested—absolutely infested —with lichen. It was nothing to worry about now, but I would have to scrub the wall clean once I was better, scrub that
moss and lichen and green slime right off.
And what I wound up doing was chiseling away sections of the wall, carving faces and hands so that it looked like people inside the wall pushing against it and trying to get out. My father was angry and sent me to my room for three days, though by the end of the three days, he came to my room and told me I shouldn’t have carved up the wall but that my carvings were very good and that he was impressed that they were very good …
I was lifted off the ground, my head cradled in someone’s hands, and my shoulders and legs were carried by others. I was wrapped quickly in a warm sleeping bag, while Andrew and Chad created a lean-to to keep the freezing winds at bay.
“You’ll be all right,” Petras said very close to my face. I could smell his sour breath and feel its warmth along the side of my face and down my neck. “Drink some water.”
I sipped water from a bottle. It seared my throat on the way down to my guts. My body was quaking, my teeth chattering. I thought I had gone blind until I realized I had my eyes shut.
Yet when I opened them, it was dark. A small fire burned outside the lean-to. My body had ceased quaking, and my heart had resumed its normal pace. I was alone beneath the lean-to. When I peeked out past the fire, I could see no one.
I pulled on a sweatshirt and edged out into the night. Petras was crouched low to the ground, filling water bottles with snow.
“Where are the others?” I croaked, my throat raw and abrasive.
“Making an advance up the east ridge. Andrew said the Hall of Mirrors is right over the next pass, which is the doorway to the Canyon of Souls.” He looked me over, his eyes like black pits in the firelight. “You look better.”
“I think my fever broke.”
“Gave us all quite a scare earlier.” He returned to his work.
“It was no picnic on my end, either. Need help?”
“I’m just about finished here.”
“It was like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I’ve never heard of hypothermia causing a heart to race . In fact, it does the opposite, doesn’t it?”
“You were also sick as a dog,” Petras added. “Let’s not forget that.” “Still …”
“Still what?”
“Forget it. My head’s been funny lately.” What had Hollinger said? My head’s playing funny games. I can’t think straight .
Petras gathered a number of the water bottles in his arms. “Give me a hand with these, will you?”
I helped him load the bottles into our various packs. While we worked, I said, “You want to hear something crazy?”
“What’s that?”
“Earlier today I thought I saw a man down in the valley below the ridge. Just before I had my little, uh … attack, I guess.”
“A man?”
“He was too far away to see very clearly, but I was certain of it.”
“Are you certain of it now or just certain of it then?”
“I don’t know. Hard to say.”
“It could have been a hallucination. You were babbling when I got to you and when we carried you away from the ridge. A couple of times you even called me dad.” Petras smiled warmly.
“Strange thing is, I thought I saw someone following Andrew up the pass after Shotsky died.”
Petras froze. I didn’t realize what I’d said until he very slowly turned to face me. Then it all rushed back, and I felt like hiding my head in the snow.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“Shotsky’s dead?”
I sighed. “Yes. The end of the first day taking him back to base camp. Heart attack. We tried to revive him, but it was quick.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Andrew and I agreed it would be best not to tell anyone. Morale reasons or whatever. I don’t know. It made sense at the time, but now … well, shit, everything’s fucked up now.”
Petras’s eyes bored into me, heavy on my soul. I told him I was sorry for deceiving him and the others.
“I guess it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t bring Shotsky back.”
“No,” I admitted, “it doesn’t.”
“And there’s no good reason to tell Mike and Chad now. Especially after what happened with Curtis. This whole thing’s turned into a fuck-a-row.” He handed me one of the fresh bottles. The snow inside had already melted. “Here. Drink this. Stay hydrated.”
I gulped down half the bottle, wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my sweatshirt once I’d finished. Out in the snow, I refilled the bottle, while Petras, in contemplative silence, rearranged some of the items in his pack. When he swiveled in my direction, his expression was telling.
“What’s the matter?” I said after the silence had become overwhelmingly obvious. “What are you thinking?”
Petras chewed at his lower lip. “Not quite sure yet. Working over some things in my head but nothing that’s—”
He stopped as voices floated down to us from the top of the pass. A moment later, three darkened figures sauntered toward the lean-to.
“I’ll tell you later,” Petras promised and zipped up his backpack.
“Look who’s decided to join us again,” Chad said, his heavy boots kicking up clouds of snow dust as he approached the fire. “You were babbling like Linda Blair for a while there, Shakes. Was waiting for your head to spin around and pea soup to come spewing out of your mouth.”
“Lousy company will make people do strange things,” I retorted, although since the incident on the arch where he’d saved my life, I no longer felt any genuine disdain for Chad Nando. It was all playful shtick now.
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