Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain, Jonathan Bloom [best ebook reader TXT] 📗

child squirming in his chair, trying to hold his pose while George Malick and his wife – smiling but out of frame – assured the child the torture would be over soon. The dear thing. One can only hope he was subsequently treated to a handful of black licorice.

The effect of the image upon our heroes was immediate. Junk let the locket go and it floated off with the wind. The men looked into each other’s eyes and held one another’s gaze for what must have been minutes. Their thoughts did not need expression as they were likely in perfect synchrony. How could they account for a mountain climber’s joy as he walks through empty cold space thousands of feet in the air and countless miles from family, home, and hearth? Masochism? Sociopathy? The query leaves them baffled. If there had been an answer at some time, it escaped them now.

Despite any mutual hatred still coursing through their hearts, the two men had stopped fighting and now were racing to take refuge in the cave, wishing to recover some energy in order to climb down. That is correct. They would climb down or die in the process. But first, rest. They gave Malick’s body a light shove-off and it bounced down the southern slope like a child’s half-inflated balloon. Then it was gone over the cliffs on the Southern Face. With the opening of the cave free and clear, they scrambled up into it and covered most of the aperture with snow.

Not one hour later, enclosed in the cave, Junk and Hoyt were now freezing to death. Each noted in their hardly legible journal entries that the other’s skin had turned pale. Sleepiness overwhelmed them. One would awaken for a moment and shake the other to get the blood moving again. During one of these spasms of activity, a decision was made, and it was a decision that could not have been easy for either man. Since neither had a bivouac sack, the only way to keep warm was to hold one another. For survival, of course. Strictly for survival. Who actually proposed the awkward plan is unclear. Who moved first to initiate the embrace is also unknown. But it is a certainty that over the next several hours, Aaron Junk and William Hoyt found warmth in each other’s arms. The oxygen tanks they wore on their backs precluded them from facing the same direction. We can therefore surmise that the shivering men embraced facing each other. Heads on each other’s shoulders, floating, spinning, and gently deflecting off of icy walls, they danced a sad minuet to the music of muted catastrophe that was all around them. Nevertheless, they danced this sad minuet together.

Chapter Twenty: The Summit

“Yak shit” says Chhiri Tendi when I bring up Hoyt and Junk’s time in the cave together. “Their recollections of reawakening? Wild, comical yak shit from two men who had more access to Eleanor Roosevelt’s bloomers than they had to their own feelings.”

Chhiri Tendi’s wife, the lovely old girl, has brought us more tea. Chhiri Tendi sips it and after a delayed swallow accompanied by closed, savouring eyes, opens them and looks at me. “How can I be so certain their recollections are fanciful yak shit? Easy. I was the one who found the two bulshitters, and their response to me was – well – let’s just say it was in character. Sure, they started out warm and joyful. But that lasted only up to a point.”

Retreating down the mountain in search of high camp, Chhiri Tendi stumbled over the small ledge hiding the snow cave. The well-prepared, always professional Sherpa had a pack on his back and so had enough gravity to actually “fall.” Upon coming to rest on the roof of the snow cave, it broke open and Chhiri Tendi saw the sahibs within. “They floated around like pickles in brine” Chhiri Tendi relayed.

Seeing they were mortally drained, Chhiri Tendi used the shelter of the ledge to block the wind and light his small cooker. Within minutes he had melted enough snow to make tea for the others. He gave Hoyt and Junk breaths from his oxygen mask and covered their frozen hands with blankets, also strapping heavy items from his pack to their backs so they would stop floating and migrating south: folded up tents, jugs of water, cans of food, and so forth. As the men sipped their tea and ate some chocolate from Chhiri Tendi’s pocket, one of them – Chhiri Tendi did not catch which – muttered “Thank you” loud enough to be heard over the eruptions and wind. Then Hoyt, using slurred words, assured Chhiri Tendi a handsome raise when they got back to civilization. He even went on to apologize to Chhiri Tendi for hiring him for this vanity mission. That the whole damned thing was a mistake and that lives were lost due to him and Junk was too much for Hoyt to stomach. The seated Hoyt touched Chhiri Tendi’s knee to ensure he had the Sherpa’s attention. Looking up into Chhiri Tendi’s eyes, he said with great intensity, “Life, real life, populated with people and compassion, awaits us down the mountain.”

Our heroes rallied thanks to Chhiri Tendi. They were sitting up and their eyes no longer rolled in their heads. Sadly, their faces were dappled in frostbite and Hoyt would possibly have to lose his nose when (or if) he made it down. But for now the two men had some of their strength back and Hope returned as it had so often on this voyage, likely to disappear again with the Ship of Destiny’s next jibe.

Chhiri Tendi could tell that whatever fight had existed between Hoyt and Junk had died along with their appetite for the summit. They seemed to be talking more about how to find their way down. Perhaps they assumed the top could not be found in such a